Restless Wonderer

In the nativity plays Joseph is often a bit of an ‘extra’ – it’s not quite clear what he’s for.  Admittedly, he didn’t have a part directly in Jesus’ conception or birth, but if Jesus was God’s gift then Joseph was the delivery man.  Joseph was spoken to by God through dreams four times: first to assure him that he should take the pregnant girl to be his wife; then to warn him to flee to Egypt in the face of the treachery of the false king Herod; and finally twice to tell him to return to Israel and specifically to Nazareth.  As the delivery man, it is Joseph who makes sure that God’s gift gets on time to where it needs to be – Bethlehem, Egypt, Nazareth. There is more than a passing resemblance between Mary’s husband and his ancient namesake, the son of Jacob (see Genesis 37-50).  Both were spoken to in dreams and went to Egypt in order to rescue God’s people through their simple trust, their integrity of character and their obedience in the face of opposition....

It’s not even December and I can’t escape the constant chitter chatter about what to get for Christmas.  My children are running around with Argos catalogues, wanting to write their lists, and my inbox is bulging with marketing emails.  To add to my woes, two words which I refuse to name and which, until a couple of years ago, I had never associated with one another – black is a colour I had traditionally reserved for Mondays – have now become unavoidable. Amidst all this hype I can’t think of a single item I want for Christmas, which probably says more about the plenty I live in than any virtue of my heart.  Of course, I don’t have everything and I am not ‘rich’ by the standards of this country, but when I step back and consider how much stuff I possess compared to all previous generations it is quite staggering.  We twenty-first century Westerners, it seems to me, are materially rich, yet relationally and spiritually poor.  We know the price of everything...

Silence and speech; emptiness and meaning.  These may seem like opposites, but Psalm 19 suggests otherwise.  In this psalm, one of the most beautiful examples of Hebrew poetry, David describes God’s revelation of Himself, firstly through nature and then through words.  The psalm opens with the declaration that the heavens and sky declare God’s glory and creativity.  We might expect David to focus on the heavenly beings – sun, moon and stars – and, indeed, in verses 4-6 he does describe the sun’s majesty, but in verses 1-3 it is the empty space of the sky that is said to have meaning.  The silent expanse of emptiness is speaking – spreading it’s message of a glorious creator across the globe.  As the sun bursts like a resplendent bridegroom into the sky it simply magnifies what would still be evident if it never rose.  Creation is pointing to creator. Yet powerful as this general revelation in creation may be – and many people have been led by thei...

Contentment is a rare quality.  Personally speaking, I struggle a lot with restlessness – a feeling that I’ve not yet settled down and that there is more to achieve.  Others may struggle with the same emotion but in relation to something else – wanting to have more or to experience more.  I’ve no doubt that some of my restlessness is healthy – it arises from that deep sense that this world is not our ultimate home, that we are made for God and for the new creation He will reveal when Christ returns.  At the same time, however, I could too easily make that a rationalisation for a kind of discontent that is destructive and, frankly, ungodly.  In Psalm 16 David points to three things in which he delights.  These lead him to a place of satisfaction in the present at the same time as trusting in God for his ultimate, eternal future.  As you read through this psalm, two of the sources of delight are obvious – in verse 3 David says he delights in God’s h...

The psalms are chronicles of the human heart.  They express the movements of emotion that typify the human experience as the writers pour out their feelings in honesty to God.  They are often masterclasses in talking to oneself as the psalmists preach to their hearts, exhorting their inmost being to greater trust, and higher praise.  Psalm 13 is a brilliant example of this skill.  It falls neatly into three short stanzas, each consisting of two verses in our modern translations and each expressing a different emotion. Stanza one (verses 1-2) is a heart-wrenching cry of desperation.  How long will God remain silent and apparently uninvolved?  How long will David have to struggle with the thoughts that plague him?  How long must he be in sorrow while his enemies seem to succeed?  Of course we know that the God of Scripture is never absent, never uninvolved and never disinterested – David sings about these truths in some of his other psalms....