The Lord is near

Morning, God.

Somebody said something to me ages ago; maybe a year ago. It's been sitting in my head ever since. The other day, I read this same thing again and had one of those 'Oh' moments. You know, one of those times where my eyes stop in their tracks when I'm reading and I just sit and stare for a bit while the penny drops. 

One of my favourite bits of the Bible is the book of Philippians. Upbeat, encouraging, reassuring.  All about living as a Christian in a non-Christian world. I like that Paul isn't very deep or theological in this book, but he knows that the Philippians are finding things hard and he wants to lift them up. Of the book of Philippians, one of my favourite bits is the bit about not worrying. As you are well aware, Lord, this bit could have been written just for me; indeed I think it probably was. You had me in mind when you had Paul write it down. 

'Do not be anxious about anything, but in every situation, by prayer and petition, with thanksgiving, present your requests to God. And the peace of God, which transcends all understanding, will guard your hearts and minds in Christ Jesus.'Philippians 4: 6-7

I like it. I'm not very good at it, but I think that because of you, I'm better at it than I was. Not as good as I will be - with your help I'm going to crack this, more or less, this side of heaven. Maybe. But that's not the point. 

The point is that I need not be anxious because you are for me. You are looking after me. You know what I need, and you want me to trust you with all my anxieties. You want me to come to you and talk to you. Offload. Communicate. And in exchange for me dumping my worries on you, you'll give me peace; a peace that the world doesn't know about, something that we can't imagine or understand. You will wrap me in this peace and keep me safe. 

Sounds like I get the best of that deal. I give you the rubbish, you give me peace. Why don't I have peace? Because I don't give you the rubbish. I just cart it round myself, now and again show it to you, maybe even push it your way, but I fail to leave it with you. As a result, I am not particularly peaceful. 

So right now, here it is. My bag of anxieties. The stuff you know about. The stuff that's in my head, worrying me, dragging me down, making me feel heavy of heart and furrowed of brow. You know how all these situations turn out, Father God, don't you? Sometimes things are in my control and I need you to help me sort them out, but more often than not the stuff that wakes me in the night are things that I have no control over at all. I cannot be responsible for other people's decisions and how they affect others. I cannot make people do what I want. 

'Do not be anxious about anything, but in every situation, by prayer and petition, with thanksgiving, present your requests to God.'Philippians 4:6

So I present my requests to you. I try to be thankful. I am getting better at noticing you in my life - in each day you are there; I get glimpses. I know that you don't come and go - nipping down to say hello in this morning's spectacular rainbow and then disappearing off for an appointment elsewhere. I know that you're there all the time - here right now - I just need the eyes to see. If my eyes are always focused on my problems, my troubles, the sackful of anxiety that I lug around with me, then I miss you so often; I miss you so much. 

If I could see you as much in the recycling and cooking and shopping and laundry as I see you in the rainbow and the dew on a spider's web and the golden sunrise, I might be freer, less anxious. More Saint-Paul-content-whatever-life-throws-at-me. Sorry if that sounded a bit flippant. 

The Lord is near.

So this is where the stop in my tracks moment came in. Philippians 4:6 is everywhere, isn't it? Don't worry. Pray. And God will give you his peace. Good advice. The best. I have it on a bookmark and it's in my journal and I have it on a little prayer card in my Bible. But you know what I found out about this? It's always been there but unobservant me missed it. 

The verse right before this wonderful passage is:

'The Lord is near.'Philippians 4:5b

The Lord is near. Then, 'Don't be anxious...' 

I've often wondered how amazing it was to be one of your followers, Lord Jesus. How it seems to me, with the benefit of hindsight and a million explanatory works of literature and a local church and so on, that it must have been so much easier to understand what you said, so much easier to look to you as an example, when you were Right Here. If you were sitting next to me right now I'd have so many questions for you. After you help me up off the floor, and after we'd made a coffee, I would love a long, long chat. And if you'd then come with me all the places I need to go, the phone calls I need to make, the people I need to see, the daily stuff that I have to do - then how much easier would it be? How much more confident I'd be. How empowered would I be if you were right next to me? If every time I falter or start to get anxious you whisper in my ear?

I'm here. Don't worry.

I've always thought I'd love to have been with you for those three years when you did your thing. I like to think I'd have poured my perfume on your feet. I'd like to think I'd have baked a cake for you and sat and listened to what you had to say as well. I'd be Mary and Martha and the woman at the well and the one who touched your cloak and the one who was devoted enough to find your tomb at first light to take care of you, only to find you risen.  I'd like to think you'd have had my heart in that way. In reality, I don't know. It must have been pretty scary back then. 

So, suddenly, it struck me. The 'don't be anxious about anything' is one of the hardest battles I fight in my life, and through two people, a year or so apart, you've reminded me that you are right here. You're walking alongside me. You're there. You're near. And in that context, don't be anxious. 

'I'm here. Don't worry.'

When my daughters wake in the night with a bad dream and shout for Mummy. I gather them up and I hold them close and I say, 'It's alright. I'm here.'

'The Lord is near. Do not be anxious about anything...'

It's alright. You're here. 

I want you to be here. I don't want to be strong. I don't want to have to make decisions. I don't want to be brave and independent and all those things. And here you tell me that I don't have to do any of it by myself. You're near. And that's why I shouldn't worry. 

It makes a difference to me. It makes a difference to how I read this incredibly familiar passage. I know that there are other ways of thinking about these two sentences; that 'The Lord is near' might be a reminder to the Philippians that they should behave well towards others because you are soon to return, is another interpretation, but I'm not going into all the theology. I don't know very much. What I do know is that something has changed for me.

If you are here, near, then it's easier not to be anxious. If you were sitting next to me right now, I'd be in the safest place in the world. 

And you are. 

The Lord is near. 

You're never far away. The rainbow, the vase of lilies in front of me, the joy of my little girl as she danced down the road this morning with her Winnie-the-Pooh umbrella. You're in all those things, but you're in the empty room and the sound of the tumble dryer and the rain on the window as well. 

So, thankyou to the two wise ladies that drew my attention to these few words. Thankyou for lighting them up so that I can see, even when my eyes are half closed. 

Thankyou for the rain and the sun and the rainbows. Thankyou for coffee and words from friends, even friends-across-the-sea that I've never met, but who reach out with wisdom that you use so powerfully. Thankyou for a handful of Bibles and the freedom to read them, where St Paul and the Philippians were being persecuted for living as Christians and so many still are, today.

Most of all, thankyou for being right here, right now. 

Let's swap, as you suggest. Here's my worry. No, really, here it is. 

Can I have the peace now? 

I don't see that joy, sister

God, I'm feeling out of sorts. 

Disgruntled. Had a bit of a catalogue of disgruntling events today and I'm tired and a bit headachy and I'm feeling like a moan. I have coffee next to me which could do with a bit more milk in it really but I can't be bothered to go into the kitchen to get any so I'm drinking it even though it's less than satisfactory. That's the sort of mood I'm in. 

Sort of defeated. 

I've been wandering round the internet depressing myself with the news headlines and the fact that nobody is talking to me on Facebook (which is probably because I haven't struck up a conversation on there for a while) and then I clicked on a devotional website which threw this at me:

'...for I have learned to be content whatever the circumstances. I know what it is to be in need, and I know what it is to have plenty. I have learned the secret of being content in any and every situation, whether well-fed or hungry, whether living in plenty or in want.'

Philippians 4:12

Oh.

Good for Paul.  Saint Paul.  He learned how to be content in any circumstances, and when I think of the situations in which he must have been content I am in awe. When I think of being hungry, it's in 'time for a little snack' terms, but he faced starvation. When he speaks of being in a difficult situation, he's talking about life-threatening events like persecution, shipwreck, attempted murder, not just hurt feelings and a duff cup of coffee. 

I live in plenty, whatever I think about the state of my bank balance or the battered car; I am amongst the rich of the world. And I am mates with the Living God. How on earth do I come to be so discontented?

The answer makes me feel ashamed. As well it might, I suppose. 

Poor old me, looking forward to going out for lunch today but the date was cancelled. Poor old me, too lazy to go to the kitchen to make her coffee more palatable to my sweet tooth. Poor old me who didn't get on the bathroom scales this morning in case reality hits home with a thud. Poor old me who lost a favourite earring. Poor old me who stayed up too late last night and is having a tired and grumpy day.

In plenty or in want. 

I need to get a grip. And it's not all about a well-stocked fridge and central heating, either. I read today, 'Would the people who know you best describe you as a woman of joy?'

I snorted into my inferior cup of coffee. Ha.

Would they?  I very much doubt it. I shall have to ask them. I can imagine a few things they might say to describe me but 'joyful'? Probably not. 

How do I find that joy? I remember a long time ago I visited New York and attended a huge church there. Thousands of people. It had a vast gospel choir and enormous band and the music was awe-inspiring.  During the singing people were full of the Spirit and they were calling out to you, waving arms and dancing with a lack of inhibition that I can only dream of. Worship was certainly a whole-body experience, and there was I, overwhelmed by something I had never seen before and completely incapable of joining in. I was singing, and I may, possibly have been subtly swaying in time to the music, but I was oh so British. So much so that the big lady gyrating to my right nudged me in the ribs with a meaty elbow and bellowed in my ear. 

'I don't see that joy, sister!'

No, she was right. She wouldn't have. There was none to see. I loved being at that service and I shall never forget it, but I was never really a part of it. I'll also never forget that the theatre was full of souls reaching for you and I didn't know how to join in. The lady didn't see any joy. I don't know if she expected me to switch it on, but the only result of her observation was an increase in my level of discomfort and self-consciousness and a funny story to tell to my similarly uptight British friends later. 

Do people around me see joy? Or do they see the sighs and the scowls and the dissatisfaction? What does that say to the world? Jesus loves me so much that he died for me and yet I can't raise a smile today. 

Oh dear. 

'I have come that they may have life, and have it to the full.'

John 10:10

Not just survive life, but live it. Not just getting by and sinking into bed at the end of each day glad to have got through. Instead of this, I weigh myself down with things. I take things to heart that I should shrug off and I gather hurts to me and nourish them with attention and self pity instead of refusing them house-room. And the joy?  I'm not really sure how to find it. 

Sometimes in church during sung worship I find myself somewhere different. In a place where the angels are joining the songs and I get a glimpse of the wonder of you. A place where I am dancing with abandon like everyone else. I can lose myself for a little while there and I think in my heart I am filled with joy. Those are special times and I am aware that it is nothing to do with me. It is clearly the presence of your Spirit that allows me access to a place where I can join with heaven for a little while in praise of you. 

Sometimes I can be walking down the street and see a flower growing out of a crack in the wall, or I can sit in the garden and watch my tame blackbird as he opens his beak wide in beautiful song. Sometimes when I see the pattern of frost on the car window, or new green shoots in spring my heart swells with joy. When my daughters hug me, or I feel a little hand in mine, or when I laugh so much with friends that I have tears on my face, I am truly joyful. I think those moments are gifts from you. 

At those moments I am close to you. The enemy is far away; he can't get a look in. I am glowing like the Ready Brek man. I am breathing you in and breathing you out. But those moments don't make up the minutes of the average day. They are bright sparks of colour but the scenery for me is generally much more muted. 

'The joy of the Lord is your strength.' 

Nehemiah 8:10

Amen. I can see that. 

But the contentment that St Paul speaks of is a choice. It has to come from me. I can't avoid feeling pain and disappointment, but I can, and so often do choose to avoid feeling content. I can decline to be defeated by what are, after all, fairly trivial sorts of disaster in my cushioned little life. I can't really say that I have it hard. I can count my blessings and make a conscious decision to be satisfied. 

I have so much; so many things, yes, and clearly those things don't make me happy, or I'd already be on cloud nine. The only thing of value is you, my God, and I am a strange and self-absorbed woman if I can allow the joy of knowing and being loved by you to be washed away by the tide of daily minutiae.

I want to be joyful. I want to stop being a 'glass half-empty' sort of person and switch to being 'glass half-full and what's more, it's a free bar!' I want people to see that joy, sister. I want people to ask me what my secret is. And I'll tell them. 

You. 

I want to be strong in you. I want to learn to live content in any situation. I don't want to blow this way and that and be moody and disgruntled all the time. 

I am so far from being this person right now that it's hard to pray this way, but I know that nothing is impossible with you.  Not even really difficult things. I know that I am a work in progress; you haven't finished with me yet. 

There's a way to go, I think. 

As the old song goes, give me joy in my heart, Lord. Help me to throw off defeat and discouragement and find contentment. To know where my strength lies.