THE PROBLEM WITH OSTRICHES

Here we are again on the last day of the month and my blog deadline looms. So I have been pondering a few things which I will attempt to put down before Emma's workday ends, and there is a repeat of last month's frantic attempt to finish before the stroke of midnight. Such are the perils of self-imposed deadlines.

I have mentioned before that I love creation, love God's word, and am an avid people watcher and eavesdropper. I amuse myself at odd moments by thinking of all these things in conjunction with one another. I find the prophets intensely fascinating, and God's way of dealing with them profoundly peculiar. I know we are ALL peculiar people, according to the bible, but some are distinctly more peculiar than others. I sometimes wonder if God, when He is looking for someone to use in a particularly strange way, searches for a spiritual weirdo. Ordinary people, if there is such a creature, could never do what He asks of His prophets.

Incidentally, I am of the opinion that "ordinary" is not an adjective to be used of any human on this planet. Extremely normal people have secret lives that would boggle our brains if we knew what lurked under the surface. Someone told me once that you can tell a lot about a person by looking at their books. It may alarm you, if you have any illusions about my normality, to hear that among my multitude of bibles, reference books, children's books, and an assortment of recipe books which fulfill a purely decorative function, I have an encyclopaedia of serial killers. Yes I do! And it is my morbid fascination with crime that leads me to the conclusion that the secret lives of ordinary people is of exceptional interest. Bank robbers, con men, kidnappers who keep their victims in hidden cellars in the suburbs, and serial killers, do not advertise their nefarious activities. Mostly they conduct their lives as regular workers and neighbours. When they are exposed, shock and horror are expressed by those among whom they have lived and worked.

But that is purely an aside! Returning to the prophets, I have great sympathy for the requirements placed on many of them by the God they lived to serve. Isaiah went around naked and barefoot for three years. Jeremiah was not allowed to marry, or even attend weddings or funerals. Hosea WAS allowed to marry, but his choice was limited to a prostitute. Ezekiel had to lie on his side for more than a year, and cook his meagre rations over a fire fuelled by cowdung. Their lifestyles served as object lessons to Israel, the nation loved by God to the point of desperation. God's burning love for people who would NOT love Him in return, caused Him to do everything which He, the Creator of all things, COULD do, to make them understand that they were heading for destruction. He used His prophets to speak and act in such a way as to demonstrate His will for Israel to return to Him and be preserved.

Bearing in mind these extraordinary human beings, and recalling that we are ALL non-ordinary, I have to confess that I loathe a woe-is-me attitude in anyone who is born again and still breathing. This is a challenge, sometimes, as a leader of a church. When I see self-pity masquerading as a need for counsel, I have to control myself. Often I vent to God. I tell Him how I would love to take some whining Christian and drop them in the middle of a refugee camp in Somalia, and say, "I'll pick you up in a few months and see if you STILL want to complain about your life, you ungrateful person!" I have to stifle an urge to drag a complainer forcibly into a squatter camp, and ask if they would like to exchange living conditions for a while. And then, as I am fuming to myself and God, He floors me. He asks me who I think I am to lose all vestige of patience with His sheep. My particular task, in His kingdom, is to be an object lesson of His love, just as the prophets were. I get to keep my clothes on, thank goodness, and to eat whatever I choose. I even get to attend weddings. But I also get to SAY things, and not to mince my words, for which I am eternally grateful. The prophets, and you, and me, are not required to be so "loving" that we sympathise with sin, or soften the truth about dying to self. We can tell it like it is. Dr Phil does not have a prerogative on being confrontational. The church has, in many instances, become so "loving" that she has lost her power to make scriptural demands on people.

And the ostrich? God is so HONEST that I think it behooves us to embrace and emulate His honesty. He made ostriches but He tells us plainly about their limitations. Go and read Job 39. God says that they are stupid and cruel, but they run fast! I don't know what that does to you, but it fills me with joy. I can imagine God creating all the birds, and then saying to one of the angels, "Check out the leggy one with the long neck and eyelashes! Just for fun I deprived it of wisdom, but boy, can it run!" So if you have limitations, know this - when God looks at you, He doesn't call attention to what you DON'T have going for you. He knows about your lack better than you. But He also knows what you DO have, and that is Christ in you, the hope of glory. So put THAT in the forefront of your mind, and thank God you are not an ostrich.

Enjoy this month, every day of it, and be thankful. God bless, Fiona