...to keep your balance, you must keep moving. So said Albert Einstein...a clever man who you may have heard of. At the time of writing this article life (well, for this vicar at least) seems to be something of a Roller Coaster. Again!!
The ‘Ups’ include the forthcoming Confirmation of 7 members of our parish at Holy Trinity, Queenborough. The ‘Downs’ are more generalised. The usual moans of not enough time to do everything and of the Nestie sized hole in the parish office, leaving quite a lot more Administration to take priority over everything else. So perhaps now is a pertinent time to apologise for any omissions within the News Letter this month...rest assured normal service will resume at some point.
There are many times when things go right, or wrong, in life. Such incidents, plus Albert’s ‘one-liner,' remind me Jesus told us to live life to the full. To forget the cares of tomorrow and live for the day. Jesus is the model I strive to follow, and it strikes me he was basically a rather happy fellow, who’d observed the birds wheeling around and the beauty of the earth. I think Jesus figured out something we still haven’t quite grasped, and that is the goodness of the Father, the creator of the world. Rather than focussing on the negative, or anxiously looking ahead and trying to second guess what’s coming next, we should be focussing on God as our priority. This is not some distant, unloving, God, allowing bad things to happen to good people. This is the God who has filled the world with wonderful and mysterious things, full of beauty and energy and excitement. Of course I understand bad things happen...often to good people...and reconciling that is often hard for all concerned...but we live in a world where we have freewill to do good or bad, to lift others up, or cast them down...and that’s between us and God on that final day.
How we live is a personal choice. I’m sure we all make mistakes from time to time, and speaking personally I can say I’ve made many mistakes in my life. But one thing those mistakes have taught me is that God was able to use my choices to make good from bad. Not by direct intervention, but through the opportunities he presented me, time and again, until I finally got the message. I thank Him for His love, grace and patience in this regard.
Sometimes, living without worry seems as impossible as living without breathing. So many of us are so hooked on ‘worry’ that we worry about it when we don’t have anything to worry about, but please, really, don’t worry, be happy...or better yet, maybe we should remind ourselves we simply need to follow Jesus’ example of joy in all God has given us.
So as we begin to celebrate Queen Elizabeth’s 70+ years of leading our nation by serving us I pray that June may bring each of us the peace of Christ that lies deep within our hearts.
And may we share that peace with one another.
Rev Paul
