Rev Susan Galloway, Locum Minister

Your ways are not My ways…

A father of three sometimes plays with his children a
game that they love. It is called, ‘The opposite world’: speaking
to each other, they say the opposite of what they mean. When the children say, ‘Daddy is a silly man’, dad pretends to be angry and they laugh. When dad says to them: ‘You are not allowed to watch tv tonight’, they cheer. When dad says, ‘I am going to cook something that you don’t like’, the cheer is not so loud for, imagine dad will really do that…cook Brussels sprouts or something. When dad says: ‘You’re not going to bed for a long time’, they say,‘Oh good’. When he replies, ‘But we’re playing, ‘The opposite world’, they say,
‘Oh, we stopped playing that game a while ago.’

When we read stories in the bible, we are told that God’s ways are the opposite of ours. We often say: ‘God works in mysterious ways’, without realising that those mysterious ways are illustrated in stories, starting already in the first bible book Genesis, about the matriarchs: barren women who gave birth to sons from whom Israel grew and was formed. And out of Israel a young virgin was chosen by God to be the mother of His Son.

What we can learn from this is that it is God’s way to start where we are not able to see possibilities. And so He remains mysterious in how He is, thinks and realises His purposes.

But the more we choose to live our lives on the basis of facts and evidence, on what appears to be obvious…on our timing…the less room there is for discerning those mysterious ways. Let alone for acknowledging them and allowing them to affect us. For most of the time, we manage to find a logical explanation for things that happen or don’t happen or no longer happen.

However, it is in the light of God’s illogical, incomprehensible power to work from within human limitations, that we can believe and trust the words spoken to the apostle Paul,
My grace is sufficient, for my power is made perfect in weakness (2 Corinthians 12:9)
May you all find encouragement in these words,

With every blessing, Susan