Heatwave

The Beaumanor Hall “Songs of Praise” event gave us some fantastic weather. It was, without a doubt, the hottest spell we’ve had for many a long year. I know I must be getting old because I’ve found myself saying, “I’m sure that when I was a young lad we had summers, real summers, where the sun used to shine for weeks on end, and we had lessons outside in the playground because it was too hot indoors!” Looking back I think that there is truth in what I remember, but perhaps it’s coloured by the years and the fact that my school days were indeed happy ones. So I have in my mind enhanced what really happened to match the pleasure and joy I experienced at the time.

In the church today, it’s very easy for those who have long church experiences to look back and see the church then as one filled with people who were excited about the Lord Jesus, and whose whole leisure time was given over to church events and functions that were exciting and pleasurable, and then to say that it isn’t true anymore!

How easily we can change what was, into something greater and fuller than was ever the reality, so that the present seems even less fulfilling than it is. Heatwaves come and go, and some we remember and in our minds extend and heighten, whilst others we forget simply because work or other commitments excluded us from participating in them.

I believe it’s true that we can also have a ‘heatwave’ view of church, worship and service, dependent upon whether we are involved and committed at that particular time to work and witness, or whether we were ‘resting’ from previous labours and renewing our energies for what God had planned for us next. Heatwaves can be exhausting - for they demand energies and stamina that perhaps we don’t often use. And it’s certainly not possible to continue working for God at the same level when the heatwave of special events overtakes us.

The apostle Paul tells the Galatians (4:18) “It is fine to be zealous, provided the purpose is good, and to be so always and not just when I am with you.”

My fellow-workers, let’s be ready for the heatwave of special works God may call us to - but let us also be ready to zealously work through the storm and the cloud for the kingdom’s work never ceases.