Neville Turley

“To everything there is a season, and a time to every purpose under the heaven:  a time to be born, and a time to die…”  Ecclesiastes 3:1-2 (KJV)

God has his own timetable and we are all part of that divine plan.  Often we fall into the trap of trying to put God in a box of our own making.  We believe we know better and expect our Creator to act as we, with our fallible minds, would if we were in his place.

We are very aware that inexplicable, shocking things are increasingly happening to innocent victims in our fallen world.  Where is God when tragedy strikes?  Where is God when death, terminal illness or divorce shatters a family unit?

It is a common phenomenon that when a husband or wife loses a loved one to death, they are often irrationally angry at their loved one for leaving them.  Too often people in that position blame God for their loss and their faith grows cold.

Isaiah had a word of pastoral advice for times like this.  “Let the wicked forsake his way and the unrighteous man his thoughts: and let him return unto the Lord, and he will have mercy upon him; and to our God, for he will abundantly pardon.  For my thoughts are not your thoughts, neither are your ways my ways, saith the Lord.  For as the heavens are higher than the earth, so are my ways higher than your ways, and my thoughts than your thoughts.” Isaiah 55: 7-9

In December 1939 all was doom and gloom for Britain.  King George VI made a radio broadcast warning his subjects of dark times ahead and encouraging them with these closing words from a poem The gate of the year by Marie Louise Haskins:

“I said to the man who stood at the Gate of the Year.

Give me a light that I may tread safely into the unknown.”

He replied,

“Go out into the darkness and put your hand into the hand of God.

That shall be to you better than light, and safer than a known way.”

May the Holy Spirit enable us to do likewise.

Prayer:  O Lord God, in troubled times when all appears lost.  May we become aware that you are in control.  Grant us the serenity to accept that all things work to the good through Jesus Christ our Lord.  Amen