Electronic gadgets, especially computer software and smartphones, are reportedly meant to be ‘intuitive’, which means we are supposed to be able to fathom them without necessarily having recourse to the instructions’ manual! This may well work for some people, but certainly the danger is that we think life works in the same way! The Bible makes it plain that life is not quite that easy to fathom, and certainly one of the surprises of the Christian life is discovering that God’s ways and kingdom do not operate according to the same principles we have become used to over the years…

Brian Hardin says, ‘If you listen to the words of Jesus given in the Gospels, you become aware that he’s describing a kingdom and worldview that is different (from) the systems and cultures we’re now living in.’ Samuel D. James says ‘there is no safe corner of the Christian story that is completely intuitive or unfailingly neighbourly. Every element of the Gospel can and will grate against our modern sense of “real life”… What we must figure out is how much of real life we will look at through the lens of truth, and how much we will not.’ It’s never easy when we crash into the Gospel; it’s rather like this ‘crash test’ of a Lego Porsche, when the car is smashed to smithereens!

When we read the Gospels, we see Jesus reacting in ways that to us seem unnatural. He accepted God’s will with serenity and trust, even when that meant betrayal, hurt and even death (see Jn 13:10, 18-30, 1 Pet 2:23, Luke 4:22-30, Jn 18:2-11). We would have expected Him to instruct the eleven disciples to prevent Judas from leaving the room and therefore avoiding betrayal… or to defend Himself in the Garden of Gethemane… or  to take the opportunity to flee!) Instead, we see Him reacting not with fatalistic resignation but with composure and trust. He was prepared to accept God’s will for His life, even when that meant personal hurt and loss.

When our worldview ‘clashes’ or ‘grates’ with God’s ways, we have a choice. We can either allow this brush with reality to help us to realign our thinking and behaviour with God’s or we can blunder on, thinking we know best. People can spend a lot of time ‘pressing and guessing’ with technology, too proud to read the instructions’ manual. We can be like this with life too, but God has given us guidance and help. Life is not intuitive, but God’s Word gives us guidance on how to live well.

We had two birthdays to celebrate tonight.

In a society dominated by noise and activity, I believe there is no real spiritual growth without learning the secrets of quietness and trust.

Ultimately the words that God speaks are of far more value than our words. Our part has to be to quieten our hearts so that we can hear God speak. Like Job, we do well to put our hands over our mouths (Job 40:4), to ‘hide my eyes with my face to the ground in the presence of Your majesty.’ (‘God Almighty’, Chris Tomlin) When we truly learn that in repentance and rest is our salvation and in quietness and trust is our strength, then we are equipped to face every storm life may bring our way. Don’t run away from quietness and from trust. Don’t run away from taking time out deliberately and determinedly to be with God.

Lamentations 3 in the Message version says:

God’s loyal love couldn’t have run out,
    his merciful love couldn’t have dried up.
They’re created new every morning.
    How great your faithfulness!
I’m sticking with God (I say it over and over).
    He’s all I’ve got left.

^25-27 God proves to be good to the man who passionately waits,
    to the woman who diligently seeks.
It’s a good thing to quietly hope,
    quietly hope for help from God.
It’s a good thing when you’re young
    to stick it out through the hard times.

^28-30 When life is heavy and hard to take,
    go off by yourself. Enter the silence.
Bow in prayer. Don’t ask questions:
    Wait for hope to appear.
Don’t run from trouble. Take it full-face.
    The “worst” is never the worst.

^31-33 Why? Because the Master won’t ever
    walk out and fail to return.
If he works severely, he also works tenderly.
    His stockpiles of loyal love are immense. (Lam 3:22-33)

Quietness enables us to passionately wait for God and to diligently seek Him, confident that hope will appear because the Lord will never abandon us.

It’s one thing to say that it’s essential to be quiet in order to hear God (and Elijah is proof that God does not always speak through the earthquake or fire but comes to us sometimes in a quiet whisper), but quite another thing to learn how to be quiet (see Ps 131:2). If we are to overcome the barriers of quietness in order to know its blessings, we have to learn how to:

1. be determined to seek God. It requires a conscious choice on our parts to quieten our hearts; the old practice of pausing for one minute on the hour helps us to be mindful of God throughout the day and can be the start of allowing our attention to be focussed on God at all times, thus fulfilling the command to ‘pray continually’ (1 Thess 5:17).
2. be deliberate in seeking God. There is a need for us to set aside time for God (often called a ‘quiet time’), and to obey His command to keep the Sabbath, following the pattern God has made for us. So often, we believe we are too busy to do this, but we have to learn to respect God’s order and to be ruthless in ordering our time well (see Matt 6:21, Eph 5:16), giving up perhaps some of the things which fritter away our time.
3. be disciplined in seeking God. Often, we start to seek God with good intentions, but give up because we become distracted or do not hear Him speaking to us. In the spiritual life, as with all things in life, we need patience and perseverance if we want to see things change. Gradually, as we quieten our hearts, we will learn to hear the Shepherd’s voice. Jesus made this very clear: ‘The one who enters by the gate is the shepherd of the sheep. ³ The gatekeeper opens the gate for him, and the sheep listen to his voice. He calls his own sheep by name and leads them out. ⁴ When he has brought out all his own, he goes on ahead of them, and his sheep follow him because they know his voice. ⁵ But they will never follow a stranger; in fact, they will run away from him because they do not recognise a stranger’s voice.”’ (John 10:2-5)

In our A-Z of Christian Faith, looking at essential ingredients in a life of faith, we reached the letter Q – a notoriously difficult letter in English, worth 10 points in Scrabble!

Questions was the obvious choice for the letter, but while questions are perhaps inevitable, they are not necessarily essential! So in the end, we looked at Q is for Quietness.

Quietness is not highly prized nowadays, and there are so many noises all around us – alarm clocks, phones ringing, traffic, music and so on – and also within us (questions, doubts, fears, insecurities etc.) Jesus makes it clear that we need to listen well (see Matt 11:13, Matt 13:9, Matt 13:43, Mark 4:9, Luke 8:8), a view reinforced in the book of Revelation (Rev 2:7, 11, 17, 29, 3:6, 13, 22, 13:9). Isaiah made it clear to the Israelites that ‘in repentance and rest is your salvation, in quietness and trust is your strength, but you would have none of it’ (Is 30:15). They were more interested in finding their own solutions (see Is 30:1-17) and we are often the same, shunning quietness for a number of reasons (because of our personalities, a belief that we are too busy to be quiet and ultimately and a fear of what God may say to us if we slow down sufficiently to hear Him.)

Quietness is essential, however, if we are to:

1. tune in to listen to God’s voice without distraction
2. find the peace and wellbeing God wants for us
3. live with a right perspective of life

I believe it’s good to celebrate creativity, and the recent art and photography competitions sponsored by the Dearne Community Arts’ Festival and Big Local Goldthorpe & Bolton-on-Dearne have proved that creativity is alive and well, not only in our area but in our churches!

Overall winner of the adult photography competition is Stacey Turner, with her picture of lemurs at Yorkshire Wildlife Park dubbed ‘crisp, clear and focussing perfectly on the subject’ by competition judge, Stan Bulmer.

Ann Shirley Swales won 2nd prize with her photograph of her garden:

Gemma Martin won 3rd prize with her photograph of sheep in the snow:

One of the aims of the competitions was to involve younger people in the arts too. In the 12-18 category, Connor Brown from Dearne ALC was commended for his action shot of skateboarding:

Bethany Sykes took the 2nd prize with her scene of rocks and sea:

In the under 11 category, Grace Martin won with her own take on ‘Where I Live’, showing the fridge magnets at her home!

In the art competition, judged by local community artist Pete Deakin, the overall winner in the adult category was Pam Iles for her nostalgic picture combining location, people and history:

Gemma Martin won the 2nd prize for her innovative 3D piece on light and trees:

Ann Shirley Swales won 3rd prize with her painting of Phoenix Park:

Pupils from Year 8 at Dearne ALC won all the prizes in the 12-18 category:

1st prize – Hermione Law

2nd prize – Jack Leyton

3rd prize – Charlotte Tonge

Grace again won the under 11 competition:

Winning entries will be on display at the Dearne Community Arts’ Festival at the Dearne Playhouse on 1 & 2 September (11 a.m. – 5 p.m.)