Journeys can be great fun, but at times – usually because of bad weather, with poor visibility, high winds and driving rain – they can also be frightening and daunting. Journeys on mountain passes when visibility is not good are particularly dangerous because of the twists and turns and steep drops involved. Life is like a journey, and so often we like to do this journey on our own, but we need God with us if we are to negotiate the difficulties of journeys successfully.

In Acts 9:3-9, we see Saul on a journey to Damascus to take Christians as prisoners to Jerusalem. He was stopped in his tracks on that journey by a blinding light and a voice from heaven, and as a result of this, he was struck blind for three days. His life was completely transformed by this encounter with the Light. Ours can be too.

In the Old Testament, Moses reminded the Israelites that God gives us choices: life and prosperity or death and destruction. (Deut 30:15-18) So often, we run around aimlessly like headless chickens with no sense of direction, but God wants us to see and know the paths we should take; He offers us enlightenment because He is the Light of the world and His life is the light of all mankind. (John 1:4) Jesus said that the eye is the lamp of the body (Matt 6:22); because He is Light and Life, He enables us to see clearly. Life is a journey we should live with Jesus as the headlight, leading and guiding us through all storms.

The many people who worked in the nib-making industry in Birmingham in the past would probably have told you that they were making nibs. With each worker expected to produce 18,000 nibs a day, the sheer number of nibs produced in the city was phenomenal; it is estimated that 90% of the world in the 19th century used nibs that were produced in Birmingham. Nibs were sent to Australia, to America, to Japan; wherever and however people were writing, they were doing it with nibs made in Birmingham!

The job was unglamorous, tedious, boring and monotonous. Workers were not allowed to talk to each other or to sing because concentration was required to manufacture the nibs in such quantities that our minds, even in this day of computers and automated manufacturing, find hard to comprehend. But I would contend that these people were not actually defined as nib-makers. They were engaged in changing the world.

I doubt they thought of it that way: for most of them, especially the women, this was a job providing an income necessary for living (and in an environment that was considerably safer than many other industries in those days.) But the end result of all those nibs was an increase in literacy throughout the whole world which was unprecedented. The nibs provided the means for all children to learn in the new schools how to write and thus change the face of society. In our day and age, when pens are so readily available and so cheap, mass-produced and treated as largely disposable, it’s hard to realise the impact all those pen nibs must have had on the whole world.

So often, our lives seem just as mundane and ordinary as those nib-makers. We work at jobs because we need money to live. We may not see how our ordinary, everyday lives can change the world, but God’s work in this world is often subversive, subtle and radical without looking it! We need to learn to distinguish our actions from our goals. Our ‘job’ may seem insignificant and largely irrelevant, but the purpose behind what we do, when we aim to serve God and work for His glory, can have a lasting impact far beyond any production targets or measurable outcomes.

Garry continued looking at Rom 12:9-21 this morning, focussing initially on Rom 12:10 which tells us to be devoted to each other in love. This kind of ‘brotherly love‘ (made up of two Greek words for love, philia & storge) involves the affection and love a person has for family members and a mutual regard and love which values others.

To be devoted means to be given over to God, to be utterly single-minded in our pursuit of Him. Since we have been adopted into the same family and are now children of God, we belong together and should share with each other (see Gal 6:9-10). This involves honouring each other, giving preference to each other out of the love we have for each other. (Rom 12:10) We are all different (as Paul has outlined earlier in the chapter, Rom 12:4-7), but need to learn to accept and appreciate each other, despite the differences!

In addition to this, Paul calls us never to be lacking in zeal, but to keep our spiritual fervour, serving the Lord. (Rom 12:11) The word ‘zeal’ could be translated ‘diligence‘, and Garry spoke of the nib-makers in Birmingham who revolutionised literacy in the whole world in previous centuries.

In moving from quills to nibs, writing became easier, but was still only available to the rich, for one pen nib cost one guinea, roughly a month’s salary. As manufacturing made pen nibs cheaper to produce, 144 pen nibs could be produced for the same price, and each person working in a factory on a ten-hour shift was expected to make 18,000 pen nibs a day. To do this – a rate of one nib every two seconds – required concentration, diligence, and perseverance. God expects no less from each one of us, as Col 4:5-6 reminds us. We are to make the most of every opportunity, not missing a trick, as the Message version puts it.

God calls each one of us to serve Him with fervour and zeal, something we can only do if we don’t lose our focus and work consistently for His glory. The challenge is for each one of us to be a nib-maker to the King – to be someone who will persevere in the calling of God, no matter how boring or monotonous the tasks may seem, for we have an eternal perspective that gives meaning to the mundane.

In teaching, one of the most disheartening phrases a pupil can say to you is “I don’t get it!” As a teacher, the aim is to pass on knowledge and skill in such a way that the pupil understands and can do, and the phrase “I don’t get it!” means that there is a lack of understanding and confidence. Conversely, a teacher’s job is done when the penny drops the pupil says, “I get it now!” and demonstrates this through their independent work. I can remember my son, aged four, understanding the concept of addition without actually having to literally count, when he grasped the idea that if two plus two equals four, then two thousand plus two thousand equals four thousand and two million plus two million equals four million. It was a lightbulb moment for him and one we cherished because we knew that he’d “got it”!

In the Bible, we see that only God is all-knowing (omniscient). Sometimes that is a reassuring thought, someitmes it daunts us, for we feel frustrated by our ignorance. We place a lot of value in our society on education and knowledge (today is A-level results’ day and many teenagers will be anxiously awaiting results to find out if they have secured the grades needed for the next stage in their lives), but Paul tells the Corinthians, “we never really know enough until we recognise that God knows it all.” (1 Cor 8:3, The Message) There’s nothing wrong with seeking knowledge and understanding, but we have to recognise also that there will always be things we don’t understand, especially when it comes to spiritual truths.

Understanding can often require dogged perseverance; there are many subjects which cannot be understood instinctively and quickly. Sometimes learning means doing what we’re told by a teacher even if we don’t understand why, until one day, the penny drops and we finally “get it”! Jesus said that eternal life involves knowing the Father and knowing Him. (John 17:3) That’s not an academic kind of knowledge, but a knowledge by faith. This kind of understanding produces warmth, not wariness, and hope, not helplessness. We may not “get it” in terms of having all the answers, but we can still “get it” and live a life of love, faith and hope, secure in God’s knowledge, even if ours is incomplete.

What a fantastic Superhero Party we had today, with Dearne Churches Together working alongside the Dearne Area Team and Tesco to provide another great family fun day.

Thanks to all who helped in the kitchen (especially the volunteers from the Salvation Army), cooking hot dogs, pie & peas and fruit and serving drinks.

The Dearne Area Team does a lot of great work in our area and offers grants to local groups.

We had over 100 people join us today, including local councillors, and there were lots of craft activities to do on the superhero theme.

We had some lovely costumes (not all on a Superhero theme, but all very colourful!)

We also had entertainment from Spiderman and Supergirl!

Thanks to all the church volunteers who helped to set up and tidy away and to all who attended, making this a lovely fun day.

Gen 26:1-11 reminds us clearly of human fallibility and sin, but it also shows us the faithfulness of God. Even though Isaac showed little faith in God at this point, not believing that God would or could protect him, God remained faithful to him. Paul tells Timothy this is a characteristic of God: ‘if we are faithless, he remains faithful, for he cannot disown himself.’ (2 Tim 2:13)

God’s faithfulness to us remains the bedrock and foundation of our lives. It’s the thing that gives hope to us, even when we are finally honest and face our fickle, sinful natures. Nehemiah, writing at a time when the Israelites had been exiled from their land because of their disobedience and sinfulness, said, ‘In all that has happened to us, You have remained righteous; You have acted faithfully, while we acted wickedly.’ (Neh 9:33) We don’t have to despair, no matter how bad the situation is, because we serve a faithful God. We can be mindful of His unfailing love and live in reliance on His faithfulness (Ps 26:3); we can also ask Him by His Spirit to grow faithfulness in our lives, so that we can reflect His nature.

Ultimately, God’s faithfulness is the only thing that can help the leopard to change its spots so we don’t have to live by the mantra ‘Here we go again!’ God’s faithfulness gives us access to a new way of living and allows us to hope even when life feels hopeless. We need not despair, even when we sin and mess up as Isaac did, because we serve a faithful God who gives us a new start and new blessings.