The song says ‘the best things in life are free’, and as the picture shows, so much of what makes life truly wonderful can’t be bought by money. We can easily lose our focus in life and become obsessed by earning more, owning more and striving for more. As we approach Easter, we need to learn to embrace the ‘little things’ in life which can make all the difference.

A smile, a hug, a word of encouragement can make a huge difference to us and to others. Learning to savour the springtime, pausing to smell the flowers, savouring the cup of coffee or tea made for us by a friend will never amount to ‘big things’, but they can change our perspective and ultimately change how we perceive the world. We need to slow down and appreciate the many ordinary, everyday gifts God gives us.

The Korean artist Puuung has produced some drawings of what love looks like (see here) and it’s true that it’s in the ordinary that we can often express love most effectively. Jesus said that ‘if anyone gives even a cup of cold water to one of these little ones who is my disciple, truly I tell you, that person will certainly not lose their reward.’ (Matt 12:42) The little things mean a lot. Try it and see.

Simplicity in life is all about weeding out the non-essentials and focussing on the things that are truly important. Just as our houses easily get cluttered without regular clear-outs, our lives can become full of clutter and rubbish: things we do which aren’t really essential to our health or happiness (and in fact are often detrimental to both), but which have become so much a part of our everyday routines that we can’t imagine life without them.

To embrace simplicity means to be still long enough to look at things objectively and ruthless enough to do something about the non-essential things which God, by His Spirit, highlights to us. Michael Card sings,

‘In stillness and simplicity
In the silence of the heart I see
The mystery of eternity
Who lives inside of me.’ (‘In Stillness and Simplicity’, Michael Card)

Rend Collective remind us that Jesus is the only true essential in our lives: ‘Lord, strip it all away, ‘til only You remain.’ (‘Simplicity’)

This is a dangerous prayer to pray, for God has a habit of doing this forcibly if we are not willing to take the time to be still before Him and freely yield ourselves to Him. Nonetheless, there is enormous freedom to be found ‘in the things we leave behind’ (Michael Card), enormous freedom in understanding the absolute basics of our faith. In this Lenten period, let’s embrace simplicity and be strong enough to give up some of the non-essentials to focus on Jesus, the absolute centre of our faith.

At restaurants we sometimes can’t finish all the food that is given us, and sometimes ask for a ‘doggy bag’ to be made up from our leftovers so that no food is wasted. Ostensibly, the bag is taken home to feed the dog; sometimes, we may well eat the leftovers ourselves!

Obviously it’s a good idea not to waste food, and it’s surprising what tasty meals can be made from leftovers (bubble and squeak, for example, is a dish made up of the leftover potato and cabbage from a Sunday dinner.) Even Jesus commanded the leftovers to be collected in after feeding the five thousand so that nothing was wasted! (see Jn 6:12-13)

What is perhaps one of the most encouraging verses in the whole Bible is tucked away in James 4:6: ‘But He gives us more grace.’ Grace is not just needed to open our eyes to God’s salvation (Eph 2:8-9), it is an ongoing part of our everyday lives. We need grace on a daily basis, just as the Israelites had to collect manna on a daily basis, collecting twice the amount on the day preceding the Sabbath so that they could obey God’s commandment to rest on the Sabbath. There are days when we feel we cannot carry on a step further, but then we find, unexpectedly, like hikers discovering capacious pockets containing nutrition bars, that He gives us more grace. We don’t just have ‘enough’ grace to survive; we have ‘more than enough’, a super-abundance of grace, grace that sustains us through the difficult times. (2 Cor 12:8-9)

Dig deep, for there will be a doggy bag of grace waiting for you somewhere today!

We had our first April birthday to celebrate tonight.

Mark’s activity tonight involved a blindfolded person being led by a child… an object lesson in learning to trust!

Then the adults had a go!

Stephen pointed out in the epilogue that there is a difference between honest doubt, when we have questions we are willing to bring to God and to accept the answers we get, and the kind of sceptical doubt which does not really want answers, but is a cover-up for our unbelief. Doubt can easily be used as an excuse, a refusal to believe. God’s Word is able to ‘throw doubt far away’ (‘My Hope Is In You’, Aaron Shust), but we have to be able to be honest and open and willing to bring all our wrestlings and doubts to God. (‘My Lighthouse’, Rend Collective) When we do that, we find that doubt can’t separate us from God’s love and faith can grow.

Tonight’s family service looked at the subject of doubt and faith.

‘Doubting Thomas’ is perhaps unfairly known as the disciple who doubted Jesus’s resurrection (see John 20:24-29), and it seems he struggled with pessimism, melancholy and doubt. What is so encouraging, however, is that Jesus’s group of disciples included so many different personalities and all were valued and loved by Him.

Thomas was not with the other disciples when Jesus appeared to them after the resurrection, and he struggled to believe this incredible story. Jesus did not reject him for his doubt, however, but gave him the opportunity to see and experience his presence for himself. Doubt in itself is not the end of the world; what matters is that we learn to bring all our doubts to God and move from doubt to faith. We don’t have to suppress doubt and pretend it’s not there; we have to be as open and honest as Thomas was, but we also have to be like Thomas in that when God speaks to us, we have to be prepared to change.

God is not scared of our questions and the Bible encourages us to be open, honest and real as we approach God (see Ps 13:1-2; Ps 89:46; Hab 1:2-3). He may not always answer our questions (as Job discovered!), but a real, personal encounter with God as experienced by both Job and Thomas is enough to move us from doubt to faith.

Thomas is traditionally believed to have sailed to India in AD 52 to spread the Christian faith, and is believed to have landed at the port of Muziris, where there was a Jewish community at the time. He is believed to have been martyred there and is known as the ‘apostle of India’… not a bad epitaph for someone we usually refer to as ‘Doubting Thomas’!

Next week, several of us will be in India ourselves, experiencing a mission trip for the first time. And whilst I’m not saying that Thomas ever went to Bangalore, the mere fact that there is a thriving church today in India is partly down to the fact that Thomas was transformed from a doubting, pessimistic, fearful man into a faith-filled believer who was prepared to leave his comfort zone and preach the gospel to people who had never even heard of Jesus Christ. There is no limit to what God can do with our fearful, doubting hearts. When we encounter God in His majesty and power, in His brokenness and mercy, when we see God afresh as Thomas did, we too can be transformed. All of us can be used by God in ways that defy logic, astound our questioning hearts and bring glory to God. As we bring our questions and doubts, our hurt and confusion to God, He is able to meet with us in ways that have repercussions all down through history. Doubt doesn’t have to have the last word. Faith can rise. As Jesus said to Thomas, so He says to us: ‘Stop doubting and believe.’ (Jn 20:27) When we do this, God will do far more than we can ask or imagine!