It sometimes seems that we bounce from one crisis to another like children on a trampoline. The highs provide us with great joys, but the lows are devastating.

It’s hard for us to remember in these days of instant communication, but over thirty years ago when I was at university, my main form of communication with Garry was by post. He would read letters I’d written which captured a particular mood and would seek to respond to that mood when he replied. Of course, by the time he read the letter, the mood had probably changed and certainly by the time I received his letter, it was usually all but forgotten, making communication a little awkward at times!

Moods are notoriously unreliable. We yo-yo from ecstasy to despair as quickly as we can bounce high in the air and then land on the trampoline. Moods depend on a whole host of circumstances – sunshine, rain, feelings of health and happiness, broken relationships, holidays, workloads, to name but a few – and on a whole gamut of feelings. External and internal factors all affect our moods.

We praise God, however, not simply depending on our mood, but because we choose by an act of the will to do so: ‘I will bless the Lord forever.’ (Ps 34:1) In English, the future tense is expressed through the form ‘I will’, and it is also by a deliberate choice that we determine how we respond to life’s ups and downs. No one lives ‘accidentally’ as a Christian; it involves a deliberate decision, a choice to follow God and His ways, regardless of how we feel.

Don’t expect to live life permanently on a trampoline but know that Jesus gives stability. As the song says about yo-yos, they’re ‘fun to see, but not to be/ Being a yo-yo’s not for me.’ (Garry Turner) Live life instead with the steadfastness of a consecrated will that’s fixed on God.

In the epilogue to the family service, Stacey spoke from Joshua 6 about how the power of God caused the walls of Jericho to fall down. All the people had to do was to obey God and march around the city for six days; on the seventh, trumpets were blown and the people gave a loud shout and the walls came tumbling down! A city’s walls are designed to be impregnable and keep out all enemies, but nothing can stop God.

We so often can put barriers up and make excuses when God speaks to us, building defensive walls around our hearts. Ultimately, we need to ask God to help us to  ‘let the walls come down, just like Jericho.’ (‘More To Be Revealed’, King, Scott & Dente) We need to let God move us so that our defensive walls can be torn down and we move with God’s Spirit, allowing the energy of faith to be produced as God works His way, trusting that in Him ‘we are more than conquerors.’ (‘More Than Conquerors’, Rend Collective.)

We also learnt a new song by Garry:

‘Are you a wall, or a windmill?
What sort of person are you?
Are you a wall, or a windmill? Tell me,
When the wind blows, what do you do?

A wall can stand so big and strong.
It’s fastened into the ground.
It doesn’t move, or use the wind;
It makes the wind go around, around, around, around!

The wind blows on a windmill’s sail;
It pushes the sail a-round.
It’s giving power to the windmill.
That power’s always around, around, around, around!

The Spirit of God is like the wind.
Who knows where He comes or goes?
Do we try to stop Him in His tracks?
Or do we let His power flow? Let it flow, let it flow, let it flow!’ (‘Are You A Wall Or A Windmill’, Garry Turner)

The challenge in the family service was to build a windmill using cardboard.

Team A produced a traditional windmill with sails which turned smoothly:

Team B‘s windmill had a pointed roof and involved both turning the sails and blowing on them:

Team C created a ‘listed building’ whose sails, alas, showed their alleged age:

Team B were declared the winners!

Tonight’s family service asked the unusual question ‘Are you a wall or a windmill?’ Mark gave us different kinds of windmills to ponder:

… as well as different kinds of walls:

Windmills are affected by the wind, with wind turbines needing surprisingly little wind to make the blades go around. Walls can protect and provide shelter; they can be used to keep things out or keep things in! The key thing for us to ponder, however, is our response to the wind of God’s Spirit.

Is 43:18-21 talks of the new things that God wants to do and the way (road) He will make in the wilderness and the rivers He will make in the deserts. Such things can only happen when God performs the miraculous, but our response to God moving can be varied. When the wind of God’s Spirit blows, will we be prepared to be flexible so that our ‘sails’ can go round or will be inflexible and unyielding like a wall? Are we a spiritual windmill or a wind-jamming wall?

We also had a birthday to celebrate:

Ps 132 remembers how David brought the ark of the covenant back to Jerusalem (see 2 Sam 6) and David’s obedience and God’s blessings. David fulfilled the vows he made to God, as we are all encouraged to do (Eccl 5:5). Initially, the situation did not go well, for they did not carry the ark as they were supposed to and God’s anger burned against Uzzah as he touched the sacred ark. When the ark was actually brought into Jerusalem, it was carried as it should have been in the first place and David danced joyfully before God wearing only a linen ephod. (2 Sam 6:14-15).

The psalm does not just focus on David’s vows, however, but reminds us that God made vows to David and to Israel: ‘I will bless her with abundant provisions; her poor I will satisfy with food.’ (Ps 132:15) God’s salvation and rescue from enemies down through the ages propels us into hope that this will again be our story and our song: ‘I will clothe her priests with salvation, and her faithful people will ever sing for joy.’ (Ps 132:16) We have a hope that the ‘horn’ (a sign of strength in ancient times) will continue to give us strength, that Jesus, the anointed one and Light of the World (John 8:12) will enable us to be the light of the world (Matt 5:14). We have a hope that the enemy will ultimately be seen to be defeated, for Jesus has said that it is finished and the book of Revelation makes it plain that Jesus is King of Kings and Lord of Lords. (Rev 19:6) God makes many promises to us and Paul reminds us that we can be sure these are ‘yes’ in Christ Jesus (2 Cor 1:20-22, see also Heb 6:16-20).

Ps 132 is a psalm all about promises: the promises we make, the promises God makes. It’s a psalm all about faithfulness: our faithfulness in keeping our vows, God’s faithfulness in keeping His. It’s a psalm about obedience, about the blessing we enter into as we obey God. We can learn much that will help us on life’s journey as we study the past.

Ps 132 roots us firmly in history, but the historical evidence of God’s faithfulness and provision are not past tense experiences only. History matters a lot to Christians: not only Old Testament history, but New Testament history, for we believe that Jesus really did come to earth, that He lived on earth, that He died for our sins and that He rose again – if these things are not historically true, then our faith is in vain; it can’t be relied on (see 1 Cor 15). History is not meant to be ‘dead facts’, however; these facts propel us forward in faith.

Paul makes clear to the Corinthians when he’s looking back at Israel’s history, history is meant to help us: ‘these things occurred as examples to keep us from setting our hearts on evil things as they did.’ (1 Cor 10:6) We need more than our own experience or our own feelings or our own generation to help us make wise choices in life. To the Romans, Paul writes ‘everything that was written in the past was written to teach us, so that through the endurance taught in the Scriptures and the encouragement they provide we might have hope.’ (Rom 15:4) The psalmist knew this; he was trying to encourage the pilgrims on their journey to make wise choices and to remember ultimately that what God had done for His people in the past, He was surely able to do again. Since God never changes, we can be confident that there is continuity between His past actions and His present actions.

It’s foolish to reinvent the wheel.

If we ignore the past and don’t learn from history, we are doomed (Edmund Burke says) to repeat it. ‘A Christian with a defective memory has to start everything from scratch… A Christian with a good memory avoids repeating old sins, knows the easiest way through complex situations and instead of starting over each day continues what was begun in Adam.’ (Eugene Peterson, ‘The Journey’, P 153). We do well to learn from the past: to emulate what is good, to discard what is bad, to press on in faith and to avoid unbelief.