We generally don’t like things to be broken. Something that’s broken is useless, unfit for purpose, no longer useful, redundant, obsolete. Fit only to be thrown out.

I can remember my son, years ago, throwing a toy in a temper tantrum and the toy breaking. He was devastated. It hadn’t been his intention to break it and he was probably even more upset after the event than before it, because it was his first brush with the awful truth that Dad couldn’t fix everything. The toy remained broken. It had been loved; now it was marred.

As we grow up, we face the fact that things get broken and, more importantly, that people get broken too. Hurt comes along; illness happens; we can’t always recover easily or readily. Our bodies show the scars; there are invisible scars inside too that reflect the pain and sorrow of life.

Although our natural instinct is to fix things, some things are beyond our ability to fix. Although our natural instinct is not to break things if at all possible, we still need to learn the truth that “the LORD is close to the brokenhearted and saves those who are crushed in spirit” (Ps 34:18) and that “a broken and contrite heart you, God, will not despise” (Ps 51:17)

Louie Giglio recently remarked, “Don’t try to hide your scars, they’re stories for a hurting world of wounds only Jesus can heal.” It’s true that we are broken people, but the greater truth is that God doesn’t throw out broken people. Instead:

“You restore our lives even though we don’t deserve it
And You’ve given us a love that’s not our own
You assemble all our broken, shattered pieces:
More beautiful than I had ever known” (Aaron Shust, ‘Long Live the King’)

Our brokenness is being woven into a beautiful picture by God. We may not like the process of being broken; we may feel that God is the One who is doing the breaking (rather like Jacob wrestling with the angel of the Lord). But just as Jeremiah watched the potter make something new from something that was marred (“But the pot he was shaping from the clay was marred in his hands; so the potter formed it into another pot, shaping it as seemed best to him.” Jer 18:4), so too we can know that our brokenness will not result in our being ‘thrown away’ by God. Instead, He will redeem every hurt, every sorrow, every tragedy and bring forth something beautiful instead.

Tony Brown preached from Isaiah 30:1-5 last night, talking about the human tendency to find its own solutions rather than depending on God. In this passage, Judah was faced with the threat of invasion from Assyria and Hezekiah, the king, sought to form an alliance with Egypt, looking for protection from that country rather than looking to God. So often, we do the same, seeking advice and help from other people instead of coming first to God and being prepared to wait on the Lord.

God is our protection, shelter and refuge (Ps 91:1-2), our fortress in times of trouble. Yet it is all too easy to fall into the age-old sin of self-reliance and independence, since we like to be in control. We who are created are not wiser than the One who created us, but all too often we fail to understand that God has a masterplan for our lives (Jer 29:11).

If we are to avoid the sin that Judah committed, we need to:
(1) turn to God and seek Him first
Jesus issued an invitation to come to Him and to exchange our heavy yoke of burdens for His light yoke (Matt 11:28-30). He told us to seek first God’s kingdom and righteousness and promised that if we put things in the right order, God would take care of our earthly needs (Matt 6:31-34). Our priority has to be God; our focus has to be on Him.

(2) understand how big God is
We need a vision of the bigness of God, an understanding of who He is, that He is all-knowing, all-loving, all-powerful and well able to deal with all of our problems. When we see God as He is, our problems are put into their proper size, instead of us having a small God and huge problems. We need faith to see God as He is, but so often believe that our faith is too small to be any use. Instead, as in Matthew 17, we need to see that small faith can do big things when it’s faith in a big God.

(3) Patience is a virtue
We are impatient people and so often problems arise when we feel we’ve waited long enough for God to act and take things into our own hands (as Abraham and Sarah did when Sarah suggested solving the problem of her barrenness through her maidservant, Hagar, with the result that Ishmael was born, not the son of promise that God had intended.) It is absolutely vital that we learn to wait upon the Lord, for God does not need us to help Him; instead, He requires obedience in waiting for Him. God’s timing is always right and perfect, but we need to understand that as we seek God, He will provide for us and will work all things together for good in our lives.

We are having some building work done at church, bricking up the old windows in the main hall from the outside (the inside work being done quite a while ago.) The builder left some stuff outside which was transformed into artwork! (All you need is love?!)

A number of people are away on holiday at the moment and others are about to go, so we did some advance birthday slots this Sunday for those who won’t actually be in church on their birthdays.

Dave preached this morning on Mark 2:1-12, a familiar passage dealing with the healing of a paralytic and also showing us that Jesus, having authority to heal the man’s physical infirmities, also had authority to forgive his sins.

The story involves four main sets of people:
(1) the paralysed man
This man couldn’t walk and couldn’t take care of himself; he was dependent on other people to help him. There is no suggestion in the story that the man’s suffering came as a punishment for a specific sin, but without outside help, he was hopeless. He needed healing which had to come from outside.

We may not feel as helpless as this man, but the truth remains that we are helpless to save ourselves and we need God’s help if we are ever to be drawn into a relationship with Him. We need God!

(2) the faithful friends
These were the ones who struggled to bring the man to Jesus, not put off by the problems they faced (given that Jesus was so popular, crowds had gathered to hear him preach; there was no way they could get the man to Jesus, but this did not stop them!) They were flexible, willing to be unconventional in their approach. All that mattered to them was getting their friend to Jesus: they were confident that when Jesus saw him, He would heal him. Their faith was rewarded, but they demonstrated a tenacity and single-mindedness that we too need to possess.

(3) the crowd of people
These were religious people – why else were they there to hear Jesus? But they were too busy with their own plans to care much for the plight of the paralysed man. They may have pitied him, but they would not change their plans to accommodate him. The religious of this world – and this can, frighteningly, include many in churches – can be so caught up in their religious attitudes that they are prevented from seeing the needs of people around them. The church was not put on this earth just to worship or to listen to good preaching; it is here for the purpose of ministering Jesus to a lost and dying world.

(4) the Scribes
These were the protectors of the law, the ‘super religious’ people of the day. All they heard was that Jesus blasphemed God with His declaration of forgiveness. They didn’t care about the man’s suffering or if he was forgiven or not. Instead of praising God for this healing, they condemned Jesus’s actions.

What kind of person are we as we read this story? Are we helpless, like the paralytic? Are we a faithful friend to those around us? Or are we so caught up in all we are doing that we are content with where we are, uncaring about the needs of others? Or are we adamant that the status quo must be maintained and don’t want anything to spoil our ‘comfortable little club’?

People need friends like this man hand, friends who will think about them, care about them, pray for them and who will bypass the religiosity and ritual and will go to any lengths to get them to Jesus. The call for each disciple of Christ is to be one of the faithful friends ministering to the lost around us.

I’ve failed as a blogger.
I like to get birthday photos up as soon as I can… I like to celebrate birthdays.
In fact, despite the congregation’s secret belief that this is because I enjoy humiliating people publicly by posting their photos here, that’s not true at all. I simply do like birthdays. They’re celebrations of who we are, the fact that we’re here at all, and I don’t believe any one of us should go unnoticed.

But in true sisterly affection, Karen pointed out to me recently that Debbie’s birthday photo was not on the blog. April had come and gone… now her photo was up in May, but where was Debbie’s? If one suffers, she reasoned, all should suffer!

And she’s right! I searched the archives, found that Debbie’s moment of glory coincided with a family service and a dedication, and she had got forgotten in all the photos that were taken that day.

But fear no more. Debbie is here, resplendent in birthday hat glory!

More birthday photos to come, for several people are escaping on holiday to celebrate their birthdays soon. Never fear: you’ll still be on here…!

Gary tried an alternative method of drumming this weekend in practice, which involved attaching the drum sticks to his feet.

Not sure it worked!