Unexpected!

You know those weeks where one day it’s really hot and sunny and the next day is awful? This thought was written on the day after one such very hot day that was followed by rain. A lot of rain. We read the forecast and hope that they might just have been wrong, but usually if it's rain they promise it's rain we get ☔️

Life can be a bit like that can't it, sometimes it can change so unexpectedly, sometimes we know the change is coming but we hope that it won't while burying the reality that it will undoubtedly come to be. We are all guilty of not facing up to reality, sometimes that's what gets us by, but what if it wasn't just the weather we were ignoring? Or that project that we keep putting off.

There's another forecast, that says a change is coming, and it is the biggest change of our lives, because it is the forecast of the second coming. Now I know it's just not quite as specific as a weather forecast, and it would take greater minds than mine to explain the ins and outs of the signs foretold in the book of revelations, but to quote both the bible and one of my favourite movies, The Shawshank Redemption,

"Watch ye therefore: for ye know not when the master of the house cometh, at even, or at midnight, or at the cockcrowing, or in the morning"

We all act as if the second coming is thousands of years away, sure it won't be in our lifetime, we can just muddle through with our Sunday faith, and sure we will do all that church stuff when we are as old as the people who normally go to church.

Only one problem with that. Well two actually.

One, we don't know when the Lord will return, tomorrow, next year, a hundred, a thousand years. We don't know. Although an unlearned glance at revelations would cause me to question if indeed these conflicts that are marring the world are not those that have been foretold

Two, even if the return of Jesus is not for another millennia, our lives are not. Our days are numbered from the moment we enter this earth, we aren't privy to that number but we know all too well that many of us will leave this earth before we hope or expect. Are you willing to play Russian roulette with your soul?

If they forecast rain, we bring a coat, an umbrella, make plans accordingly. We have a forecast for our salvation. Can you afford to ignore it?

Oh and I know sometimes folk feel like churches are full of older people who don't want any new input, some don't like kids running around or new music, but unless the younger population of our churches grows, things will never change. People will come to love the new life running around the church and new attitudes to worship, but if we just write churches off as a thing from the past, well they run the risk of becoming just that. We all want married in our churches, we want our kids baptised, and heaven forbid the worst were to happen we all want our clergy to support us, so maybe we should think about becoming a bigger part of church life, working with our churches to make them more family orientated while still being respectful of tradition or someday we may not have a church to celebrate in. Just a thought.

Perhaps that's two thoughts for the day!