Trimming the Lamps

Seeking the Lord in lockdown

(This is being posted a day earlier than usual, the reason is below)

Five years ago today—18th March 2020—I wrote an email to our church members, in light of the announcement the previous evening that the UK was going into lockdown. We clearly had no idea what that might entail nor for how long it might last. My email was a kind of pastoral reflex to try to offer some kind of help in those uncharted waters.

The emails continued twice-weekly for the next 15 months under the title Joy in the Journey before changing pace, name and delivery method to what you have before you now as The Waiting Country on Substack.

I’m posting that original email below to honour the Lord who met with us and held us through those dark and difficult weeks that became months that became a year and more. They were such sad and strange times, but full of prayer—we discovered that worshipping and praying on Zoom could be a thing, a truly blessed thing—and with a distinct sense of the presence of the God of all grace amid the turmoil and anxiety of those times. I hope you’ll find it a helpful read.

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I'd like to try to write something, perhaps a couple of times a week, to encourage you during these strange and dislocated days. My prayer is that the Lord will encourage you and strengthen your heart in all his goodness.

The title I've given to these emails is a nod to a lovely song by Michael Card, Joy in the Journey (see below).

All blessings be yours in Jesus,

Richard.

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Trimming the lamps

“In the tent of meeting, outside the curtain that shields the ark of the covenant law, Aaron and his sons are to keep the lamps burning before the LORD from evening till morning.” (Exodus 27:21)

Life can be so hectic at times and time itself can seem so pressured that some things end up being squeezed into the margins. That can happen to all kinds of things but maybe that's how you've found your times for prayer and Bible reading over some time now. You long for more space, more unhurried time, but it all seems so elusive.

It may well be that these next weeks will give you something of an opportunity to reconnect, to be renewed in prayer and in God's Word. But it’s likely to not feel easy, for a number of reasons:

Where to start? You feel ‘out of practice’, even awkward. So recognise that it’s going to take time to set a new pattern, maybe even a whole new template, for your time in God’s presence. Don't feel you need to reach your goal overnight; this isn't putting a stake in the ground, but growing a tree (Ps. 1:3), forming your heart.

It might be helpful to remind yourself what it’s all for: that the centre is not gleaning information or bundling requests to lay at God’s door, but rather “to worship the LORD in the splendour of his holiness” (Ps. 96:9); “to gaze upon the beauty of the LORD and to seek him in his temple” (Ps. 27:4). Above all else, it is about sitting at Jesus' feet (Lk. 10:39).

The shame of failure But it feels like there’s so much accumulated failure to sit in his presence in joy and wonder, so much shame at having lived at such speed that his glory has been a blur, half-seen and unappreciated. Then bring that shame and regret to the LORD who bore it all on the cross, the God who declares “I will put my dwelling place among you and will not abhor you...I broke the bars of your yoke and enabled you to walk with head held high” (Lev. 26:11,13). Not abhorred. Not rejected. You can hold your head high.

The light that never goes out And, remember, the true fulfilment of the lamp that doesn’t ever go out (Ex 27:21) is not the flame of your own devotion but the unwavering love of God, revealed in the cross of Jesus and poured into your heart by his Spirit. His is the light that is never extinguished; not all the squalls of life and its alarms, nor the gales of sin and bitter regret can make it ever burn low. The lamp of Jesus’ glory and grace are undimmed and shine brightly through all our darkness.

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None other Lamb, none other Name,
None other hope in heaven or earth or sea,
None other hiding-place from guilt and shame,
None beside Thee.

My faith burns low, my hope burns low;
Only my heart's desire cries out in me
By the deep thunder of its want and woe,
Cries out to Thee.

Lord, Thou art life, though I be dead;
Love's fire Thou art, however cold I be:
Nor heaven have I, nor place to lay my head,
Nor home, but Thee.

(Christina Rossetti)

May God bless you deeply and richly as you seek him.