Happenings 24 October 2019

One of the most compelling sermons I have ever heard was given to a group of us final year students at Laidlaw Bible College as we were soon to face the great unknown of the ‘real world’. You could cut the uncertainty in the room with a knife; some of us had jobs already secured, while others of us had absolutely no idea what the following year would hold or where we would end up. Enter a sermon from that most unlikely of biblical books – Ecclesiastes! ‘Ecclesi-who’, I hear you say? Well, thumb your way through to chapters 11 and 12 of this little gem and you will find a section that will challenge and change how you deal with life’s uncertainties when they come your way. The message was profoundly counter-intuitive, profoundly course-changing, and has been profoundly used by God in my life. I keep coming back to its guidance … and I keep needing to. In a nutshell, the wise old kaumatua in this book was saying, ‘When uncertainties come … and they will … you will be tempted to freeze up; to retrench; to wait for more perfect conditions. Don’t let them do that to you! Those are the times when you need to get stuck in, to show care-free confidence in God, because his sovereignty over our lives is, in fact, one of life’s great certainties. I encourage you to read these chapters and then to ‘Cast your bread upon the waters, that after many days you will find it again. Give portions to seven, yes to eight’ – just a fancy Hebrew way of saying, ‘Give it heaps!’ The reason given? You do not know what is going to happen (uncertainty!) … but you do know God is with you (certainty!).

In Him,
Murray