Ministry Team Letter for the Month

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Dear Friends,

 

Around the Easter season at some point lots of us take a holiday; a break; a rest from the normal everyday things of life. So, with my post Easter days off I have a few plans. I shall spend time in my garden. I find having my hands in the soil very lifegiving, as well as working towards a productive veg garden. I shall read some books which have been on my – “I want to read this” pile for quite some time, and I shall walk, probably with my camera, but also with the hope of recovering some of my lost fitness.

 

I have recently realised though, that in terms of rest, once again I have got it wrong. There is a book by Tony Horsfall called “working from a place of rest,” and in it he highlights something about rest from the biblical creation story that I had never noticed until I read this book. In that story, God spends six days creating the world, and then on the seventh he rests; and in that he gives us a pattern to follow, and permission to stop and have a day off.  But it is only on day six that he has created people. That means, that humanity begins with a day of rest, and works from there. How many of us do what I so often do with a week off and wait until we are tired and in need of a break before we actually take time off. And of course, working from a place of rest doesn't just hold true for taking a week off. It works in terms of having a day or a weekend off, or a couple of hours off during the day, or even a matter of minutes in between meetings.                   

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Tony Horsfall says that he was inspired to write this book when he read the story of Jesus and the Samaritan woman meeting at the well, and as so often happens, a story that he thought he knew, suddenly spoke to him in a different way as he read John chapter 4 verse six. The verse says, “Jacob's well was there, and Jesus, tired as he was from the journey, sat down by the well.” And what the author realised, was that in that time Jesus was doing nothing. He was simply taking a break, just sitting and being. And then he realised that because Jesus was simply doing nothing, the rest of the story had the space in which to happen. Time and space to rest is important, and even if we don't realise what he's doing at the time, God will use that. So, if you are having an Easter break, enjoy the rest, and maybe God will draw you into an unexpected story - just like Jesus.

 

                                                                          Hilary

 

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