The Courage to Talk

This morning I was chatting to someone who had been through a rebellious phase in his teens. He had been involved with churches for some time but then went to pubs and deliberately appeared in front of churchgoers very drunk.

Not surprisingly, he was met with disapproval and received no encouragement to come back to church. I was curious about the man’s story. From time to time you do meet people who know what the Christian life is about but who become antagonistic towards Christians.

“What would it have taken for you to change your mind and amend your life?” I asked my friend. “Just for someone to talk to me,” he replied. “But nobody spoke to me.”

His testimony gave me pause for thought. Christians are expected to show concern and compassion for those who are struggling, but in this case nobody spoke.

To me this is understandable. When you speak out you draw attention to yourself and problems can result. The wiser course of action could be to adopt a low profile and keep quiet. Sometimes I think I live by the code of “Discretion is the better part of valour”. But in this instance a gentle, friendly word could have made all the difference.

Anyway, God had His own agenda, and that man is now a loyal and tireless worker for Christ and His church. By God’s sovereign hand he came through regardless. We should not beat ourselves up over whether someone was saved or lost for want of a word from us. If God wants a man or woman to come through for Him, He will bring them through. Yet we can have – or miss – the privilege of playing a unique part in that process.

My thoughts turn to Psalm 116 and verse 10. This is a difficult verse to interpret, but in the traditional versions it reads:

“I believed, therefore I spoke.”

Believing and speaking go together. Certainly for the apostle Paul believing will inevitably mean speaking out:

“Since we have the same spirit of faith according to what has been written, ‘I believed, and so I spoke,’ we also believe, and so we also speak, knowing that he who raised the Lord Jesus will raise us also with Jesus and bring us with you into his presence. For it is all for your sake, so that as grace extends to more and more people it may increase thanksgiving, to the glory of God” (2 Corinthians 4:13-15 ESV).

Sometimes believers in persecuted countries feel they have to keep mum because if they spoke out, even to close family, they would get both themselves and others into dire trouble. Yet often they are so excited by finding their Saviour that they simply cannot help but declare their Christian experience!

Our silences can be damaging. At the very least they may cause outsiders to think that really we are no different from the rest. One person speaking out can make all the difference … but maybe that person is unusual and special, someone who has experienced God speaking to him or her with particular force.

It may only be your turn once in a lifetime – but may God anoint you for that one special occasion where you speak out and it makes a difference.

Sun

The heavens declare the glory of God,

and the sky above proclaims his handiwork.

Day to day pours out speech,

and night to night reveals knowledge.

There is no speech, nor are there words,

whose voice is not heard.

Their voice goes out through all the earth,

and their words to the end of the world.

In them he has set a tent for the sun,

which comes out like a bridegroom leaving his chamber,

and, like a strong man, runs its course with joy.

Its rising is from the end of the heavens,

and its circuit to the end of them,

and there is nothing hidden from its heat.

Psalm 19:1-6 ESV

“Nothing hidden from its heat”: These are words which keep coming back to me as I suffer in the unaccustomed heatwave that we are experiencing at the moment in Great Britain, our country of high latitudes but with occasional hot spells.

With a patchy knowledge of science, I feel that I have never properly understood the way light and heat energy work. It mystifies me in the same way as radio waves do. These things go around corners and through walls. We can detect them even when we cannot see a clear line of sight to those sources which have given birth to them.

Even before the time of King David, there was a long history of describing God’s impact as being like the sun giving off heat and light. Nations which had many gods also had intellectuals who believed that a multitude of little gods with limited spheres of influence would not have the mighty powers evident in nature. It made more sense to talk about one God, who was often identified with the sun. The sun seems to be in overall charge of life. Without its heat life cannot exist and flourish.

All of this brings us to the creation story. In King David’s psalm, God is portrayed as the giver of life and also as a bridegroom thundering along in his chariot as if on his way to his wedding, who rejoices to run this course like the sun going from one end of the sky to the other. It is a dazzling picture.

The Psalmist is not only dazzled; he is made to feel small. He feels a sense of guilt in the presence of this power. The divine sun sheds light on his dark corners: open faults and also hidden faults. We are currently experiencing drought. The sun has immense destructive power as well as life-giving power. The grass is shrivelled. Even the weeds, persistent through most changes in climate, are turning black. The earth is hard and compacted: the other day I literally had to take a hammer to my trowel in order to break up the ground in my front border.

Somebody like me may indeed long for an end to this pitiless hot dry spell. But something also tells me we need to accept what comes. If we had a climate which was absolutely constant and always delivered the same thing, this would probably be stunted and maybe even barren. In the depths of winter I often hear people say that a good hard frost is needed to kill off the bugs.

We need both hot and cold weather. The nature that sustains us flourishes on both. I love the hymn which thanks God for all the good things he has given us. Yet it goes thoughtfully on:

“I thank Thee more that all our joy

Is touched with pain,

That shadows fall on brightest hours,

That thorns remain,

so that earth’s bliss may be our guide,

and not our chain.”

Adelaide Anne Procter, 1825-1864