What about our unbelieving loved ones?

 

Jesus said, “Not everyone who says to me, ‘Lord, Lord,’ will enter the kingdom of heaven, but only the one who does the will of my Father who is in heaven. Many will say to me on that day, ‘Lord, Lord, did we not prophesy in your name and in your name drive out demons and in your name perform many miracles?’ Then I will tell them plainly, ‘I never knew you. Away from me, you evildoers!’ Matthew 7:21-23

The Lord is not slow in keeping his promise, as some understand slowness. Instead, he is patient with you, not wanting anyone to perish, but everyone to come to repentance. 2 Peter 3:9

After preaching recently I was told that somebody had been upset by something I said. This, in my experience, doesn’t happen often (though possibly people are just too polite to say). But when it does it bothers me. Perhaps what I said was wrong? Perhaps what I said was right, but said in the wrong way? Perhaps I just hadn’t made my meaning clear, and caused misunderstanding and hurt? Oh dear.

I had been speaking about the story of “the wise and foolish bridesmaids” (Matthew 25:1-13), where Jesus (the “bridegroom” obviously stands for him) warns us to be ready for his return because the opportunity to respond to God’s love will not last for ever. In the story, the bridegroom delays his coming for a long time, but after he does come “the door was shut”, leaving the foolish bridesmaids - their torches unlit and with no oil to re-light them – outside and in the dark. It’s a story about exclusion.

I didn’t harp on this part of the story (at least, I hope I didn’t). But it’s there – indeed, it’s central to the story - and it would have been dishonest to gloss over it. The lady who was upset was thinking about her husband, an unbeliever, and was - understandably - fearful for “the door being shut” on him.

It was hard to know what to say. Surely every Christian has people in their circle of family, loved ones and friends who don’t believe in Jesus, and we find the thought of them being excluded from God’s  eternal kingdom painful. But we don’t have the right to airbrush this aspect of the truth out of our understanding of the gospel.

The fact is that the Bible often leaves us to juggle uncomfortably with statements that seem at odds with one another. There are, for example, many passages as well as Matthew 25 which render “universalism” - the belief that in the end everyone will be saved - impossible. Jesus certainly didn’t teach it, as we know from his solemn warnings about the day when “there will be weeping and gnashing of teeth” (eg, Matthew 13:42, 50).

But then along comes his first apostle, Peter, who tells us that God is “not wanting anyone to perish, but everyone to come to repentance” (2 Peter 3:9). Paul says something very similar: God “wants all people to be saved and to come to a knowledge of the truth” (1 Timothy 2:4). Some Christians try to wriggle out of the plain meaning of such verses, but they are far better taken at face value.

Putting comforting verses like those side by side with Matthew 7:23 or the story of the ten bridesmaids doesn’t create a contradiction. But it can be difficult to reconcile (a) a God who excludes certain people from his kingdom, and yet (b) wants everyone to be included. Does this mean that human free will can ultimately thwart the will of God? It’s hard to avoid that conclusion - that God in his extraordinary humility takes our freedom with such deadly seriousness as to allow his purposes to be defeated. (Will he too be weeping on that day…?)

My response to the lady who was upset was twofold.

First, that she should persevere in prayer for her husband – that, I’m sure, went without saying.

There are many stories in Christian history of conversions that took place years after a loved one had been persistently praying for them. The conversion of Augustine (354-430), the north African teacher and bishop, is a well-known example. His devout mother, Monica, who died in 387, never gave up in praying for her wayward son. (Her husband, too, was converted on his death-bed, so she lived to see the conversions of both husband and son.) Never give up hope!

Second, that she should trust in the perfect justice of God, however hard it might seem. In Jesus’ story it could seem as if the bridegroom rejects the foolish bridesmaids. “Rejects” sounds harsh. But perhaps it is too strong a word. Certainly, they are excluded; but it would be more accurate to say that they are self-excluded by their own carelessness. They were, after all, invited to the wedding banquet, and, indeed, given an important role to play in it.

The message of the story, then, is that God is just too serious to be taken lightly. But whatever happens to our unbelieving loved ones, we can be sure it will be right and good, for God is a just, holy and loving God. And we will see it in that light, for our own understanding will be perfected, and our perceptions will be like those of God himself.

Lord God, as I think of the people I love who do not know you, I cannot help but feel unhappy. Please help me to see them through your eyes, and to find comfort in your perfect justice and your unbounded love. Amen.

Stayed on God?

You will keep in perfect peace those whose minds are steadfast, because they trust in you. Isaiah 26:3

I have reached that stage in life where sometimes it seems you remember things from fifty years ago better than from six months ago. Here’s a case in point. In Sunday School we sang a chorus which I remember (KJV, of course) as “Thou wilt keep him in perfect peace whose mind is stayed on Thee”.

I don’t know when I discovered that this was a verse straight out of Isaiah 26, but even as I write, the tune is still running through my head (isn’t the brain an amazing thing?). The Thee’s and Thou’s have gone in the NIV, of course, as have the capitals for God and the masculine pronouns - which is fine by me, because the more modern translations capture the sense very well: there is a promise of “perfect peace” for the person with a mind “steadfastly trusting” in God.

The chapter as a whole is full of trust in God – indeed, it is one of the rare places in the Old Testament which holds out a hope of bodily resurrection (verse 19). So it’s worth dwelling on as a whole. But the promise of verse 3 is specially beautiful.

Mind you, it raises the question: what does it mean in practice to have “a mind stayed on God”?

That question used to trouble me because, perhaps like most of us, my mind rarely “stays” on anything for much longer than five minutes flat. There are just so many distractions!... how is the cricket going?... that phone call I’ve been meaning to make… that book I’m halfway through… the war in Ukraine… that music blaring from next door… If ever anybody had a butterfly mind, that person is me.

Going back again to my early years, there was a thing called a “quiet time”, a period each day when we were encouraged to switch off from all “worldly” activities and focus on God, and prayer, and the Bible. A great idea – and one I have been happy to try and maintain throughout my life.

But easier said than done, even in those quieter days! What if you didn’t have a physical space which was yours alone? What if you were the only member of your family who was a Christian? What if…? oh, a million other factors!

It’s easier to say what a mind stayed on God isn’t rather than what it is. It isn’t a 100 percent focus on God 24/7 (to use today’s jargon). That just isn’t a practical possibility, with life to be lived and multiple things to be grappled with. And God doesn’t expect it of us. (After all, you don’t stop being a Christian when you’re asleep, do you?)

I read a story from the days when monasticism was regarded as the highest form of Christian spirituality. An eager young man, his eyes aglow, approached the head of a monastery and declared his intention of joining his order and spending every minute of the rest of his life doing nothing but praying and meditating. To which the wise old man replied “Well, that’s wonderful. But then whose feet will you wash?”

Bringing it more down to earth for us… If the day comes when I’m lying on an operating table, I would be very happy to learn that the surgeon rummaging around in my innards is a Spirit-filled Christian; but I’m not sure I want her focussing consciously on God while she’s on the job, thanks very much. Or that the person driving the bus I’m on is a strong member of a local church – but I don’t really want him meditating too deeply on Sunday morning’s sermon when he’s supposed to be thinking about the next set of traffic-lights.

That kind of non-stop focus on God can wait until we are in his immediate presence in heaven – when it will be pure joy and no effort.

For us in the here and now it’s more about a cast of mind, a basic God-centred mentality, what Jesus called a “hunger and thirst for righteousness” (Matthew 5:6). It’s a “mind-set” which we begin to grow and develop from the day of our conversion, and which we go on growing right until the day we see him face to face (1 John 3:2).

Which means… We can have a mind stayed on God while we’re hurrying around the supermarket, or changing the baby’s nappy, or making love to our husband/wife, or enjoying a football match, or sitting through a tedious meeting. (Or, of course, “washing somebody’s feet”.)

The whole of life is sacred, soaked in Christ, even though we may not be consciously thinking of him. While of course it’s good to turn and focus specially on him when we can, a mind stayed on Christ is not something we switch on at particular moments or for particular events.

No, it’s a matter of my very personality, the very essence of what and who I am, simply what makes me me. Far from perfect now, of course; but one day to be perfected.

I’m pretty sure that’s what Isaiah meant, aren’t you?

Father, please grant me grace to develop daily a mind which is stayed on you, until that day comes when I shall see Jesus as he is. Amen.

Calling all worms!

I am a worm and not a man, scorned by everyone, despised by the people. Psalm 22:6

I think it was the poet Philip Larkin who joked (I hope it was a joke, anyway) “I don’t have enemies – I just have friends who don’t like me”. Ha very ha.

I thought of that bit of self-mocking humour when we received an on-line message from someone we used to know. An open message to all his friends, it consisted of just six words: “It’s OK – I hate me too”. Again, ha very ha – except that this time I fear it wasn’t a joke…

Plenty of people rallied round with messages of reassurance that his friends did in fact love him, and I hope that brought him comfort. But, if you allowed those six words to sink in, you realised how truly painful they were. What must it be like to reach such a pit of bitter depression and self-loathing?

We are living at a time when more and more people seem to be suffering with “mental health issues”, including “low self-esteem”. Some of us find that hard to understand – our problem, if anything, is precisely the opposite, excessively high self-esteem, which, of course, we don’t see as a problem at all because we’re just too full of our wonderful selves.

The person who wrote Psalm 22, traditionally regarded as David, had that problem: “I am a worm and not a man…” he miserably, wretchedly declares, convinced that he is rejected by both God and his fellow human beings. (No wonder that it was the opening words of this psalm that Jesus took on his lips as he was dying on the cross.)

There is a strand of Christianity which tends to emphasise our sinfulness, even after we have come to true faith in Jesus. I think of it as a kind of grovelling Christianity, which seems determined to “beat yourself up”.

It’s at odds with another strand – one that emphasises the great truth that by faith in Jesus we become God’s precious children, born again to a holy and victorious new life.

This strand is well reflected in 1 Peter 2:9-10: Peter tells his readers that “you are a chosen people, a royal priesthood, a holy nation, God’s special possession… Once you were not a people, but now you are the people of God; once you had not received mercy, but now you have received mercy”. Great, great truths! But is there a danger that they can be taken in such a way as to lead to over-confidence, even arrogance?

I wonder if you see yourself in either of those characterisations? – the wormlike nonentity? or the smug triumphalist? The truth about what it means to be a Christian lies, surely, somewhere right in the centre.

The great reformer Martin Luther had a phrase for it. A deeply religious man in his early years, he had an agonising sense of his own sinfulness, so intense as to lead him to enter the monastic life. But once he had discovered the great truth that we are “justified” – that is, put right with God - purely by God’s grace through faith in Christ, everything changed. It was the most wonderful discovery of his life, and it eventually changed not just him but history, as it was essentially the simple truth that kick-started the protestant reformation.

But… Luther didn’t lose his sense of being sinful. The phrase he came up with to describe his new state was, to use his own Latin, simul justus et peccator, which translates as “at one and the same time both justified and also a sinner”. Packed into those four words is a simple testimony: “Yes, I am indeed a sinner – but now I am a saved sinner, saved through the price Jesus paid for us by his death on the cross”.

In the Bible it was the apostle Paul who did most to open up and explain this truth, in passages such as Romans 3. But Jesus, who loved to tell stories, brought it vividly to life in his “parable of the Pharisee and the tax collector” (Luke 18:9-14).

The Pharisee is a man who looks in the mirror and is mightily impressed by the person he sees: “… not like other people - robbers, evil-doers, adulterers – or even like this tax-collector” (you can almost see his lip curling in contempt, can’t you?). The tax-collector, on the other hand, as wormlike as the man in Psalm 22, has no prayer to offer but “God, have mercy on me, a sinner”.

And what does Jesus say? “I tell you that this man, rather than the other, went home justified before God”. Could you wish for a clearer illustration of simul justus et peccator?

My wife and I tried to convey this truth – as unpreachily as possible, of course - to our friend who wrote that sad, self-hating message. We haven’t hear back from him. All we can do is pray that seed sown will bear fruit in helping him to find the love of God. The great miracle is that God knows the very worst about us – yet still he loves us.

Perhaps, if this truth has changed your life as well, you might join us in praying for our friend. Thank you.

Father, thank you that in your sight I am “clothed in the righteousness of Christ”. Help me to live day by day in the light of this truth. Amen.

We'll understand it better bye and bye

The evening meal was in progress, and the devil had already prompted Judas, the son of Simon Iscariot, to betray Jesus. Jesus knew that the Father had put all things under his power, and that he had come from God and was returning to God; so he got up from the meal, took off his outer clothing, and wrapped a towel around his waist. After that, he poured water into a basin and began to wash his disciples’ feet, drying them with the towel that was wrapped around him.

He came to Simon Peter, who said to him, “Lord, are you going to wash my feet?” Jesus replied, “You do not realize now what I am doing, but later you will understand.” John 13:2-7

Of the four Gospels, only John tells us about Jesus washing the disciples’ feet.

We shouldn’t let our familiarity with this story blunt a sense of wonder – by doing this Jesus wasn’t just giving a lesson in humility; he was saying something truly breathtaking about the very nature of God. Short of the cross itself, where else might we see such a vivid demonstration of the sheer, tender love of God? - Jesus on his knees; Jesus wrapped in a towel; Jesus with a bowl of water; Jesus taking the part of the lowliest, most menial slave – Christian, here is your God!

No wonder Simon Peter protested: this was – well, it was just all wrong. “Lord, there’s no way you can wash my feet! I won’t allow it!” “No?” says Jesus; “well, in that case I’m afraid you can have nothing to do with me”. Whereupon Peter changes his mind…

That’s the essence of the story. But there’s a detail that perhaps we tend to gloss over, but which is worth reflecting on because it applies not only to that one particular event just before the crucifixion, but to all sorts of events in the life of any and every Christian, including you and me. Jesus said to Peter, “You do not realise now what I am doing, but later you will understand”.

Later you will understand… That, surely, is a beautiful promise to every person who is serious about following Jesus; something to give us comfort and hope.

Peter just couldn’t understand what Jesus was doing that day. And in the same way, there are times when we simply can’t see what God is up to in our lives. “Why, Lord?” we cry; “I just don’t get it!”

It may be a serious disappointment. We really had thought God was shepherding us in a particular direction, perhaps work-wise or marriage-wise. And then it all falls apart and life seems to have lost its zest and meaning.

It may be illness or even tragedy. Something happens that we won’t “get over in time”, but which will change life permanently, leaving us to make a massive and painful adjustment, possibly tempting us to bitterness and self-pity.

It may be something completely random, out of the blue, something for which we weren’t responsible and over which we have no control. And, very understandably we cry, “Why me, Lord?” (It’s hard not to think about the ordinary people of Ukraine at the moment…)

As we survey the sadnesses and mysteries of our lives we might very well shrug our shoulders and say, “Oh well, that’s life!” And we would be right: that is life.

But this is where trust in a loving God makes all the difference – the difference between resignation and acceptance.

Resignation is essentially negative: “Oh well, that’s life, I suppose – there’s no understanding it, and nothing I can do about it, so I’ll just try to put up with it”. But acceptance is positive: “True, that’s life. And no, I don’t understand it, and I’m not pretending I like it, because I don’t. But if the God I believe in – the God made known to us supremely in Jesus - really is my loving heavenly Father, then I will cling to him by my very finger-nails and cry out to him even if through gritted teeth”. Spot the difference?

The great Bible example, of course, is Joseph, son of Jacob (Genesis 37-50).

He is hated by his older brothers. True, you could say that some of his troubles he brought on himself, but he certainly paid a big price for it. His brothers plan to kill him, and end up selling him into slavery in Egypt.

He becomes a servant of Potiphar, the captain of Pharaoh’s guard. Potiphar’s wife tries to seduce him, and when he resists her she tells Potiphar lies about him. Result: he lands in prison.

Here he meets two more of Pharaoh’s servants, his baker and his cupbearer, and becomes friendly with them. On the cupbearer’s release he pleads with him to mention him to Pharaoh; but “the chief cupbearer did not remember Joseph; he forgot him” and left him to rot in prison for two more years.

Then comes the big turnaround. Joseph has the gift of interpreting dreams, and when Pharaoh is troubled by dreams the cupbearer at last remembers him and tells Pharaoh about him. The result this time: he is appointed to be second only to Pharaoh in the whole of Egypt. Rags to riches indeed.

Joseph probably thought he would never see his brothers again. But he does: in time of famine they come to Egypt begging for food, and Joseph is the official they find themselves dealing with. He recognises them, but they don’t him.

The climax of the story comes in chapter 45, when Joseph, weeping, makes himself known to them. And he does so with these wonderful words: “I am your brother Joseph, the one you sold into Egypt. And now do not be distressed and do not be angry with yourselves for selling me here, because it was to save lives that God sent me ahead of you…” (verse 5).

How often had Joseph, in his earlier misery, asked that big question: Why, Lord?

We don’t know. But what we do know is that the great word of Jesus to Simon Peter came true for him: “Later you will understand”.

And so will we!

Father, thank you that in your purposes all things really do work for the good of those who love you. Please help me to hold on to that through thick and thin. Amen.

The woman at the bus-stop

 

In the beginning God created the heavens and the earth. Genesis 1:1

A well-known newspaper journalist, a declared atheist, was walking home through the City of London just before midnight. As he paused at a junction a young man on a Deliveroo bike pulled up beside him and asked him if he “believed in the Lord Jesus”. He replied that he believed in him as a loved and respected human figure, but not as the son of God; that in fact he didn’t believe in God at all.

Let the journalist finish the story in his own words… “The cyclist paused to think. ‘Well,’ he said, ‘Jesus loves you even if you won’t acknowledge him. I will pray for you.’ And with that, he cycled off. I walked on, curiously moved.”

What simple, honest words those are: “I walked on, curiously moved”! Why, I wonder, should a definite unbeliever have found himself reacting in that way.

That little story struck me particularly because of something that had happened to me the previous day. I was waiting at a bus-stop, and the bus was a long time coming. A woman waiting with me told me she was heading for the local hospital where her husband, a diabetic, was seriously ill: “They’re talking about taking his leg off”.

I commiserated as best I could, but I felt there was little I could do except listen for as long as she needed. We parted and went our separate ways. Within minutes I was telling myself off: “Why didn’t I say, very simply, ‘I’ll be praying for you and your husband today’”?

Was it because I am British, and we Brits are pretty hesitant about sharing personal convictions? Or because, as a young Christian, I had had it dinned into me that you shouldn’t “ram your religion down people’s throats” (I did a bit of that in my early days…)? Or perhaps because to suggest prayer might have seemed like taking advantage of her at a vulnerable time?

Perhaps a bit of each. But whatever, I felt not just that I had missed an opportunity but, much more important, that I had failed her. If God is God and controls all things, that encounter at the bus-stop wasn’t just coincidence. If the atheistic journalist was “curiously moved” by the simple words of the cyclist, why wouldn’t a woman with a very sick husband, plus a willingness – indeed a need – to tell a total stranger about him – why shouldn’t she also feel a touch of God upon her? Who knows, that five minutes’ conversation could have changed her life. If only…

Of course it goes without saying that as Christians we shouldn’t force our beliefs on other people – one wonders how much harm and damage has been done by those who do.

But imposing your faith on somebody inappropriately is one thing; quietly and courteously suggesting that there is a God the other person could turn to is very different.

God is the great “given” of the Bible. There he is in the very first verse, simply taken for granted, and there he is right through. It never seeks to prove his existence, never mind to browbeat people into believing in him; it simply assumes that he is there – and that he is available to those who reach out to him. It is, after all, “the fool” who “says in his heart ‘There is no God’…” (Psalm 14:1). It’s no accident that, according to various surveys, the majority of people pray. The early Christian teacher Augustine, bishop of Hippo in north Africa, said in prayer “Our hearts are restless until they find their rest in you”, and that basic truth has been proved by untold millions of people.

Of course I have to be realistic. The woman at the bus-stop, for all I know, might very well have rejected my offer of prayer; she might have angrily replied “Don’t talk to me about that sort of thing! I’ve no time for it, thank you very much”. But I really don’t think so: her openness and honesty were such as to make me feel there was more to it than that.

And as for the journalist, I happened to know that he had had a Christian upbringing, and that he had a very high opinion of various Christians he knew. Possibly that explains the way the cyclist’s words touched him; they touched a spring deep inside him. But that doesn’t make them any less real.

Where is this leading?

If I can put it in down-to-earth language: There’s a lot more “religion” about than we often realise! We are told that people are just not religious any more. But is that in fact true? Could it be that people are more open to it than we know?

Another story… Many years ago I worked in a hospital as a part-time chaplain in a town where the main industry was steel. I used to move from bed to bed, taking care not to impose myself on anyone who might not welcome it. Just a few minutes’ friendly chat.

But sometimes, as I moved on, I would say something like “Well, I wish you God’s blessing”.

I’ll never forget the day when an elderly, craggy steel-worker looked at me, said nothing, and burst into tears. I felt that I must apologise: whereupon he said “Don’t worry – it’s just that nobody has ever wished me God’s blessing before.”

I know that a couple of little stories prove nothing; but perhaps they point in a particular direction? How many people around us – devoid, it seems, of any form of religion – are, to use the words of Jesus, “not far from the kingdom of God”?

Father, give me eyes to see, a heart to respond to, and words to bless people in need of your touch on their lives. Amen.

The evangelist, the charlatan, and the convert (4)

Now an angel of the Lord said to Philip, “Go south to the road—the desert road—that goes down from Jerusalem to Gaza.” So he started out, and on his way he met an Ethiopian eunuch, an important official in charge of all the treasury of the Kandake (which means “queen of the Ethiopians”). This man had gone to Jerusalem to worship, and on his way home was sitting in his chariot reading the Book of Isaiah the prophet. The Spirit told Philip, “Go to that chariot and stay near it.”

Then Philip ran up to the chariot and heard the man reading Isaiah the prophet. “Do you understand what you are reading?” Philip asked.

“How can I,” he said, “unless someone explains it to me?” So he invited Philip to come up and sit with him… Acts 8:26-40

He dominates these fifteen verses of the Bible (please read right through to verse 40), then he disappears, never to be seen or heard of again. What a mysterious and intriguing figure! The Ethiopian eunuch… the Bible would be a far poorer book without his story.

The evangelist Philip has been told by God to head for a “desert road” on the way to Gaza. He comes across a “chariot” (probably more like a lumbering ox-drawn cart) which is carrying an important-looking figure, and the Holy Spirit tells him to go alongside it. He hears the man in the chariot reading (it was normal at that time to read out loud) and recognises the words: Hey, that’s Isaiah 53!

Possibly with his heart in his mouth he shouts up, “Do you understand what you are reading?” And instead of “Mind your own business – clear off!” the man shouts back, “How can I, unless someone explains it to me?” And he invites Philip to come up and sit with him.

And so, having got used to preaching Jesus to big crowds in Samaria, Philip now has the task – and the privilege - of telling just one person about him. God does indeed “move in mysterious ways”!

What do we know about this man?

He was almost certainly black. He was almost certainly not a Jew, but he obviously had a keen interest in the Jewish faith, for he had travelled all the way from the northern Nile region to Jerusalem to worship God, and he had got hold of part at least of the Hebrew scriptures. A spiritually-minded man.

He was a eunuch, which meant that, however much he may have wanted it, he could never be a full member of the people of Israel (see Deuteronomy 23:1). He occupied an important position in his home country – he was, so to speak, the chancellor of the exchequer of the Kandake or “the Queen of the Ethiopians”.

But he was also humble and teachable. Philip must have cut a pretty bedraggled figure, tramping his way through this unfriendly terrain, yet the eunuch welcomes him and even asks for his instruction.

Perhaps above all, he was ripe for conversion. No doubt Luke has abridged considerably the way the conversation went, but we get the impression that just as God had prepared Philip for this encounter (verses 26 and 29), so too he had prepared the eunuch. This is a wonderful case of the “providence” of God: on that memorable day, and at that memorable moment (verse 27), Philip and the eunuch were meant for one another. And in very little time he gets baptised (verse 38).

We know nothing of what happened to the eunuch. But it’s reasonable to assume that in the coming days Africa received her first missionary, and the gospel was planted in that continent.

I said at the beginning that after these fifteen verses the eunuch is never seen or heard of again in the Bible. But perhaps that isn’t strictly true…

What about the prophecy of Jesus in Luke 13:29: “People will come from east and west and north and south, and will take their places in the kingdom of God”. The eunuch, coming from the south, was surely part of the fulfilment of that prophecy.

And what about the vision of John in Revelation 7:9: “After this I looked, and there before me was a great multitude that no-one could count, from every nation, tribe, people and language, standing before the throne and before the lamb”. I reckon that if you look very, very closely you will be able to see the eunuch in that crowd…

A final thought… The passage the eunuch was reading that day, which Philip explained as pointing the way to Jesus, was Isaiah 53:7-8: “He was led like a sheep to the slaughter, and as a lamb before its shearers is silent, so he did not open his mouth… his life was taken from the earth”.

But I wonder if, as he went on his journey, he read on a couple of chapters and came to Isaiah 56:3-5. Just listen to this: “Let no foreigner who is bound to the Lord say, ‘The Lord will surely exclude me from his people.’ And let no eunuch complain, ‘I am only a dry tree.’ For this is what the Lord says: ‘To the eunuchs who keep my Sabbaths and choose what pleases me and hold fast to my covenant – to them I will give within my temple and its walls a memorial and a name better than sons and daughters…’”.

I love to think that he did indeed read those words – and that they triggered a gasp in his throat and brought tears to his eyes.

No wonder he “went on his way rejoicing”!

Lord Jesus Christ, thank you that you are for all people, regardless of race or colour. And thank you for the providence of God which orders our days and our ways so that we might be of use to you. Please make me sensitive to your leading day by day. Amen.