Frontage

When checking out a property to buy, you can’t always depend on the frontage. The house can look good, and actually be good on the outside but it’s only when you put the key in the lock, open the door, and look inside that you get the full picture. The homeowners that I know, all make sure the garden is neat, grass trimmed, flower beds weeded regularly, and window frames painted etc.. The reason is simple. It sends the message that the interior will be as well cared for as the exterior, and that is normally true.

There are certain times of the year when we like to make sure everybody sees a good exterior, and that is as true for us, as for any property. Christmas is one of those times. While the world’s picture of ‘sweetness and light’ conveyed through our TV and other media is nice, it is not the full picture either. To get that, you must have a key to the front door and be inside to have a look around.

In the darker corners you will find a mixture of tears, regrets, grief, sorrows, sadness, and a fear of letting anyone else into your secret life. As long as you can keep eyes looking at the outside smile, you can hide behind the real you. And anyway, who apart from direct family, really knows, notices or cares? This is the time when our greatest comfort comes from the knowledge that God, the only one who really matters, sees the heart and knows the real you. The truth is, that’s more important than all the others who look from a safe distance, don’t get to the front door, or ask for a key. Isn’t it a comfort to know not only that God has a key, but also has free access to the hidden secrets of your heart?

The Lord does not look at the things people look at. People look at the outward appearance, but the Lord looks at the heart.” 1Samuel17:7NIV

Externals

Every few weeks I get to meet up with some friends for a coffee and a blether. We cover just about any subject and in the space of a couple of hours can set the world to rights, no matter the troubles. These are very light hearted times and not usually too serious, but get to know each other better every time even though we all go back many years. This past week was such a time.

Politics and the state of the world are fair game and are in our sights most times. I wonder how much attention we pay to the overall state of our nation? You can substitute your own country and I’m sure it will be pretty much the same, with all the same problems which need solutions. Our politicians do try, but don’t always get it right with our major issues like:

Drug use and addiction is increasing at an alarming rate, and although it is debated a lot, we don’t seem to be closer to a solution. We all know it’s not a good thing to be hooked on drugs, but since we can’t stop it happening, the answer seems to be to allow it, decriminalise hard drugs and not prosecute offenders. After all, they are victims too. If you can’t fix it, then make it legal!

Crime is at an all time high and linked to unemployment, poverty, and a bad childhood. We need to find someone or something to blame and we do a pretty good job at that. We find reasons to sympathise with the criminal while the victims are left behind.

Terrorism is rife, and without naming names or sections of society, we all agree it is a major problem but we don’t want to tackle it head on. So we go round in circles making suggestions that it’s not really their fault if someone has radicalised them to believe they are doing good in the long run, and if anything happens to them, their family will be provided for. We don’t want to upset any group unnecessarily, so we stay silent to the obvious truth.

After talking about this for a while, one of the men said something like this which brought a silence to our table. “The further we get from the commandments of the Bible, the worse society becomes, and that’s because we (the 'good' part of society) have also moved away from the importance of the Bible.” On this occasion, we could not disagree. The real problem wasn’t and isn’t what’s wrong with society. It’s what has happened to change us as a whole? Our community and therefore our nation has moved away from the laws of God, and we no longer live our lives in a Bible believing manner. We have changed on the inside, and that has affected our attitudes to wrong behaviour. Get the inside right, and the other problems will follow.

We used to have a name for that internal intention to do wrong. Oh yes, we called it ‘sin’, but we’re better than that now, aren’t we? Talk of sin is old fashioned. Our communities and societies have moved on for the good of us all, and we are better for it, aren’t we? Let’s leave the Bible to have the last word, and see what it says…. Case closed I fear!

The human heart is most deceitful and desperately wicked. Jeremiah 17:9 NLT

Pride and Joy

Jimmy was a well liked man, who had an good job which he did well, a wife and family whom he loved, and they loved him right back. He lived by good principles, like not being in debt and only paying for something he could afford. Jimmy’s two small sons wanted for nothing, but at the same time they didn’t have many of the ‘extras’ their pals had. They didn’t mind because they had something much more valuable. Each other.

Jimmy’s place of work was some 20 miles from home, and he took the train week in and week out because they didn’t have a car. They couldn’t afford one and he wasn’t about to go into debt for one when the train was reliable. One particularly stormy morning his wife Mary started a conversation and sowed a seed in her husband’s mind. She suggested if they saved up slowly, maybe they could afford a small runaround used car, and that way she continued, you wouldn’t get soaked walking to the train station so often. The seed was sown and Jimmy thought about it all day at work. With his wife’s backing, and the excitement of his sons, they decided to pull together, to save money where they could, and in some months or a year down the road, they could be the proud owners of a real family car. Not a new car, but one that was all theirs!

Some months later, the big day arrived, and Jimmy had his prize possession in the form of a bright red mini. Next to his family, it was the apple of his eye, and having taken so long to get one, he took great care of his car. The family lived on the 12th floor of a high rise block of flats, and did not own a garage, so he could look out of his window to see that his car was still there. Of course it always was, but he didn’t like it when it rained and the car got wet. So he would rush down to the car park to dry off his car. After all, it could get rusty he reckoned. To further protect his investment, every week Jimmy was found washing and polishing his car. It was the brightest and shiniest example of automotive engineering you would ever find.

On one of the family’s regular car journeys into the very hilly Scottish countryside, the unthinkable happened. It was a perfect storm. With a loud bang, the car shuddered to a dramatic halt at the side of the road pouring smoke and steam into the air and fortunately everyone was safe. Mary was distressed, and the boys thought it was an adventure, but Jimmy was worried about the safety of his dear wife and sons. After calling the AA, they sat tight on the embankment a safe distance away from the lopsided, still smoking car, at the side of the road. It didn’t take long for roadside assistance to arrive and figure out what was wrong. Then came the embarrassing questions. “When was the last time you put air in your tyres?”, “When did you last check your oil level, and the fluid in the radiator?” Jimmy’s car was lovely to look at, but wasn’t healthy under the bonnet.

Jimmy’s problem, and possibly ours too, is that he never referred to the owner’s handbook. If he did, he would have avoided the perfect storm of a tyre blowout, low oil level, and little coolant in the radiator. I wonder which of life’s essential lessons we miss when we don’t consult the handbook we have to avoid those storms, or if we can’t avoid them, to be prepared for them! We have the freedom to own and read the Bible, but are we like Jimmy who made sure his car looked good, but he didn’t read the very book that would have helped keep him and his precious family eternally safe? Jimmy now reads his car manual, but it took a near disaster before he knew how important it was. How about us, and I include myself in this? Have we neglected the best and only set of instructions for this life on earth? Do we give the Bible the prominence it needs and deserves in our lives? We might not be able to avoid all those near disasters that life throws at us, but we can be better prepared for them. Our owner’s handbook shows how important it is to look after our interior in these words:

What sorrow awaits you teachers of religious law and you Pharisees. Hypocrites! For you are like whitewashed tombs—beautiful on the outside but filled on the inside with ….all sorts of impurity. Matthew 23:27 NLT