We are here to help people love and worship God. We aim to be, and encourage others to become, committed and active disciples of Jesus,
who love God and worship him, who know the power of the Holy Spirit and who show God’s love in every part of their lives.
I don’t know about you, but I find watching the news increasingly difficult at the moment. The world seems to be getting steadily more unstable and dangerous. It feels like a new conflict or outbreak of violence is happening every week. I see news reports of ordinary people who have lost everything and who are denied the basics of life. The world seems to be going insane; and those who are supposed to be leading and guiding the nations of the world are leading the madness!
It also seems as if conflict and instability are a lot closer to home than they have been for many years. Not only is there war in Ukraine, but there is constant speculation that Russia’s aggressive ambitions may soon involve other European lands. It feels as if the UK is being slowly drawn into the chaos that is enveloping our world.
One of the reasons that I find it hard to watch the news is that I don’t know what to do; I don’t know how to respond. In practical terms there seems to be very little that I can do. My life and my efforts seem so tiny and inadequate compared to the vast problems of the world.
One thing that has helped me is the realisation that for most of the people of the world for most of history life has always been unstable and uncertain; the feelings of confusion and powerlessness that I feel are actually ‘life as usual’ for most of the people of the world.
In the West in recent decades since the end of the Second World War we have enjoyed a peace and stability that are actually unusual; they are the exception to life for the majority.
The majority of the people of our world have always lived and worked, loved and prayed in the face of instability and threat and chaos. They have had no other choice.
And so the answer to my question of how to respond to the chaos that threatens us is to live - to live in the face of it. Despite our fears and uncertainty we work, we love our families, we celebrate the joy of life, we pray and we worship; we entrust ourselves and our world and those we love to the God who is with us in the chaos and fear and confusion.
At times it will feel as if we are dancing on the edge of a volcano! But it seems to me that if our times are forcing us to the realisation that life is fragile, then we should find all of the joy and all of the love and all of the peace that we can as we live our lives!
A further answer to the question of how to respond to the world as it is comes from the poet John Keats. He called our world a ‘vale of soul-making.’ This world is not and was never meant to be paradise, nor were we ever meant for this world for eternity. Our lives in this world are a preparation for eternity. How we respond to the challenges and the difficulties of life in this world are what shape us. They prepare us for eternity, for our true and eternal home.
So we are called to be the best that we can, and to do the best that we can in difficult and challenging days. If we are able to help others caught in the chaos, then we do, we must. If we can do nothing else we are called to pray for those who suffer in the wars and the conflicts that we see unfolding on our TV screens.
By the lives we live, by our response to the challenges of the world, by our love of others, by our faith and our faithfulness we become a small beacon of light and hope in the chaos of the world. And, I believe, as Christians, as people who follow Jesus, that is exactly what we are supposed to do. It is what Christ calls us to do. Amen.
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