with a little help from my friends

 

A wee song (from back in the day) has been circling round my mind over the last week: 

Life is wonderful, yes it’s wonderful,

Life is wonderful now to me.

I let Jesus in, he changed everything,

Life is wonderful now. 

How many of us would truly align with that sentiment? 

The chorus came to me because I have been reflecting a great deal on a brief comment that the apostle Paul made to the Corinthians about how he viewed his life at the moment he ‘penned’ what we know as his second letter. Between the letters that we refer as First and Second Corinthians he wrote his “anguished letter” (2 Corinthians 2:4), dealing with the mountain of problems in the Corinthian church. Paul felt the enormous burden of all this pastoral ministry when he wrote the following comment:

“…when we came to Macedonia, this body of ours had no rest, but we were harassed at every turn - conflicts on the outside, fears within” (2 Corinthians 7:5).

CONFLICTS WITHOUT, FEARS WITHIN. 

Not quite the rosey sentiment expressed in the 1970s chorus above. However, it is surely a truer and more authentic expression of the Christian faith.

The author Phillip Yancey definitely believes so. He introduces us to his father-in-law in his book, “Reaching for the Invisible God”. As a servant of God he faced personal and family health challenges as well as other crises in life. They combined to shake his faith. In the midst of all this trouble he asked himself what he could believe with certainty. He settled on the following:

Life is difficult.

God is merciful.

Heaven is sure.

Those three affirmations are attested by Paul across the letter of 2 Corinthians. 

However, returning to Paul’s conflicts without and fears within, we discover he adds two words that make all the difference - “but God” (7:6). It is at this point that hope enters Paul’s desperate situation…

“BUT GOD, who comforts the downcast, comforted us by the coming of Titus, and not only by his coming but also by the comfort you had given him. He told us about your longing for me, your deep sorrow, your ardent concern for me, so that my joy was greater than ever” (2 Corinthians 7:6-7).

God is the God who comforts the downcast. That is who he is. And he comforted Paul by the coming of Titus.

I have given a lot of thought to what it was that Titus brought to Paul in this troubled season and I have settled on the following:

Much needed companionship (support)

A dose of healthy conversation (stimulus)

A sense of clarity about his current circumstances (perspective)

The church desperately needs people like Titus, who move in the slipstream of the Spirit, to bring hope and reassurance to the Pauls of this world. In such circumstances we still might not describe life as ‘wonderful’ but joy will once again surface in our hearts ♥️ 

(Picture - The Blue Lobster cafe, Stornoway)