Living in uncertain times
'Something's got to get you in the end.'
We live in uncertain times. Uncertainty brings insecurity and anxiety.
What is certain? My job, superannuation, relationships, family life, health, personal wellbeing?
I recently received an autobiographical note from a woman who having sought medical advice about indigestion unexpectedly received advice of advanced liver cancer!
At the medical centre the tired young nurse asked, ‘How are you?’ The woman replied, ‘Everything in my body is fantastic except for my liver apparently.’
Whereupon the nurse replied, ‘Well something's got to get you in the end.’
The woman comments, ‘She was right of course. Something will.’
One month before she died, the woman wrote, ‘A couple of months down the track there I've had time to wonder about what and how long before it would get me.
‘I'd choose a quiet sleep or a quick embolism out of the apparent associated options.
‘More reflection, much more reflection, stacks of love and support, fantastic friends and family who couldn't do or be better, many prayers, books, remedies, treatments (some OK and some completely disgusting) —
'It was time for God to speak to me, to us.
‘I conclude that it matters a little ‘what’ is going to get any of us in the end, but it does matter ‘WHO’ is going to get us now so we are enabled to face the end of this part of ‘being’ with peace and joy and hope, filled with God's love and given the faith to trust Him.'
Her words filled my heart with life and love and hope.
Yes, we do live in uncertain times. And yes, we live with certainty. The certainty of God’s love for us. The certainty that this love, God’s love, is now not just in the future, but now and for all eternity.
We live with God, the ‘Who’ of all history.The great ‘I AM WHO I AM’ of Moses’ experience and of the experience of God’s people throughout the centuries.
Jesus of Nazareth claimed to be ‘I AM’ in all fullness.
‘Something’s got to get you in the end.’
May it be God’s love in Christ, now, in 2009.
Shalom,
+John