Tuesday 8 June 2010

Do you ever award yourself a 'golden moment' at the end of the day? I often do it. When I look back at the day and see the moment when things went as wrong as they possibly could go - that's the one that gets the 'golden moment' prize for the day. I remember awarding it once for a broken bottle. I'd had a madly busy day - racing around doing far too many things in too short a time. The last job on the list was a trip round the supermarket, which was so busy that it was like hell on wheels. When I got home and lifted the bag out of the boot with a bottle of chardonnay in it…you've guessed it. The bag broke, the bottle slid out in apparent slow motion, shattered on the kerb and glugged out all around my shoes. Brilliant!

Last week's golden moment was when a 15 minute appointment at the hospital turned into a two hour one, and I arrived back at the car to find a very expensive parking ticket on the window. It's not that I didn't deserve it - I did. But I sure as heck didn't need it!

Here's the thing though. It wasn't until I was half way home through busy traffic that I even noticed it - even though it was stuck slap bang on the windscreen. It's the traffic warden's job to write it, mine to notice it…and it passed me by. How frustrating is that? If your job is to write parking tickets and you slap a whopping one on somebody's car - you'd at least expect them to notice it!

As a preacher and a pastor perhaps I shouldn't be surprised. Not a day goes by without me seeing God trying to communicate with people. Sometimes he does it through circumstances, sometimes through words from the Bible, and occasionally even through a sermon. When I train other preachers I encourage them to be captivating, witty, thoughtful and memorable. But occasionally they still don't seem to get through. Instead the congregation plough on regardless, like me with my ticket on my windscreen, as if nothing had ever happened.

God never gives up, though. If he doesn't reach us in one way he usually tries another until he finally has our attention. The moment when he finally gets it might even turn out to be a genuinely golden moment!