The news at 5pm yesterday in our country was a profound shock. I had expected another week or two before we reached this stage. We all rehearse in our minds scenarios about the future \u2013what if X happened? I would do\u2026 <\/p>\n\n\n\n
Normally such things are mere speculation as many of these fears are never realised. Yesterday at 5pm the news from our Governments in the United Kingdom confirmed that we would now enter an unknown future where family life, work life, social life and church life, together with anything else not covered in those categories would be very different to anything we had experienced before. It has been barely possible in the last few days in most settings to draw up adequate contingency plans before the official guidance changes again. This will be our experience now for at least a significant chunk of 2020.\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 <\/p>\n\n\n\n
However, nothing takes God by surprise<\/strong>. There are some words from the Bible from Isaiah 43:1-3 that came to mind as I thought about what lies ahead. They are words very precious to me and I am sure to some of you as well. Isaiah wrote: But now, O Jacob, listen to the Lord\u00a0who created you.\u00a0O Israel, the one who formed you says, \u201cDo not be afraid, for I have ransomed you. I have called you by name; you are mine. 2\u00a0<\/sup><\/strong>When you go through deep waters,\u00a0I will be with you<\/strong>. When you go through rivers of difficulty,\u00a0you will not drown. When you walk through the fire of oppression,\u00a0you will not be burned up; the flames will not consume you. 3\u00a0<\/sup><\/strong>For I am the Lord, your God,\u00a0the Holy One of Israel, your Saviour. <\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n The recipients of these words had endured some awful life changing circumstances and were in danger of giving up hope for the future. The words God gave through Isaiah to them were so encouraging.\u00a0 They were honest words about the reality being faced. The problems would not magically disappear. They would have to live through those difficult times. But they would not do so alone. God would go with them. Together they trusted God and supported one another and came through in time to a better future.\u00a0 With God\u2019s help as we seek to support each other we too can come through the things that lies ahead for us in the coming days<\/p>\n\n\n\n I am deeply\ngrateful to a number of people in our congregation who have offered to help\nothers at this time if required. I think as we begin to adjust to this new\nsituation it would be good to make contact with our older members that we know\nto check that they are okay; also as the numbers of people self-isolating grows\nacross the age ranges, to make a point of contacting others by phone, email or\nthrough the range of other communication forms we use to help us keep in\ntouch. Remember, nothing takes God by\nsurprise<\/strong> and He has declared? When you go through deep waters,<\/em> <\/em>I will be with you<\/em><\/strong>.<\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n Brian Talbot<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" The news at 5pm yesterday in our country was a profound shock. I had expected another week or two before we reached this stage. We all rehearse in our minds scenarios about the future \u2013what if X happened? I would do\u2026 Normally such things are mere speculation as many of these fears are never realised. … Continue reading 17 March 2020 – Nothing takes God by surprise<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[15],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-999","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-archive"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/broughtybaptist.org\/wpsite\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/999","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/broughtybaptist.org\/wpsite\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/broughtybaptist.org\/wpsite\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/broughtybaptist.org\/wpsite\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/broughtybaptist.org\/wpsite\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=999"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/broughtybaptist.org\/wpsite\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/999\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":1000,"href":"https:\/\/broughtybaptist.org\/wpsite\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/999\/revisions\/1000"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/broughtybaptist.org\/wpsite\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=999"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/broughtybaptist.org\/wpsite\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=999"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/broughtybaptist.org\/wpsite\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=999"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}