After writing a recent blog about diamonds, here I am talking about gold. I’d better watch out, otherwise Ruth might start getting ideas that she’ll be getting some new jewellery for her birthday!
Over Easter, we listened to someone who as part of a short talk, handed out a couple of boxed Easter eggs, that had the added bonus of containing extra chocolate treats. As she spoke, she encouraged the recipients to open the eggs, so they both began to open the boxes and to take out the eggs in their shiny foil. As they peeled the foil back they revealed the velvety smooth milk chocolate egg and she then told them to break their eggs open. The first one to crack theirs was greeted with a packet of chocolate buttons, but when the second one was opened they discovered a handful of dry pasta!
Despite them both looking the same on the outside, looking perfect just like the picture on the box, what was on the inside was hidden. It’s so easy to project the picture for those around, particularly on social media, that we have the perfect life, the perfect family, the perfect church and the perfect faith, but at the same time to be dead or dying on the inside.
My challenge to myself (and to you), is how honest am I with myself, my family and my close friends? And if I recognise that I’m feeling spiritually dead, what am I going to do about it? That’s when we need friends or family to come alongside us, to just sit with us, to cry or laugh with us.
As we’ve said many times before, the issues that we face, are also faced by our church leaders. We need to take them off the pedestals we’ve placed them on and encourage them.
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