An Evangelical Church in the Heart of Thatcham

Benefits in the rearview mirror

In the same way that we all know that hindsight is a wonderful thing, similarly there can be benefits, even substantial ones, that are only observed, as it were, in the rearview and not up front.

I once heard someone giving thanks for COVID and I could see that immediately there opened up a great chasm of possible misunderstandings.

Obviously, no one rejoices in people getting sick and then dying and leaving behind families torn asunder with grief. And, no one rejoices with the serious levels of stress and fear that accompany the loss of jobs, livelihoods, perhaps those businesses that they have spent years building up at great personal investment and cost. And the list of downsides could go on.

Jesus himself was quizzed about what he thought concerning a disaster that had taken place in his day – some worshippers getting pointlessly slaughtered at random.

Jesus, in replying, gave a helpful steer in knowing what to observe when bad things happen to good people. The first was to show that the people caught up were not any worse or any better than anyone else – they weren’t getting zapped by God because they were especially wicked.

He further underscored that point by making appeal to another horrendous accident where the self-same point applied.

But then he bowled in a “googly”, which he also doubly emphasized, and that was that unless you radically rethink the way you are looking at life you also will likely experience a tricky end. (See Luke’s gospel chapter 13)

Sometime a series of bad events fosters in us a mood of deep reflection. It may cause us to ask some of the big questions about the things that really matter to us in this short life, and this, at least according to Jesus, is something worth spotting, if only in our rearview mirror.

Pastor Hedley

I am the Pastor at Thatcham Evangelical Church in West Berkshire. This is an FIEC (Fellowship of Evangelical Churches) affiliated church.