The Incongruent Believer

I’m stuck, I have to admit it, but I am stuck!!   Sitting here typing this I am reminded of the Stealers Wheelers song, ‘ Stuck in the Middle’ with You,  and looking at the lyrics of that song I am drawn to the lyric, particularly the first and last line: Losing control, yeah, I'm all over the place, Clowns to the left of me, jokers to the right, Here I am, stuck in the middle with you.   I am all over the place, and at times I lose control. It’s a real struggle! One of the things I struggle with is church, something that has been pivotal to my struggle because of my experience of it and that could make the second line relevant: church as I have experienced it is full of the loveliest, most genuine people. But it is also full of others not so lovely and much less genuine. I might not go so far as to call them “clowns” or “jokers”, but they are the kind of people that when things get tough, ‘you know who your friends are’. I have mostly come to terms w...

I wrote in the first part of this blog that, “Believers often speak of their “wilderness  experience” but this rarely equates to experience as a Prodigal.” However, I do believe that the journey of a prodigal back to the father can mean that one inhabits the “wilderness” for a time. We can either get stuck there – by choice or circumstance - or are just journeying through, and neither context makes that sojourn any easier. Whatever, my situation, I believe that I am here in the wilderness at the moment, and that is a significant challenge. I was struck by the clarity with which a sermon spoke to me recently; it was about the Israelites and their troubled journey out of Egypt focusing on Exodus 14 (parting the Red Sea and Pharaoh’s comeuppance). What I got from that was a better sense of where I am in my journey as a “Prodigal”: I have chosen to leave the slavery of this world behind to begin a journey to the promised land and a new life, yet I dwell in the wilderness, pursued...