as are the other six billion who have lived in history.
And second, he relates to each one of them intimately. And that too is an extraordinary discovery for people like me who only want sheep to be intimate once they come in sweater format. ‘I know my sheep and my sheep know me,’ Jesus says. ‘Just as the Father knows me and I know the Father.’ He knows each one of us as uniquely as he knows God. Amazing! Trust the shepherd.
| Lord Jesus, it’s me. I realize that I’m not the only one talking to you right now. But I am the only one with this unique set of needs, anxieties and hopes. I am so grateful that you intimately understand every aspect of me. I know it doesn’t instantly solve all the problems. But it’s a mighty fine starting point. So thank you. Amen. |
But such a relationship is never exclusive. Jesus’ original Jewish hearers must have assumed that they alone were God’s people. But Jesus speaks of ‘other sheep’ who would come from different religions to swell the church. And he was quite explicit about it: ‘I have other sheep that are not of this sheep pen. I must bring them also.’
Jesus’ words are a warning today to anyone who thinks they can draw boundaries to prescribe who is part of the good shepherd’s flock and who isn’t. Jesus is answerable to no one but God himself. Not even death can tell him what to do. Jesus will save whom he will save, and that will not be dictated by race, by morality, by religion, or by any lines we humans like to draw in order to make it seem that we are the special ones and someone else isn’t. It will be dictated by love. Nothing else, just love! The love that was so extreme that it drove Jesus to lay down his life for the sake of humankind. When you see the unexpected millions who are beside you in the great multitude that meets Jesus in heaven, prepare to feel sheepish!
That is why having a good shepherd truly is a reason for happiness. Thrilling, isn’t it! And it has thrilled people the world over, because there is something about the image of being looked after and guided that appeals universally. Wherever the Bible is translated, the image is developed to be appropriate to the local setting. In South America the sheep become llamas; in the Himalayas they are yaks; in parts of Africa they are goats.
And in Croydon? Well, in Croydon they’re lunch. And I’m already ten minutes late. But when I drive over to Paul’s I shall be bouncing with joy in the car. Oh yes indeed!
| Be happy! Look round your home for wool – in clothes, in carpet, in fabrics. Take a few strands in your fingers, and think about the many other hands through which they have passed on their way to you. All strangers to you; all known to and loved by God. He has every strand numbered. And every human named! |
Be Happy! Day 7
Push past pain
| I remember my affliction and my wandering, the bitterness and the gall. I well remember them, and my soul is downcast within me. Yet this I call to mind and therefore I have hope: Because of the Lord’s great love we are not consumed, for his compassions never fail. They are new every morning; great is your faithfulness. I say to myself, ‘The Lord is my portion; therefore I will wait for him.’ Lamentations 3.19–24 |
As a teenager in the fourteenth century a woman who lived in Norfolk, whose name is long forgotten, successfully pleaded with her bishop to be allowed the honour of becoming an anchorite. This means that she was bricked up in a room, next to St Julian’s Church in Norwich, which she never left, in order to devote herself to a life of worship. There she lived, prayed and contemplated God until she was seventy. And wrote – she was the first woman to have a book published in the English language! Her cell is still there in Norwich, and visiting it is very moving.
Aged thirty, she had a life-threatening illness. In fact, she believed she was about to fall victim to the Black Death, which was devastating Europe. In intense pain, she had a series of visions of Jesus, during which profound truths about life became clear. When she recovered, she wrote them down in an unremittingly optimistic book called Sixteen Revelations of Divine Love. It is still in print today, under the name by which the world knows her – Julian of Norwich.
There is a slanted window in the wall of the cell, and through it you can squint into the church and fix your eyes (as she did) on the cross on the altar. Next to the window are written some of her words, composed at the height of her ill health: ‘These words, “You will not be overcome,” were said very insistently and strongly, for certainty and strength against every tribulation which may come. He did not say, “You will not be troubled, you will not be belaboured, you will not be disquieted,” but he said, “you will not be overcome.” God wants us to pay attention to these words and always to be strong in faithful trust, in well-being and in woe, for he loves and delights in us, and so he wishes us to love him and delight in him and trust greatly in him. And all shall be well. And all shall be well. And all manner of thing shall be well.’
| Consider it pure joy, my brothers and sisters, whenever you face trials of many kinds, because you know that the testing of your faith develops perseverance. Perseverance must finish its work so that you may be mature and complete, not lacking anything. James 1.2–4 |
In the heart of the Old Testament is a set of poems that agonize over the destruction of Jerusalem in 587 BC. In our Bible they have the name Lamentations. The poems grieve over the suffering of loved ones and the devastation wreaked on the walls of a beloved city. But they are desolate about something worse – God seemed to have abandoned his people. But at his low point the poet’s complete loss of hope acted as a trigger to bring him to his spiritual senses, as if despair left him nowhere else to go but to God. To recall that God is still sustaining life, and consciously to seek a reason to thank him daily, does not spring easily from the human heart. It is an act of will that only the grace of God can uphold.
Between agreeing to write this book and starting the first chapter, I had a shock that made me question whether I was the right person to write about happiness. The truth is that despite what you have read during the first week of this spiritual journey, it has been a rough old year.
| It would be just another illusion to believe that reaching out to God will free us from pain and suffering. Often, indeed, it will take us where we would rather not go. But we know that without going there we will not find our life. Henri Nouwen, Dutch priest and writer, 1932–96 |
I was due to move house on a bitterly cold day in February. While the removal firm was loading my furniture on to the van I had a phone call from the solicitor. I assumed that it was to confirm that I could collect the key, but in fact the message was that the company from whom I was buying the flat had gone bankrupt, and the bank had seized all the properties. With the removal van taking my possessions into storage, and me on my mobile ringing round to find a place to sleep that night, I thought, ‘This is the worst thing that has ever happened in my life.’
Of course, with the sense of perspective I have now, I know that it wasn’t the worst thing that has happened to me. There have been bereavements and illnesses and crushing disappointments. But the pain of what we are experiencing at any one moment distorts our sense of what unhappiness really means. If we are truly honest, at its height our own toothache is worse than someone else’s cancer.
That night, lying in a strange bed unable to sleep, the bitterness, gall and downcast soul of Lamentations were reality.
| True happiness is not attained through self-gratification, but through fidelity to a worthy purpose. Helen Keller, North American academic, deaf and blind from infancy, 1880–1968 |
But can I tell you something I’ve learnt? It is deeply and tangibly comforting to know that people are praying alongside and for you. As Christians we are community, not individuals. At one point someone told me what time that evening he was going to pray for me, and I set the alarm on my phone so that it reminded