Thought For The Week16 July 2023

Last week my family and I packed up the car and headed to Bannockburn for a few days to spend time with our wider family. As we looked at the weather and road reports wondered if we would make it through the Lindis Pass, or if it would be closed with snow. The roads ended up being clear but there were powerful headwinds all the way up the Waitaki Valley and through to the other side of the Lindis Pass. The winds were so strong it felt like our car was dragging a parachute behind it. It felt like real hard work. When we finally made it to the other side of the Lindis, we found clear skies, dry roads and no wind.

It got me thinking about the winds that buffet us in our lives. Sometimes with different challenges, difficult or sad times it can feel like we are journeying into a headwind. In these times it sometimes can take everything we’ve got just to keep on going. It can be mentally, emotionally and physically exhausting. We can long for a place of shelter and refuge from the storms of life.

Henri Nouwen, the Dutch Priest and spiritual writer wrote of our need to come back to the ‘solid place’ of God’s enduring love. It can be tempting to find shelter from our struggles in other places, but we never find the answers to our deepest questions and longings there. Even though we may not feel it, it is only in continually entrusting ourselves to the loving arms of God we find the true shelter. I pray that in this Matariki season, you experience the peace and shelter of the enduring love of God through community with others and through the abiding presence of the Spirit of Jesus.

Luke Blackbeard