“In Revival there is no need to spend a brown penny on advertising. God does His own advertising.” (Duncan Campbell, near enough a quote!) Longing to see such days…. and not just saying that because I am a Scot! You can make many things a success in the world and in the church today by technology, planning, marketing, promotion and money. I was looking at a garden full of false grass a few days ago. Perhaps it is good enough to play on, but it would be cruel if we offered it to sheep instead of the real thing….. I am thinking of the words of C.S.leiws:

“It would seem that Our Lord finds our desires not too strong, but too weak. We are half-hearted creatures, fooling about with drink and sex and ambition when infinite joy is offered us, like an ignorant child who wants to go on making mud pies in a slum because he cannot imagine what is meant by the offer of a holiday at the sea. We are far too easily pleased.”

I feel sad that in the market aware church of today,  God’s people are being fleeced and short changed.  Little of God or nothing of God is dressed up as the latest “must have.” So often, I come away from a meeting or a conference,  even one thousands strong that I have led or spoken at or  been involved in feeling so sad that folk thought it was wonderful when by the measure of God’s presence or activity it was not.  It has been a good mud pool perhaps, but not the ocean.

Oh that we would long for a swim in a place where we could not sound the depth or feel the safety of edges; that we would not talk up  a stream into having the proportions of a river; that we could come to a state of honesty about the state of things; that we believed it was possible not to just sing about being “lost in wonder, love and praise” but to experience it.

By the way, I learned from our wonderful Landscaper, Gordon Robson and his equally wonderful  team of workers that it takes a huge amount more money to put down false grass than to prepare the ground for the real thing. Watching them at work though in our back garden sea of mud, at times it clearly takes huge effort to get ready for the real too. Yes, it would be easy not to bother and put down a few slabs on the edge of the mud instead ( as builders do)  and sit there in a deck chair until mud seems so normal, we forget about grass and flowers and trees and….

God bless

Kenny