I will be your God and you shall be my people

It's vital to keep this order of things. Often the temptation comes to do it 'my way' or 'in my time' which are simply variations of the oldest temptation of all that I can be my own god. Frustration, for example, is just the human response to not being allowed to 'do it my way' or 'in my time'. It is my squeal of protest when God does not allow me to be god and insists on the order of our title.

Our dog sometimes sighs. It always amazes me. This is a complex reaction. Clearly the dog has two concepts in its brain. One concept is what it wanted and the other is the concept of what it is getting. Our sighs are the same. They are the muted version of that squeal of frustration, an involuntary and wordless protest at what 'is' rather than what I 'wanted'.

These lessons have to be learned and re-learned. My surgery was on its way and I was ready... 'let's get on with it' was my answer to the consultant's advice about surgery. Now the anaesthetist has said 'Let's not get on with it until we have done some more enquiries into your general health' and depending upon whether we have a tendency to activity or passivity the reaction will be a squeal or a sigh. Unless, of course, there is grace for this moment. That would change everything.

Grace always changes reactions. It adds an ingredient that the medics can't quantify. So we are 'finding grace' and rejoicing that God is ordering our path in his own way and his own time.

For me it is another opportunity to yield to him in saying "I give my amen to this pattern of things. You be God and I'll be one of your people; it works better that way."

There is a wonderful promise in Isaiah 35 that in the fulness of Christ's coming everything will be brought under his perfect will and ... 'sorrow and sighing shall flee away'. There will be no more protests, not even muted ones.