[This is one in a series of devotional reflections prepared for Horley Baptist Church during March 2021]
This week we have started a new Sunday sermon series on the theme of ‘encounters’, during which we are looking at various people who had encounters with Jesus during his life on earth. The Bible rarely uses the term ‘encounter’ and when it does it usually refers to a military engagement, but this is not an appropriate description of those occasions when Jesus demonstrates his loving interaction with those he meets.
In the 1945 film “Brief Encounter”, set in middle-class Britain before the second world war, we see another type of encounter. Two people meet by chance on a number of occasions and start to develop an increasingly close friendship. Their mutual desire for a more intense relationship is frustrated by their personal circumstances and in due course they go their separate ways. The film leads the viewer to ponder ‘what might have been’.
It is likely that many of us can think back to ‘what might have been’. What happened to the one who got away? Does the memory represent a life-long disappointment or a lucky escape?
It is not only in the realm of romance that we can wonder ‘what if?’; it can apply to all sorts of situations in life. What if I had been more diligent in my studies? What if I had followed a different career? What if I had thought about that decision a bit more, or acted sooner? What if I had declined that invitation, or accepted it? What if I had chosen a different route?
Are these speculations healthy or should they be suppressed, dismissed as water under the bridge? It depends upon how we handle them. They can become negative experiences, morphing into ‘if only’ and we look for someone else to blame: if only the weather …, if only my parents …, if only the boss …, if only that driver …, if only God ….
Alternatively, we can remember that ‘if only’ has a counterpart – ‘but yet’. The high priest Eli was a failure as a father but yet God used him to raise a God-fearing Samuel. In the matter of Uriah and his wife king David paid a high price for his abuse of the position that God had given him but yet God forgave him and used the circumstances to further His own plans. Saul of Tarsus was an enemy of God’s people but yet God used him to bring many more to Himself.
Even though I walk through the darkest valley, I will fear no evil, for you are with me; your rod and your staff, they comfort me. [Psalm 23 v4 NIVUK]
We may have passed through a dark valley but yet God has provided for us. We may have made decisions of a less than optimal nature but yet God has worked through them. We are all sinners, but yet God still loves us and, though Jesus, provided a way for us to have a lasting relationship with Him.
How about your encounter with Jesus? Was it a confrontational one leaving matters unresolved, a brief one now only memories, or is it one of a third kind, promising enduring friendship and an eternal future?
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Contributed by Steve Humphreys; © the Author
