Pause for Thought - BBC Radio 2 - Joel Edwards
KEEPING AN EYE ON YOU
Since my last ‘Pause for Thought’, I’ve been on the go quite a bit.
I had my very first trip ‘down under’. Then I nipped over for a conference in Germany for two days. And just yesterday I came back from a three-day conference at St Andrews with the Baptist Union of Scotland.
But between the three trips, I sneaked in a kind of a working holiday in Kyrenia in Northern Cyprus basking in the sun for a week. It was a bit odd sitting by a pool with a notebook and a laptop – but as far as I know, nobody was laughing at me.
It’s all a part of what some of my Christian friends call "suffering for the Kingdom"! But it was a great week!
It wasn’t just that I missed the Eurovision Song Contest, it was the chance to reflect on God, on myself, and my work. I actually worked hard but felt refreshed.
The day before I flew back, I treated myself to a day tour to Limassol and the coastal town of Famagusta
In Limassol, we visited the site of St Barnabas’ Church. St Barnabas was a colleague of the Apostle Paul.
The church had full-length icons of St Barnabas with two magnetic qualities. If you stood directly in front of the life size image, his feet and his eyes followed you at 180-degree around the room.
But as I watched St Barnabas watching me watching him, it didn’t really feel threatening. It wasn’t so much a case of "I’m watching you, mate!" but much more "I’m looking out for you mate."
No one seems to know how the old monks painted eyes and feet like that. But it’s probably the closest I’ve ever come to a physical understanding of the idea that God is both watching me and watching over me at the same time.
It’s as the book of Psalms put it. "Where shall I go from your Spirit and how can I escape from your presence?"
And that’s not such a bad idea really. Not everything we get up to is listed under the "good behaviour" column in God’s book. So like any parent, it’s okay to have Him keeping an eye on what we get up to. But as a Christian, there’s something very reassuring about a God who is looking at me with my best interests in mind.
We’ve all seen proud parents watching over their kids, willing them to do really well. Today, each of us should try to live in the memory that God is doing the same.
Rev. Joel Edwards
