Altar

I sat alone today for what seemed like forever.

I've felt a bit desolate lately.

Some really daft stuff has been happening which has served to make me feel like I should give up on my officership.

Dawn and I feel so tired and in need of a break. But we just can't get one. We have to keep S21 moving. We have three months left before we move to London. There is so much to wrap up work wise and home wise.

I wonder whether its all worth it sometimes.

As I sat alone trying to quiet my troubled mind, Richard, a guy who was homeless when I first met him on the streets, who we have seen come on so much since we found him a small bedsit, came and sat opposite me. We sat without speaking for about five minutes. All day I'd been wrestling with whether we are any use as Salvation Army officers at all. Richard seemed to sense something wasn't right. So he broke into the silence with his deep gentle voice. "I enjoyed it on Sunday" he said. "It was the best time I've had for years."

On Easter Sunday at 7.15am I ventured across the City to pick Richard up from his little bedsit which nestles amongst an isolated strip of bedsits owned by a City homeless charity. Not much of a home, but a palace to Richard. I'd told him in the week that he needed to be sober to come to church on Sunday, so asked him to moderate his vodka and cider intake on Saturday night. As he stepped into the car, he was stone cold sober, he'd shaved, and he had a leather jacket on over a smart shirt. He looked great. He told me he'd been to a charity shop to get some smart clothes for Sunday. He came to our Easter service which was preceded by a cooked breakfast. I marveled at the intensity of love shown to him by so many people. He loved it. He said the preacher went on a bit! But he loved it.

Here he was sitting opposite me.

I told him how glad I was that he had enjoyed it.

Then he said, "I'll miss you and Dawn when you go to London. You've done such a lot for me. Everyone in this place has."

Then he said something that made me shift myself a little out of the hapless thoughts I was allowing to spin round in my head like a whirlpool.

"There will be loads of people like me in London just waiting to be helped, they are lucky to be getting you and Dawn."

Just exactly what I needed to hear right then.

In the mess of life sometimes a man can lose sight of the purpose of his work, of his mission, of his existence. And I think I've been losing mine lately. I may not be the most fantastic minister the world has ever seen, but I do have a purpose. I love being with the less fortunate, those with the most need, I could spend the rest of my life just standing in the midst of them, standing with them and standing up for them.

It's funny because on my way to work today, I happened on this scripture. And I didn't take much notice this morning, but I revisited it after talking to Richard.

Then God said to Jacob, “Go up to Bethel and settle there, and build an altar there to God, who appeared to you when you were fleeing from your brother Esau.” So Jacob said to his household and to all who were with him, “Get rid of the foreign gods you have with you, and purify yourselves and change your clothes. Then come, let us go up to Bethel, where I will build an altar to God, who answered me in the day of my distress and who has been with me wherever I have gone.” So they gave Jacob all the foreign gods they had and the rings in their ears, and Jacob buried them under the oak at Shechem. Then they set out, and the terror of God fell on the towns all around them so that no one pursued them. Jacob and all the people with him came to Luz (that is, Bethel) in the land of Canaan. There he built an altar, and he called the place El Bethel, because it was there that God revealed himself to him when he was fleeing from his brother. (Genesis 35: 1-7)

Just when I think maybe the Salvation Army would better off without us, I felt God speak to me through this word. I feel like fleeing. Fleeing feels like a good option at the moment from stuff going on around us that we can't control. But I was taken with what God said to Jacob. "Go up to Bethel and build an altar there to God." I really felt that in Richard's kind encouragement. "There will be loads of people like me in London just waiting to be helped."

Maybe that's our altar.

The altar Dawn and I need to build to God.

An altar where the needy can be changed.

An altar that involves us, our bodies, our minds, our very souls.

Then as we were leaving today, the last thing that happened in S21 before we closed the door was that one of our regulars was arrested at the door of the building. As I watched him disappear into the awaiting police car in the street, handcuffed to a police officer, I felt in my Spirit that we have a Bethel, a place to set our altar.

A purpose.

A good enough reason to be a Salvation Army Officer.