This is the fifth of 24 blog posts each day in June as part of a challenge to honour my sister Anna Murray who died on 20th October 2019. You can read my reflections on my sister here and watch a film I made about her here. If you want to donate to Pancreatic Cancer UK you can do so here. These posts will be short 'thoughts' rather than detailed blog posts.
How has lockdown been for you? Its been a strange time. I've found my emotions can be like a rollercoaster, one day I feel fine the next day I feel down or slightly anxious. Zoom, Slack, Skype and Microsoft Teams have taken a bit of adapting but I've learned to pace myself rather than having loads of meetings per day. I've been through phases when I have struggled to sleep, but overall I feel I've adapted and I have to say I've enjoyed various aspects of lockdown. I feel I've found a much better rhythm to my working life. I get up around 7 am, walk the dog, have a decent breakfast (poached eggs every morning!), have some time for devotions and start work around 9-9:30. I work until about 6ish take the dog out again and then most evenings are family time because there is nowhere to go. I've loved extra time to listen to audio books and podcasts. This series by Nancy Guthrie on 'How to Teach the Bible' has been a huge blessing to me on my daily walks.
I guess one of the big questions I have for myself and other Christians is this - 'what are we doing with all the extra time we have?' It is quite a searching question. I heard from a friend and then read this account of the Scottish missionary James Fraser. In Phil Moore's excellent blog on Think Theology he explains what James Fraser did during a period of 'lockdown' at the foothills of the Himalayas:
'The great missionary James Fraser found himself in a very similar position when he began to preach the Gospel to the pagan Chinese villagers of Lisuland in the first half of the twentieth century. Lisuland lies several hundred miles west of Wuhan, in the foothills of the Himalayas, so James Fraser very often found himself unable to reach his converts in the most mountainous areas. Winter snowfalls made it too dangerous for him to gather them together in church services. At first he was frustrated and even angry with God, who could easily have held back the snowfall to enable his church services to go ahead. But as he prayed, James Fraser became convicted that God was in the problem - it was a challenge of the Lord’s own making. The Lord wanted him to conduct an experiment on behalf of the Body of Christ.
James Fraser worked out that it would take him three to five days to conduct church services in the highland villages of Lisuland - one or two days of travel up into the mountains, a day of gathering together, and then one or two days of travel back down again. He therefore decided to find out: What would happen if I decided to spend the time that I would have spent gathering with these Lisu people praying for them instead?'
After the snow had melted James Fraser was able to return to the mountainous villages and he discovered that the Christians there had grown and matured far more than those he was ministering to in the lowland regions. Isn't that remarkable? We all think that activity will build the kingdom but what if getting on our knees was to have an even greater effect? Of course we don't stop reaching out and loving our neighbour in practical ways but what if our work was saturated in prayer? What if we spent the extra time when we aren't commuting or attending activities praying? What if we were praying for the people we aren't able to see right now? What is we tried the James Fraser experiment in our lives? Some food for thought.
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