Obstacles or opportunities?
Now when they saw the boldness of Peter and John and perceived that they were uneducated and untrained men, they marvelled. And they realised that they had been with Jesus (Acts 4:13).
When I was a young Christian, Bert Nunn was a very helpful brother who used to visit each year to take a series of Bible teaching meetings. Outside our hall was a big notice inviting people to come to the meetings by “Mr. Nunn, Upminster”. The first time I saw this notice, I asked my Bible class teacher what an “Upminster” was, thinking it was the equivalent of a bishop in the Church of England. My teacher, very graciously, and without the hint of a smile on his face, pointed out it was not a position in the Church but a town in Essex quite close to London! You will be pleased to know my geography has improved significantly since then.
I was thinking about how tiny my world was when I was young. People were born, educated, married, worked, had families, and died, often within small geographical areas. It was not a perfect environment, but the small streets I grew up in benefited from close-knit communities, a simple lifestyle and a measure of contentment that has long gone. So it seems strange to find that, for nearly a year, we have been learning to live in a world made very limited by COVID.
God’s power is seen in the immensity of His creation. Its vastness is difficult to take in. But His love is seen in the lowliness and grace of the Man, Christ Jesus. Proximity is the state of being near. How are we brought near to God? By His becoming small, to be near to us. The whole ministry of the Saviour is about nearness. No one appreciated the closeness of the Lord more than the Apostle John. Through the Holy Spirit, he delights in writing at the beginning of his Gospel, “And the Word became flesh and dwelt among us, and we beheld His glory, the glory as of the only begotten of the Father, full of grace and truth” (John 1:14). The wonder of the nearness of Christ was something which never ceased to amaze the apostle. He wrote in his first letter, “That which was from the beginning, which we have heard, which we have seen with our eyes, which we have looked upon, and our hands have handled, concerning the Word of life” (1 John 1:1). John felt this nearness at the cross, as one of the last people Jesus spoke to before, as the Good Shepherd, He laid down His life for the sheep (John 19:27,10:11). And John sensed the nearness of the Lord as he and his friends caught fish under the direction of the resurrected Christ. John says to Peter, “It is the Lord!” (John 21:7).
John also shows us that by being near to the Lord, He can use our limitations to manifest His glory, “Now when they saw the boldness of Peter and John, and perceived that they were uneducated and untrained men, they marvelled. And they realised that they had been with Jesus.” Fanny Crosby’s blindness did not prevent her from writing over 8000 hymns, which have moved the hearts of people all over the world. Gladys Aylward’s lack of education did not stop her from travelling alone to China to serve the Lord. The limitations we feel today are not obstacles to God’s power, but, through His nearness, opportunities for His power to be seen in us.
