The New Reality

On Friday my audiologist adjusted my hearing aids. Since they were first fitted three months ago, he’s gradually turned them up… It seems as if Mr Robin, Mrs Wren and all our other garden birds are now singing much louder. Of course there’s no actual change in volume, but this is my new reality.

On Saturday I watched the football on the TV. Norwich were well beaten by Millwall. This is now our second defeat. We started the season believing that we were the best in the league; we were invincible! The new reality is that we’re not.

Yesterday the Newcastle-Liverpool game was on TV. Spectators and players remembered Kevin Keegan, who’d died last month. He’d played for Liverpool, Newcastle and England. A banner displayed his words: ‘I want people to dream about their football. We should all be dreamers at heart.’ Dreaming, imagining a new reality…

Yesterday afternoon about sixty of us gathered on the beach for Frankie’s and Becks’ baptisms. They each told their story – their struggles, illnesses, addictions. Through our Wild Church community, they explored, discovered and started to follow the way of Jesus. Their baptism is a beautiful picture of their new reality.

This morning I read about Ezekiel’s valley of dry bones. God asks, ‘Can these bones live?’ The common-sense answer is, ‘No’. Ezekiel’s answer is, ‘O Sovereign Lord, you alone know’. The rattling bones come together, flesh comes on the skeletons, God breathes life into bodies. There’s a new reality…

The old hymn ‘Loved with everlasting love’ goes:

Heaven above is softer blue,
Earth around is sweeter green;
Something lives in every hue
Christless eyes have never seen:
Birds with gladder songs o’erflow,
Flow’rs with deeper beauties shine,
Since I know, as now I know,
I am His, and He is mine.

It’s the new reality of readjusted hearing aids… seeing things as they really are, but dreaming that they can be better… Frankie’s and Becks’ new found faith… Ezekiel’s dry bones coming to life… that I can know.