It was encouraging to take time-out to see my mentor, George Verwer at his home in West Wycombe earlier today. Scheduling this date has taken some doing as both our preaching and ministry schedules are packed full, months ahead of time – however this time together was crucial.
George carries over 60 years of solid ministry experience with him of matters both good and bad, happy and sad, rich and poor, saved and unsaved from across the world – and so even if I disagreed with some of his advice for any reason then I would be such a fool not to take heed of it. As it happens, and yet again, everything that he had to say was all so relevant and inspired!
A key word that George used that I had to take note of was “Messyology”. Hinting to the strange way the Lord is indeed able to work through the messy complicated things that we humans come up with. The word may not be found in the Bible, however the theme may be identified in the lives of virtually every character in the Bible – where virtually every one of them messed up in one way or another! I shared with George a lot of the challenges and battles that the ministry has been faced with over the past months from the news of one of our Directors having a moral fall, disagreements and criticism, financial struggles, personal family issues, how things could have been done better, to the latest colossal projects that we are about to embark upon. George spoke about Messyology! If I have understood him properly, he was saying that every Christian that has ever lived has messed up, some have fallen really badly, some have endeavoured to serve the Lord through the most complicated, back-to-front and shoddy ways and yet the Lord is so powerful that He is still able to utilise our worst efforts to glorify His own name! Nothing is wasted in God’s eyes. Many may all start off well, however as time goes on things can get awfully complicated and messy along the way, some even lose their way as they go – and yet the Lord remains Sovereign!!! Christians are tremendously good at shooting their wounded, but God is a God of second chances!!! It is quite a science, and it would be perhaps rather unwise to spell it out in black and white – it is indeed “Messyology”!
It was very good to reassess the situation of global evangelism today. There is such a vicious and horrific battle ahead of us all, and there are still a great many unreached peoples groups of the world like the Dalits in India as one example that must be reached for Christ. Let’s press on…
