If there was an olympic event for the person who could cram the most expletives in a sentence then this fella probably would have won gold. And if adding vitriol and venom for emphasis, was akin to increasing the ‘degree of difficulty’ then he was going to score off the charts there as well.

Ryan backed the van down the service entrance to the supermarket where we had just arrived to pick up the out of date produce. Another monthly run together where we visit 4 local shops and collect groceries for distribution later that evening. Its always good to catch up and chew the fat of life for a couple of hours, but this one looked like taking a bit longer as a massive delivery truck had beaten us to the draw and was occupying the only available service bay. We backed in anyway to get the lie of the land.

That was where we met Davo – a fit looking bloke, probably in his early 60’s, sorting out his ramps and waiting for some staff to give him permission to unload. We said ‘g’day’ and waited for someone to come and attend to us. After a few minutes of waiting and realising no one was coming any time soon we began chatting with Dave who let us know he hated his effing job, hated his effing life and hated the way our generation had effed up the world for our kids. ‘I’d rather just be effing dead’ he said (and it felt like he meant it.) With each statement he made, he looked to us for affirmation – that life was terrible, that we had screwed the world up and that we’d all be better off dead. But it was an affirmation that wasn’t coming – just a couple of gentle acknowledgments that his life sounded hard.

He returned to the desire to die – to be done with and out of here – hopefully to a better place. ‘I mean it.’ he said ‘I’m done!’

I’m not sure quite what prompted my question, other than simple curiosity ‘What do you reckon happens after death?’ I asked.

‘Oh – I suppose I go up there – if he’ll have me after all of my swearing and carrying on.’

That was a curious response. (Based on what we had heard so far I had anticipated he’d more likely say ‘eff all.’)

‘Do you know him?’ I asked, pushing into the identity of ‘him up there’. It seemed like an unusual question to be asking the delivery driver, but I was realising this wasn’t your standard, congenial conversation.

‘Oh yeah’ he answered. ‘I doubt he’s real happy with me – haven’t been to church for ages and I swear too much.’

‘He’s pretty good at being gracious,’ Ryan said.

‘I don’t think he’s too fussed over a few swear words,’ I added.

I think we had both keyed into the sense that there was ‘stuff’ going on for this man and that we may have arrived just in time to listen to him and help him process some of his anger.

In a previous post I pondered the extent to which God intervenes in our world and our daily lives – to what degree he engineers scenarios for us to engage in. In this moment it seemed that maybe he had purposefully put the two of us here waiting in a delivery bay with a very angry man.

Davo spoke of his life – of the endless work that was draining his soul, of his inability to get to church because he was just so ‘effing exhausted’. Then he went on to speak of how no one gave a shit about him – not his family or his friends… Then he said ‘you know it’s only my church who have sought me out and stayed in touch. They have tried to connect with me.’

‘They sound like good people.’ I said

‘They are!’ he affirmed. He told us of his journey out of alcoholism in 2016, and how one day he just decided to attend a church – out of the blue. It was a very conservative meat and 3 veg, evangelical church with no bells and whistles, but he said ‘That first day I went there I experienced something. I wept. I felt something very real.’

I thought it was time to let him in on the fact that we both had a little prior experience with faith and church. ‘You realise you’re talking to a couple of pastors here don’t you?’ I said. He smiled ‘What?…’

We talked some more and we experienced Davo’s countenance getting lighter with each moment. He started to smile, and gain energy, to speak of his church and their care for him, of how valuable that community was. We didn’t need to suggest he get back there – he’d already convinced himself that this was what was needed.

It seemed 20 minutes was going to turn into 40 or thereabouts and we both had places to be and things to do, so we said we’d take off and do the pick up later. As we left a now grinning and animated Davo yells out ‘See you later – brothers!’

And my heart smiled.

A 20 minute delay in the service bay finished up as a beautiful conversation with a man whose life had just got bit too much for him. A few gentle questions, a serving of grace and a couple of listening ears allowed him to share the pain, but also find his way back to the hope.

So, do I believe in an interventionist God?…

Oh yeah…

(I should note that my memory of detail is pretty ordinary so I have reconstructed this story as best I remember it. Ryan might have a slightly different take, or be able to add some detail.)

A number of years ago now I went surfing off the reef just out from the Alkimos wreck. I anchored my 17ft half cab just 50m or so south west of the break and well out of harm’s way. It was a beautiful morning of surfing out on the reef with just two or three of us enjoying some magical waves.

Then the wind turned suddenly as it does in our part of the world, and the seabreeze began to blow. The surf was now sloppy and I began to consider paddling back to the boat. That was when I noticed that the boat was actually making it’s way toward me. I had just caught a wave and was paddling back out, all the time watching my boat drift rapidly into the impact zone.

This was not good. With a large set wave looming on the horizon I paddled furiously towards the boat, clambered onboard with legrope still attached and board drifting in the water. A wave was about to break on the boat. I flicked the key, it started first time with a throaty two stroke growl and I gunned it thru the oncoming wave as water crashed over the bow. Had it happened today someone would have recorded it and put it on Tiktok or Instagram as one of those classic ‘kook fails.’

I moved the boat out of danger and with the breeze strengthening we decided to call it a day and head for the ramp.

I thought the anchor was rock solid – but when the wind turned my boat quickly drifted into trouble.

If you’ve been following our journey over this year then you’d know that the biggest shift has been the death of our son Sam, back on March 24th. On Tuesday it will be 6 months without him and it has undoubtedly been the roughest and toughest experience any of us have had to navigate. But as I was chatting this morning with my friend Stuart, I said ‘but the anchor has held‘. And by that I mean that our faith and hope in Jesus has been as solid as we hoped it would be.

Stuart asked ‘was there ever any doubt about that?’

‘Hmmm,’ I pondered. ‘In theory, no – but in reality you just never know who you will be or what shape your faith will take if the winds of suffering blow hard enough and long enough.’

It was March 21st when I posted a short list of the convictions that I believe have formed my faith and life. It is called ‘Runs Deep’, because these are deeply held beliefs that have formed over many years.

Number 1 is ‘God is Good’

I wrote that on March 21st with the deepest of conviction – I have said many times that it is the foundational element of my faith. Three days later Sam died. If I knew anything in the midst of that horror it was that God had not stopped being good 3 days later. But my life had been thrown into turmoil.

The final of my 6 core convictions was that, ‘My hope is in the death and resurrection of Jesus Christ’

What I meant by that was:

that we are not alone – that life is not random and meaningless – but there is a good God who is in the process of restoring the broken creation and he invites us to join him in that.

The other 4 convictions were :

2. Jesus is Lord 

3. The kingdom of God is ultimate reality & the hope of God for the world 

4. Faith is both beautiful and mysterious (but not very systematic)

5. Faith is inherently communal

I won’t try and articulate how each one has ‘held’ or sustained me, as I sense it has been the collective strength of each of these elements that has really anchored me. Each idea is solid on it’s own but when knitted together into a way of viewing the world I have found that it has been a genuine source of hope and sustenance when I have felt overwhelmed, weak and sad.

People ask me if I am angry at God – and my question is ‘what for?’ I don’t have the expectation that God will step in to protect us in every situation where we take risks. When it come to ‘divine intervention’ I honestly don’t know how much we can attribute to God and how much is good fortune.

When a bus crashes and one Christian family thanks God for apparently protecting their kid while in the same event another is grieved because God apparently didn’t do his job of protection who is correct? Does God actually choose some to protect and others to die?

In the bigger scheme of things is God responsible for famines, natural disasters and general catastrophic events? Is he off his game and failing in his duty, or are they all part of a divine plan?

I sense we have some inherited some kooky expectations around what God should and shouldn’t do in the world and what we can expect of him as his people. Much of it relates to our concept of sovereignty and how much God actually is in control of and how much he is at work in the world orchestrating events.

We use interesting rhetoric like ‘It’s ok because God is in control.‘ How do you apply that to something like the upcoming USA elections? How does that apply to our life?

I’m not a deist – not by a long shot – but I do believe God is far more mysterious in his interventions than we can ever understand. I sense we think that we would much prefer a predictable, safe God who eliminates all pain and suffering for his kids – the only thing is that to do so is to remove a huge amount of our autonomy and identity.

I have delved more into that subject than I really want to here, as the point I simply want to communicate is that ‘the anchor has held.’ We are not adrift, floundering and lost. We are in pain, we are deeply sad – just flicking back thru my posts from this year left me bewildered again at the turn our life has taken.

I also understand that not everyone sees the world as I do. Psalm 88 is the classic lament – that does not end with a turning toward God, but instead the words ‘darkness is my closest friend.’ Ouch – that whole Psalm is powerful and disturbing. And for some this is their experience. That’s ok too.

At the end of the day it’s a journey we have to walk individually and a wrestle we must grapple with personally. But this is my experience. In the tone of Dale Kerrigan from the Castle ‘I am Andrew Hamilton and this is my story!’

What’s it mean pactically?

For the last 6 months our lives have been somewhat about survival – about getting thru the madness that accompanies such a loss. I have kept quite busy working on caravans and doing some speaking here and there, while Danelle has had space to sit with the grief and really work it thru. Ellie has had it toughest in that she simply had to go back to work – and nursing is obviously intense in that it’s with people… Meanwhile the other family impacted – Sam’s partner and her tribe have also been coping with the fallout of a life that was pointed in a direction that is now no longer possible. So much pain right there…

We have all felt it in different ways and coped in different ways. Danelle was a week away from starting an intensive course in clinical pastoral education at Royal Perth Hospital – sitting with people in their pain and grief. As you can imagine she postponed the course and she isn’t sure at the moment when she will be ready to engage with it.

We had also planned to help Margaret River Baptist with some interim leadership, but it was simply out of the question, to go and be present for others when we were so disoriented and hurting. There are currently no future interim ministry plans, but I imagine in time we will be ready for a few challenges.

With summer on the horizon my diesel heater business will slow and I will enjoy the warmer weather with some surfing, stand up paddle boarding and cycling as my daily regime. Add a few gym visits and weekly basketball and it’s hard to fit work in anyway! And as some of you will be aware a few weeks back I was pondering the idea of getting a dog again. I listed 12 reasons not to get a dog. And then one reason in favour – ‘I like dogs’. Guess what?… we got a dog!

To be honest I almost backed out on the night before we were due to pick her up. The weight of the responsibility was really sitting heavy on me – I wasn’t sure I could manage it well. I was worried about all that could possibly go awry, but as Ellie was quick to remind me ‘weren’t you the person who said we ought to ask the question ‘what if everything went well?‘… Fair call! i did say that, didn’t I? And I have chosen to look thru that lens in the expectation that if we do this well there will be immense joy and fun in having this new family member. So we now have a 12 week old Retriever cross Border Collie puppy who is already winning our hearts and bringing a degree of joy that we haven’t had for a while.

In fact it was only last night, I was lying on the floor playing with Tahnee, and I said to Danelle, ‘I am so happy we did this!’ Not words I expected to come out of my mouth, but she has certainly won me over. I also expect that much of my summer will be spent training and teaching her so she will be a good dog rather than psycho menace.

So that’s life for us at the moment, 6 months into this new stage. Thanks to those who have loved us and prayed for us and supported us. It still feels surreal that this is our life, but here we are….

I was sitting in church last night, listening to one of the same passages of scripture being read that I have heard time and time again over the last 60 years:

²⁸ When^[aj] Jesus finished saying these things, the crowds were amazed by his teaching, ²⁹ because he taught them like one who had authority,^[ak] not like their experts in the law.

Matt 7:28-29

When I think of Jesus speaking with authority I imagine him speaking forcefully, with presence and gravitas – making sure people heard and understood his message. I’ve pretty much seen it that way for as long as I can remember.

Then last night it just struck me that the comparison Matthew makes is with the ‘experts in the law’, the same people Jesus also refers to as hypocrites because they don’t practice what they preach. It made me wonder if the point Matthew is making actually has less to do with Jesus’ oratory capacities and more to do with the integrity of his life. Perhaps Jesus was able to speak with authority because there was congruence between his life and his words so when people heard him speak they had already observed him as the real deal.

Of course that may have given impetus to his voice, but I sense authority comes from a congruent life, rather than from knowing how to use appropriate voice modulation techniques.