I'm tidying my house at the moment, in preparation for trying to sell it. Well, not actually at this moment, as I'm writing a blog entry, but you get the idea.
At the weekend, I moved the remains of my most recent bike out of the house into the garden shed. This is the bike that tried to kill me in November by having the chain seize up, jump off and throw me over the handlebars onto a potentially busy road. Thankfully the road was not quite so busy and what traffic there was swered round me. Anyhow, I moved it into the shed to make the house tidier and so I could tidy round where it had been.
What I wasn't anticipating was for a group of local recourseful people to climb my fence, unbolt the gate (the padlock on which had rusted shut a while before, so I'd removed it), get into the shed and, for their own nefarious purposes remove my afunctional and potentially homicidal bike, especially since you'd need to be 6ft to be comfortable on it. Nor was I expecting them to come back yesterday and remove the ruins of my previous bike (missing a wheel and saddle, chain rusted) as well, especially since that had been there for the best part of a year.
Now there is a part of me that instinctively hoped that they would try riding it and find that the chain did catapult them into oncoming traffic, that I won't miss this place at all when I leave, especially if targeting it with tactical nuclear weapons.
Looks as if it's time to grow out of that attitude. It isn't Jesus' way. Jesus said:
Love your enemies and pray for those who persecute you, that you may be sons of your Father in heaven. He causes his sun to rise on the evil and the good, and sends rain on the righteous and the unrighteous. If you love those who love you, what reward will you get? Are not even the tax collectors doing that? And if you greet only your brothers, what are you doing more than others? Do not even pagans do that? Be perfect, therefore, as your heavenly Father is perfect.
Matthew 6:44-48 (NIV)
I'm glad I don't have to either take it to the tip or go through the hassle of taking it to Oxford then getting it fixed. All the best to those guys who stole it - hope they can get it working, but above all I pray that they will come to know the same hope that I know in Christ.
All the crime here could really get me hating the place, but I find as time goes on I get more and more of a heart for the people here who are lost, who are crying out for Christ if only they could see him, but there is virtually no culturally relevant witness, and I'm not in a position to provide one. We need an eden project or something.
No comments:
Post a Comment