Some say that the Christian walk is easy: Christians smile through life, detractors sneer, detached from the world; and nothing harms them. If this were really so, surely it would be something to envy, not to scorn? The Bible tells us that the rain falls on the just and the unjust, (Mat 5:45) and no-one can doubt that it has done exactly that over recent weeks. Christians have not been immune from seeing their homes flooded, possessions destroyed, livelihoods in tatters. The risk of foot and mouth now casts a shadow over all livestock farmers and rural communities, irrespective of their beliefs. Christians have as many problems as anyone else. The difference lies in their response. It is not an unreasonable belief that suffering for its own sake is good for you; or a mindless submission to the whim of a capricious fate. The Christian response rises out of a relationship with Jesus Himself. The Angel of the Lord explained to Joseph (Matt 1: 20-24) that here was Emmanuel, God with us. He gives the vision and strength to go beyond the outward circumstances to something deeper; beyond the temporal to the eternal. In Jesus, God comes to people and lives in their world, rather than have them try the impossibility of going to Him. Jesus does not take people out of the turmoil and pain of daily life; He walks with them in it. Salvation is not an escape from the world, but God's engagement with the world.
