Sweets

imagine a box of this, 600g of yummy sweets. Would you give them away?

I was blessed this Christmas with lots of lovely gifts. Its a great time of year for family, giving and receiving (remember the first six letters in it though).


One of the things I received was a box of sweets. 600g of Rowntrees pick and mix - a huge amount, the kind that no man should be able to get through in an evening, even hungry bible college students.


Anyhow, I spoke this weekend at Teeside on "The early church, based on Acts, responding to the Holy Spirit". This was my first time lecturing, and so in preparation I spent a long time preparing, and was doing final adjustments in my room the night before we left to lecture. I decided that I needed a sugar rush to keep me going, and because they are lovely, so started eating the sweets as I was rehearsing.


As I was eating them my flatmate entered the room. He had a deadline in, and was planning on staying up most of that evening to work on his essay, so naturally I greeted him and offered him some sweets. As he took the box I felt that little voice say to me "why don't you give Jon all of the sweets?". In my heart I replied; no, I'll offer it to him and he can take as much as he liked. As I was responding to that little voice, he dove in and took a second handful (so I worked extra hard to suppress that voice). Jon left, and I carried on working and prepping (having a few sweets every now and again) - all the while that voice kept asking me to give the sweets to Jon. "No, I said; It's almost dinner, I'll give them to him after and have a few to keep me going".

After a while my other flatmates came in. I greeted them, had a little chat and offered them both some sweets (which they took), but again that voice was encouraging me to give the sweets to Jon - "Not yet", I said in my heart, "I will give it to him later". They left me alone to carry on prepping on how the Spirit leads the church then and now. Alone I carried on working, and that little voice was still reminding me, but I kept my heart hard and said no.


At this point the doorbell rang. It was my dad. I had left a small bag of presents in the car  over Christmas, and we had previously agreed that he could bring them over on that day (though I had completely forgotten). The second I saw the bag I was amazed because poking out the top was an identical box. Dad came in and had a chat, then he had to leave (always great seeing him), and then once he had left I was able to embrace what had happened. I was a hypocrite, there was me about to lecture on how we should respond to the Holy Spirit like they do in Acts - and I had suppressed that "God guiding" voice.


I gave the full box to Jon to eat, and he was surprised. In the evening (I woke up at 1am to a text) he was still working, but that box with its sugary content had helped keep him up. Furthermore, Rowntree's 'pick and mix' are his favourite sweet and he used to buy them all the time. I did not follow God's will because the nudge felt too small, and too strange. Why would the creator of the world use fruit gums? I disobeyed because it was easy to do so. I know God guides, but I didn't "practice what I preach". Fortunately, God has grace. He showed me the end, how he would have provided if I'd've had a little faith in his nudges, and the sweets got to Jon. Praise God that he uses us, even when our faith is weak or we don't recognise him. We can trust God, so let us all learn to recognise his voice, and respond in faith knowing that he knows all things, and is good.

Update:

Since starting this blog I became a Counsellor. You can read more on blog on subjects like Therapy at:

 www.simonslistening.co.uk