Goblins and the Call

After 4 years of pastoral ministry, I have despaired as I have watch people travel into dark places. Places that seem to have have no way out. At times it is easy to stop trusting God, because if God was so 'faithful and true' then surely he would never have led me into this dark and unexplainable place. The call to follow Jesus can be difficult and at times it will leave us wondering if he really is in control.

Tim Keller, wrote the following in his latest book, 'King's Cross'. It has given me a metaphor for following the call of Jesus into dark places:

About 150 years ago George MacDonald wrote a children's book called 'The Princess and the Goblin.' Irene, the protagonist, is eight years old. She has found an attic room in her house, and every so often her fairy grandmother appears there. When Irene goes to look for her she's often not there, so one day grandmother gives her a ring with a thread tied to it, leading to a little ball of thread. She explains that she'll keep the ball.

"But I can't see it,", says Irene.

"No. The Thread is too fine for you too see it. You can only feel it." With this reassurance, Irene tests the thread.

"Now, listen," says the grandmother, "if you ever find yourself in danger... you must take off the ring and put it under the pillow of your bed. Then you must lay forefinger...upon the thread, and follow the thread wherever it leads you."

"Oh, how delightful! It will lead me to you, Grandmother, I know!"

"Yes," said the grandmother, "but, remember, it may seem to you a very roundabout way indeed, and you must not doubt the thread. Of one thing you may be sure, that while you hold it, I hold it too." A few days later Irene is in bed, and gobblins get into the house. She hears them snarling out in the hallway, but she has the presence of mind to take off her ring and put it under the pillow. And she begins to feel the thread, knowing that it's going to take her to her grandmother and to safety. But to her dismay, it takes her outside, and she realizes that it's taking her right toward the cave of the gobblins.

Inside the cave, the thread leads her up to a great heap of stones, a dead end. "The thought struck her, that at least she could follow the thread backwards, and thus get out.... But the instant she tried to feel backwards, it vanished from her touch." The grandmother's thread only worked forward, but forward it led into the a heap of stones. Irene "burst into a wailing cry," but after crying she realizes that the only way to follow the thread is to tear down the wall of stones. She begins tearing it down, stone by stone, Though her fingers are soon bleeding, she pulls and pulls.

Suddenly she hears a voice. It's her friend Curdie, who has been trapped in the gobblins cave! Curdie is astounded and asks, "Why, however did you come here?"

Irene replies that her grandmother sent her, "and I think I've found out why."

After Irene has followed the thread and removed enough rocks to create an opening, Curdie starts to climb out of the cave - but Irene keeps going deeper into the cave. Curdie objects: "Where are you going there? That's not the way out. That's where I couldn't get out."

"I know that," says Irene. But this is the way my thread goes, and I must follow it." And indeed the thread proves trustworthy, because her grandmother is trustworthy.

Following the call of Jesus is like following the grandmother's thread. Although we may never understand why the call leads us into dark and unexplainable places, although we may feel confused and frightened, we follow because the one at the end of the call is 'faithful and true.'

Psalm 37 vv 23 - 24 reads, "The LORD makes firm the steps of those who delight in him; though they stumble, they will not fall, for the LORD upholds them with his hand."