Forty Years – personal and political

Always interesting how God does things, and I guess pretty individually tailored too. Certainly for Gayle and I our personal lives and circumstances have often mirrored what we have focused on. The last two days have been historic with the sitting PM being ousted through a no-confidence vote. The first time such a motion has been ‘successful’.

I have reflected before the occasion when a professional banker sitting at her desk told us in no uncertain terms that we should forget any dream of seeing levels of corruption change. ‘This is how it is in Spain, and this is how it will always be.’ Really? Forty years ago Spain put in place the constitution that stands to this day. It marked some amazing changes from the Civil War and its aftermath, and many in public office did exceptionally well, but the levels of corruption have remained. Increasingly political problems are transmuted into legal issues. The constitution does stipulate that any referendum (as per Catalonia) is illegal, but the response to the situation has been to strongly police the situation rather than handle it with political mercy and dialogue. So we have set ourselves to pray into the constitution, and have been focused on that for some 3 years, and this has led us to push into prayer for the judiciary.

Back to signs and personal circumstances. Our apartment also is, more or less, 40 years old. Forty years on and the sewage pipe could no longer function. Crap is a fact of life, getting it flushed out is our task. Our entry to Madrid is (apparently) up a sewer pipe and against the flow. And yesterday, maybe the first signs that the sewer pipe is beginning to function. This is not about raising one political party above another, but of noting the signs. And what a sign we witnessed in January 2015 in fulfilment to the vision of the square filled with 100,000 people, the empty platform one end with the people waiting for the ‘word of the Lord’. That word was ‘tick tock, tick tock, the clock is ticking in Spain…’ Just a few days ago we returned from Prague and the symbol of the metronome on the hill where we began each day, the metronome that simply marks a rhythm but does not indicate that time has moved on, was very strong. We prayed for the clock to move forward, for there to be acceleration across Europe. We have certainly seen that! Just after we returned Gayle said ‘Thursday, we have to watch for a clear sign’. She thought the sign would be in Prague (and maybe it has been) but Thursday was historic here in Spain, a clear sign.

Will we see corruption out of Spain? Probably not. But I think all we need is to make sure the sewage pipe is functioning.