I’ve fished out my fishing rod for the holiday break. Last time I used it, I didn’t catch a thing. A few bites, but nothing hooked. And I didn’t mind a bit. Just to stand on the beach with my toes in the water, sun on my back, no-one for miles, was welcome and enough. In fact, to have caught something would have been an inconvenience. I would, of course, have accepted the offering, and duly heated up the frying pan, but there’s effort in having to do all that.

I’ve met some people who take that same approach in their ‘search’ for God. They’re just happy to stand in the pew, feel warm songs on their backs and company on either side, to participate respectfully and courteously, but neither expecting, nor really wanting, God to turn up. What if he did! That would be inconvenient.

C S Lewis spent most of his life trying hard not to catch God, but in the end was landed beautifully. “There comes a moment when the children who have been playing burglars hush suddenly: was that a real footstep in the hall? There comes a moment when people who have been dabbling in religion suddenly draw back. Supposing we really found him? We never meant it come to that! Worse still, supposing he found us?” Ha! Wouldn’t that be a great surprise this Christmastime! For God to show up, not just as he once did in sleepy Bethlehem, but in the little town of Sydneyville.