4 OClock

When the clock strikes four it’s a signal that it is now time to carry out some jobs. There are cats, dogs and chooks to be fed. In the winter, wood needs to be collected and if there is washing on the line it has to be brought in. There is also an evening meal to be cooked.

There will always be those sorts of days when no one feels like getting up and doing all these duties. But duty calls all of us at some time or other. As I sit in front of my warm heater on a very cold autumn day, my enthusiasm for going outside is really lacking. Oh, how I would love to pass this buck.

Yet as I close the week, thinking about my grandfather, Robert Archibald Deans, and all those men who went off to war because they would not shirk their duty; I have to feel a little shame. Many of those men, who were called up for service, didn’t want to fight, they hated killing, they saw it as evil and still they did their duty! Yes, they marched into the battle, determined to make sure that the country that they called home would be a safe place for their families and their loved ones that weren’t even born yet. It was to be the war that would end all wars. I don’t know if they really believed that, I doubt it, but then maybe I’m just a little too cynical because I know that it didn’t deliver on that promise.

There is one other person who did not draw back from his duty and that was Jesus. He went to the cross because He loved us I have to wonder if Anzac Day and Easter are close together by some divine design.