25 – Believe it or not

Believe it or not, it is exactly one year ago today that I contacted the GP surgery with my current condition. Believe it or not, I thought I had an infection. If you read my blog from the start of this series, you will find that it was just a wee bit more complicated. It…

7 – The Big Sea

For most of the first 20 years of my life I lived next to the Clyde, a beautiful river with stunning scenery around it. Where I was, the river was very wide and was for most of the time calm. Occasionally the wind would get up and the river would get a bit choppy and…

1 – Timing

I keep a personal journal. I don’t write in it every day, and sometimes I won’t write in it for weeks. When I do write, it is generally a thought that I’ve had after reading something in the Bible. It’s a useful thought, one that should change me and how I think and how I…

Faith(ful)

When Joshua was an old man, the Lord said to him, “You are growing old, and much land remains to be conquered. Half the tribe of Manasseh and the tribes of Reuben and Gad had already received their grants of land on the east side of the Jordan, for Moses, the servant of the Lord…

Putting on a brave face

The recent riots in England have been quite alarming, even just watching them on the TV. It must have been terrifying for those living nearby and especially for those who have been affected by them. One of the saddest parts for me was the furniture store which was burnt down. It was a quite unique building, housing a family firm with a history over 150 years. The photos of the building before the fire showed that the outside was really lovely, a building with real style. I have no idea what the inside was like, but I imagine that it was like most old shops – not quite right for today’s businesses.

Well, well! Will, will!

How big is your faith?
In our Celebrate Recovery programme, we have been talking quite a bit about faith and, to help people get a grasp of what Jesus said about faith (Matthew 17:20), we gave everyone a mustard seed. If we have faith that big, we can move a mountain. It has quite an impact when you do this – but I strongly recommend that you sellotape the mustard seed to a piece of paper – the last thing you want to happen is that they lose the mustard seed, because that is just a powerful anti-message that faith can be easily lost!

Stormy whether

Then Jesus got into the boat and started across the lake with his disciples. Suddenly, a fierce storm struck the lake, with waves breaking into the boat. But Jesus was sleeping. The disciples went and woke him up, shouting, “Lord, save us! We’re going to drown!” Jesus responded, “Why are you afraid? You have so little faith!” Then he got up and rebuked the wind and waves, and suddenly all was calm. (Matt 8:23-26, NLT)
I am very aware of the fact that the Bible is a living word that speaks into the situation that you find yourself in. So often I read a passage and it means something different or something more than it ever did before.
Sometimes, though, I think this is often the case because I don’t think deeply enough about it – I just scan read, just as I have always skimmed the passage in the past, and I miss something, or put something in that was never there. This passage in Matthew is one such story.

A sign of things to come

For most of my life IT has been a very prominent feature. Information Technology has improved exponentially during the last few years, and we can get the information we are looking for at the touch of a few buttons. But we get loads of information without pressing buttons. Just look around you – it’s everywhere! I don’t know how many signs there are in the UK. It must be a huge number. Everywhere you look there is one in front of you, probably more than one.
During World War 2, the UK Government removed all the road signs so that if the Germans invaded they would get lost – or it would at the least slow down their advance. Can you imagine the chaos that would happen if they did that now? If every sign suddenly disappeared, there would be total disaster. Think about it – all the road signs, street signs gone in an instant! It would be OK for the locals, but others would get lost in no time. There would be jams as cars go the wrong way up one-way streets, accidents as drivers go straight across without giving way. Just imagine the house numbers being removed from people’s homes – how would you find anyone?

Perfect sense

I have blogged before about perfection in Being Perfect and it is one area where I tend to get into disagreement with other Christians, even Pastors. Most people I talk to say that it is impossible to be perfect. Bearing in mind my own track record, I tend to agree with them. But – and it is an almighty but – we are told to be perfect by Jesus himself :
You must be perfect — just as your Father in heaven is perfect. (Matthew 5:48, TEV)
It doesn’t seem to matter what translation you use. I looked at 15 different versions, and all of them, with the sole exception of The Message, used the word “perfect”. In all of these translations, it wasn’t a request, it wasn’t a suggestion. It was a command.

Right, Mountain, out of the way!

A friend of mine will shortly set out on an amazing adventure – to climb Mount Kilimanjaro – to help raise funds for the charity Scottish Spina Bifida. I really admire him for that. It will take courage, strength and endurance. You can sponsor him if you would like to give him a wee bit more encouragement.
But I ask myself why he doesn’t just walk round it. After all, when we face problems in our lives, some of them look like mountains, and that’s often the easiest thing to do, isn’t it – walk round them? Sometimes we don’t even do that – we just stand there and look at them. They are huge! I’ll never get over it! Scientists say that Mount Everest is getting higher all the time. As we just stand and look at our problems, they get bigger too. Sometimes we can’t even see the top.

Oh me of little faith!

Christmas Day was a busy one, calling in at our first round of visits at 11 am and leaving the last one at 11 pm. I could say that it was all go, but I would be more accurate if I said it was all eat. By the time Libby and I got home, we were very full and very tired. Boxing Day had an emergency start as we nearly slept in (as we would have loved to do) and we barely made it to church on time. Our church is very lively and, even when I am sitting down, I can’t stop moving in time to the music. The result was that I was very tired by the time I got home. We both were, and we settled down to be truly lazy relaxed.

Can I help, Mr Cameron?

I was interested to read that Prime Minister, Mr Cameron, is going to spend £2million on measuring the happiness of the British people. Happiness, according to the dictionary is a state of well being and contentment.
I do not see a lot of contentment in the society in which we live at the moment. All our labour-saving devices and technological advances have maybe given some a better quality of life, but this does not necessarily mean a more contented life. In fact, I think the opposite is true in most cases.