16 February 2024

14 January 2024

17 December 2023

Broken?


Feeling broken? Flawed? Useless?

God could easily take away our failings, if he wanted to. Because we are broken, many believe that God does not value us as much and cannot use us.

This could not be further from the truth. 

God finds value in us and in our brokenness. God uses brokenness. He loves to use broken people to display his love and goodness. 

So I went down to the potter’s house, and I saw him working at the wheel. But the pot he was shaping from the clay was marred in his hands; so the potter formed it into another pot, shaping it as seemed best to him. Jeremiah 18:3-4, New International Version

4 December 2023

Unconditional Love


Here are the two greatest commandments: 
"Love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your strength and with all your mind" ... and
"Love your neighbour as yourself."
 

28 November 2023

Mission: Impossible?

 


Jesus replied, ‘What is impossible with man is possible with God.’ Luke 18:27

20 November 2023

You Are The God Who Sees Me


Our Father knows the number of hairs on our heads; He knows what we are going through; He counts our every tear. He knows every detail of our circumstances. 

27 October 2023

The Two Most Important Things


I've got a day off today. And even more surprisingly, I'm not trying to cram my non-working day with hundreds of little jobs so I can put off the most vital part of a non-working day. To sit and rest. Push that off button and reset myself.

I did a lot of those silly little jobs yesterday. Today is a sitting and blogging day. Tomorrow looks like it'll be another running around day. Oh well...

However, today is for blogging. Serious blogging. Spending an hour or two to put my thoughts down onto a computer screen. 

And, as I like to do when I blog, I take stock of where I am personally. Not just to upload the odd graphic, to keep the feed running. Something a lot deeper. 

I've done a lot of deconstructing recently. And stocktaking. Instead of mourning the activities I had to give up after lockdown, I've been re-prioritising. Adding certain things back into my calendar, keeping other things out. Stripping my life back to basics. 

And those basics, spiritually, I've got down to two things. Two Most Important Things.

The two most important things Jesus asked us to do was 

  1. to love God and 
  2. to love people. 

It sounds so simple, because it is - but it’s actually very difficult. 

Point 1 is Loving God with all of my heart, soul, and mind. This means letting go of my way of doing things. In many ways it has meant re-reading familiar readings and asking myself if I have truly understood what is being said. And in many cases it has meant asking Jesus for a fresh understanding of His teaching. 

Point 2 is Loving people - which means loving them exactly as they are. It’s particularly easy to love lovely people. God asks us to love all kinds of people. Which means I have to constantly check my motivations, my thoughts, my words.

36 ‘Teacher, which is the greatest commandment in the Law?’37 Jesus replied: ‘“Love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your mind.” 38 This is the first and greatest commandment. 39 And the second is like it: “Love your neighbour as yourself.” 40 All the Law and the Prophets hang on these two commandments.’

Matthew 22:36-40, New International Version - UK

13 October 2023

Let Me Be Patient ...


Selected lyrics from "Tell Him", a song by Lauryn Hill. Songwriter: Andy Colline

 

11 September 2023

Do Not Worry

 


22 Then Jesus said to his disciples: ‘Therefore I tell you, do not worry about your life, what you will eat; or about your body, what you will wear. 23 For life is more than food, and the body more than clothes. 24 Consider the ravens: they do not sow or reap, they have no storeroom or barn; yet God feeds them. And how much more valuable you are than birds! 25 Who of you by worrying can add a single hour to your life? 26 Since you cannot do this very little thing, why do you worry about the rest?

Luke 12: 22-25 (NIV)