Lent Blog 2021

  Matthew 4:8-10 Living Bible (TLB) 8  Next Satan took him to the peak of a very high mountain and showed him the nations of the world and all their glory.  9  “I’ll give it all to you,” he said, “if you will only kneel and worship me.” 10  “Get out of here, Satan,”  Jesus told him.  “The Scriptures say, ‘Worship only the Lord God. Obey only him.’” Have you ever wanted something so much that you feel you would do absolutely anything to get it?   A baby perhaps?   A relationship?  Revenge or payback?  A career?   Healing? Peace?  There is such a thing as ones heart's desire - we all have something or other at some point in our lives.... a deep yearning for something which is out of reach but possible, if only... if only.... if only we had more money, or more time, or different opportunities.   It's at these times and in these places in our lives that our enemy comes a calling.  You could have that thing you r...

 Today I found myself thinking about what Jesus says when someone comes to him and tells him his Mum is wanting a word with Him. He replied to him,  “Who is my mother, and who are my brothers?”     Pointing to his disciples, he said,  “Here are my mother and my brothers.     For whoever does the will of my Father in heaven is my brother and sister and mother.” (Matt 12: 48-50) I think we all understand that Jesus wasn't disrespecting His family or disowning them in any way, rather He was saying that His followers were as important to Him as His own flesh and blood and at that moment what He was teaching them took precedence over stopping for a family chat.  This past year has made us all think about our families in a way we probably never have before. Many of us have been separated from people we would normally see regularly. Christmas probably didn't pass muster last year. We have missed weddings, parties, newborn celebrations, birthday drin...

 I watched the interview that Prince Harry gave to James Corden yesterday.  I have to confess to being a fan of both men so a combination of the two on screen for ten minutes was a no brainer for me.   In Jan 2020 I had a prophetic word about Harry and Megan's decision to step away from the UK and the Royal family ( I'll post a link at the bottom for anyone interested. It's not long)  I wondered if God was going to have anything to say as I watched this new interview.   Harry seemed happy and relaxed.  He was open about his move to L.A and the reason he left ( toxic British Press response to him and Megan and a desire to protect her and Archie from that intrusion, plus concern for his own mental health)  He was clearly intimating that he had a close and loving ongoing relationship with the Queen and Prince Philip.  He was sitting on top of an open topped tourist bus for the first time in his life - ie in the UK that would have been unsaf...

 Yesterday we heard the news that a bird which everyone had thought had been extinct for 150 years was alive and well and living in the forests of Indonesia    https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2021/feb/25/black-browed-babbler-found-in-borneo-180-years-after-last-sighting By any standards this has to be good news.  We hear so much about the loss of species from the planet. but maybe this goes to prove that actually our animal friends are more resilient than we give them credit for.  It's always nice to find something which has been lost. Last night Keith was watching a film - Im not sure what it was but it was set during the American civil war and I just happened to glance at the screen when some music came on to see a man playing the bones in a band.  I'm not quite sure how I knew that he was playing the bones as Im pretty sure Ive never actually seen them being played in real life.  But I did grow up with a step-mother who played the washboard ...

 I was standing outside the MOT center yesterday ( it passed!) watching people coming and going with their cars - everyone in their face masks.  And I suddenly had a picture of God breathing into Adam to give him life.  I imagine that God breathed into Adam's mouth to inflate man's lungs with the breath of God.  I then remembered a day many years ago when I pulled a man out of the sea.  On a beautiful summer morning on the beach in Edinburgh he was floating face down in a few inches of water.  I knew it wasnt looking good.  As I turned him over it was clear he wasn't breathing.  For some reason the only thing I could think of to do was to pray.  It didn't really occur to me to breathe into to him - the police did that when they very quickly arrived on the scene.  I realised in that moment how terrifying it is to put your mouth over the mouth of someone who is dying ( or dead) and breathe into them. There is something very very special ab...

 I discovered last night that my car is due its MOT today !   To be fair, the DVLA had sent me a bit of paper telling me I needed a test, but Id looked at it and for some reason thought it wasn't due until the summer.  ( I know, why would they send me a reminder in February....? Doh )  There has been a lot of confusion here in N Ireland about MOT tests because two years ago most of the testing centers here were found to have faulty car ramps and they were all closed down. People were issued with exemption notices. Then Covid hit and they closed down again and more exemptions were issued.  My car is 4 years old and was due its first MOT in the middle of all of that so I got an exemption and to be honest I had no idea when my test was supposed to be until I logged onto a website and it told me that I had to be tested by 25th Feb.  Eeeeek.  There ensued a frantic online search round all the testing centers for miles around and only one had an appoint...

 For some reason today I feel that Im supposed to write something about fame.  As quite often happens when I sit down to write the blog I dont have much idea of what's going to develop as I put my fractured thoughts on the page.   Nobody makes themselves famous.  Even in today's world of Instagram influencers and celebrity culture, however hard people work at ' putting themselves out there' they only become famous by having a widespread public response or following.  And of course what we admire and follow varies from culture to culture and over time.  If I were to go back in time and tell my great grandparents that someone would become world famous for releasing a sex tape or putting a stuffed shark in a glass tank they would probably sigh in despair.   I think there are a couple of reasons why we make people famous.  Firstly we admire and are in awe of individuals who achieve amazing things.  Be it acts of selfless heroism, world ...

Today Im offering a visual meditation.  Just spend a few minutes looking at this image and see what jumps out at you. This is something I made during lockdown for a friend of mine who really knows what it is to have been rescued out of a pit.   The rock on which the person is standing is gold  ( doesnt photograph particularly well)  The scripture written round the top of the 'rock' is Psalm 40 v2-3 He also brought me up out of a horrible pit, Out of the miry clay, And set my feet upon a rock, And established my steps. He has put a new song in my mouth. Im just so glad that despite everything that has gone on this past year God is still in the business of not only rescuing us, but putting everything under our feet as we stand in Jesus.  

 Back to Jesus in the wilderness.  I've been thinking alot about this the past few days and today I had a thought I've not had before.  You probably have..... but I can be a bit slow on the uptake sometimes 😀 When we read the Bible, we are reading it from the perspective of knowing what happens next.  So we read that Jesus was led into the wilderness by the Holy Spirit to be tempted by the devil for forty days.  But did Jesus know that it was going to be for 40 days?  I suspect not.   Today I suddenly saw the similarities between Jesus going into the wilderness and Abraham taking Isaac up the mountain.  God said go.  He didnt say what was going to happen next.  Abraham trusted God in what by anybody's standards were impossibly stressful circumstances , and therefore was called His friend.  Jesus was His Son so trusted God so much more than Abraham did.  I think God said to Jesus ' I want you to go into the wilderness for ...

  I got out of the shower the other day and wrapped a towel around my wet hair. I then noticed a can of deodorant on the floor and bent down to pick it up but realised that I had no idea how far to reach out for it because one eye was covered in the towel.  My ability to judge depth and distance disappeared as I fumbled to pick up the can.  How odd.  I uncovered the hidden eye and immediately was able to see properly again. As I headed to my bedroom I heard the word ' perspective' and reckoned that God wanted to say something about the need for two eyes in order to see properly.  With one eye we can see everything that is there, we can see colours and shapes and plenty of people manage to live perfectly ' normally' when they only have sight in one eye.  But with two eyes we see better.  We can make better judgements. We can calculate distance and see things with depth and perspective. We can judge how close or how far away things are.  And having ...

 We landed a thing on Mars last night. Part of me marvels that we are so brilliant as to be able to make objects which can do that, and part of me despairs that we are spending gazillions and expending so much effort on space exploration when we can't seem to solve even the most basic problems here on Earth. People are looking for life on Mars. I'm pretty sure they aren't going to find it. But doubtless some things they do discover and the technology they have used to get there will at some point prove useful here on earth.  I spent all yesterday just thinking 'What's the point?'     Then last night I decided to ask God. 😁 A few thoughts came to mind.  1) God made the human mind limitlessly creative and undeniably questing. We are truly made in His image so we are destined to invent, explore, discover and work. 2) When we no longer believe or trust that what God has said in the Bible is true, we become masters of our own destinies. Which is terrifying and ...

 I dont know if any of you saw it but the past three days BBC4 has been showing a documentary about Benedictine monks.  The whole programme was filmed in silence.  No soundtrack, no music, no commentary - just the monks doing their everyday thing occasionally interspersed with some text explaining the Rule of St Benedict or who is on the screen doing what.  As the monks rarely speak it is an almost entirely silent programme.  ' A wise man is known by the fewness of his words' St Benedict.  Each evening a different monastery has been shown - and I have to confess to being surprised at how many monks we still have in the UK silently caring for huge and ancient monastic buildings, making honey and mead, painting icons, sewing surplices, making rosaries, attending eight services a day ( some in Latin, some in English depending on the monastery) and only eating meat on Sundays and holidays.   Almost as soon as I started watching it I was speaking silen...

 Over lock down my sleep pattern has been rubbish and I have found myself being awake into the wee small hours then sleeping till half nine (or eleven.) This doesn't seem to matter much and I've actually quite enjoyed letting my body find its natural rhythm. One of the downsides of being awake half the night is that there's not much to do except watch telly. ( I know, I know I could read mind improving books or intercede for world peace. But the bottom line is I'm in bed and there's a telly opposite me.) So I've surfed the late night shopping channels and landed on something called Naked and Afraid.  It does pretty much what it says on the tin. A man and a woman, total strangers, are abandoned in some wilderness or jungle with no clothes, no food, no water and are challenged to survive for 21 days before trekking to an extraction point.  All naked bits and pieces are pixellated for the sake of decency. I've become a bit hooked. It's interesting to see ho...