King of Kings, Majesty, God of heaven living in me.
Those words from a heart-stirring praise song of a few years
ago are in my head today. I just want to praise and worship the one who is
above all, who has the words of eternal life, who gives me his comfort and his
strength and his courage today.
May the true King make himself known in new ways to us all
as we go through this day, these days. What would Jesus do? May we do the same.
June 14, 2025
I always wince when the needle goes in. Because a health
condition requires regular blood tests, I should be used to it. But I’m not. I
always wince.
But despite the wince, I am so grateful that I have the rare
(in this world) luxury of affordable health care. Free at the point of need.
Because of the NHS, I don’t need to languish beside the road, waiting for a
generous Samaritan to stop and help me.
I am so grateful to live in a country which prioritises help
for all over help for the few, for the entitled, for the wealthy. All over the
world, in some of the most surprising places, the poor and the marginalised
have no hope, no help.
May God bless the NHS today. May he bless administrators
with insight and common sense; may he encourage all the nurses, doctors and
other staff. Just as he fed the five thousand + from five loaves and two fish,
may Jesus stretch the money available, to enable shorter waiting lists and less
pressure on local GP surgeries.
‘Can we turn back now,’ Mary said softly. ‘I’m puffed.’
Our twice-weekly walks to the end of the road and back are
not happening as regularly, and when they do, she often tires before we reach
the road-end.
The Lord is calling each of us on, to follow him along the
path he has chosen which is just right for us. I need to keep fit for the walk,
reading and meditating and praising God daily. The path he calls me along is
not as straight and even as our little road. There are twists and turns, hills
and dips and valleys, challenges – some surprising, some expected. I don’t want
to flag, to give up, to turn round. I want to finish the race well.
No turning back.
So grateful that Jesus is with me always, even til the end
of the world.
No rain for over four weeks left the garden dry as dust.
Friable, though, not hard-caked. I slipped through some of the weeding with
ease. The plants growing in the wrong places were lifted out with a quick flick
of the hand trowel, carrying no soil on their roots. Perfect.
We had a day or two of intermittent rain. Still the soil
remained dry beneath a skim of damp earth. Still easy to weed.
More rain. A couple of downpours. Another hour of weeding,
this time amongst Don’s tatties. The weeds lifted easily enough but now they
brought with them a blob of earth.
It got me to thinking this morning. If I don’t soak in the
Word of God, in the presence of Jesus Christ, regularly, my roots in Him become
disengaged, less able to cling into the matrix of the Kingdom. My faith can
shrivel, even die.
Also, if I weed out the nefarious seeds of the enemy
quickly, he cannot take root and stunt my faith. But if I allow the wrong rainfall
to soak my thinking – the media, the news, gossip – my default thoughts and
reactions will reflect fear and doubt rather than trust and faith.
May I keep my spirit clean and weed-free, Lord, so that I
may really be refreshed daily in Jesus, able to grow and produce good fruit for
the many starving souls all around me.
I sat gazing out of an east-facing window in the early
morning. Rivers of light striped the clouds, which swirled in varying shades of
grey. One of the strings of light opened into a window, a porthole exposing the
bluest of skies beyond. The low-lying cloud rolled on but the circle of blue
remained, and I noticed that on a higher plane altogether there was a swipe of
white cloud which didn’t move, which stayed put far above.
I live on the level of the swirling rivers. Life happens. Even
when in a ‘river’ of plenty and joy, I am affected by the fast-moving darker situations
and events. It can be easy to be swept along and lose sight of what is true,
right, noble, good, pure, lovely and admirable, distracted by the aggressions,
lies, hatred and ugliness I see.
Usually I think of Jesus as the rock on which I stand, and
the vine in whom I abide, (or try to), but I also lift my eyes to the skies and
imagine him there as the unmoving swipe of purity high above, never changing,
always loving, always encouraging.
I am so grateful for the love of Jesus Christ, for his
sacrifice, his mercy and grace to me. The clouds have largely broken up and cleared
now, and I step out into my day. Have a blessed one.
The sun on my back, warm and welcome: I bent over to weed a
flower bed and plant some dahlias. Above me, a pair of swallows squabbled
noisily as they flitted round the nest they make annually in the apex of the
roof eaves. I’m assuming it was a quarrel as it was so loud and insistent, but
perhaps it was loving excitement over the coming brood to be laid in that nest.
We love the swallows that return every year. So tiny (yet
noisy…), such vibrant colours and the joy of watching them swoop in and out of
the garage and caper during the evening (probably feeding is a better
description of what they’re doing).
Consider the birds of the field, Jesus advises. They don’t
store up but depend on God’s daily provision for them.
We had another blessed re-connection yesterday, as a
now-grown son who we sponsored through Tear Fund found me on Facebook and got
in touch. What a delight. What a blessing, to know he is doing well, married
with family. It’s as though he migrated back here after twenty-two years to
renew this long-distance relationship. God is good.
I love the way God knits us together, across regions, across
generations, across cultures. May the Lord open our hearts today to receive all
the richness he has for us. May we live in utter dependence on his loving-kindness,
resting in his peace and not worrying about the future.
For thirteen weeks, my sister Judy and I had hitch-hiked our
way around Europe. It was 1970; she was 21 and I was 19. It wasn’t exactly ‘Race
across the World’, but in those days pre-mobile phones, pre-credit cards for
students, we were dependent on the cash we had with us in the form of traveller’s
cheques, and largely out of touch with our parents apart from the occasional
letter we picked up in poste restante in the American Express offices of big
cities.
Our bible was Arthur Frommer’s ‘Europe on $5 a day’, and
some days we managed it on even less. It was an amazing summer, but by the end
of our trip we would occasionally lock eyes and say, ‘It’ll be nice to get home
and let Dad take care of us.’
I’m so grateful for the amazing time we had and the
once-in-a-lifetime experiences from hitch-hiking, where we got to speak to the ‘locals’
in every country we visited. We met some fantastic people. We also took a
couple of lifts from some dodgy characters, and possibly came nearer to
disaster than we were aware. By the end of it all, we were tired.
There is something about the hug of a loving dad. The protection
and security he offers. A good dad will know what to do. We can lean in and be
safe.
That memory came to me this morning in church as we prayed.
I read too much news yesterday. Too much detail about nuclear war. Everything around
me felt uncertain and shaky. What to do to prepare for any eventuality?
Then Tony preached on Jeremiah 31. ‘The people who survive
the sword will find grace in the wilderness,’ ‘I have loved you with an
everlasting love.’ ‘There is hope for your future.’
Lean in. The Father has promised never to leave nor forsake
us; he gives grace in the wilderness, loving us with an everlasting love. Hope
for the future.
Now I get to go to the baptism of nine young people, eager
and ready to declare their love for and faith in the Lord Jesus Christ as their
Saviour. Hope for the future indeed.
