Make contact

I guess when you’ve been fasting for a month, it is all about the food. Food and friendship, laughter and chatter. 

Of course most of it was in Arabic; after the two or three words we know we are a bit stuck. But the smiles and the welcome and the hospitality of these refugee folks who have lost everything was lovely.

It was pouring rain yesterday when we arrived for the Eid celebration. The hall had been double booked so everyone was traipsing up the street to the town hall carrying their trays of special food, pushing buggies and holding umbrellas and dodging puddles. Nothing quite like a Scottish summer. It must be so different from Iraq and Syria. 

But there were no complaints, nothing but happy smiles, children playing with balloons, and the food, which was different and delicious. The motto of our church’s youth fellowship is ‘make contact, make friends, make disciples’. 

We have made contact, and will press on to make friends. It is a privilege.

Let it shine!

The theme of light and darkness is more frequently taken up during the Christmas period than in springtime, but I just love the light here in the northeast of Scotland at this time of year. Particularly the late afternoon light, as the sun begins to head west and sends long golden rays to bathe us in a warm glow. 

Days are stretching out, like a bear waking from hibernation; nights are shorter. 

Every day we are inundated with news of further horrors and brutalities committed near and far. 

Darkness would appear to prevail but no, don’t you believe it. The light has come into the world – Jesus – and the darkness will never overcome it. We need to pray with hope in our hearts and faith in our powerful God. We need to keep our eyes on him and trust in his unfailing love. We need to walk close to him, know him better day by day, and learn to rest and refresh and renew ourselves in him.

It is a battle which is raging right now – not just the physical fighting going on in Syria and Iraq and Ukraine but the spiritual struggle between light and darkness, good and evil. 

Jesus vanquished evil on the cross. What he did was not just for us as individuals to live happily ever after with him; it was so that his Kingdom can come, and his will be done on earth as it is in heaven.

May that be the prayer on your lips and in your heart today as we press on and press in to God, totally dependent on him and filled with hope and expectation for the future. Those who walk in the darkness are desperate to see the light that shines from Jesus through his believers. Let it shine.

Cloud Cover

Thick clouds continue to blanket the northeast of Scotland, plunging the temperatures below a seasonal norm.

But it is not a seamless blanket of gloom, thankfully. In fact, as I write it is as if a cotton wool covering is being torn apart in various places and the sunshine is penetrating, warming the air and encouraging growth and cheerfulness down here on the land.

I love the sky here, because it is always different, always changing. And the silver lining in the cloud cover is that when it breaks near the position of the sun in the sky, shafts of golden light beam down as if from heaven itself. To me it is the glory of God reminding me that he is there still, he is always there, whether or not I see him, whether or not I feel like he's active in my life or even with me at all. His promises never fail, that he is with me always right up until the end; his promises don't depend on my feeling him near, they depend on the faithfulness of his character. He keeps his promises.

Some countries in the world seem to be under a heavy blanket of unbelief. Violence is never far away in many countries, often predicated on religious intolerance and extremist views. This afternoon I'm thinking of Iraq and Syria, especially, and the Sudan and Nigeria, places where cruelty and despotism are never far away. I pray that God will break through that blanket of hatred and intolerance and shine his glory down on those beleaguered nations, that he will reach down and save those innocent people who are just trying to live their lives and who have very few choices.

Let your glory fall, Lord Jesus, and penetrate and dissolve the clouds of evil intent which cover so many nations.