Risks!

Now the gritter comes!

Mary and I had to abort our walk this morning as the white ice on the road underfoot threatened to bring us down. We’re cautious about risking our bones.

The gritter has just roared up the road, spreading salt and grit and preventing, hopefully, any unexpected slips. But we’ve now moved on into our days. Opportunity gone.

Been thinking about living on the edge for Jesus. Taking risks. I don’t want to sink into a comfy chair and be content while there are still things I can do to help others. I don’t want to look back and think, opportunity gone.

My prayer today is to have my eyes open to see the risks Jesus is calling me to take, trusting that he is the grit that keeps me safe. And to have the courage and strength to step out.

Bridge Building

Gales closed the bridge to high-sided vehicles. I was driving an ordinary car, but the buffeting it took as we crossed the Tay was slightly alarming. Ever since an accident in front of us nearly resulted in our car soaring off the San Francisco Bay Bridge, I’ve had misgivings about the safety of bridges.

I once explained to school kids that Jesus is a bridge, a bridge between us human beings and our holy Father. The Jesus Bridge is wholly reliable, though, and there is never any danger of anyone soaring off into the atmosphere.

The current Pope declared recently that Christians should be bridge-builders, not wall-builders. When we build bridges between people, we are part of Christ’s workforce.

May we all build bridges today, whether in action or in fervent prayer. Both are powerful. And we can trust that when Jesus is the foreman, the bridges we build will be safe.

Going forward

Driving back from Glasgow after dark last night, I became scarily aware that my low beams didn’t seem to throw their light as far forward as usual. That left me, especially when overtaking lorries, feeling as if I were speeding into the darkness without sufficient vision. I found the button which raises the light and though its scope is still more limited than high beams, it felt much safer.

God’s word is a lamp to my feet (and tires), but I have to invest some time in reading it if it’s going to give me any security going forward. He doesn’t tell me the end from the beginning, though he knows it, but he does give me enough light for safe navigation. Too much self-absorption can lower the beam and limit the vision.

Just out of the prayer window, where I was raising the beam. Hope to move forward with confidence today.

Security

I will never leave you, Jesus promised. I’m there through it all, carrying you, supporting you, weeping with you, loving you.

Love the juxtaposition here of the NYPD security camera assurance in the foreground, and the traditional church standing behind. Who makes you feel more secure, safer?

Skype and the Lost Herd

I panicked.

A notification had flashed onto the Skype window during a conversation, advising me that I had just four more minutes until my subscription ran out. I didn’t even know I had a subscription. Alarmed, I finished the call and started searching everywhere for a clue and when none appeared, I thought I must need to change payment methods. Having done that, I then began to entertain doubts – doubts that the notification was legitimate, fears that some sort of scam was going on which would end badly for me. 

But then life interfered before I could do anything about it. A B&B guest arrived. A phone call came that Don would be back in 20 minutes with our sick friend who needed dinner between hospital visits. I was cooking a big trout and had no confidence that I knew what I was doing. I was struggling to sort out some other online issues.

Later, as the house grew silent and the clock ticked forward towards midnight, I waited in a queue to have an online chat with a technician who could reassure me. After an hour I was in touch with someone but within five minutes she had disconnected me (intentionally?) and I was back into another hour-long queue. Well, never mind, all’s well that ends well and the verdict was that the notification was legitimate. No scammers. This time.

We live in a fallen world full of pitfalls, some real and some imagined. Technology has only heightened the possibilities of getting into trouble, falling victim to some heartless predator. It can panic us into action as alarm bells clang and we race off down what may be a wrong road.

And then I read this. ‘See, the Sovereign Lord comes with power, and his arm rules for him. See, his reward is with him, and his recompense accompanies him. He tends his flock like a shepherd: He gathers the lambs in his arms and carries them close to his heart; he gently leads those that have young.’ (Isaiah chapter 40) 

What a comfort to be in God’s flock. The other morning I found the road full of most of a herd of cows and their calves and one great big bull, headed purposefully along the lane. I couldn’t see a farmer in charge and in fact it turned out there was no farmer in charge. Somehow the gates had swung open and the herd had moved through them. Without their farmer coming out and rounding them up, they would have been lost.

Without my God rounding his people, including me, up, I am lost. Without the reassurance of his care for me, I would often be in despair. I am so grateful for a powerful, loving God in whom rests all my hope and faith.

Happy New Year

The name of the Lord is a strong tower. The godly run into it and they are safe. Lines from a psalm – psalm 18, repeated in a popular worship song about ten or more years ago. 

As we prepare to go into another new year, 2014 – my goodness, is that possible?? – I am preparing myself today. I am asking God to help me be more deliberate and disciplined with my use of that resource we all have the same amount of – time. 

It is so easy to squander time. Benjamin Franklin wrote, ‘Do not squander time, for that is the thing life is made of.’ Yet it is so easy for it to be frittered away, nibbled by social media sites, by surfing on line, by television or mindless magazines, by gossiping in unhelpful ways. 

I want to claw back control of my time during 2014, but I feel pretty powerless to do it. The monster that eats most of my time is just plain work. Work around the house, in the garden, with the laundry, etc. So discipline is required, and for that, I need the help of the Lord.

His name is a strong tower. I plan to hunker down inside that strong tower, and reclaim control of my life, and the time he has granted me.

Happy new year!