I’ve been thinking recently about dates and anniversaries. September/October time is a period in which I celebrate a number of key milestones. Here are a few key things which happened to me around this time of year. Milestone #1: Meeting my first love (24 years) My first milestone takes me back 24 years. Around this time of year 1993 (5th September to be exact) I first committed my life to following Jesus. I was 14 years old at the time…
“All we need is love” so we are told but why is our experience of love such a contrast to the unfailing love of God?
I survived Three Peaks Challenge #4: I reflect on the experience, on the journey and what it takes to make it through all that life brings our way…
Following a work conference this past weekend we returned to Southampton and five minutes from home filled our car up with petrol ahead of the week ahead. I filled up the tank, paid for the petrol, headed home and thought nothing more of it to be honest. Today was our day off and we pottered around Southampton with the usual array of school drop offs and collections. However towards the end of the day there was a distinct smell of…
Recently I’ve been thinking a lot about mountains. Hardly surprising given that I have spent the past two weeks amongst the mountains at Loch Lomond and the Lake District! Mountains are hard to miss. By nature they are big and they impact everything around them. They are places people go for solace, peace, recreation and even for refuge or to hideaway. Over the past twenty years, basically ever since I met Debbie, mountains have been something of a draw for me. As a child…
While hope is rooted in our expectation of the future there is also an everyday reality that impacts upon us in the here and now. Otherwise whilst we might cling with everything we have to our hope for eternity, we might at the same time feel somewhat hopeless here in the present. If Hope is primarily based upon the promises of God we must recognise that God’s promises are grounded both in the present and the future. God wants us to…
Over the last couple of years the theme of ‘seasons’ has been one I (Debbie) keep coming back to in my thinking. The rhythm of life is dictated by the idea of seasons, both in the calendar sense and in terms of phases of life and activity that make up each day, week and month. The Bible is full of examples of seasons. For example, Adam and Eve lived in the Garden of Eden for a season, before they sinned…
During the past few years when I have reflected on hope it has often been through the lens of suffering. When times have been tough my hope in Jesus Christ has inspired me to persevere (1 Thess 1:3). From that hope has sprung the faith and love (Col 1:3-6a) to deal with all that life brings. We trust that we are now moving into a different season of life, not devoid of struggle but somewhat freer of the kind of…
So its been quite a while since I last posted anything here! We’ve been in Norway (4 weeks), the Lake District (8 days) and my wife Debbie recently spent some more time in the Mother & Baby Unit. Suffice to say that we are now moving into a somewhat calmer season of our year and so as life starts to find the rhythm of its new norm I thought I would post some of my thoughts from the summer. In particular I…
I’m conscious that time is ticking on and once again its been a while! In fact its been such a long while that we find ourselves on the cusp of yet another Norwegian adventure which jets off on Thursday morning. Since the arrival of young Aaron we seem to have had a really busy few months and even though the student ministry term finished at the beginning of June this past month has been exceptionally full. A full life is not necessarily a…