Earlier this year I was reading and reflecting on the story of Job in the mornings and I remember being quite surprised at how applicable it was to our situation. We have been through some tough times and the two year anniversary of James’ death at the weekend served as a timely reminder of the pressures and challenges we have been through. In the life of Job there is no indication that God ever explained to Job the reasons behind his…
Saturday (20th June 2015) marks the two year anniversary of the death of a friend, James Witham who was tragically killed in a hiking accident in Norway while taking part in one of our Summer programmes. Somehow a whole two years have flown by! As I did last year I have been taking some time to remember James and think back upon his life and the impact he had on those around him. James was a remarkable young man full of such…
On Friday Debs and I attended a “Quiet Day” which was hosted locally by an organisation called “Hope Weavers“. It was a great opportunity to get away from our day to day responsibilities and have some down time with the Lord. For the most part this was an opportunity to have sacred space, Debs did some creative things while I (who am infamously non-creative except when it comes to DIY) spent some time in the Bible thinking about Hope once…
At the end of my post The Potter’s right to transform the clay you may remember that I refereed to Isaiah 43:2 (written many years ago to God’s people Israel) to encourage us that even in the difficult situations, pressures and challenges that we face day by day we can be sure that God is with us in them. Isaiah 43:2 When you pass through the waters, I will be with you; and when you pass through the rivers, they will not sweep over you. When…
When you get your teeth into a subject like hope you find that it overlaps with a whole host of other topics and issues. In previous posts I have focused mainly upon the nature of our hope. In Rediscovering Hope we looked at some definitions of “hope” and sought to define and rediscover what we mean by the Biblical (opposed to secular) notion of “hope”. We then looked in Saying Goodbye to Student ministry? at how we tend to place our…
Yesterday was Jacob’s dedication and we had an excellent day. A number of family, friends and godparents joined us for the service at Above Bar Church and we dedicated Jacob to the Lord together. The service was followed by a BBQ lunch at home with family and godparents and then by Open House to which 60 friends (including kids) joined with us . Even the wet and damp weather improved in the afternoon to reveal warm sunshine. Why am I am…
Randy Alcorn in his book “Heaven” includes the following story: “In 1952, young Florence Chadwick stepped into the waters of the Pacific Ocean off Catalina Island, determined to swim to shore of mainland California. She’d already been the first woman to swim the English Channel both ways. The weather was foggy and hilly; she could hardly see the boats accompanying her. Still, she swam for fifteen hours. When she begged to be taken out of the water along the way,…
The past week or so I have been thinking a bit about Psalm 119 and was struck by the apparent connections between Hope and the promises of God. So for example the Psalmist writes 49 “Remember your word to your servant, for you have given me hope. 50 My comfort in my suffering is this: Your promise preserves my life.” Then repeatedly through the Psalm the Psalmist looks to God in hope to deliver him “according to His promise”; 58 I have sought your face with all…
“ ‘Go down to the potter’s house, and there I will give you my message.’ So I [Jeremiah] went down to the potter’s house, and I saw him working at the wheel. But the pot he was shaping from the clay was marred in his hands; so the potter formed it into another pot, shaping it as seemed best to him. Then the word of the Lord came to me. He said, ‘Can I not do with you, Israel, as this potter does?’…
I first encountered the Southampton Navigator student ministry in 1999 when I joined a weekly breakfast and Bible study group that met in the home of Gez & Alison Perry. Since then the ministry has been an increasing part of my life. In 2004 we were asked to start a Christianity Explored Group whilst a number of the other couples who were also involved with the ministry moved onto new initiatives or moved away. Hence the current student ministry grew out of that small…