Imagine sitting around a table with your extended family, or a group of friends, trying to work out a list of guidelines that will keep your relationships with one another healthy. What would you put first? What other things would you want on the list? What would you put on that list for when a…
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“Listen carefully: Unless a grain of wheat is buried in the ground, dead to the world, it is never any more than a grain of wheat. But if it is buried, it sprouts and reproduces itself many times over. In the same way, anyone who holds on to life just as it is destroys that…
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And (God) himself gave some to be apostles, some prophets, some evangelists, some pastors and teachers, equipping the saints for the work of ministry to build up the body of Christ. I’m not great at construction work. Many years ago, when I was embarking on my new life into adulthood, I took on a second…
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Here is another illustration from Isaiah to describe God’s comfort and hope. When life is crushing us, God provides for us, giving his power and energy to those of who are tired and week. We often try to bring our own strength and energy to our challenges. We know how this ends, with exhaustion,…
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There are two verses in Ephesians which remind us of the privilege we have in coming to God in prayer: Now all of us can come to the Father through the same Holy Spirit because of what Christ has done for us. (Ephesians 2:18 NLT) Because of Christ and our faith in him, we can…
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A friend of mine was telling me about ephermity. “Ephermi-what?” I asked. He admitted it was a word he had made up. It comes from ephemeral: fleeting, or not sticking around. A word that means the opposite to eternal. Ephermity is the idea that what we say, do or create doesn’t physically last. But I thought,…
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Before I built a wall, I’d ask to know What I was walling in or walling out And to whom I was like to give offence. Robert Frost, Mending Wall, 1914 Here is a deep truth, that walls are built to keep some things in and some things out, but how does one tell the…
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In the classic Aussie movie, The Castle, whenever Darryl Kerrigan receives a valued gift, he declares: “This is going straight to the pool room!” Along with trophies and photos of special moments, he was setting that item apart from everyday use. I remember as a child, we had a glass display cabinet with my mum’s…
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