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The Other Ones.

How often have we got involved in a project or church work and only to be left out when it came to everyone getting their praise and thanks. Actually, it happens to us all more often than we think. We contribute something to help someone else along the way and then we find that people don’t even remember our names or what it was we actually did. There have been many projects that I have been involved in some small way or other and when it came to the completion of the project everyone else went off for their cups of tea and hand-shaking while other people were left to tidy up afterwards. But I have also found myself involved in projects that I didn’t really like or enjoy and my contribution was minimal and I only did what was asked of me. So I was glad to see everyone else move along and enjoy what they were doing. This thought came to me recently when I was listening to a study in Matthew’s Gospel. It is the account where Jesus told two of His disciples to go into the town and bri...

That Sunday Night Feeling.

Sunday nights at my childhood home were always a strange time for me. I don’t quite know the words to express my feelings of those times but I can only describe them as having “a sense of an ending”. The weekend was all but over, but it was not quite ended. Mum had made a lovely Sunday dinner, all of the weekend activities had ceased, and the family were all sitting watching television. There was no more time left to do anything that could be considered a weekend activity. All the preparations for the week ahead had been completed – work stuff, school stuff, home stuff. And there was nothing left to do but sit and watch television. Or read. Or play games. Too early to go to bed. Too late to go outside. Children’s television programs had finished for the day. We were into adult viewing time now. And the children sat together and carried out their various activities. These feelings were compounded in winter time by the darkness outside. We were indoors in the warmth. And having fin...

The New Suit.

I bought a new suit this week. I’ve been looking around a few clothing shops and decided to try one popular clothing shop that has been in the city for decades. However, either nothing fitted or I just didn’t feel comfortable in them. One jacket that I tried on didn’t quite meet in middle so that it couldn’t be buttoned. “Would you really want the jacket to button?” the shop worker asked me. I didn’t even answer his question and decided to try other shops. I went and tried another shop were the gentleman behind the counter was well advanced in years and had all the experience of dealing with customers of all shapes and sizes. “I’d like to try on a new suit please”, I said. He looked at me with a glint in his eye and said “Certainly sir. Would you prefer the mahogany or oak?” I knew what he meant and just laughed. With that knowing smile he just turned, went to his clothing rail and lifted down a jacket. “Try this one for starters, Sir” he said. It fitted perfectly. The only thing that ...

The Scars.

I used to have a scar on my leg. It has faded now, but when I was younger it was quite visible. Especially in the sunshine when I got a little bit of suntan on my legs. The wound would glow an angry red colour. I remember exactly how I got it. I was taking part in a competition with a youth organisation and the section that I was in involved walking through some barbed wire. I slipped on wet ground and fell right into the middle of the wire and made a 5 inch gash in my leg. I was taken to the medical van nearby where a doctor recommended that I have it stitches inserted to close the wound. But I refused to have them. You see, I remember another time at a very early age where I received a nasty wound that needed stitches and I remembered the pain and the crying that came with the stitches. I didn’t want to feel that pain again. And so, I refused the treatment. The wound took a bit longer to heal, but I survived. I don’t believe that I was afraid of getting stitches for I have been throu...

The Tomb.

Revolutions are seldom good. I have found in my readings of some of them that the people who were involved at the start, with a call for an uprising, have seldom had any thoughts or ideas of an end-plan. There would be the fighting, the patriotism, the deaths and the suffering. And then there will be a political and social vacuum for some opportunist leader to come and try to take over and form a new rulership for a social movement or country. But things would never be the same after that. And yet, revolutions are all the same at their core. They start with a national and patriotic outcry, then a lot of bloodletting and fighting. And then, if the revolutionaries lose they will be put down, or else if the revolutionaries win they will all stand and look at each other and wonder what to do next. Well, these were my uneducated thoughts as I recently sat in the Musée de l'Armée (The Army Museum), in Paris, France looking at the final resting place of Napoleon Bonaparte. It was a very p...

When God’s Work Becomes An Idol.

It has happened to me a couple of times. My work for God became an idol to me. It so easily happened and I didn’t even notice it had happened until something made me stop and take a look around at what I was doing. And it can happen so easily to anyone else, too. You see, I became so involved in what I was doing that I forgot about the person that I was doing it for. Whether it was driving a bus, teaching some group or other, or whatever the reason, I had forgotten that the main reason for my doing it was to worship Jesus. And I see it happening to others all around me also. People get involved in music ministry and they become so engrossed in the music, the sound, and the instruments that somehow the central person of their worship gets side-lined. And it can happen to pastors, preachers, ministers, caretakers, drivers and choir singers too. They can become so engrossed in their various ministries that they forget about Jesus, and their mind becomes focused in whichever activity...

The One Tree.

It’s that time of year again when those of us who have gardens are outside mowing our lawns, trimming our hedges and thinking of the flowers and shrubs. And it is no different in our household. The lawns have been trimmed and overgrowing hedges cut back. But this year we decided to also do some much needed maintenance that hadn’t been done in a couple of years. So, off we went to get some super-strength disinfectant for our driveways and out came the power washer. And a few weekends was spent caring for the driveways, patios and pathways. But during the course of our tasks we noticed a little shrub that was almost dead. It was an Acer tree and it had been a lovely coloured bush in years gone by. But now there were no blooms on it and the little wooden container that it was in was totally rotted away. My wife thought about discarding it but I wanted it keep so that we could replant it and give it another chance. So we found a new pot, added some new soil and put the shrub into it. If ...

What If...........???.

Life throws so many unexpected experiences at us. I remember once saying to some friends that if someone sat us down on our eighteenth birthday and showed us a movie of how our lives were going to work out, then each one of us would all chose to live our lives very differently. But the reality is that God’s marvellous will and destiny is worked out through our own life mistakes and achievements whether we recognise it, or not. The problems we have with “life decisions” are that, firstly, we are never allowed to know what an outcome would have been if we had chosen a different decision. And secondly, we are not allowed to know what God’s alternatives are when we are considering His work within us. God never ever shows us the “what ifs”. Certainly, we can make educated guesses about daily scenarios and decisions. But when it comes to God’s will for our lives He doesn’t show us everything at once. His will is revealed one step at a time. And even then,  we can only really see it ...

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