A Prayer For You: Who Are Grieving

Death, bereavement, loss – whatever the word we use to describe it, it hurts. For you it may be something recent, raw, a present reality that overwhelms the everyday. Or maybe your loss was some time ago and you have had to live on without them, meeting moments you should have met together, being places where they should have been, and you grieve both the one you have lost and the future you should have had together. 

Something is Dying… Something is Not Yet Born

As the son of a preacher my childhood Sundays were spent driving around the North Yorkshire Dales to cold chapels and warm kitchens. The smell of the hymnbooks, the wheezing of the harmonium, the sight of the tables spread with food, and the gentle earnestness and generous hospitality of the dales folk are still etched in my mind.  Today most of the chapels are closed. Only last week, I helped to move furniture from one that held its last service just a month ago. This caring Christian presence at the heart of every community is disappearing fast.

A Prayer For You: In Debt

In these uncertain times many of us are finding it much harder to pay our bills. For some this has been building for a while, along with the realisation that you cannot pay everyone and yet they all want paying. Today’s prayer is for you.

Father God, we are praying today because some of us are really struggling with our money situation and we need help. Many times we feel completely overwhelmed and helpless, angry and yet powerless to fix things…

‘Safe’ Or ‘Good’? A Lion, Fear, and Wisdom

What is more important to you, safety or goodness?
“Ooh!” said Susan… “Is he—quite safe? I shall feel rather nervous about meeting a lion.”
“Safe?” said Mr Beaver;… “Who said anything about safe? ‘Course he isn’t safe. But he’s good. He’s the King, I tell you.”
The idea that “good” might not be “safe”, and that “safe” is not automatically “good” comes as a surprise in today’s safety-conscious world, where safety has become synonymous with universal good. CS Lewis, however, had encountered the God of the Bible and used this experience to form the character of Aslan, the Lion-King of Narnia. The fact that so many children, and adults too, have been absorbed in, and enriched by the complex characters portrayed in his Narnian tales suggests that his characterisation describes a reality that resonates in human hearts and minds.
The writers of the bible, present us with a God who they are struggling to comprehend, let alone describe or interact with in a positive way.