At our connect group this week, we were talking about what we like to have for breakfast! Small talk before diving into Isaiah and, when you’re studying Isaiah, light chat is needed, right?

It was so interesting how different we are! Some liked soggy cereal, others, crunchy, some put water and milk on their cereal, others didn’t have breakfast – one person, who shall remain nameless (haha!)  admitted to having a chocolate bar for breakfast that morning. Yummy! Shredded wheat was a hit with one or two whereas others said it tasted like cardboard!

Diverse cereal choices from a group of 8 women!

I’d already kind of decided where my blog would go this week and this chat helped me.

Cereal choices don’t matter when it comes to life in the Kingdom – when we quote the scripture – ‘Acknowledge Him in all your ways and He will direct your paths’ I don’t think God is really interested in what cereal you eat, although He would be if what we’re eating is doing our body damage, but that’s another blog!

What does matter though is what kind of character we are. This does matter, really.

When I did my BA in theology, one of the discussions we had was what was most important in the life of a leader. The lecturer put a list of qualities (all important) on the board, one of which was ‘charisma’ and another was ‘character’. There were others, but these are the two that I remember because I was the only student who put character above charisma which was quite alarming. Charisma is important, for sure, but it is possible to have charisma without character which is never a good mix!

The question I want to pose today is, are you a ‘cactus plant’ or an ‘aloe vera’ plant? No offence to the real cactus plants! I don’t think they need any explanation, but just in case! – Cacti are spikey and you can’t get close to them without getting hurt, Aloe Vera is a miracle plant that can heal many things!

We are living in a world where confusion is reigning in so many areas – Covid; vaccinations; parties; Gender; wars; government; police; church; it seems to me like confusion is shouting so loud right now especially into the younger generation. And, if ever there was a time for truth to scream the loudest, it’s now! We have the truth. We have light. We have boundaries which I think most people want and need. Confusion is blurry, there are no lines where confusion is.

I once worked in a school as the receptionist and many teachers used to check with me what the mood of another staff member was before they would go into that office! If it was a bad mood, they would avoid her!

Back in the day (think Pride and Prejudice) society knew what was what, I’m sure the ‘rules’ were broken, but by and large everyone knew, for example, the rules of courtship, there were procedures to follow – there was a waiting and a patience before the wedding day that was magical, that final kiss between Mr Darcy and Elizabeth Bennett! (If you know, you know!) was so special because for those who’ve watched it, watched their journey from their first frosty meeting to the church on their wedding day.

It would be ridiculous to think that we would ever go back to the upstairs, downstairs kind of world, but the way I see it, the more that we have moved away from the Genesis mandate, (Genesis 2:24) the more confusing this world has become. Take a moment to think about what wouldn’t be in our world if we’d stuck to it. Here’s two things to set you off – pornography and human trafficking – the absence of just those two things would be transforming for the world wouldn’t they?

Back to the plants! IF we want to change the world around us, Christians have a responsibility to be Aloe Vera not cacti. Can you change your plant species? If you want to, yes you can! Pray and ask a friend to point out any ‘cactus spikes’ that might be in you.

Until next time

D xx

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

We’ve all heard the question and maybe asked it, ‘Does my bum look big in this?’ Any man worth his salt would tell you the truth at this point, but the problem is whether or not the truth is really wanted! When a question like that is asked, the question bearer has to seriously ask ‘do I want the truth or am I looking for a compliment even if it’s not the truth?’

The Bible says, ‘Speaking the truth in love, we will grow up in all things’ (Eph 4:15)
Having the truth told to you is no easy thing – no-one wants their weak points pointed out because it’s an intrusion into areas of life that can be sensitive. Body odour, bad breath, sharp tongue, lack of patience, to name just a few! Who wants to broach such subjects? You are likely to suffer backlash and you may even lose a friend either permanently or for a time…. Speaking the truth can be risky business! BUT if we want to grow up in ALL things, we need someone in our lives who will be bold enough to tell us the truth whatever the reaction. If we want to be the best we can be, then we have to realise that there are things in our lives called blind spots – things that everyone else can see, and we can’t, hence the reason they are called blind spots!

So, here is the question: Who tells you the truth? Have you got anyone? Or, did someone try it once but, because of your reaction, backed off and has never done it since! Have you got someone in your life who is ‘allowed’ to tell you stuff that may sting a little but, if they are right, and if you will listen and take it on board, then you take a step closer to being a better person.

It must be stressed that the person who tells you the truth must be a person who loves you and also wants the best for you. It CANNOT be a person who just wants to be mean and continually point out your faults! Who wants that?

Everyone needs a coach – their job is to help you get good things into your life and bad things out! If you haven’t got one, get one!

And, if you’re not sure you want the truth, think twice before you ask, ‘does my bum look big in this!’

Feel free to share! Until next time, D x

I’m no gardener and my knowledge of anything to do with the garden is limited to say the least, but what I do know is, the ground in which one plants, is very important.

One of the stories that Jesus told his listeners was about seeds and ground. If you want to read it in the Bible, you will find it in Matthew (New Testament) chapter 13 verses 1-9. Picture this, Jesus came out of his house and sat beside the sea, beautiful. He didn’t need a pulpit, a whiteboard, a powerpoint, a mic – he simply sat beside the sea to talk to the people.

The story goes, a sower went out to sow seed, some of the seed fell along the path and the birds came and devoured the seed; some fell on rocky ground where it didn’t have much soil, so the seed sprang up very quickly, but because there wasn’t much soil, when the sun rose, it withered the plants because they had no root; other seed fell amongst thorns but the thorns grew and strangled the plants; finally, some seed fell on good soil and produced grain, a 100, 60 and 30 fold.

What was Jesus on about? Thankfully, he gives the explanation a little further on in the chapter – verses 18-23.

The seed is the Word of the Kingdom, i.e. what God is saying to people. The path represents people who don’t understand that word and the birds represent the evil one who steals the word from the hearts of said path! Rocky ground is people who receive the Kingdom words straight away with joy, yet they have no root so when life gets tough, they walk away from the very words that gave them life. The thorns are those who get overwhelmed by the cares of the world and their life is un-fruitful and the good soil are those who hear the word, understand it and bear fruit.

The question for all of us this week then is, how’s your ground? How would you describe yourself today? Pathy, rocky, thorny or goody?Are you confused? Do you have no roots? Are you overwhelmed by the cares of the world? Or is your ground, watered and ready to receive Kingdom words?

If you need a shift of ground and that could be something like listening to different voices or forgiving someone that’s hurt you or letting go of bitterness and anxiety or getting back into community with your church family. A whole host of things could be stopping you from leading a fruitful life, but I’m confident that if we’re prepared to get the gardening gloves on, get the rake and the hoe and go to work on our ground, things will turn around.

In a world where lies are being exposed almost hourly, let’s celebrate, that as followers of Christ, we have access to the one and ONLY truth and it behoves us to make our garden good and ready to receive the Words of the Kingdom and to make sure that those words go deep down and form roots that cannot be shaken.

Happy gardening!

D x

One of my favourite parables (stories that Jesus told) is the one about two builders of houses. It’s believed by scholars that the two houses were next to each other and were affected by the same storm. If this is correct, then it makes the illustration even more powerful when you transfer it to the days in which we are living in right now.

It’s fair to say that leading a church through the last 2 years has been very challenging.

March 2020 brought the first lock down – the good one as I heard it once described and totally understood that description. Everyone went with it, no one really knew what was happening. Peoples’ lives changed practically overnight. Everything and everyone went on line. Schools, churches, keep fit classes and so on. We were told to stay at home. Wow. Hard to believe we lived through that – but we did.

Fear was launched at our nation and, indeed the world. The media, scientists, politicians bombarded us with graphs, facts, figures and predictions that were enough to send us all into retreat and ‘stop the world, we want to get off’ mode. Whatever your thoughts on what’s been going on, there is no doubt now that so much of it has been false data, even today I read of a doctor in America who has admitted he himself falsified data. The Why is yet unknown, but I’m sure it will be uncovered either in a movie (haha) or when we get to heaven! Either way, the truth will come out. I have much compassion for those who have lost their lives because of Covid and I include in those, people who have lost jobs, businesses, the mental health issues, the children who weren’t in school and so were missed by social services and were brutally killed, those who have died because of missed cancer diagnosis and the list goes on. There have and will continue to be many lives affected negatively because of Covid 19 and not just the disease.

There’s a lot of work to do and the church has a good chance of helping, but the church can only help from a position of strength. If the church is in retreat how can it advance the gospel? As soon as we were allowed, we were back in our church, gathering together, worshipping and hearing the Word of God together. Nothing can compare with that. Sadly, according to a Twitter poll by Andrew Wilson at the end of August 2021 asking Christians to guess how many of their congregations had returned to church was answered by 902 churches in the UK giving an overall average of about 55%. That’s tragic. Let’s hope it goes up in 2022. I don’t believe the devil was the instigator of the pandemic, but he’s not asleep and can only be rubbing his hands together at such stats! Come on church – we’re supposed to be the light of the world.

For those of us who are Christians, we have incredible access to the mind of Christ. From the start of the Covid crisis, John and I were determined to stand on the word of God as the ultimate truth, the only unchanging truth. I have no desire to leave this earth yet, but I said many times, for me personally, what’s the ‘worst’ that can happen, I die and wake up in paradise. That’s the believer’s reality. This earth is temporal. Don’t know if you ever meditate on heaven, but you should try it some time. If you know Jesus, one day you will live there for eternity. Wow.

So, what about now? What are you building on? Back to the story! There were two men, two houses , two foundations, one storm and two outcomes! The one built his house on sand – what could that look like for us today? Maybe building on unhealthy choices, guilt, un-forgiveness, bitterness, lack of prayer, Bible and church attendance or too much chocolate! 🙂 If you build your life on such things, when the storm comes you are going to struggle to keep your house up!

Build on THE ROCK – Prayer, Bible, Church attendance (this is vital for me – happy to talk further about it if you’d like to know why) good choices, forgiveness etc. When your storms come, your house will stand firm.

In the house building trade, of which I know nothing except to say, foundation building isn’t seen, it takes work, time and much digging down, but when the foundation is set, the houses go up quickly . It’s the same in our lives, build what can’t been seen in order to grow into what can be seen and that should be lights shining brightly in a world that has lost its way.

Love D x

It’s New Years Eve 2021 and it’s been 8 months since I last wrote a blog! I can hardly believe that! As my teachers, in days gone by, would have said ‘could do better!’ I would agree!

I love to write, but the business of life gets in the way, and I’m making a commitment to do more writing this year. You can hold me to account if you like!

The New Year usually sees us setting goals, planning things like holidays and maybe making a decision that this new year is going to be better than the one just gone. I don’t know who will read this so I don’t know what 2021 was like for you. At a guess, I can say, it was full of ups and downs, disappointments, joys, struggles and successes.

That’s life, right?

I imagine that almost every person is making a decision to eat better and move more, (why do we do it to ourselves??) We tell ourselves, ‘On Monday’ ‘After Christmas’ ‘after the holiday’ and so it goes on! To those of you who have this mastered, I salute you!

This year’s a nightmare though isn’t it? No-one wants to start anything on New Years day, so we’ll start on the 2nd, but hang on, there’s a bank holiday on the 3rd (whoever started anything on a bank holiday?) the 4th it is then! Hahahaha! We’re mad aren’t we!

In all seriousness though, whatever you choose to do for your health goals this year , if you need to, just remember to make small changes. Don’t start something that will overwhelm you by January 11th!

The more I go on and the more I hear about peoples’ lives, the more I come to realise that most, if not all, things are down to the choices that we make. If you want a better 2022, look in the mirror and start there. If you’re a Christian reading this, remember that you have the same spirit that raised Christ from the dead living in you!! We are powerful in Him. Don’t let anything negative hang around your life. It has no place there. We have the power to overcome every obstacle. I fully believe it.

Two new things for me this year are that I have just joined an orchestra! I played the oboe in secondary school, picked it up again last year and found a local orchestra. I’m really excited about this – disclaimer though, I haven’t been yet, but I’m hoping it’s going to be a great addition to my life and get me to meet people who don’t know what I know about Jesus yet!

I am also a minster in training!! (If you know me, you probably can’t believe that sentence!) it’s true and there is a story – of course there’s a story – I’ll write about it soon. I’m excited about 2022 and all that is in store. Above all, I want to get closer to Jesus, He is the only fully reliable truth out there. I will continue to build on the rock that is HIM and on THAT rock, I will be safe and secure in whatever comes in 2022!

Happy New year to you and yours!

D xx