Archives: February2009

• lent 3

  Lent in some senses is like a plunge into a thicket; a sustained time in a wilderness place. We visit this place in these days without leaving our busy lives. We can give back to God, for all His grace, in the grind and grey of our ordinary days. We choose to give and know Him more; because intentional time with Jesus is always rewarding. The Lenten walk increases this….. This journey to Easter can be a time when we [...]

• lent 2

  One of my commitments this lent is to trace God’s ways in these forty days. So often we get stuck in the eternal-conundrum with our God-life! He loves me; He loves me not!? We don’t need to be wobbled one bit about God’s love – yet we are. He is constant, faithful and true. He is unconditional, unswerving and always eternally loving in His heart toward you and me…. He simply cannot and will not change!! So I’m going to [...]

• lent 1

  Following Jesus calls for all of us. He engages our emotions. In Luke 6.13-16 Jesus names the disciples and the list includes Judas ‘who became a traitor’. Today, name again your desire to follow Christ. Following Jesus is active; name the ways in which you sometimes betray your best desire.

• Ash Wednesday

  Today is Ash Wednesday, and I kind of wish I had ash on my forehead. For many churches around the world, Ash Wednesday signals the beginning of Lent, a season of repentance leading up to passion week and Easter. Ash is put on the forehead as an outward symbol of an inward posture of repentance. Ash Wednesday and Lent in general have been bashed by some evangelical Christians who point out that every day should be a day of repentance, [...]

• more this lent

  Lent is the 40 weekday period between Ash Wednesday and Easter Day. It invites a time of humility, repentance, and soul searching as we draw closer to the passion of Christ. But having said that, I often feel really apathetic about how vogue it is to give something up during Lent. And particularly when it’s usually something like chocolate!! I don’t knock those who give stuff up; more to the point I commend you but I want to know why. Does [...]

• Don’t

  Don’t let the idea of God remain just an idea. He calls us into a passionate life of faith, hope and love. Here,.. now,.. today…

• words that feed

  When we talk to one another, we often talk about what happened, what we are doing, or what we plan to do. Often we say, “What’s been happening?” or ‘How are you?’ and we encourage one another to share the details of our daily lives. But often we want to hear something else. We long for it to be more than just verbal-pitter-patter. We want to hear, “I’ve been thinking of you today,” or “I’ve missed you,” or “I wish [...]

• how do you like yours….?

  a plate of full-english-breakfast goodness! Do you like it home-cooked? in a posh gaffe? or in an old-style greasy cafe! Today I celebrated more gastronomic-greasiness! Courtesy of my friends IKEA card, he and I shared 18 breakfast items and 8 mugs of coffee washed down in two hours of great life-stretching, future-hatching talked-possiblities!! All for a mere £3.30! Sweet,…. or more to the point: mildly-greasy! How do you like yours…?!

• prodigal embrace….

  It often seems that the more I try to disentangle myself from the darkness, the darker it becomes. I need light, but that light has to conquer my darkness, and that I cannot bring about myself. I cannot forgive myself, I cannot make myself feel loved. By myself I cannot leave the land of my own struggles, I cannot bring myself home nor can I create communion on my own. I can desire it, hope for it, wait for it, [...]

• quizzing question (7)

  what is stirring in your soul? or, what is bubbling at the core of you? ps wisdom from Frederick Buechner: ‘Whenever you find tears in your eyes, it is well to pay the closest attention. They are not only telling you something about the secret of who you are, but more often than not God is speaking to you through them of the mystery of where you have come from and is summoning you to where, if you soul is [...]