Personal best?

I admit it, I am feeling just a little bit pleased with myself.

Why?

Because last Saturday, I achieved a Personal Best for my weekly 5 kilometre run.

I joined the brilliant Parkrun scheme earlier this year, when I decided I needed to do something extra to fight the middle-aged flab. And the experience has proven trying, testing, exhilarating and painful. The Parkrun scheme operates at hundreds of parks worldwide, is entirely staffed by volunteers, and does one simple thing really, really well. At 9am on Saturday morning all over the world, someone says "Go", and everybody runs for 5,000 meters.

OK, I admit that 31 minutes 12 seconds does not exactly put me in an Olympian category. And truth to tell, I can't really call it a personal best because I would never have made it on my own.... continue reading

Film review: Argo

This movie tells a remarkable tale based on real-life events. After the Iranian revolution of 1979, the US embassy in Tehran is taken over by angry pro-Ayatollah students who hold its inhabitants hostage. Six of the embassy's workers escape and are hidden by Canadian diplomats. Back in the US, CIA agent Tony Mendez (Ben Affleck) is tasked with extracting them from this hostile country before they're discovered by Revolutionary Guards.

But how to do the seemingly impossible? Out of all the implausible plans on the table, they pick the least likely of the lot — to create a fake sci fi movie called Argo (a Star wars knock-off). The idea is that Ben Affleck acts as the producer of this movie sent to scout locations in the middle east. The hidden embassy workers would play the film's Canadian crew before being smuggled out of the country.... continue reading

On to a Good Thing

Optimism, Pessimism and the US Election

You may have heard that there’s an election going on in the US today…

From across the Atlantic, and whatever your political persuasion, what’s really noticeable is the change of mood between 2008 and 2012. Four years ago, Barack Obama swept to power on a wave of “Yes, we can”. Whoever wins today will do so on a trickle of “You probably can’t, but you’re less bad than the other guy”.

If Obama does win, as the polls suggest he will, it won’t be, can’t be, with the same flood of optimism as in 2008. Then, he was the man. He would make it better. He would make it different. He was the one who would deliver the change you wanted (whatever change that was).

Of course that hope has become tinged with disappointment. He was and is, after all, only a man. He’d been asked to do too much (and, in fairness, had encouraged voters to think he could do too much).... continue reading

Why bother with an Advent calendar?

My first Advent calendar was in a shoebox. Numbered doors round the outside walls, flaps tucked back in to reuse it each year. But the exciting bit was inside. A 3D tableau of the nativity scene. A window at one end looking in to the box. And masses of stars cut in the lid, their light shining down on the scene inside. It was magical. I loved it. The nativity at the centre. But it told me nothing at all about the real Christmas.

Modern-day Advent calendars are exciting too. They’re centred on something beginning with “Ch” – not Christ but chocolate. Most don’t mention Christmas – they’re about Barbie, Transformers or a favourite Disney character. So is this a rant about the commercialisation of Christmas? No. But hopefully a gentle nudge to reclaim Advent for Christ.... continue reading

Fighting the Monday feeling

"Oh, that my words were recorded,
that they were written on a scroll,
that they were inscribed with an iron tool on lead,
or engraved in rock forever!
I know that my Redeemer lives,
and that in the end he will stand upon the earth.
And after my skin has been destroyed,
yet in my flesh I will see God;
I myself will see him
with my own eyes—I, and not another.
How my heart yearns within me!

“If you say, ‘How we will hound him,
since the root of the trouble lies in him,'
you should fear the sword yourselves;
for wrath will bring punishment by the sword,
and then you will know that there is judgment.”

Job 19 v 23-29

Job seems to be sinking to new depths of despair, only to rise to new heights of faith and hope! This is a real turning point for Job. He’s been searching for reasons for his suffering. He’s not found any but he comes to a remarkable conclusion: I can trust God; He will vindicate me when I see Him face to face. Unlike Job, we live after Jesus’ death and resurrection. Our Redeemer does live — Jesus Christ, who has bought us back from sin and snatched us from the clutches of death!

Compared to her: How it affects our relationships

One of the most depressing truths about suffering from CCS is that it stops us loving others.

The Bible is full of warning stories which are essentially examples of CCS run riot. Take the historical story of Joseph and his brothers, for instance. Joseph’s father, Jacob (also called Israel), “loved Joseph more than any of his [eleven] other sons” (Genesis 37 v 3). And to show this, he gave Joseph, and only Joseph, “an ornate robe”.

How did his brothers respond? When they “saw that their father loved him more than any of them, they hated him” (v 4). They compared themselves with Joseph on the basis of their father’s love, came off worse, and were filled with envious hatred.

How did Joseph respond? He shared his dreams with them: “We were binding sheaves of corn out in the field when suddenly my sheaf rose and stood upright, while your sheaves gathered round mine and bowed down to it” (v 7).

Why did Joseph choose to share his dream in which he ruled his older brothers? Maybe he was simply young and naïve. But probably he wanted them to know that, compared to them, he was greater, more successful, and headed for more significance than them. While his brothers show the symptoms of looking-up comparison, he displays the symptoms of looking-down comparison.... continue reading

Christianity In The News

Four Pastors are imprisoned in Iran

Wanted: new Archbishop of Canterbury

Christians are persecuted all over the world

Church-goers killed at a suicide bombing in Nigeria

Hollywood has a new passion for Christ

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