The most important thing about family?

I sometimes get asked to write for a men’s magazine called Sorted. The editor, Steve Legg, contacted me a couple of weeks ago to ask if I’d write an article on the subject of Family, but the deadline was just a couple of days away. We were getting ready to go up North, for what was had been booked as a holiday yet ended up as a very busy time, which I’ll write about again. Anyway, I initially figured I could squeeze the time in to write the article, along with all the other things I had to do for work. All it would take was : less helping at home, spending less time with Zoe and the kids, creating more stress for myself and everyone, putting in more time in the study – doing ‘the work of the Lord.’ I could probably even do it so they’d all feel guilty if they tried interrupting such important work, I’m a past master at it. Then again, I nearly lost my family doing just that years ago – ended up in […]

Only one life

Two little lines I heard one day,Travelling along life’s busy way; Bringing conviction to my heart, And from my mind would not depart; Only one life, ’twill soon be past, Only what’s done for Christ will last. Only one life, yes only one, Soon will its fleeting hours be done; Then, in ‘that day’ my Lord to meet, And stand before His Judgement seat; Only one life,’twill soon be past, Only what’s done for Christ will last. Only one life, the still small voice, Gently pleads for a better choice Bidding me selfish aims to leave, And to God’s holy will to cleave; Only one life, ’twill soon be past, Only what’s done for Christ will last. Only one life, a few brief years, Each with its burdens, hopes, and fears; Each with its clays I must fulfill, living for self or in His will; Only one life, ’twill soon be past, Only what’s done for Christ will last. When this bright world would tempt me sore, When Satan would a victory score; When self would seek to have its […]

Needs overrule the golden rule

Very often when talking to couples preparing for marriage, or those struggling through it, I recommend a book called ‘His Needs, Her Needs‘ by Willard F Harley. Dr Harley lists the emotional needs of men and women. He writes about the invisible ‘love bank’ inside all of us which needs to keep on being filled up – because life is making withdrawals all the time. I don’t agree with his lists, but the concept of emotional needs is undeniable. It’s not wrong to have needs, in fact we were all made with physical needs, spiritual needs, relational intimacy needs. If you were to stop the average person in the street, “What was the first thing that was bad in the Bible?” most who even had pub quiz knowledge of the story would say, “It was the snake. That snake who got them to eat the forbidden fruit.” Wrong. Phone a friend. Or use a lifeline, or better still, read Genesis 2:18 God said, “It’s not good for the man to be alone.” So God invented marriage, where Husband and wife […]

The real challenge is not winning the race

I’m sitting here with my leg up. The last few weeks have seen me increasing my mileage on my runs (no special reason, not doing the London Marathon this year, though I’m considering doing something similar later in the year). Half way round a fast – for me – 8k this morning and felt a twinge in my left calf, decided to press on. By the end it was sore! There’s a great book I’m picking up that’s got me motivated. Ultramarathon Man: Confessions of an all-night runner. Wow. It’s a kind of memoir, well written, about this crazy man who has … well, let him tell you the kind of things he does. Reading his book kind of puts a sore calf in perspective. I have over the years done a few marathons, when I was in my late teens and twenties I even did a couple of mountain marathons and even once did 50 miles over night – ended up in hospital at the end with a busted knee! The thing which struck me about the video is […]

Never Walk Alone

I don’t know whether my talk last Sunday was actually recorded because we’ve been having hassle with that, but the main focus was ‘Why we need each other.’ Let me summarise it. Our culture applauds independence. But we read in Romans 12: “Just as our bodies have many parts and each part has a special function, so it is with Christ’s body. We are many parts of one body, and we all belong to each other.” That means people need people. Too often we don’t realise how much we need every other member of the church – we think independence, not interdependence. God wired all of us in such a way that we can only fulfil his purposes for our lives in community, in relationship to each other. That’s what we’re going to be looking at as a church family for the next 40 days, 40 Days of Community. We looked at three reasons why it’s great to be in a small group with a few other friends who you get to know on a deeper level than just casual […]

Out of the jungle

I’m reading General William Booth’s classic ‘In Darkest England and the Way Out.’ (You can download it free if you follow the link). Well worth reading on its own merit – a book years ahead of its time, very influential in social policy and politics. Booth starts by reminding his readers of Mr Stanley’s (‘Dr Livingstone I presume?’- actually he probably never said it) exploration through the Congo, the descriptions of which were being read voraciously all across Britain at the time. I just returned from speaking at a funeral and my mind went off at a tangent as it does, I was struck by certain parallels. Stanley was describing to his readers in Victorian England what they could not perceive. ‘The Lost Continent.’ Darkest Africa. Pygmy tribes and cannibals. How could they imagine ‘forests’ (he uses the word because the word jungle hadn’t yet been coined) larger than France, where it poured rain every day and the sun rarely pierced the canopy? Then there are the tribes Stanley encountered. They had never seen a white person before. He describes […]

Fix Your Eyes

Let us fix our eyes on Jesus, the author and perfecter of our faith, who for the joy set before him endured the cross, scorning its shame, and sat down at the right hand of the throne of God. Standing waiting for buses as a kid, I always could read which one it was before everyone else. At the age of 16 I went to get my eyes tested, as part of the preliminaries for joining the Police Cadets, I whizzed through the usual chart on the wall, and just to be smart read out the tiny writing at the bottom saying where the chart was made and who by. They put me on some other machines, testing for colour blindness and then depth perception – I recall looking down a tunnel and having to say what position various dots were on targets. At the end of the session, the Doctor said, “Well Mr Delaney, you have sniper vision.” I was devastated! I had wanted to be in the police so much, but I had some awful condition that he’d […]

BUT

Personally I really loved the film, Zoë didn’t like it at all – said it was one of the worst things she’d ever seen. It was called No Country for Old Men, and it swept the board at the Oscars this year. And I am not going to give the end away except to say that when it ended – all around the cinema, there was a collective “What?” People didn’t ‘get’ the ending. A Vicar friend told me years that if I wanted to imagine a world without God, I should see a film called Seven. It is a horrible film. The thing is, the ending of it is so shocking- because you’ve been preconditioned to expect a good ending, and you don’t get a good ending. Evil triumphs. It’s awful! I was kind of in shock for days after that film.  It’s a bit like when we watched a film called Jude – based on Thomas Hardy’s Jude the Obscure, it’s just so depressing, and that’s the happy bits! The thing is with these stories, we don’t want […]

What day is it?

Years ago I took a large cross out on the day before Easter and preached out in the street. Some people became Christians that day, including a young gypsy guy who’d been driving past in a van – he later admitted he was off to do something illegal – he saw a man with a cross, stopped to listen to the message, and when I approached him he said, “Yeah – you got me.” Within minutes he gave his life to the Lord of the cross. Oh happy day 🙂 That same day, I was approached by a furious woman, who told me in no uncertain terms that this was ‘the wrong day to do this.’ It would have been okay to carry a cross in some solemn religious procession on Good Friday, but didn’t I know this was Easter Saturday – the wrong day! Well, today is in fact Holy Saturday so she was doubly wrong, because it is also the day of salvation! A couple of years ago I received an irate letter from a local person here […]