Grubbing Thistles
A colleague of tells of funeral he conducted for a man who was a loner and an eccentric. He was also a human being of unbounded hope! He had the habit of roaming the district with a grubber, and wherever he found a thistle, he dug it up. The thistles were persistent, and came back, […]
High Density Love
High density living seems to be “the go” these days in our cities. I’m generally not impressed – rows of glass and cardboard boxes, eaves touching, no room to park, and hardly a tree in sight! This kind of environment is likely to increase tension between neighbours. God’s city in the new heaven and earth […]
God In the Trenches
Journalist Mark Day writes of the war-time songs sung by Australian soldiers, mentioning such songs as The Mademoiselle from Armentieres, Pack Up Your Troubles in Your Old Kit Bag, Wish Me Luck as You Wave Me Goodbye, Kiss Me Goodnight Sergeant Major. He says that “While the tunes linger in the mind, the lyrics remind us of the […]
The left, the Right, …& the Heights
“…. remember the heights from which you have fallen,” [Rev 2:5] The USA have just held their Presidential elections (in case you missed it!). In the lead up to the election a lot was said about the political Left and the political Right, and about how good or bad “the other side” is. The name of God was […]
God: Friend of Murderers
We once lived and worked in a small country town where a brutal double-murder was committed. The majority of towns people couldn’t cope with any suggestion of redemption for the murderer – “lock him up and throw away the key” was the dominant sentiment! I agreed. In the famous story of the murder of Abel […]
The Choice is Ours
I will make you my promisedbride forever. I will be goodand fair; I will show you mylove and mercy.Hosea 2:19 For all it’s peculiarities and unevenness, the Bible has a simplestory. God made man. Man rejected God. God won’t give upuntil he wins him back. God will whisper. He will shout. He will touch and […]
We of the Never-Never
Jeannie Gunn was the first white woman to settle at ElseyStation near Mataranka, Northern Territory. In 1902, she wrote ofher experiences under the catchy title ‘We of the Never Never’,although she deliberately changed the names of the maincharacters. Her story describes how, as a woman, she survivedin that faraway forbidden place, where she faced hardship […]
“Houston… We Have a Problem”
We are raised on the view that people are essentially good. The problem is that most of the stories on our daily news raise serious questions about the truth of this; however much we affirm and insist on it, we can never quite get rid of the doubts about ourselves. The Bible says something much […]
Grace & Law
There are two false ways of living: 1. to live by a grace that has no law in it, where there is no accountability for one’s actions, and no obligation to live in a true way. 2. to live by law that has no grace in it, where there is only success or failure to […]
Friday on My Mind
There was a pop song that said, “everybody’s workin’ for the weekend”. The idea behind it is that we all hate work, and what we most want is to get it out of the way so that we can get on with something enjoyable – i.e., the weekend and whatever we get up to then, […]