Be Still and Know

Psalm 112:4 I will never forget my visit to Ruby. She was dying and knew that her end was very near. It was late in the afternoon when I went to see her in her cottage and the light was fading. But my overwhelming memory of that visit is of her r...

Psalm 111:1-2 It is, of course, possible to praise God anywhere. But there is something incredibly precious about getting together with others to worship him, and it is wonderful to think of God’s people doing that for thousands of years. Whe...

Mark 1:16-18 I will never forget the first time I saw the Sea of Galilee. I was with a friend and we had been travelling for a couple of hours up the Jordan valley. It was incredibly hot and our little car didn’t have the blessing of air con...

Mark 1:14-15 We all know what we need to do when we are driving in the wrong direction. We need to turn around. I did it only yesterday! I was carefully following the instructions of my satnav but ended up taking the wrong turning off a large roun...

Mark 1:12-13 We would all like to think that if our lives were totally led by the Spirit - like Jesus’ was - then we would be able to avoid all challenges and difficulties. Life would be one long succession of blessings and smiling, happy peo...

Mark 1:9-11 Here, in a gentle but spectacular way, we see God the Trinity at work. Having been baptised by John, Jesus saw the Holy Spirit descending upon him and God the Father spoke from heaven confirming his identity. As Jesus stepped into...

Mark 1:7-8 It’s always great to see people who know what their job is in life and are happy to get on and do it. I am thinking of the carpenters, car mechanics, ministers, nurses, carers, office workers and teachers that I know. All sorts of peop...

When Mark put together his Gospel, he had a very clear purpose. You might have thought he was going to take us through the life story of Jesus, but he doesn’t. He totally disregards the first 30 years of Jesus’ life. He doesn’t tell us about Jesu...

The psalmist isn’t merely talking about house building in this famous psalm. He is talking about everything we build – a life, relationship, family, organisation, city, or society. There is no point in building anything without God, because it is...

Psalm 126:5-6 If you know anything about farming you will know that it is hard work. But just imagine how incredibly tough it was in the psalmist’s day without the help of modern machinery. Planting was back breaking work, but year by year th...

Psalm 125:1-2 I love these Psalms of ascent, which the pilgrims used as they travelled to Jerusalem. In this particular psalm, we almost get the feeling that we are travelling with them as they gazed at the mountains around Jerusalem. Even the mo...

Psalm 124:8 I wonder if you ever have “What if” conversations. You know the sort of thing: What if I had had a different career? What if I had gone to a different school? What if we had moved to a different town? In this psalm, David reflected on...

Galatians 6:18 The story of John Newton is well known. He first went to sea with his father when he was eleven years old and soon became deeply involved in working on slave ships. It was a terrible experience and, after falling out with the cre...

Galatians 6:17 Alan Paton wrote a book called Cry, the Beloved Country (Simon & Schuster) and was a fierce opponent of apartheid in South Africa. He once wrote about his death: “When I go up there, which is my intention, the Big Judge will say to...

Galatians 6:14 There was clearly a lot of boasting going on amongst the Galatians! There were those who boasted of the fact that they continued to keep the Jewish law. They continued to practice circumcision and to stand by the Old Testament law....