Books! Books! Books! Hardcovers and paperbacks. Reference works and joke books. Romantic novels and mysteries. Self-help books and religious publications. They just keep appearing and we keep buying them. We also keep writing them. No wonder Solomon said, “Of making many books there is no end “(Eccl. 12 v 12). Jill Briscoe was addressing a…
Psalm 136 v 1.Give thanks to the Lord, for he is good. His love endures forever. You don’t have to live long in this world before it becomes painfully clear that nothing lasts forever. The car you were so proud of when you bought it is spending too much time in the garage getting fixed. Those clothes…
Psalm 1 v 3.That person is like a tree planted by streams of water, which yields its fruit in seasonand whose leaf does not wither-whatever they do prospers. People who don’t want to wait 4 decades for a globe Norway maple to grow in their front garden can buy a 30 foot specimen from a nursery for £30,000. A 50…
Philippians 2 v 9.Therefore God exalted him to the highest place and gave him the name that is above every name What’s in a name? Plenty, according to Justin Kaplan and Anne Bernays, authors of the book The Language of Names. In the section of their book where they discuss literary names, Kaplan and Bernays point…
Romans 2 v 10.but glory, honour and peace for everyone who does good: first for the Jew, then for the Gentile.According to the book “Life of Francis d’Assisi”, Francis once invited a young monk to join him on a trip to town to preach. Honoured to be given the invitation, the monk readily accepted. All…
As a young man, Joseph Scriven had been engaged to a woman he deeply loved. But tragedy struck the night before their wedding when the boat she was in capsized and she drowned. In the hope of forgetting the shock, which he never did, Joseph left his home in Ireland and went to Canada. There he…
Psalm 145 v 18The Lord is near to all who call on him, to all who call on him in truth When Paul was seven years old his grandfather was caretaker of a wooded estate. One Autumn evening he took his toy gun, called for his dog Pal, and headed down a path into the woods. Soon, though,…
Proverbs 4 v 25.Let your eyes look straight ahead; fix your gaze directly before you A gentleman had always heard that if a farmer keeps his eyes on a distant object while he’s ploughing, he’ll make a straight furrow. So, he tested the principle when he mowed his lawn. Sure enough, his first cut was a…
In July Drew, James, Richard and I enjoyed a few days holiday in Whitstable. We were blessed with excellent weather, a lovely house to stay in and far too much food to eat. We had lots of long walks and my sons tried paddle boarding for the first time. My excuse for not trying it…
A while ago the city of Hong Kong was blanketed with posters showing a single drop of water splashing into a pool. Each poster bore the words “Hong Kong Against Corruption.” The message was clear—integrity or dishonesty permeates a city one person at a time. It’s easy to compromise in little things because they seem…