Usually when someone says that something is a ‘blot on the landscape’ they refer to an unsightly human construction in the midst of nature. Or they note an out of place development amidst other more pleasing architecture. Looking across the fields recently in the February sunshine there was one ploughed field, recently relieved of its…

Today I want to introduce you to 2 fathers who each reflected in their lives some aspects of their Heavenly Father’s character.  Ron had a wife and 3 children and he was active in his church. Sadly Ron’ s wife left the family to start a new life elsewhere, leaving Ron to juggle the demands…

Last week, I was watching a reporter, standing in water in the West Country, commenting that it had been raining for 47 days. He added, “It is almost Biblical proportions”. Reading the story of Noah again, starting in Genesis 6 verse 9, made me consider what would happen if the rain became heavier and non-stop.…

Following on from last week’s TFTD about rocks, this Thought also involves rocks. The seawall on the coastal path south of Port Macquarie has paintings on the rocks. Most of these appear to be personal memorials to loved ones. However I came across this rock with the inscription “maybe you’re the lighthouse in someone else’s…

If you follow football you will almost certainly be aware of a recent giant killing in the FA Cup when the holders, Crystal Palace, were knocked out by non-league Macclesfield Town who play their football six divisions below the Premier League. You may also recall a similar thing two years ago when Ipswich Town  lost…

Sometimes I wonder where the time has gone, I took my first driving test in March 1976 which means that it is almost fifty years since that momentous day, I had longed to learn to drive from being young and had my first lesson in my dad’s three wheeler van on my seventeenth birthday.  I…

When I was a teenager, I sent a card to a young man I really liked but who didn’t care for me. It was a risky thing to do – to wear your heart on your sleeve. Although it wasn’t signed, the fact that I blushed every time I saw him since then probably broke…

Twenty years or more ago my father advised me to make sure I had a lasting power of attorney in place well ahead of needing it. We have recently gone through the tortuous process of creating and registering the necessary documents so that we can be supported should it become necessary. It is a long…

Last week I found out that February 4th was the 120th anniversary of Bonhoeffer’s birth. It was too late to write about him on that date but I didn’t want the occasion to go by without paying tribute to a Christian leader whose life and death inspired me as a teenager and still inspires me…

Readers familiar with the Bible will recognise that the heading refers to a book and chapter, and some will immediately be aware that it records a fascinating story. A Christian man called Philip is preaching in a city called Samaria, the crowds “paid close attention to what he said” and the outcome was “there was…