“Justice didn’t do a thing to heal me. Forgiveness did.” This is the closing sentence of Debbie Morris’s remarkable book Forgiving the Dead Man Walking. On a Friday night in the 1980′s sixteen year old Debbie and her boyfriend Mark were kidnapped while on a date. After shooting...
Why Me?
I sometimes get asked how I answer the ‘why me?’ question. As my my tremors increase and my movements become slower, it seems a particularly and painfully relevant question. Why me, when I have given my life to serving Christ? Why me, when there’s so much more to do? The truth is...
It’s Not About Us
Does it blow your mind that the image you are looking at is 28 million years old? Well, not the image precisely – that was taken by the hubble telescope just a few years ago – but the moment it captures. The Sombrero Galaxy is 28 million light years from earth. That means it takes 28 million years...
Finally, a humble athlete!
I was delighted today by a newspaper article on David Ferrer, the world no. 3 ranked tennis player often overlooked by spectators and press. He is quoted as saying. Tennis has given me much more than I thought it would…but my family, my friends and the people around me – in the real...
The True Story of Santa Claus
What do you tell your children when they finally ask, “Is Santa real?” We told ours the true story of Santa. The Santa Claus story begins around 200 CE, with a sailing ship caught in the grip of a terrible storm outside the Turkish port of Myra. As cargo was being thrown overboard by a...
Where is God When Typhoons Strike
The devastation in the Philippines is overwhelming. Houses flattened. Massive loss of life. Pain and grief. So where was God when all this was happening? This question gets asked over and over in the Bible. “My God, my God, why have you forsaken me?” cries the Psalmist. “O Lord...
Putting Sin in its Place in Proclaiming the Gospel
Yesterday’s post, Why We Need Less Preaching on Sin and More on Possibility, generated some comment about where preaching sin does come in. Here are some thoughts; There are three realities about human beings: 1) we are amazing creatures made in the image of God, capable of heroic acts of love...
Jesus and Suffering
“Life is difficult.” So begins Scott Peck’s best selling book, The Road Less Travelled. This has certainly been driven home to me the last couple of years. At some stage most of us experience significant pain. A broken relationship. A debilitating illness. A period of unemployment. A violent...
A Bigger Vision for Who We Can Be
It seems that the major parties are leading us into a time of turning our backs upon our global neighbours. We are witnessing a race to the bottom on asylum seekers, both parties are pulling back on their previous commitments to increasing aid, and there is fading resolve to lead on combating...
The Best Church on Earth
in January 2005 I went to what is possibly the best church on earth. It wasn’t big, the worship time was led by two guys with out of tune guitars, and the bulk of the congregation were uneducated. But here was a faith community in every sense of those words. The church is located in a slum...