Praise, Prison and Prayer

Another week has almost come to an end.  I look back with thankfulness for God's blessings in so many ways.  The Psalmist speaks of proclaiming God's love in the morning and his faithfulness at night (Psalm 92:1-3).  It seems to me that starting the day with an awareness of God's covenant and unfailing love then enables us to be conscious of those many acts of goodness we might otherwise not have noticed.  This leaves us at the end of the day praising God for his faithfulness to us through another day.  Sadly, praise and thanksgiving seem to be absent or rare in the lives of many Christians.  How about you?

Readers of the blog will be aware that last Thursday I had an appointment with a session by the Department for Transport Road Safety Unit.  This was a penalty for exceeding the speed limit marginally recently.  The session took up the whole morning and I found myself one of around twenty others.  Most were middle aged or older (except for women where the average age was lower).  Sixty percent were male.  It was a valuable an enjoyable morning - very informative and great at enabling us to recognise our faults.

One of the early exercises was for each of us to state where we had been caught, whether we considered the speed limit fair and why we exceeded it.   Almost everyone confessed that the speed limit was fair.  The majority of reasons were "going with the flow", and "lack of awareness".  In fact, when it came to stating what the national speed limits are many in the group were woefully ignorant.  One man thought that the black diagonal line across a white circle meant you could travel at any speed!

The instructors confessed that they too had at some time exceeded the speed limit.  One said, "We all fail because we are all human.  There was only one perfect man!"  How right he is and how breaking the law regarding speeding mirrors sin generally.  While some deliberately transgress, others do not realise the limits and why they are there, and still others sin because they are careless.  The big difference is that some speed and get away with it while all will have to give account for sin.

Talking of which I'm in prison tomorrow morning with Steve, Liz and Margaret from Theddingworth.  If you are reading this before 9.00am please take a moment to pray for us.  If you are reading it after the event please take a moment to pray for those who received our ministry.

In the evening I will be leading the meeting at Theddingworth.  Other activities in the week include a meeting of the Congregational Federation's Pastoral Care Board on Wednesday and a meeting of the Finance and General Purposes Committee for the Area on Friday.  Next Saturday we will enjoy a visit from one of our nieces and her husband and their little daughter.  We will also welcome into our home the Revd Sandra Turner and her husband John.  They will be special guests in Yelvertoft on the Sunday and I have been busy trying to encourage folk from other churches to come and meet Sandra.  She was part of a small network of mission enablers I nurtured several years ago.  Apart from my own term as President in 2001/2002 there have been two other mission enablers elected to this office.  that's encouraging.

I am still playing catch up with writing items - especially for the group preparing a report on the support of sexual abuse survivors within the Church of England.  Please pray that I will be able to make sufficient time this week to complete this.