I read a lot of books, and this has been a year particularly full of reading due to my Sabbatical mid-year. I have found that the act of reading longer-form pieces of writing like books is revolutionary in a world that is full of swiping from 10 second video to 10 second video. Having to …
It is common for people to ask: why are things so bad? Why is the world such a mess? Why is my life not the way I want it to be? For some, this is a reason to doubt God or at least to doubt God’s goodness. Yet let me propose a different question that …
The first thought most of us have when something unexpectedly bad happens is ‘why’? Why did this thing happen to me? Was it some kind of punishment for something I have done (like Job’s friends suggested in the middle of Job’s suffering)? Was it because I am a worse person than other people (as suggested …
What are you aiming for in life? What would you class as a good life, a successful life? It is important that you know what you are trying to do with your life. Then you can work out what you should be doing now in order to achieve that goal. Think of it like this. …
What do you think of when you think of youth ministry? I suppose it depends on what kind of church tradition you are used to. Many think of a high-tempo time of singing, something like a concert. Others think of a series of social activities run each week. There are all kinds of structures, and …
Diet and exercise are hot topics today. Many of the best-selling books and highest profile online companies are those who offer help either with what we eat or how we move. Yet Christians don’t often think of the connection between diet and exercise and our faith. There are two extreme positions here that we need …
God is in complete control of the world. Yes, complete control. There are no surprises to God. Everything He wants to happen does happen, just the way He wants it to. We see this in all kinds of places in the Bible, including: Your eyes saw my unformed substance; in your book were written, every …
In the past few months, I have become more regular with working on my physical fitness. I have managed to fit a few different exercise sessions in each week as part of my everyday routines. At the start, it didn’t seem like much had changed. Starting something new meant that my muscles that were used …
Weeds have been dominating my garden lately. I have all kinds of beautiful plants I would like to see flourish, yet the things that are most successful are the weeds. You don’t need to put in any effort for weeds to grow. They just happen. And if you don’t do anything about them, the garden …
Information, knowledge and wisdom are all different things. I know that sometimes people use these words interchangeably, but they are distinct. We live in an information age with torrents of information being delivered to us every day. Yet not much of that information actually settles in our brains to become knowledge, something we know. And …