more standing out passages and ideas from ‘Prayer: Does it make any difference?’ by Philip Yancey: 'David Ford, a professor at Cambridge, asked a Catholic priest the most common problem he encountered in twenty years of hearing confession. With no hesitation the priest replied, 'God.' Very few of the parishioners he meets in confession behave as if God is a God of love, forgiveness, gentleness and compassion. They see God as someone to cower before, [...]
there are some lines in this psalm that are not as easy to digest as they used to be and i am not going to focus on that, because i am clearly not exegiting the psalms, but simply pulling out lines and ideas that strike me... and with psalm 20, it is verse 6 and 7: 'Surely You have granted him unending blessings and made him glad with the joy of Your presence.' [verse 6] [...]
there seem to be a lot of 'i' and 'me' psalms leading up to psalm 20 and then some that focus on God but from an 'i' or 'me' perspective... and so this one has a very different feel to it: 'May the LORD answer you when you are in distress; may the name of the God of Jacob protect you. May he send you help from the sanctuary and grant you support from Zion. [...]
i found this story in some scripture union global strategy notes i was reading thru... i read it. i smiled. 'The fields were parched and brown from lack of rain, and the crops lay wilting from thirst. People were anxious and irritable as they searched the sky for any sign of relief. Days turned into arid weeks. No rain came. The ministers of the local churches called for an hour of prayer on the town [...]
in terms of life catchup and our favourite question of ‘so what are you doing next year?’ which has suddenly become ‘so what are you doing this year?’ [wow, so quick] the answer is that my wife - the beautiful Val – is finishing up her thesis – handing in second draft this week and final draft second week of feb – and we are still waiting on God and trying to listen and hear [...]
so sunday nite i made a space for testimonies for people to share what God has been doing in their lives... the second person who got up was a man named P (well not really, but let's call him that for now) who i know pretty well from being around church and from having an amazing story of being homeless and God and the church bringing transformation in his life and so now he and [...]