BBC Radio Sheffield is devoting the whole of 17^th March to ‘Good News Friday’, seeking stories of good news in our local communities. The news so often seems to focus on one disaster after another and can be very depressing, so it’s great to hear of the media recognising the power of good news and celebrating the good things that are going on in the community. The Metro newspaper (free on buses and trains) also regularly features a ‘Good Deed Feed’ in its letters’ page, with people reporting on the kindnesses and help they’ve received from people in society. These stories are tremendously encouraging.

One of the things we need to do regularly is to pause and give thanks for all the good things we have in life. Embracing thankfulness is an essential part of spiritual growth. Some of us are more naturally positive and thankful than others, but the need for thankfulness runs through the entire Bible (see 1 Thess 5:18, 1 Chron 16:34, Ps 7:17, Ps 118:1, Jer 33:11, 1 Cor 15:57, just to whet your appetite!) It’s also recognised more generally: Cicero, the ancient philosopher, once said, ‘Gratitude is not only the greatest of virtues, but the parent of all others.’ Psychological studies reinforce these truths; there are 17 benefits of gratitude listed here:

• Reduce depression
• Get promotions at work
• Improve our self esteem
• Increase our energy
• Develop a strong immune system
• Decrease blood pressure
• Increase sleep quality
• Reduce and cope with negative stress
• Eat healthier
• Have deeper friendships
• Increase productivity
• Improve job performance
• Become more likable
• Reach goals faster
• Increase feelings of happiness and wellbeing
• Reduce negative emotions such as envy, hatred, and anger
• Increase positive emotions such as love and empathy

The first step to thankfulness is to stop and think. ‘Count your blessings; name them one by one,’ the hymn says. As we do this, we realise how much God has blessed us and we can grow spiritually by reflecting on God’s goodness and help to us.

They were a workforce of 8,580, men aged between 30 and 50 at the peak of their prime. What an asset to any employer! To put it in context, the pottery firms in North Staffordshire employ 8,500. It’s not a huge number like employers like Tesco or other retail companies, but it’s not an inconsiderable number either.

What did they do, these men in the prime of their life? Was their work hugely significant? You bet. So significant it’s recorded in the Bible for us to learn about thousands of years later…

But when you read about the actual work, it’s easy to skip over this chapter (Numbers 4) with a glazed look in our eyes. The actual work done by these magnificent men involved sorting out the transportation of the ark of the covenant and the Tabernacle during the wilderness wanderings. Day in, day out, they were responsible for covering the items such as curtains, utensils, the lampstand and altar and carrying them, along with the crossbars, posts, bases, tent pegs and ropes which were all part of the worship of God.

The Kohathites, Gershonites and Merarites were given this sacred job. They weren’t the ones to go out in battle. Their job looks to us nowadays rather like ours: repetitive, mundane, brain-numbing and pretty boring, if we are honest. And yet it was sacred work, appointed by God.

Yesterday, I had the privilege of leading a military funeral at our church for a 94 year old Goldthorpe man (Tom Nowell) who had served in the Duke of Wellington’s Regiment in the Korean War in the 1950s. Many former army colleagues as well as a large number of other regimental people came to the funeral to pay their respects. A military funeral, it turns out, owes a lot to Old Testament heritage.

Standard bearers carried the distinctive flags of different regiments, lowered and raised at specific times in the service. This wonderful man, John Hammond, played the bugle at the funeral:

He arrived at 9.20 a.m. in civilian clothes, took the time to change into his uniform, and practised his bugle assiduously in the quiet of a small room. His actual role in the funeral took less than 5 minutes, to play the ‘Last Post’ and the ‘Reveille‘, with consummate sweetness and utter professionalism. Yet this was his role, his work, and he did it perfectly.

An army of church volunteers (well, a small corps, maybe) performed their own roles skilfully and professionally: greeting people, showing them to seats, making drinks, serving food, tidying away, pressing buttons to make music play. By 2.30 p.m., the building was restored to its usual order, with no fuss or bother. It reminded me very much of these faithful Israelites, taking down the Tabernacle paraphernalia, packing it all up and moving on.

Is this work exciting? No. Is it special? Most certainly. It is special because it honours God and His people and because He tells us that anything we do in His name will not be forgotten, even giving a cup of cold water to someone in need. Don’t be disheartened by the ordinary and the mundane. God is there in the detail.

If there’s anything I need to let go of, it is probably a tendency to worry. For many of us, worry is so much a part of our everyday lives that we simply can’t imagine a life without it. ‘I just can’t help it,’ we say defensively if anyone challenges our neurotic tendencies. ‘It’s just the way I am.’  Our lives revolve around the ‘what ifs?’, hypothetical places devoid of hypothetical grace (because grace is real, not hypothetical.)

Jesus is unequivocal, however, in telling us not to worry (see Matt 6:25-34). He gives us reasons not to worry – the fact that we are loved by a heavenly Father who is more than able to provide for all our needs. He also reminds us that we do have a choice in this matter, for He urges us ‘do not let your hearts be troubled.’ (Jn 14:1), which certainly implies we can either allow worry to take root or we can ask for help in banishing it. The fact is that if God’s Spirit lives in us, we have access to power that is stronger than our old nature. Worry is a learned habit that can be unlearned. It is a hard battle, to be sure, but we can learn not to worry by letting worry shape our prayers: ‘Don’t fret or worry. Instead of worrying, pray. Let petitions and praises shape your worries into prayers, letting God know your concerns. Before you know it, a sense of God’s wholeness, everything coming together for good, will come and settle you down. It’s wonderful what happens when Christ displaces worry at the centre of your life.’ (Phil 4:6-7, The Message)

We can make a conscious choice at this time not to worry. Every time worry creeps back into our thoughts and minds, we can pray, asking God for the faith and grace to trust Him instead of letting worry take over our lives. Just as in a military battle, ground has to be claimed slowly, so we have to be prepared to win the battle against worry one worry at a time, so to speak. As we choose faith over worry, we find God’s peace, which passes all understanding, is able to come and settle our hearts, enabling us to hear God’s voice above the raging storms of life.

Celebrity magazines and newspapers thrive on gossip: casual or unconstrained conversation or reports about other people, typically involving details which are not confirmed as true. There is something perversely enjoyable about these reports and a whole industry has grown up around these things.

The Bible has a lot to say about gossip, however, and urges us to avoid this:

• Agossip betrays a confidence, but a trustworthy person keeps a secret. (Prov 11:13)
• A perverse person stirs up conflict, and agossip separates close friends. (Prov 16:28)
• The words of agossip are like choice morsels; they go down to the inmost parts. (Prov 18:8, Prov 26:22)
• Without wood a fire goes out; without a gossip a quarrel dies down. (Prov 26:20)

If we wish to give up things for Lent, gossip is one thing we should let go of. When we gossip, we prove ourselves to be untrustworthy and not peace-loving. We also violate God’s commands to love people sincerely and can damage people’s reputations, often without meaning to (gossip has been called ‘reputation theft’.)

An old proverb relates the story of a person who repeated gossip and later found out that the rumour they had spread was untrue. He was sorry and went to ask how to repair the damage, only to be told to take a feather pillow outside and scatter the feathers. The next day, he was to bring the feathers back. Of course, this was impossible to do, and so we see how it is so easy to speak carelessly and thoughtlessly and how difficult it is to repair the damage (broken trust, hurt feelings, damaged reputations.) We do well to follow James’s advice to be slow to speak (James 1:19), for that way we can avoid hurting people through gossip. It’s our choice what we say and what we listen to; let’s build each other up and speak well of all people!

For years I worked in a school and witnessed first-hand the effects of children’s words on each other. The old rhyme ‘sticks and stones may break my bones, but words will never hurt me’ is a blatant lie; Wes King’s song ‘Sticks and Stones’ exposes the pain words can cause:

‘All this pain that I feel will leave a stain on my skin
And the marks that they leave expose the shadows within.’ (‘Sticks and Stones’, Wes King)

James reminds us that the tongue is powerful (James 3:3-12) and urges us to be consistent in our speech. Paul gives us guidelines for how we should speak when he says, ‘Do not let any unwholesome talk come out of your mouths, but only what is helpful for building others up according to their needs, that it may benefit those who listen.’ (Eph 4:29) It is a challenge to speak consistently, building other people up according to their needs, because it means we need to know the people to whom we talk (some people respond to gentle encouragement; others need more bracing talk, for example.) It also means that we must consistently think before we speak, something that is easier said than done! The acrostic THINK gives us good advice on speech:

If it’s not, then perhaps we shouldn’t be saying those things!

One of the things I am learning is flexibility – not the stretchy physical kind to which Djokovic and my son aspire, alas, but generally letting go of my desire to be in control. Quite often, flexibility is forced on me – this morning being a case in point, when my 25-minute train journey to Sheffield became vastly more complicated because of a train strike – but that is probably because it’s the only way God can train me out of bad habits…

The reason I was venturing to Sheffield was to talk about the Dearne Community Arts’ Festival on Radio Sheffield, something I never expected to be doing in itself. The arts’ festival, which began as a germ of an idea at the end of last year, is blossoming into a beautiful flower more quickly than I can quite comprehend. There is something about the dreams and ideas God plants in us which flourish beyond our wildest dreams! The mere fact people wanted me to talk about this on BBC radio was pretty mind-blowing to me in the first place, but God’s stretchiness certainly exceeds my expectations.

You can listen to the interview online if you’re interested (it starts at 1h 08 and continues after the Ed Sheeran song until 1h 25), but what was so surprising to me was the way the interviewer wanted to know much more than mere facts about the festival. I ended up with the opportunity to talk about the local churches and all we do to help our local community, about God calling me out of teaching into working in the church in the first place and about our mission trip to India – all in the space of 15 minutes! Such unexpected opportunities to me highlight the prayer we looked at last night when we asked God to give us the words to fearlessly make known the mystery of the gospel. God is able to open doors for us in unexpected ways and we have to be flexible enough to walk through those doors with gratitude and awe.