We are grateful for these photos from Fredrick and Reeba telling us of the help they are giving to a pastor who is building a new church building, six hours away from their own church in Bangalore. Please pray for the completion of this building project and for the church that will meet there to flourish.

My favourite Christmas song is Michael Card’s song ‘The Final Word’, which speaks of Christ’s incarnation, looking at His title ‘the Word’ (John 1:1-3, Hebrews 1:1-3). I am always reminded that God had the first word (speaking creation into being, Genesis 1) and will have the last word in our world.

In our Bible studies on Revelation, we are seeing many woes: times of trouble, disaster and judgment. Revelation 8, after speaking of silence in heaven for half-an-hour as creation waits in fearful expectation for God to move, goes on to speak of seven trumpets. The woes associated with the first four of these are dark indeed: hail and fire mixed with blood resulting in the destruction of a third of the earth; destruction of the sea, poisoning of the waters; a lack of light. Woe is pronounced at the end of the chapter (Revelation 8:13) as if the woes described already were not enough.

Is woe all we have to look forward to? Is the future really so bleak?

There will indeed be difficult days ahead if this part of the Bible is to be believed, but it is important to remember that this is not the end of the story. Every story, if we take a ‘freeze frame’ in the middle, has this tension and apparent disaster, but a good writer then develops the storyline to bring about resolution and that coveted ‘happy ending.’ God is the greatest storywriter of all. He has a wonderful ending for all who believe in Him. His final word is one of restoration and light and life.

So don’t give up on the story because of the present (or future) woe. Remember God has the final word, and He’s told us it will be a positive one!

This evening, Garry took our ‘Little Big Church’ service and spoke about the need to build on solid foundations. He re-told the story of The Three Llittle Pigs, reminding us that the easiest, quickest solutions are not always the longest-lasting (the houses of straw and sticks were easily demolished by the Big Bad Wolf, but the house of bricks was not). He also spoke on the Parable of the Wise and Foolish Builders, showing us that building on good foundations (solid rock) is infinitely better than building on sand.

In both stories, we see that the easiest solutions do not always reap the biggest benefits. People are fundamentally lazy and want ‘quick fixes’, but we need to look to the longer term if we are to thrive. Jesus told us that whoever hears His words and puts them into action is like a wise man who built on solid rock. We need to be prepared to do what Jesus says, even if it is harder in the short term than other ‘solutions.’ We are looking for eternal treasure and rewards, after all, not earthly ones.

History is a subject that fascinated me at school. I loved the sweeping stories of the past, brought to life by visits to ruined castles and monasteries: Monk Bretton Priory, Conisbrough Castle, Fountains Abbey, the castles of North Yorkshire all fuelled my imagination in ways I could barely fathom. Then I discovered science fiction and was thrust into an improbable but equally fascinating imaginative world of the future a utopia I knew from history actually meant ‘nowhere’, but still a fun place to imagine and explore!

At seventeen, I became a Christian and discovered a world of ancient truth that had hitherto passed me by. I discovered history in spades, you might say, and with it a knowledge of human nature that resonated with modern-day life. The truth of Ecclesiastes 1:9 became very relevant: ‘what has been will be again; what has been done will be done again; there is nothing new under the sun.’

Ecclesiastes has often been thought of as a depressing book, all about futility, lack of meaning and vanity. The writer explores wisdom, wealth, success and learning and finds them all equally meaningless. Only in God is any hope found.

Being pessimistic by nature, I was not daunted by the apparent helplessness of Ecclesiastes. I actually found it refreshing to hear such things voiced and admitted. The historian in me was already very familiar with the cyclical nature of history and the fact that sadly, human nature never seem ed to learn much from the past, despite it being a veritable treasure trove of truth and example.

So as another year dawns, I find I have no expectation of ‘new’ things as such. There will still be war, disease, sorrow and grief to face. The lies and duplicity of humanity will continue. But despite this, I have hope, because what will also continue are the the presence and power of God in our world. He does not change.His compassions never fail; His mercies are new every morning (as another difficult book, Lamentations, reminds us.) Because of this, there is hope for this new year: hope in God.