I’ve just returned from a holiday in Cornwall where I watched my five-year-old granddaughter have her first surf lesson.

Surfing is all about ‘riding the waves’; surfers stand on a surf board and glide across the water until the wave breaks and loses its energy. What is impressive about watching surfers is how they manage to stand upright and balance on what is essentially an unstable surface. They start by doing this on the more stable surface of the sand before taking the board out to sea. Most people find it easy enough to stand on a board on the sand; standing in moving water requires practice, dexterity and balance.

What impressed me most about my granddaughter was her enthusiasm and perseverance. She couldn’t stand up straightaway. At times, she fell off into the sea. But she carried on, undaunted, and on the occasions when she managed to ride to shore still upright, the beam on her face was all we needed to know about the power of accomplishment!

It didn’t seem to matter to her how many times she fell off in the process; she simply got back up and had another go.

That is a parable for life. We fall and fail many times, but failure is no reason to give up. God wants us to get up and have another go. He pulls us up by the hand and encourages us to try again. Every time my granddaughter did well, the instructor gave her a ‘high five’, encouraging smiles and lots of praise. Every time she failed, he was there at her side, encouraging her on by name.

What a picture of life! We have God’s Holy Spirit within us, urging us on, encouraging us, moving us forward, picking us up when we fail, helping us. We stood on the shore cheering her on, shouting encouragement and clapping when she did well; we have other Christians alongside us, also urging us on and picking us up when we fall. (Heb 12:1-3)

So ride the waves of life. Don’t worry if you fall and get wet. Get back on that surfboard and relish the challenges of life, because you were made to surf!

Dearne Churches Together and Dearne Community Arts’ Festival were both at the Bounce Into Summer event in Goldthorpe, organised by Goldthorpe Development Group. The event featured a wide range of inflatables, donkey rides, birds of prey, the police with vintage vehidcles, local groups and face painting.

We were involved in craft activities and a map activity, finding out where people lived and getting self-oortraits for a picture map.

DCAF raised £122 for the arts’ festival through a Hook-A-Duck game. Our thanks to all who helped and to those who joined in all these activities.

Joshua succeeded ultimately because he learned to hear God’s commands and to obey them. Before the victories in Canaan, he had learned to linger in God’s presence. (Ex 33:11) He learned to wait for God’s instructions (his encounter with the commander of the army of the Lord was critical for providing him with the strategy he needed to take Jericho, as Joshua 5 & 6 make plain.)

There is never a substitute for time spent in God’s presence. These times may well seem ‘ordinary’ to us (we may not feel transformed from our regular times of prayer or feel God speaks to us each time we meet with him), but as we discipline ourselves to set time aside, to read God’s word, to listen for His voice (see John 10), we are given the blueprints we need to achieve the miraculous. Time spent with God is the single most important factor in whether we will ever see the miraculous in our own lives, for it is here, in our own ‘tabernacle trysts’, that we encounter the Divine and are led by the Spirit.

Each generation must experience the miracles of God for themselves. The rest of the people of Israel had only heard about the parting of the Red Sea. Only Joshua and Caleb among them had actually witnessed that miraacle. But as the River Jordan parted for them, they saw God work personally for them and their faith rose (Joshua 3) We need to move from the academic (a head knowledge that God is able to do miracles) to the personal (that He will do miracles for us. Miracles underline for us that God is real and that He works on behalf of His people. We pray with the psalmist, ‘Summon Your power, God; show us Your strength, our God, as You have done before.’ (Ps 68:28)

As you know, we support Fredrick and Reeba who work in Bangalore, India. For some time now the situation there has been difficult, with Hindus bringing about opposition to Christianity as many Hindus convert to Christianity and are baptised. A lawsuit ha been filed against the church and against Fredrick, with false accusations about building violations and illegal baptisms. Fredrick has had to visit the Police Commissioner’s office to give evidence that these allegations are untrue and the next hearing is on 27th August. Please pray for them to find favour and for justice to be done so that their work can continue unhindered.

Please also pray for the Tailoring ministry (graduation is in November and they are saving money to buy the sewing machines they give to each woman who graduates) and for their ministry to remote areas such as Kaparahalli. Reeba asks for prayer for her friend Sharmila who has cancer which is spreading. Treatment for this is expensive in India, and the family (which has a son who is deaf and cannot speak) has had to borrow almost £2500 to pay for this treatment. Pray that the Lord will intervene and help in this situation.

Dave spoke last week from Mattjew 9:9-13, the calling of Matthew as a disciple of Jesus. Matthew (Levi), a hated tax collector, was called by Jesus to follow Him. When this happened, he put down his pen, didn’t even finish the form he was working on, pushed back his chair, got up and just started walking after Jesus without once looking back over his shoulder. He left behind everything he had been doing, everything that had given his life meaning up to that point and started following this itinerant rabbi from Nazareth who had suddenly walked into his life and said that He wanted him with Him. Jesus did not wait for Matthew to come to Him, He called Matthew.

With that call there came the convicting power of God upon this man, and he was instantly changed. The same power that raised a little girl from the dead, that healed the sick, that released the demon possessed, brought salvation to a despised sinner. The result was that Matthew left his job and made restitution to all of those he had robbed. The call of Jesus brought salvation and repentance to this man.

Matthew then invited Jesus and His disciples to dinner at his house. But he also invited his fellow tax collectors and other sinners. Matthew was so overcome with the change in his life that he wanted all his fellow partners in crime to experience the same change. So, he invited them all along to meet Jesus, probably in the hope that they too would be saved. The Pharisees were not so impressed, believing that Jesus was consorting with sinners. But Jesus came for the benefit of every one of us who need Him.  The irony is that the Pharisees needed Jesus as much as anyone, but their religious pride causes them to miss it.

We do well to learn from the mistakes of the Pharisees.It is possible to be so active in the service of Christ that we forget to love Him. It is certainly possible to be so busy in the service of Christ that we forget to love our neighbour. It can be so easy to come to church out of habit and to forget the One we come to worship.

In this incident we see Jesus as the one who moved from the comfort and security and power of being at God’s side, to being among us, as one of us, and suffering and dying as one of us, living out the message of the gospel. This is what He calls us to do as well. How will God answer our prayers for the lost in this world, how will people come to be blessed on account of us, if we do not leave behind our righteous judgements, our undoubtedly true judgement of a situation, and venture out to where it is most uncomfortable, and show mercy? We have to leave our cosy routines and our comfort zones to meet others as Jesus did. We are called to go and make disciples of all nations (Matt 28:18-20. Nothing else will do.