What do the following pictures have in common?



The answer is that all these images featured in Tony’s quiz at the family service and had to do with angels, the theme for the evening. (The first is the ‘Angel of the North’ sculpture, the second ‘Charlie’s Angels’ and the third a popular image of the devil, who was, of course, a fallen angel.)

Dave then spoke on the subject of angels, a very apt topic for this Advent season! He spoke mainly from Luke 2:8-20, but also looked at the role of angels:
(1) to magnify God (Neh 9:6/ Rev 5:11-14)
(2) to bring God’s message to people
(3) to minister to people (Heb 1:14/ Heb 13:2)

People’s reactions to angels generally involve terror. They were terrified by the messenger, and often tottered at the message brought! More often than not, angels reassured people by telling them ‘Do not fear’:
(1) Don’t be afraid of God’s purposes (Mary)
(2) Don’t be afraid when things seem to go wrong (Joseph)
(3) Don’t be afraid of the good news (the shepherds)

Our response needs to be to surrender to Christ’s leadership and to become messengers of this good news ourselves!

Stephen spoke from Psalm 5:1-3 on Sunday morning. He started with some statistics about the world’s population: 6,885,814,406 apparently and every three hours another 28,500 people are added to that total, so it is, of course, already out of date! Yet despite the number of people who may be crying out to God at any one time, God hears and answers each of us.

“Listen to my words, LORD, consider my lament. Hear my cry for help, my King and my God, for to you I pray. In the morning, LORD, you hear my voice; in the morning I lay my requests before you and wait expectantly.”

God listens to all our prayers: the sighings, the ‘moans and groans’, the prayers and petitions. He is both King and God – in a position to help us. 1 Kings 19 reminds us, though, that the answers He brings may well be in a ‘gentle whisper’. We can easily want God in a specific way or form. God is powerful, therefore Elijah may well have expected him to come in the wind or the earthquake or the fire, but sometimes God comes in ways we don’t expect.

In the film ‘Bruce Almighty’ there is a scene with post-it notes which captures this sense of the sheer number of prayers God has to deal with! Bruce may choose to answer all of these with one click of a button, pressing ‘Yes to all’ on his computer, but we actually have the security of knowing that God listens to us as individuals and gives us individual answers. Our part is to ‘wait expectantly’, to set apart that time early in the day to be with the Lord and to listen for His still, small voice.

Here are some more wedding photos:


The speeches:

In Dave’s speech, he spoke about some of the ‘four letter words’ of marriage, namely ‘work’, ‘dust’, ‘iron’ and ‘cook’!


Tidying away and making coffees:

Wedding blessings are great opportunities to share in a couple’s joy, to meet with family and friends, to learn more of how to live in God’s love. Dave, combining the job of best man and preacher with his usual aplomb, spoke from Colossians 3:12-17 about the ‘blue print’ for marriage (and for life as a Christian):

“Therefore, as God’s chosen people, holy and dearly loved, clothe yourselves with compassion, kindness, humility, gentleness and patience. Bear with each other and forgive whatever grievances you may have against one another. Forgive as the Lord forgave you. And over all these virtues put on love, which binds them all together in perfect unity. Let the peace of Christ rule in your hearts, since as members of one body you were called to peace. And be thankful.Let the word of Christ dwell in you richly as you teach and admonish one another with all wisdom, and as you sing psalms, hymns and spiritual songs with gratitude in your hearts to God. And whatever you do, whether in word or deed, do it all in the name of the Lord Jesus, giving thanks to God the Father through him.”

We start from the wonderful position of being God’s chosen people, holy and beloved. Secure in this, we are then free to ‘put on’ compassion, kindness, humility, gentleness and patience, key qualities in a marriage, qualities that require effort.

‘Love Story’ may say that ‘love is never having to say I’m sorry’, but that is untrue. True love involves saying we’re sorry and forgiving, accepting those words when offered and moving on. The love we are to put on is not the sentimental kind, but is a gift from God which binds everything together in perfect harmony.

Dave reminded the couple that they begin well today, making their vows before God, but urged them to take time to be found among God’s people who are also working at their own blue prints, being thankful for all that God has done and will continue to do.

Our prayers are with the happy couple as they begin this next phase of their lives.

We had the joy of witnessing a wedding blessing this weekend and as always, that’s a great opportunity for food and fellowship!

At the end of a busy morning’s work, the workers had their own lunch:

This is how the food looked when it was all ready:

‘Top table’:

Sweet food:

The wedding cake:

The snow has arrived with a vengeance this week, reminiscent of early snow last year and then the snow in January which caused such havoc in the area. It can be very frustrating when our plans are rudely altered by weather and is a reminder of how little control we actually do have over so many things.

We had 24 centimetres (about 9 inches) of snow overnight:

Many of us like the illusion that we are in control and merrily go about our ordered worlds, controlling situations, manipulating circumstances into a more manageable state. Then, as Dave reminded us on Sunday night, something happens which rudely awakens us to our lack of control and we often feel afraid, uncertain, unable to cope with the unknown.

The reassuring thing in all of this, however, is that God is never taken by surprise and is always in control.
“Worship the LORD in the splendour of his holiness; tremble before him, all the earth. Say among the nations, “The LORD reigns.” The world is firmly established, it cannot be moved; he will judge the peoples with equity. Let the heavens rejoice, let the earth be glad; let the sea resound, and all that is in it.” (Ps 96:9-11)

As there are so many things we feel we need to get done which may be adversely affected by the weather, let us focus on the fact that the Lord reigns and that we belong to Him and may we rest in His unfailing love.