As a child, I learned to count and was immensely proud of being able to count to one hundred. Then I learned a quicker way of doing it: 'one, two... miss a few... ninety-nine, one hundred!' I found this hilarious. Many of us want to apply this childish rhyme to life...

I love watching my grandchildren learn and especially seeing them begin to order things, listening to them learn to count or to sort shapes by size, for example. Getting things in the right order is indeed a useful skill in life. I have been reading the Prophets...

Advent is a time of waiting - and we often find waiting very difficult. Time can seem to go so slowly when we are waiting for something; we even can find it quite hard to count and wait for a minute! James 5:7 reminds us that we need to wait like the farmer who has to...