I got some wheels on Friday – and got stopped by the police last night! You can guess what I was thinking, ‘O don’t tell me this car’s been stolen’! It hadn’t been but clearly they had run a check on the car whilst following me and informed me that I was driving without tax and insurance! Fortunately I was able to prove my innocence to this accusation. I am aware however that if their computer was clever enough to see all the road traffic and highway code laws I had fractured over the years I wouldn’t have been able to prove complete innocence. I’ve been reading Job where, it could be said, Job does a reasonable job of defending himself against his friends but has no chance of defending himself against God. Would I get any grace from my road traffic friends? Unlikely but from God I have known huge amounts of grace and am hopeful for yet a whole lot more. So I just took a little time out to thank God for his mercies and again I realize I have more to be thankful for than I thought!

unbalanced!

I found over the last week or so that I had allowed myself to get a bit unbalanced! It’s a common thing I guess, things happen and we allow them to affect us a little more than we should. For me it was a number of things including my car dying and broadband not working. Silly isn’t but we so often allow this to happen. Quite often it’s financial, more often it’s relational. We allow ourselves to feel offended far too often. The more we dwell on the problem facing us or the hurt we have experienced the bigger these things get. Soon we have lost proportion, our ability to make decisions is affected and relationships further fractured. Jesus tells us not to worry about the stuff of life but to seek his kingdom and righteousness (Mt 6:33). I‘m sure our relationships are implicit in this but he also tells us to love even our enemies (Mt 5:44) and Paul helpfully calls us to consider others better than ourselves (Phil 2:3) and urges us to accept one another in the way that Jesus accepts us (Rom 15:7). All to helpfully enable us to keep a balanced Christ like view on things. Why not pause and check out where anxiety is running unduly high or grudges are beginning to take a hold and offer them to the Lord seeking his peace to reign in your hearts (Col 3:15). It may be a very simple thing but I encourage you to just stop and do it.