Walking the Way: A daily devotional

Ecclesiastes 3:1 There is an occasion for everything, and a time for every activity under heaven   Thought for the day The blogger Jill Printzenhoff writes about a time how she went fishing and caught nothing and yet the fisherman next to her managed to pull out seven. They were using different bait and she describes it as not her day. She finishes her blog post with these words: ‘You keep striving, you keep working, and you keep on keeping on. Because some day when you cast your line . . . you will be at the right spot at the right time . . . and that day will be your day . . . the day you catch that all elusive fish!’ I believe that there is a time for everything under heaven and earth and sometimes, well actually, all the time we need to be patient and wait because the reality of the situation is we are working to God’s time. The writer of Ecclesiastes also says this about God’s timing: ‘He has made everything appropriate[b] in its time. He has also put eternity in...

  Consumers? Ever heard of the phrase ‘too much of a good thing?’ How much is too much for you? And how much of a good thing is too much? At what point do we say enough is enough? I’ve been thinking about this recently. A lot. I believe God has been challenging me to think about how much I consume. I feel like this one of those moments when I stand up in a support group and say ‘my name is Ray and I am a consumer.’ I’m not being flippant here either. I think we need to confess that we are consumers. God has given us an amazingly wild, diverse beautiful place to live. Our consumption is destroying it. And it’s because we have believed in the lie that more is better. The latest phone, the newest car, the most up to date fashion. The must have toy. More is better is what the world tells us. The Gospel is that we find our value, our purpose, and our satisfaction in Christ alone. Paul writes in Philippians 4:19 ‘And my God will meet all your needs according to the riches of his gl...

Revenge? We’ve talked about not seeking revenge because revenge is only God’s to give here on Walking the Way, but I’ve never thought about how I would feel if the revenge I so desperately wanted was to be inflicted on someone. How would I react if the person who has done me harm came to what I think of as their just reward? Would I be happy and gloat? Well the Bible makes it clear that rejoicing over the downfall of your enemies is a no-no. And actually that’s quite hard because  think our natural inclination is to maybe not rejoice but certainly take a certain amount of satisfaction when those who have hurt us get their just rewards. And then I think about the grace and forgiveness of God and how God has extended that grace and forgiveness to me. And how God expects me to do the same to those I class as enemies. We were God’s enemies, but he chased us down and saved us. Think of the witness if we do that to those who hurt us and are now being hurt. ‘No, “if your enemies are hungr...

Proverbs 10:15 Wealth protects the rich;  poverty destroys the poor.   Thought for the day The author Terry Pratchett once wrote that the difference between rich and poor people was their boots. Rich people can afford to buy boots that last a lifetime, poor people end up spending what little they have, on constantly replacing the cheap boots they have to buy because they can’t afford better boots. And it’s an interesting take on today’s verse about wealth and poverty. But the question of wealth and poverty is a difficult one for Christians. Growing up in Southern Africa I was very aware of vast differences in wealth distribution. Even here in the UK, the differences between the wealthy and the poor are everywhere if you know where to look. In the Scriptures wealth is a blessing but it is a blessing that can and will for many people become an idol. Go read the account of the rich young man (Matthew 19:16-30). But like many of God’s gifts they are given out as he chooses. There ...

 Holiness What does holiness look like to you? Or when you hear the word holy what comes to mind. The reason I’m asking is because for a while now I have been thinking about holiness. What does it mean to be holy and whether or not we can truly be holy? We are commanded to be holy both in the Old Testament and by Jesus who said be holy as your Father in heaven is holy (Matthew 5:48).  John Wesley taught that genuine faith produces inward and outward holiness. He consistently argued that salvation must produce holiness of heart and life, but he never viewed the process as something that would be completed. He taught that despite the inner assurance and regeneration of character that results from knowing that you have been saved, it is never too long before we discover that there is still a root of sin within. However, there is never an occasion or state of true Christian discipleship that does not lead to a deepening of our love for God and for our neighbour and we become mo...

Mad Wisdom               When I first arrived in the UK I was sat at a bus stop with 2 other people, A young lady and an older gentleman. The older gentleman was impeccably dressed and was very charming, that is right up to the point when he got up, walked out into the street ad started howling at the moon. He then sat down as if nothing happened and explained he was of lycanthropic descent. He was descended from werewolves apparently. Needless to say, he was less charming after this and, if not already, most likely should have been under the care of mental health professionals. Solomon describes wisdom as someone who cries out in the streets, who raises their voices in the square. I wonder if we as a society haven’t begin to see wisdom, particularly Godly wisdom, in the same way we might see someone, like my gentleman with mental health problems. It’s all a bit odd and possibly dangerous, best not spoken about or considered and probably best lo...

 Attitude of praise  Psalms is after all the Bible’s hymnbook and prayer book and as we look back over the psalms even those that are cries of lament or anger ultimately bring their thoughts back to praising God. ‘Bring me out of prison, so that I may give thanks to your name’, cries David in 142. ‘How could we sing the Lord’s song in a foreign land’ lament the exiles in 137. And it got me wondering about the way we live our lives, Are we as the people of God, living lives that give glory to God? Are we a thankful people for all that God has done for us? Is worshipping God consuming us? I wager that the answer is no. And we can make all sorts of excuses for it. It’s unrealistic, we’re too busy, I have kids etc. etc. etc. And yet the imperative in today’s Psalm is ‘Let everything that breathes praise the Lord! Praise the Lord!’ And it’s more than an imperative, it’s the reason for our being. We were created, the universe was created to praise God and bring him glory. So for...

 Plans? How many of us have sat with an elderly person and they’ve told us not to waste any opportunities? I think there’s something about recognising that time is short that puts our life choices into perspective and makes us question those choices. It’s a challenge for us because so many of us are simply trying to live life in a way that enables us to survive never mind thrive.   In context today’s verse is about not putting our trust in the world or any one person because in the end they to will die, whereas God is eternal and so we should trust him. But as I sat and pondered that particular verse, I found myself asking myself about the plans I had for my life and what would happen when I died. So, what about you? What are the plans you have? Do they match God’s plans for you? Jeremiah 29 tells us that God knows the plans He has for you, plans to prosper you and not to harm you, plans to give you hope and a future. I believe that God’s plan for us includes thriving, n...

  Glory revealed?  A lady approached a minister and asked the minister to baptise her child. They discussed what infant baptism was, and when he asked her when she wanted her child to be baptised, she told him that she didn’t want the baptism to be done as part of the Sunday worship service. When he asked why, she said to him that those attending didn’t want to sit through a boring sermon. I don’t know how you felt when you heard the account I’ve just given. I have no doubt there will be some that will be nodding thinking about the last time you had a particularly bad sermon. There will be some that are thinking about the theological debate about infant vs believer baptism. There will be some that may be outraged that people see the church merely as a vehicle to get things done. And there may be some that are thinking what our current worship says about the way we make known to the sons of men His mighty acts, And the glorious majesty of His kingdom. This is the question I...

  Psalm 135:18 Those who make them become like them, so do all who trust in them. Thought for the day What’s your worst habit? What’s your best habit? It’s a strange direction to go in with today’s verse because in context, today’s verse is about idolatry. Idols are dead so those who make them become like them as do those who worship them. They die.   But maybe it’s not such a strange direction to go in. After all the habits we have are very often as a result of what we hold dearest. A morning quiet time can be a habit because of our desire to spend quality time with God. Watching porn can become a habit because of our desire to satisfy our own needs, often at the cost of our meaningful relationships. Our habits in many ways reflect our priorities.   So what are your habits? Good and bad. What do your habits tell you about yourself? I think we can learn a lot about ourselves when we think about our habits and question them. So today as you go through your ...

  Psalm 130:6 I wait for the Lord   Thought for the day There used to be a car advert in South Africa for a small car from a well-known German car manufacturer. The advert song had the lines ‘waiting, waiting, waiting for the bus. Where’s the bus?’ The advert was a person standing at a bus stop in the rain as this little car drove past. Cut to the people in the car nice and dry and warm and unbelievably happy. It wasn’t a particularly original advert that’s for sure. Two things come to mind when I read today’s verse. The first is the iine from the advert about waiting (as if waiting is such a bad thing) and the second thing is how we have become so accustomed to things happening immediately that we are no longer able to wait for things. And that’s a big challenge for disciples of Jesus because as I’m sure we’ve experienced God’s timing is very rarely our timing. How many of us can honestly say with the Psalmist ‘I wait for the Lord’? The reality is that the vast...

  Psalm 107:6 Then they cried to the Lord in their trouble, and he delivered them from their distress Thought for the day Someone asked me how the could know if if God was speaking to them. It’s a good question. How can we know if God is speaking to us? There are a whole number of ways. Circumstances can be an indication that God is trying to tell you something. Dreams and visions are another way. People can say things to you and then there is Scripture. But often the most common way God speaks to us is through repetition. He will say something to us again and again until we get the message. He’s patient and let’s face we aren’t the brightest when it comes to hearing from God. And the repetition bit is important because today’s verse gets repeated 4 times in today’s psalm and there’s a message there for someone who needs to hear it. I don’t know who today’s message is meant for but someone out there is struggling at the moment and God wants you to know that you can ...

  Psalm 106:4 Remember me, O Lord, when you show favor to your people; help me when you deliver them; Thought for the day Have you ever read a passage of Scripture and felt that you’ve heard that before? It may not be a direct reference, there are literally hundreds of those and a good Bible should give you those references in the foot notes. But those times when you read a passage and it’s more like an echo. (I’m sure there’s a theological or literary term for it, but I can’t remember it.) Today’s verse is the same. As I was reading the Psalm, I heard an echo of a another verse. I’ll give you a second to see if you can think what it was… My echo was when the thief on the cross with Jesus turns to Jesus as says: ‘Jesus remember me when you come into your Kingdom.’ Luke 23:42   This is one of the joys of Scripture. We read portions of Scripture and it makes connections with other sections of Scripture. Maybe not directly, but certainly organically. There almost ...