Sunday 4 December

Daniel 11:2-35

If I’m honest, I feel insecure.  I feel insecure because I like to think that the bible is my thing and yet this part of Daniel is baffling me.  I just don’t know what to say about it or what to think about it.  There are, of course, other parts of the bible that make me feel that way but I generally find that they are pretty marginal (like genealogies or obscure stories about random kings).  But this stuff in Daniel is about the time of the end.  This stuff in Daniel is about the future of the world, about the coming end of the Age.  And I haven’t a clue.  And what is worse, I know that we are about to hit Revelation in the New Testament readings and that will be more of the same.  But feeling insecure in my own abilities is actually not too bad a place to be, as long as it causes me to lean not on my own understanding but trust in the Lord with all my heart.  I know I am on a journey.  I know that even those who are greater than me - even the wise - will stumble.  So my stumbling over this book is not too bad a thing.  Especially as God will use our stumbles to refine us and to purify us and to make us spotless until the time of the end.  I really want to be spotless until the time of the end.  So thank you Jesus that you have helped me see I am stumbling.

1 John 4:7-21

“We know and rely on the love God has for us.”  This is the wonderful voyage of our faith.  There is always a fair wind behind us.  Whenever we feel like we are just lolling around, going nowhere, lost at sea - we can come back to this.  We can raise again the mighty mainsails of our faith, and let the fresh, reliable wind of God blow us back on course.  The wind of his love always blows.  It always blows strong - strong enough to carry your ship and mine all the way to the shore.  The cross has assured us of this.  The death of Jesus as an atoning sacrifice for our sins has assured us forever that the Father loves us strong.  He loves us strong and He loves us now.  He loves us in this moment.  I think that takes time to accept.  It takes even longer to understand.  And the hardest thing of all is to rely on it.  But that is truly what we can do.  The Father loves us and will set us free from our sins.  The Father loves us and he will make us good.  The Father loves us and he will lead us home to Him.

Psalm 138:1-8

He made the psalmist stout-hearted.  Others he just made stout.