Today in Tides we tackle the difficult area of death and ask the question - “Where is God in the midst of this?”.
Jane Nelson tells us -
God’s answer to sickness and sin and death is Jesus.
I have begun planning a Burnside At Home service dealing with death and life that hopefully we will get to in the next few weeks.
A Poem sent by Rea Houston from her Friendship Book Reading from Friday 1st May.
His love is like a gentle breeze,
That brushes my cheek and travels with ease.
His love is like the open sea
So wide and deep and flowing free.
His love is like the prettiest flower
That brings such joy in a dismal hour,
His love is like the sun’s warm rays,
Brightening even the saddest of days.
His love is like a crystal stream
That sparkles with the sunshine’s gleam.
His love is like a warm embrace
Making our troubles fade without trace.
He loves us with a love so true
That we can’t help but love him too.
Amanda-Jayne Lane
A Silent Praying Presence in Hospitals Christian doctors and nurses have described how their faith has helped them through the fear, anxiety, and physical toil of working on the NHS frontline during the coronavirus crisis. Many have prayed, and asked for prayers, for patients’ healing and for staff to cope with the challenges. Here is an article in The Church Times. https://bit.ly/3bX6Q32 |
Have you ever felt yourself struggling with doubt? Gideon did too. In this episode of Bible Biogs, David and Mike look at how the story of Gideon teaches us how to trust that God is in control. Click below to listen now! (On Sunday we will be looking together at professional doubter Thomas)
player.lightcast.com/ycTOwIzM
Another episode of UCB’s podcast. This time Vicky & Helen chat with Tim and Rachel Hughes, Lead Pastors of Gas Street Church in Birmingham, about how the lockdown could be a catalyst to turn a nation back to Jesus!
https://bit.ly/3frWuum
This is a fascinating video of a lady giving a talk that Corrie Ten Boom once gave. She travels widely telling others the story of Corrie Ten Boom and tries to recreate how Corrie looked, acted and sounded at age 85.
These Three Remain Our Message in this Moment – listen to the latest episode of #TheseThreeRemain podcast with @RickHillNI in conversation with Revs Norman Cameron, Frank Sellar and Lesley-Ann Wilson. Podcast Here |
Jigsaw I hope you enjoyed the Jigsaw again yesterday, 0:58 is the fastest time. Well done Jason. We will have to build up to a more difficult one on Friday. 0:58 1:09 1:51 2:15 2:34 3:16 | How about a new Jigsaw puzzle for today? A bit too much sky and different shaped pieces. https://bit.ly/3dolIYL |
Perhaps the Where Is It was too difficult yesterday as no one guessed correctly.
It was of course the roof of the building in the Children’s Play area in the Crescent. I forgot to take a complete picture of the building so you will have to use your imagination or squint into the distance in this photo. Select the photo to make it larger.
Praying is the Most Practical Thing You Can Do
An article about prayer by Rachel Jones - Author of Five Things To Pray
The irony of life in lockdown is that it’s precisely when the needs are at their greatest that we feel the least able to help.
The needs nationally are obvious and overwhelming. Yet those of us who aren’t key workers, medics or politicians feel powerless to help. We’re stuck at home, cleaning and baking while Rome burns. The solutions are out of our hands. All we can do is keep washing ours.
And the needs in your personal circle may feel just as overwhelming, and just as impossible to meet: exhausted parents you’re not able to watch the kids for, grieving friends you’re not allowed to hug, lonely people you can’t welcome into your home. Your heart goes out to your struggling friends, but you have to stay in.
For those of us who pride ourselves on being one of life’s “do-ers”, this crisis has been a humbling experience. We’ve been sent to the bench to watch the match, when what we really want to get back on the pitch. We feel so… useless. It’s incredibly humbling.
And yet in God’s economy, humble people are the most useful people to him. Because it’s humble people who are in the position to do the most practical, most powerful thing possible right now: pray.
We might be confined to our houses—“but God’s word is not chained” (2 Timothy 2 v 9).
We might have had our freedoms curtailed—but our Father “will do all that [he] pleases” (Isaiah 46 v 10).
Our little worlds might have stopped turning—but the Son is still “sustaining all things by his powerful word” (Hebrews 1 v 3).
In God’s economy, humble people are the most useful people
Throughout Scripture, God promises to work in response to the prayers of his people. And it’s driven by this conviction that TGBC are publishing
Five Things To Pray In A Global Crisis https://www.thegoodbook.co.uk/5-things-to-pray-in-a-global-crisis
Like the other books in the 5 Things to Pray series, it works through 21 different prayer themes, taking a passage of Scripture and turning that into five short prayer prompts for each person or area of concern.
This little guide will help you to pray for your own heart, asking God to help you in the midst of your fear, loneliness, uncertainty and frustration.
It will help you to pray for loved ones—whether they’re sick or vulnerable, under your roof or far away.
It will help you to pray for those on the front line of fighting this virus: our government, healthcare system and key workers.
And it will help you to pray for your church family and your community during this unique season, as we ask God to do what only he can—to work through this crisis to grow his kingdom and bring glory to the Lord Jesus.
Can you imagine what God might do in your church, your community and your nation, if you spent the next three weeks earnestly asking him to be at work? And then consider that he is the one “who is able to do immeasurably more than all we ask or imagine, according to his power that is at work in us” (Ephesians 3 v 21)!
You’re not powerless to help in the face of this pandemic. Well actually, you are. That’s part of the point. But you have the ear of the One who is not, and you’re invited to come to him in prayer.