the waiting country

A loss of place and purpose can have devastating consequences for our mental health. Whether that’s through the sorrow of bereavement or the...

What are the things that give you joy? Where is that joy grounded? Those are important questions in the light of our present situation. So m...

Some times of praise and prayer are like a cloudburst - torrential - and if you're caught (up) in it, drenching. But other expressions a...

The opening words of the book of Ruth sound like a death knell: "In the days when the judges ruled...." . Days that are played out...

In his poem, Going for Water , Robert Frost relates how the discovery that "The well was dry beside the door" leads him and anot...

As the Lord Jesus is teaching in Luke 11, warning and exhorting and calling to unfettered loyalty to himself as Messiah, a woman in the crow...

Who benefits from the Lord's saving work in the life of his people, at the exodus and in all the subsequent deliverances patterned on it...

I doubt it's an accolade any of us would angle for, "Least in the kingdom of God" , unless it was an exercise in faux-humility...

"I just don't get it." Ever said that about something in the Bible, about the claims it makes concerning Jesus? Or maybe it...

We so often, and so very easily, entertain wrong views of God and our relationship with him. This isn't deliberate on our part but it is...

In the garden of Gethsemane, our Lord Jesus urged his disciples to sit with him, to keep watch while he went to pray (Mk. 14:32ff). They str...

As Peter wrote his first letter, he was acutely aware of not only where his readers lived but their social location - the daily experience o...

Throughout history, in times of war, cities have been besieged. Over weeks and months, even years, they have been surrounded and threatened,...

If you're re-starting church in your building this Sunday, can I make this plea to you? You have, as a church leadership, and in consult...

Think 'preacher' for 'writer' and this remains spot-on: It's often failure that forces the writer to reflect on why h...

In Mark 4:26-29, our Lord Jesus continues his teaching with another 'nature parable'. The man who scatters seed into the ground - ex...

Mirror, mirror, on the wall, who is the ugliest of all? Well, obviously, it's me; it's you. At least that's probably how it feel...

Having been called by God to go from his country, his people and his father’s household, to the land promised to him by the Lord (Gen. 12:1)...

Are there days when you feel like you’ve lost before you’ve even begun? Many of us would say we’ve often felt like that. And it might be tha...

​ "​ Truly, truly, I say to you, unless a grain of wheat falls into the earth and dies, it remains alone; but if it dies, it bears much...