the waiting country

Leah is the woman wronged by her father and rejected by her husband. Her story is told in Genesis 29, where she is used by her father to dec...

The first readers of the letter to the Hebrews were living in difficult times. Their faith was being assaulted and they faced strong temptat...

Bookending John’s gospel are two accounts of scepticism being dispelled by the Lord Jesus, tucked just after the prologue and just before th...

Be very careful, then, how you live —not as unwise but as wise, making the most of every opportunity, because the days are evil. (Ephesians ...

It’s a moving story. The great poet John Milton finally lost his sight and was then bereaved of his wife. In the trauma of that first loss, ...

These are days of waiting and longing. For things to change for the better. For the return of some semblance of what passed for normal life ...

Do you have days when you feel that you’re facing overwhelming odds? You have torrents of troubles and sorrows that sheet down like rain. Th...

There’s a strange little scene at the end of Matthew 17, all about paying taxes for building the temple and finding coins in the mouths of f...

With his trademark wry humour and punchy insight, Steve Turner wrote a poem about short poems: Short poems are fun. You can see at a g...

It's disconcerting to find you just haven't got hold of something. You thought you'd made all the right connections and understo...

As we pray, we hope to do so regularly and consistently. That is our aim and our desire. But, for many reasons, we struggle. It might be a m...

It's one of the saddest things that could ever be said to the Lord: "I knew that you are a hard man..." (Mt. 25:24) It's ...

"Jesus went through all the towns and villages, teaching in their synagogues, proclaiming the good news of the kingdom and healing ever...

It seems that, often, one of the strongest impulses in many Christians is to shy away from affirming the effectiveness of the Lord's wor...

It's hard to acknowledge but sometimes, just sometimes, the Bible seems to be needlessly repetitive. We've come to expect it from pr...

We who formerly delighted in fornication now embrace chastity alone; we who formely used magic arts dedicate ourselves to the good and unbeg...

In the heat of battling for the Galatians' hearts and minds, the apostle Paul writes of his overriding aim: that Christ might be formed ...

The 'ground' of 2021 still lies mostly fresh before us, untrodden and, in large measure, unseen. Some steps that we will take are kn...

I was sat wondering: what did the churches in Revelation get wrong? Why were they on the verge of dying? So much of the talk about dying chu...

(Brief notes for prayer meeting 5/1/21) Read Proverbs 4, then focus on verse 23: "Above all else, guard your heart, for everything you ...