From the Manse

Contents

Happy New Year,
We have just been reunited with a set of small Royal Doulton ‘Winnie the Pooh’ figurines which somehow got into our Christmas decoration box whilst moving! One of them that got me thinking is ‘Tigger signs the Rissolution’ and I wondered about our New Year resolutions, whether they will be forgotten as quickly as Tigger’s Rissolution not to bounce!

My resolution this year is to try to become more attentive.
What do I mean by attentive? Well, I want to be more aware of the things that we take so much for granted, clean water, electricity, services like refuse collection, free healthcare etc.

In Kings Langley they are starting the New Year with a 3 J challenge, where you put pennies in a jar each day. For example January 6th says ‘sight is taken so much for granted, donate 20p for each pair of spectacles you own’. I am looking forward to doing this challenge with Kanye, because it really makes you think, and count your blessings.

Another way in which we can be more attentive is seeing God’s spirit in all people. We believe that God is with us, and that God’s love is for all. How different would our village be if everyone treated each other as if they were welcoming Jesus?

And perhaps the most important way to be attentive, is to listen to the promptings of God, through prayer and through reading the Bible, spending time with God. It makes perfect sense, we can only be attentive to our friends and relatives when we take the time to listen to their concerns, and not always interrupt with a great long list of our own. How often is our prayer time a list of people to pray for, but we don’t then wait for the response from God?

There is a story of an old French peasant who used to go and sit every day in the city’s beautiful cathedral for about half an hour. One of the Cathedral priests finally spoke to the man, asking him what he was doing, as he wasn’t obviously praying, and he thought perhaps he had just come in out of the cold. The old man replied ‘I look at the Good Lord, and the Good Lord looks at me’.

Sometimes we need to simply rest in God’s presence. The Bible tells us that Jesus came so that we might have life in all its fullness. God wants the very best for us, and that, for me, means learning to walk in God’s presence, being attentive to what God wants, being aware of other’s needs, but also being thankful every day for the blessings given to us.

Whatever your New Year’s resolution for 2012 may you have a peaceful and blessed  New Year

---

The Lord is good, a stronghold in the day of trouble; and he knoweth them that trust in him.

Nahum ch 1, v 7.