Above all else

As for me and my household The second half of 2024 began as the first did, with our 4th trip to see our friends at the school and village in Batam. Why was this trip especially memorable? Because we had my children N and D take centre stage to share at Sunday service, and me to interpret! I think it's the hope and joy of every parent to be able to surrender the spotlight to their children, and just be their enabler! Many Christian homes have these verses somewhere on the walls or mantelpieces: " As for me and my household, we will serve the Lord " (Joshua 24:15). I know from experience and observation that this is not easy to do, even with the best of intentions. So it has been one of the great privileges of my life to have my kids serve alongside my wife and me, and not just in a grudging one-off way.  I am quite sure that it has helped that we have brought N and D on our mission trips ever since they were toddlers. I encourage all young parents to do the same. Let's...

I'm generally a disciplined, habits, planning sort of person.  I plan practically every calendar slot of my working life, even down to when I'm going to sit at my desk to read/review/rewrite something by myself.  I have a spreadsheet that helps me plan when to catch up with my friends. I have a spreadsheet that tells me how much I'm spending every month. When I travel, I plan my itinerary in great detail, down to every hotel and ticket reference number and half hour blocks of time (yes in a spreadsheet :D). I'm pretty disciplined with habits too. I started to learn Indonesian on Duolingo several years ago, spending between 10-15 minutes practising every day. At the time of writing, I currently have an unbroken streak of 1796 days!  I committed to reading 12 books a year (I even follow a planned cycle of fiction => non-fiction => faith-based). I've managed 23, and target to finish no. 24 by the end of the year.  Best books I've read this year: Trust (Hernan...

In the book Ruthless Trust by Brennan Manning, the author writes of an encounter between John Kavanaugh, a Jesuit professor of philosophy, and Mother Teresa.  While working with her in Calcutta, he asks Mother Teresa to pray for him. Mother Teresa replies, "what do you want me to pray for?" And he says, "Pray that I have clarity". Mother Teresa responds, "Nope. I won't do that." So Kavanaugh of course asks why. And Mother Teresa explains, " Clarity is the last thing you are clinging to and must let go of ." Kavanaugh says, "But you seem to have lots of clarity!" And Mother Teresa laughs and says, " I've never had clarity. What I have always had is trust. So I will pray that you trust God ." Put another way, perhaps what Mother Teresa was saying was, certainty is your last idol . Stop chasing certainty and trust God . How does this match up with what the Bible says about faith and certainty? James 1:6-8 teaches that ...

I recently watched "The Boy Who Harnessed the Wind". It's a film based on the life of William Kamkwamba, a schoolboy in Malawi. He's a keen student in his village school in the town of Wimbe, and spends his time tinkering and repairing radios and other gadgets.  In the early-2000s, Malawi suffers from a famine due to a combination of flooding, followed by drought. Things get desperate, resulting in theft, riots, and William's sister even leaves the family to find a new life elsewhere.  William comes upon the idea of building a makeshift windmill. If they can generate electricity, they can pump a stream of water up from the well. If they can get a stream of water going, then they can irrigate their fields, and won't be entirely dependent on rain.  After much persuasion, he finally convinces his father to break their one precious bicycle into parts, so that they can be used to construct the windmill. I found the scene where they build the windmill quite moving. ...

I recently got an email telling me to turn up for a corporate photo shoot - you know, so that we have a headshot to put on websites, namecards, LinkedIn etc.  So the instructions were, pick two suits in different colours and shirt combinations, send them to our communications department, and they'll advise me on what makes sense (or not) for the shoot. I assume my comms colleagues thought this was simple enough. How hard can that be right? Unfortunately, they didn't account for me. I wrote back, "Guys. I have a problem." "I have one suit." "Black top, black pants." "Court. Meetings. Speaking engagements. Weddings. Funerals." "One suit." "How?" My comms colleague wrote back. "When is your birthday?"  Hahaha! So anyway, I turned up with my one black suit, they stuck an orange pocket square in the jacket for colour, and we went with it! ===== The episode reminded me of a recent devotion I wrote when I was readin...