June message

Dear friends,

It is now five years since Sylvia and I moved from Harrogate to Sheffield and, whilst we are very happy living here, we often think back to the good times we enjoyed in Harrogate and to our friends there. We are both delighted with the news that you have now opened your new “front room” which I am sure will be well used and we hope to come and see it soon. It certainly will give you a good view of the Stray and the lovely flowers which I remember with great affection and I trust that in the lovely spring we are enjoying that the floral display has been as good as ever.

You will all remember that gardening has never been high on my skills list but I am making a bit of an effort to at least keep things tidy and I have planted some seeds and moved some shrubs around. But during the past few weeks I have noticed that everything has suddenly grown and just when I thought I had got things tidy everything is starting to look overgrown again. But then that’s what spring is all about and it reminds us, if we need reminding, of God’s creativity and of his creation.

With the daily diet of depressing news, where it is the economic situation, climate change. MPs expenses or whatever, we can so easily become despondent but a daily diet of admiring the Stray, or your garden, or my garden, reminds us that God’s world is bigger than the subjects which our media considers of interest.

So, putting aside the Daily Telegraph for a minute, or whichever newspaper you read, take some time to look around at the beauty of the trees, shrubs, flowers, and all the people of Harrogate, and thank God for his providence and for assuring us that the world in which we live is a place of order and a place of great beauty and there are many good things to celebrate and to be thankful for.

We have just started a new study group at Central where our theme is Contentment and though we are not far into the course it is good to share our thoughts and experiences of contentment and what we mean by being content. We know that our consumerist world deliberately tries to make us discontent so that we can buy things to make us more content, but this is never the answer.

The only way for true contentment is a good relationship with God through Jesus and to recognise that no matter who we are or what we have or how intelligent we are or what colour our skin, we are of value and we are of worth, because Jesus went to the cross to prove this to us.

Though the recent news about MPs expenses along with the credit crunch and financial chaos makes us feel we have been let down by our political leaders just a look out of the window at the wonders of creation reminds us that God doesn’t let us down and in Him we can always put our trust.

May God bless you all in all you seek to do in his service.

With every blessing,

Bob