Tag: God

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What am I afraid of?

I heard an interesting talk today at church about fear. We often think we are scared of objects, like spiders, snakes, water, heights (slightly abstract object)… What we really fear is the effect they have on us. The fear of spiders comes from imagining some harm they could do to our bodies, etc.

Failure is a big fear, and it comes down to the fear of our personhood being worthless. To counter that I need to remember that my worth comes from God and his sacrifice for me, not from my successes and failures.

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For I know the plans I have for you, declares the Lord, plans for welfare and not for evil, to give you a future and a hope. Then you will call upon me and come and pray to me, and I will hear you. You will seek me and find me, when you seek me with all your heart.

Jeremiah 29:11-13
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Let all bitterness and wrath and anger and clamor and slander be put away from you, along with all malice. Be kind to one another, tenderhearted, forgiving one another, as God in Christ forgave you.

St Paul – Ephesians 4:31-32
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Do you love me?

After Jesus came back from the dead, he was walking on the beach with Peter, the leader of the apostles. Three times he asked Peter, “Do you love me?” Three times Peter said that he did. And three time Jesus commanded Peter, “Feed my sheep.”

Jesus is the Good Shepherd and his sheep are all the people in the world that belong to Jesus – the Christians and the not-yet Christians. If we love Jesus, we will be caring for these people. Sometimes I caught up in my own world too much and forget to care for others. This passage is a challenge to rediscover my live for Jesus in caring for his family, his flock.

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Blessed be the name of the Lord

Paul says in Philippians 4:

I have learned in whatever situation I am to be content.

Sometimes we forget what a mind-blowing statement this is! Paul was beaten, whipped and stoned almost to death, thrown into prison for months, years. In all this he learned to be content. 

Could I do that?

Recently we had a scare with Zach and had to take him into hospital. The doctors and nurses said that Farrah and I seemed very calm. We may have been on the surface, but we were terrified underneath! I wouldn’t say we were content in that situation.

Continue reading “Blessed be the name of the Lord”

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Zachariah Michael

So, Zach has been with us a few days now. He is the most amazing person, the way he grows so quickly, even in three days. His neck is getting stronger, his legs are stretching, wriggling and pushing, and his head is becoming less deformed each day!

Zachariah means The LORD remembers, and we believe this is a prophecy over him, that through all his life he will know that God is with him and God is for him. Continue reading “Zachariah Michael”

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To us a child is born; to us a son is given

So Zachariah Michael was born today! It is certainly the most amazing and terrifying thing I’ve ever experienced, becoming a Parent. At some point I’ll have to go to Parents’ Evenings…!

He is an amazing gift from God, and when I was thinking about what to write in this most momentous blog post, I was reminded of the best gift ever and the verses in Isaiah 9 that describe it:

Continue reading “To us a child is born; to us a son is given”

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Fatherhood

So it’s just over a month to go. How scary is that? I’m going to be responsible for a little human being! You’d think there’d be laws against it…

Farrah and I are really excited about meeting him, but with a healthy dose of terrified! It’s like nothing we’ve ever done before, and it’s starting to feel closer to reality than a dream. Continue reading “Fatherhood”

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Our God is a global God!

I’ve had such a good day today. I was worried earlier in the week that I’d feel really sad on Sunday because I wasn’t at home at church. I found an Anglican church here but the service was at 8am and I, ahem, didn’t make it. I also have to confess that, last week, Sunday seemed like any other day – this is because at Physics conferences, all the student stuff happens on the Sunday before the conference actually starts, so I had my poster up and had to learn how to copy files from one computer to another.

Today, I went to Arashiyama, which is an area of Kyoto outside the city centre, and I hired a bike and trundled around. I went through bamboo groves and into temples, along the streets and past the fields, along the river path and (partly) up a mountain. It was really nice, beautiful, picturesque and calm. And God was there with me.

Continue reading “Our God is a global God!”

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Funding

Just sat through my first experience of an STFC Town Meeting. This is a meeting of a group of physicists to discuss matters of the Science and Technology Facilities Council. It was almost exclusively about money: how the limited funding we get from the government should be allocated, and how we should try and get more money.

The government has, within the last few years, drastically dropped the level of investment in particle physics. This means that a number of existing and future projects have had to be scrapped, and other projects have had to be scaled down.

While I was listening to this discussion, I was thinking about how money should best be used. Continue reading “Funding”