Control the bridge

For fans of James Bond the wait is nearly over. It’s been five years since the Daniel Craig era came to an end with the death of 007 at the end of No Time to Die. But last weekend final auditions were taking place to find his replacement, and not before time. A world without a hero it is a dangerous place to live! But who might it be? Callum Turner, Jack Lowden and Josh O’Connor have all been mentioned. But no one will know until the big reveal in a few months’ time. I find it fascinating how the stories we tell about heroes and salvation reflect the story we find in the Bible. A king, David, in the Old Testament, the greatest of them all and the frequent saviour of his nation. But then his death followed by an expectation that one day he would be replaced with a new hero. But who might it be? Lots of names were mentioned but the years ticked by with no one yet in the frame. Then came Jesus, unexpectedly, and hopes were revived. The hero had returned and the story went on. So, while we wait for James Bond to return to save the day again, it’s good to know that that’s what Jesus did once and for all two thousand years ago. Could he be your hero? The post Waiting for a hero appeared first on Turn the Page.

Murder in plain sight As cliffhangers go the ending of last Friday’s episode of The Traitors is unlikely to live long in the memory. The traitors had been tasked with killing a faithful in plain sight by getting them to yawn. Jerry Hall and Ross Kemp were the unwitting victims who were subjected to the most boring of conversations. The traitors’ fake yawns became ever more exaggerated along with, I suspect, many of the audience watching at home. We now have to wait until this week’s episode to discover whether the murder in plain sight was successful. To be fair to the programme’s producers the biggest cliffhanger in history was also preceded by a lot of yawning. Jesus was in the Garden of Gethsemane wrestling with the knowledge that the next day he would be murdered in plain sight. Meanwhile his friends were yawning their heads off and failing to stay awake at this most critical of moments. But unlike The Traitors where the murdered are never seen again, Jesus was. In a surprise that stunned and changed the world forever Jesus rose from the dead and offered all who would trust in him the ability to walk away from their own deaths. Now that’s something definitely worth staying awake for! The post Murder in plain sight appeared first on Turn the Page.

In time of war bridges take on strategic importance. Whoever controls them may take the upper hand and ultimately win the victory. So, no wonder the Russians have turned their attention to the bridges that connect the two halves of Kyiv that sit either side of the Dnipro River. While these recent attacks are seemingly of little strategic military importance and more about disrupting daily life, the aim is the same – control the bridge and dictate who can get across. Do that and you’re a step nearer victory. There are currently eight bridges over the Dnipro. Imagine the chaos that could be caused if all were to fall. While few of us will ever fight for control of a physical bridge. But all of us must fight to control the information that crosses into our minds and dictates how we think about ourselves and shapes our identity. This is why St Paul urged Christians not to be conformed to the world but to be ‘transformed by the renewing of your mind’. It is all too easy to fill our minds with negative thoughts of hopelessness and condemnation. By contrast Jesus speaks only life, truth and hope. He promises life in all its fulness and if we can win the battle for our minds that life can be ours. The post Control the bridge appeared first on Turn the Page.

‘God does amazing things through tragedy’. There are many for whom this statement would seem a contradiction in terms. The thinking might be that since tragedies occur there cannot be a God worth believing in. For such a God would surely be either uncaring or impotent. But these are the words spoken by Paul Carris one of the last people to walk out of the North Tower of the World Trade Centre before it collapsed on 11 September 2001. Obeying an order to evacuate from the 71stfloor he was heading for the stairs when something made him stop and offer to help a stranger in difficulty. This decision delayed his own escape as they struggled down endless flights of stairs. But part way down she started to read Psalm 23 The Lord is my Shepherd. This small interaction started a journey that ended with Paul finding a new relationship with Jesus that changed his life forever. She was forever grateful that he had saved her life. But he would say the same of her. We live in a world of miracle and mystery. Paul’s testimony and the testimony of many others like him is that sometimes in the mystery of things we can’t comprehend a miracle happens. The post Miracle and mystery appeared first on Turn the Page.

How do you know you are loved? This week the famous footballer Michael Owen has sparked a lively debate by saying that he never tells his children that he loves them. This despite the fact that they are the most precious people in the world to him for whom he would do anything. His argument is that actions are more important than words. He assumes that his children know they are loved because of how he is with them and what he does for them.  He surely makes a valid point. Too many children have been wounded by fathers who said the words ‘I love you’ but then were cruel, uncaring or absent. But let’s not through the baby out with the bathwater. Words and actions are both important, and God the Father sets us the example. We read in the Gospels that when Jesus was baptised his Father spoke from heaven and said, ‘You are my son, whom I love; with you I am well pleased*’.  Those few words rooted Jesus in his identity and gave him the security and affirmation he needed to begin a public life that would be challenging and costly.  So, how about us? Do we have those words ringing in our ears at the start of each day? The good news of Jesus is that no matter what our earthly fathers may have said, we have a heavenly father longing to adopt us into his family and say to us, ‘I love you.’ *Mark 1:11 The post I love you appeared first on Turn the Page.

Sometimes things just don’t make sense. After months of preparation 40,000 people gather for a weekend of music, worship and celebration. But then a gust of wind blows a sign. The sign falls and tragically a beloved pastor, husband and father is killed and others seriously injured. Within hours the organisers, devasted by what has happened, cancel the whole event. How does any of it makes sense? Where was God and why did he allow it? These are not new questions. The writer of Psalm 77 faces a devastating situation and asks not just these questions but many more, ‘Will the Lord reject forever? Has his unfailing love vanished? Has God forgotten to be merciful?’ His questions remain unanswered. So, in his distress he returns to what he does know for certain, ‘I will remember the deeds of the Lord; yes, I will remember your miracles of long ago’. The psalmist looks to the deliverance of his people from slavery in Egypt to freedom in a promised land. We may look to the cross and a God who doesn’t stand aloof from our suffering but enters into it and triumphs over it. Death has been defeated. That was what 40,000 people were gathering to celebrate and despite the tragedy that unfolded will continue to celebrate. Along with the psalmist they will say, ‘Your ways, O God, are holy. What God is so great as our God?’ The post When things do’t make sense appeared first on Turn the Page.

Over the last few years football fans have watched in disbelief as the Video Assistant Referee has disrupted the flow of games and then made some strange and controversial decisions. This season, however, things may be different. Football officials have decided to try and go back to the original vision for VAR summed up in the phrase ‘minimum interference, maximum benefit’. How well that goes only time will tell. As with football so with life. We would all like to live our lives with minimum interference from others giving us the freedom to enjoy life the way we want. The Bible says that’s how it was in the beginning. Adam and Eve with just one prohibition and freedom to do whatever they chose – minimum interference, maximum benefit. Sadly, they blew it and now life is filled with endless rules and regulations which govern and control our behaviour. These days it can feel more like maximum interference, minimum benefit. The good news is that as with VAR the possibility of resetting our lives is open to us. It’s never too late to start again. Jesus promises life in all its fulness to those who will turn to him. The freedom that Adam and Eve lost can be ours again. The post Minimum interference appeared first on Turn the Page.

The leaders of Oman and South Korea must be scratching their heads in disbelief as long-time friend and ally, the USA, threatens to bomb one and withdraw support from the other. It just goes to show that fickle friends are not friends at all. I learned this after being bullied for most of my boarding school career. People who were kind to my face were cruel in a crowd. It was all very unsettling and much of the time I was desperately unhappy. As human beings we seek security in the opinion of those around us and when it is uncertain or constantly changing the foundations of our identity can be shaky indeed. Encouraging to know, therefore, that one of the earliest promises God makes to the people of Israel in the Old Testament is this, ‘Be strong and courageous. Do not be afraid or terrified, for the Lord your God goes with you; he will never leave you nor forsake you.’ My life began to change on the day that I discovered that this God had made himself known in the person of Jesus and this promise was for me. So, no matter how fickle our earthly friends may be there is One who will never let us down. The post Fickle friends appeared first on Turn the Page.

As most of Britain endures the hottest day of the fifth heatwave of the summer, alarm bells about of our mismanagement of God’s creation are ringing louder. In his book A Short History of Nearly Everything, written more than twenty years ago, Bill Bryson made the following rather sad observation, ‘if you were designing an organism to look after life… you wouldn’t choose human beings for the job’.  By contrast in the Biblical account of creation God says: “Let us make humankind in our image, so that they may rule over the fish in the sea and over all the creatures that move along the ground.” God’s intention was that we should be good stewards of what he had made. Something has gone very badly wrong. But what? Our ability to reflect God’s image is tied to being in right relationship with him. Once that relationship was rejected, the image started to fade and rather than act as stewards we assumed we were owners who could do what we liked. The good news is that when we do care about the natural world it is a sign that we are reflecting something of God’s image, which in turn reminds us that we were created for relationship with him. The post Mismanaging nature appeared first on Turn the Page.

The natural world has some troubling aspects to it. Take for example the life cycle of the parasitic wasp. As the name implies the wasp lays its eggs inside a caterpillar which it then consumes and kills to ensure its own survival. Charles Darwin was deeply concerned by this. How, he wondered, could a beneficent God create something so cruel. Surely natural selection divorced from the idea of a Creator made more sense. His wife Emma was concerned about where this might all lead and not without good cause. Within a few short years his ideas of a purely material existence would be used to justify to slaughter of millions for the ‘greater good’ of others. Fortunately (and while most of us don’t like to admit it) the Bible’s view that every human is created in the image of God and therefore has intrinsic value has prevailed. For Christians this means seeing each person not only as Jesus would see them, but also with eyes that see the Jesus within them. To a greater or lesser extent, we all reflect something of the image of God in which we are made. So, it turns out that humans become the best version of themselves not by weeding out the weakest but by drawing out the image of God within. The post Darwin’s dilemma appeared first on Turn the Page.