Dear Friends

‘God give me patience….. but hurry!’ was a comment I heard many years ago and have never forgotten, it still makes me smile, summing up so beautifully our current need for wanting it all and wanting it now.

Times are a changing and it seems to be extremely difficult to keep up, new processes, new ways of doing and thinking and seeing and communicating, some wonderful and some not so. Those of us with a few miles on our clock find ourselves getting very frustrated that the tried and tested ways of our youth, the things that brought us comfort and joy are being discarded and replaced and changed that we find our very patience being both challenged and overwhelmed.

It is always good to stop, to take ‘time out’ as we all did at our recent Covenant Service, where we gave ourselves a Spiritual check up and then renewed our promises to God in those beautiful words of Covenant prayer made by generations before us. I am always blessed by such a service and to stand with you all in an atmosphere of renewal never fails to bless me.

But as we move forward into this New Year of 2023, with all its complexities and challenges, is ‘patience’ the priority on our list? I understand the deep discontent with all that is happening round about us that would focus our attention on a larger portion of patience in a somewhat chaotic and challenging age.

There is a very old and traditional hymn which is listed high on my favourite list and the beautiful words come as a response to our frustrations in the face of so much change, I often use the words as a prayer and I present them to you, to make them your prayer, for whatever is happening in your life this day …..

Drop thy still dew of quietness,
Till all our strivings cease,
Take from our souls the strain and stress
And let our ordered lives profess,
The beauty of thy peace!

May God hear and answer that prayer for you, especially today!

God bless You!

Crawford