It has been an interesting couple of weeks. One particular thorn in my side still but this post isn't about that. We seem to have found a lovely place to live but have a massive dilemma. Too many wonderful churches to choose from. Each has their own pros and cons and each is lovely. As we are no longer in England, the local Church of England church is out of the question! There is an equivalent but I'm not so sure. Today, we went for the second time to the local Free Church of Scotland church. It has truly breathtaking views down the loch. Enough to make you want to get to your knees and praise God. I haven't done that yet, given the fact that it is so wet at the minute but you never know. Services are a little different though. No music really. My charismatic innards are struggling with the inability to raise my hands in worship. I know I could do it if I wanted to but it isn't really something that seems to accompany Psalms sung in plainsong. Lots of good prayer in the service and some excellent teaching. Coffee (or rather tea for me of course and a cold drink for my lovely wife) is excellent and the company wonderful. It is a little tiring to be in such a small community that as soon as you point out that you only moved in recently (still less that a month for us)they immediately know who you are and what your job is. I think we will make this one our home for a little while. It will be good to see what God has in mind for us to do. I would love to do some more preaching (having only done it a handful of times, I do enjoy it) and teaching but it is up to God. Rarely in my life have I known so surely that the place I am in is the place God had in mind for me. His hand has been on everything we have done in terms of the move and settling in etc. Praise the Lord. Proverbs 4:5 Get wisdom, get understanding; do not forget my words or turn away from them.

It has once more been a little while. I have now moved up to Scotland with the family. It truly is wonderful up here. I feel so much closer to God. I am reading the Bible more regularly and have been to a couple of great churches. We are off to another one tomorrow. A Free Church of Scotland one no less. I hope to blog about the service tomorrow...

So, it was supposed to be the end of the world today. Was I nervous? Yes, I was a little. I know that the Bible says that nobody knows the time or the date of the return of Christ but I have to admit I was a little nervous. The reason is simple. I know that I am not right with Christ. He and I still have some issues to sort out. Well, I do, he doesn't. This scares me because I want to be right with him but I simply cannot seem to be. There are lots of people trying to help me with this and I thank God for them all. There are people praying and people giving me some great advice but I cannot seem to sort it out. Simple thing is, I seem pathologically unable to calm my mind down enough to sit, read the Bible and pray about it. I try all sort of things to organise myself but I have never been able to manage it. I have something else to do now so I will have to stop writing this post. I will try and edit it later ...

It has been a while since I posted and I wonder why? This is traditional for me. I get involved in something and then I lose interest. I have also been very busy and that shouldn't be an excuse. I feel a little far from God at the minute. Even thinking of the question 'who moved?' makes me cringe given that it once came from someone whom I no longer count as a friend. Church is difficult to get to, Bible reading is non existent and I just cannot seem to hear God. I am very stressed about work and the whole moving thing. It seems that civil servants are not the best people in the world to keep me stress free. However, this morning, for the first time in a while I felt led to read the Bible. I am trying to use a one year Bible and this morning's readings included Psalm 34. Now this is a psalm which I don't know well apart from verse 8. Taste and See that the Lord is good. This is a verse that helped bring me back to God once before. At the height of my rebellion against Him, I tried Spring Harvest again but wasn't really in the mood. I thought I would read the Bible one last time and amazingly there was nothing. Not a jot of inspiration. Zip. Nada. Zilch. I went back into the camp and went to the loo. There I put my Bible on the side to wash my hands and dropped the Bible. Out fell a note with 'Taste and see that the Lord is good' on it and I knew that I should go back to the worship and let God work in His own time. What a wonderful thing that was. Never have I felt so close to God, never have I known His love and forgiveness so much as then. So I feel better this morning. I feel that trusting God may work and that housegroup tonight will be something special. I can even cope with hobbling around because I lost the heel from one of my shoes on the way to work this morning ...

Something that has been on my mind to write about for a while is Harry Potter. I realise that this is a childlike topic but bear with me.

I love the books, ever since I picked one up in the first school I was teaching at. I saw kids reading it and they were engrossed. For the last few, I did get them on the first day and I even queued at midnight for the very last one. Problem is, many people dislike them. Christians I know and love dislike them. I would dearly love to read them to my child but some people would be unhappy about that.

Are they unchristian? Ultimately they are a battle between good and evil and good wins out. The characters learn that the evil ways may sometimes prosper (quite realistic I think) but ultimately they are futile. Whilst there is no God figure in the books (no matter what some people say about Dumbledore, he is not a God) there is an ultimate victory.

Where we fall down though is that there is magic. Does the world of Harry Potter encourage people (young people of course) to dabble in the dark arts? Personally I don't think it does. How could it? The spells are not real. We cannot get wands, we cannot find the real platform 9 3/4 and we do not have a school like Hogwarts. Why then do some people get so stressed about it?

I don't know. I shall have to read them again to see if I missed anything ...

I am thinking of writing a short book on apologetics. I know there are lots out there and that the formula is easy - here is a difficult question, here is how to answer it but I am hoping that I can add a few stories and anecdotes. I'd also like to include some of the different ways in which the Bible helps with these points. Please pray that it goes well, some of my other projects really never seem to get off the ground.

Here is another tune that I enjoy listening to. It is not by a Christian artist (although I am sure the author of the piece the film is based on was), it still has a wonderful way of making me think about God.

Non nobis domine is a latin term taken from psalm 115:1. In Latin it reads Non nobis, Non nobis domino,Sed nomini tuo da gloriam. This translates (thank you Wikipedia!) into, not to us, not to us lord, but to your name give glory.

It makes me wonder about the times I have done things and been proud. I rarely give the glory to God. In fact I think I almost never do. I wish I was so willing to accept the 'glory' when things have gone wrong.

Here is the section from Henry V with Sir Kenneth Brannagh. Enjoy