Baby, Its Cold outside!

I spent most of the day at home today. Si has been working pretty much non stop on some big project, & Lottie, having been seriously sick last night, had cruelly scuppered all our exciting weekend plans. Nevertheless, we had fun, playing pictionary, balloon bending, making traffic light jelly, doodling, and, of course, developing our eye to hand coordination (yep, the playstation!) :) In between I found myself doing the odd catch up on facebook and, indulging my nosey streak, I read through the status updates, finding a recurring theme. It was apparently very cold outside! I, myself, am not usually phased by changes in weather, indeed my favourite is actually the rain! Whether it is the reactionary in me, or just the fact that it saves me the job of watering, I do not know, but I think rain is great, and I can find myself quite irate when I hear our great British weather described as 'terrible'. We live in a green and pleasant land and that is thanks, in part at least, to the soggy, but wonderful weather with which we are blessed. Anyway, before I become too contentious, I must get back to the point! The more I read, the colder I felt, and the more I wanted to stay tucked up inside my little house, in spite of my usual desire for action and adventure! And so, we turned on the heating and stayed indoors, enjoying more Saturday afternoon fun! A few hours later, however, having fully maxed my creativity, and beginning to tear out my increasingly greying hair, I decided to take the kids for an impromptu trip to Ikea. On stepping outside I discovered that although it had looked cold, grey and blowy from inside, and all reports I had read had been alaskan, it was actually quite a mild autumn day! Had I realised how lovely it was we would have gone to the park much earlier, but I had believed the stories of scarves and snowmen & missed out on an afternoon of outdoor frolics. Still, we had a nice time, the children were expecting an Ikea play area, and so an Ikea play area they got, and I had a brief moment's peace wandering the store checking out the latest in storage solutions.

There is a lesson for us here! We live in a society which increasingly tells us that God is irrelevant, boring, or not even there at all. We see the established church portrayed as a mess with division and irrelevance plastered all over it! We live in a cynical, unbelieving and often unhappy society. But, it is not enough to believe the accounts of others, or to make a judgement of God based on the failures of people! God is much bigger than that!

The Bible tells us that "God has set eternity in the hearts of men". That means that within each of us there is a desire for something more, a greater satisfaction, a better relationship, he made us with that longing deep inside us, yet so often we fail to understand and seek to fulfil our desires elsewhere. In relationships, material possessions, drugs... However, we all need to know God, to love & to be loved. We all need Jesus! If you find yourself sitting all too comfortably in your home, but really longing for adventure, peace, security or happiness, then check it out. Pray, talk to God, listen, ask him to make himself real to you, get hold of a Bible and read it and if you can get in touch with a dynamic Christian then do so. Don't believe the reports! Don't miss out! Its a beautiful day! God is waiting for you! Get out of the house! You just have to open the door!

Check out www.livingrockchurch.org We meet most Sundays at 10:30am at Finham Park secondary School, Coventry. It would be great to see you there! If you are not local but would like to find out more you can contact the church office and they will try to put you in touch with some good people near where you live. You can also check out a Alpha course at a church near you... a great way of finding out more!