My blogs lately have been a bit nostalgic. I am glad to say I am not in my dotage yet nor (God save me and you from it)  in my anecdotage! I believe in a God who always offers a future and a hope at every stage of life and beyond. It is best, as a rule,  to be onward looking. However inevitably as I face my last weekend as minister of Holy Trinity, I have been looking back over my time there and right back to when my ministry began in Linlithgow in 1982 and even back further than that to 37 years ago, 1979, the year in which I did my first church placement as a student as part of my training with the Church of Scotland.

As I have looked back I have laughed and smiled a lot ( see yesterday’s blog, “Looking back and laughing.”) but I also find myself doing some pondering. This is what I have been thinking today: at times,  whatever we see as our ministry, can get in the way of what matters most; it can get in the way of intimacy with God without which the proper balance, the proper  shape of life with all its varying  God gifted enriching elements  seems to elude us. It can become more important than the more or most important things. Praise God if you have never fallen over that cliff. By the 90’s I realised I had stepped over that cliff edge somehow, probably a long time before I was consciously aware of doing so. Though others may have seen signs of that for some time, they would have had a hard job convincing me of what I eventually came to see. If you think you may have done the same, then let me tell you the words of a very simple song,  which came winging its way to me over the years today.  It brought me the blessing of God in the  season when God rescued me and brought me back to my first call, simply to be a child of God by the grace of the Lord Jesus Christ. Everything flows from there….

“I sing a simple song of love
to my Saviour, to my Jesus,
I’m grateful for the things you’ve done
my loving Saviour, precious Jesus,
My heart is glad that you’ve called me your own,
There’s no place I’d rather be
than in your arms of love
than in your arms of love,
Holding  me still, holding me near
in your arms of love.”

(Craig Musseau, © 1991 Mercy/Vineyard Publishing)

God Bless

Kenny

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