Symondshyde Great Wood–a 12km cycle ride

Symondshyde Great Wood lies between Hatfield and St Albans – a slow and bumpy 12 km, loopy- loop from our home.  Lazy cycling on Sunday afternoon in Hertfordshire.  Camera in handle-bag, small note-book, a pear and a banana, mobile phone and iPod.   In the good o’l faithful Ortlieb bag:  keys and purse and liquids.  No rain-gear today – it’s a first hot day in months!

Aim:  to go the nearby woods and findat least one new bridle path or lane.

Every now and again I phoned Gordon who was at home with his hand still in the healing process – and so we shared the slow 12 km.  By the way unless you wear a kidney belt, it is impossible to belt along a Bridle Path in the woods.  But that makes it all the more adventurous.

Discovered: a cool bridle-path in  Hyde Great forest. I would never have noticed it, but for another cyclist taking a sharp turning out the lane into the woods. I followed suite.  Good thing he was quicker than me, so there was no possibility that he could think he had a stalker to shake off!

A small bunch of wild fox-gloves in the wood.

Close-ups (after having to high-step over holly and nettles.
 
  
Patches of wild poppies in the left-over rapeseed fields.


And here is the freshly discovered bridle path, great for walking, horse-riding and cycling.



An Oak (of righteousness)

Just the spot to lean the bike against a tree and enveloped by the summer aroma of lavender, become quiet and taste and see God is good, very good. Always good, winter, summer, spring and autumn – 24/7.   And with the smell of lavender mine,  I love Him back.  By His great grace and His death and resurrection I am His and He is mine.    One of the very most significant blessings in my life is that Gordon my husband and I have so much in common.  After church, in the cool of the evening, we prayed together for various loved ones - in our small rectangle garden.  So precious....and a great privilege!

Here is a link to cycling between Hatfield and London - if you are keen!  And another link to cycling in London in the winter.

The ultimate risk

Cow – milk.  Sheep – wool.  Las Vegas – gambling.  Canary Islands – beach and palms. 


Pharaoh ................. foolish stubbornness with disaterous consequences.


Every single time we go to the British Museum, we are stopped in our tracks by the high and lifted up sculptured head of Rameses II.   He’s the son of Seti and therefore likely to be the ruler that Moses confronted, in Jehovah's Name.

Rameses II – the Mummy – dead.

Pharaoh  refuses over and over, and over and over, to humble himself before God. Eighteen times Exodus refers to the hardening of Pharaoh’s heart so that he does not let the people go.


The God who dealt with Pharaoh is the God of justice and mercy, who deals with us, today.

To harden our hearts and refuse to listen to the God of the Bible

is the ultimate risk we take with our eternal destinies.

Matthew 16:26 “²⁶ And what do you benefit if you gain the whole world but lose your own soul? Is anything worth more than your soul?

^{John 3:16} For God so loved the world that he gave his one and only Son, that whoever believes in him shall not perish but have eternal life.

Mark 15 verse 6  Jesus is entering the last stage of going to the cross:  His closest mates are dozing off while He is in deepest distress.  Isolated, on His own, in the hands of proud and cruel and jealous authorities. The Roman soldiers are pushing and kicking Jesus around.  The disgrace of being spat upon, whipped, flogged, shredded.  Long, spikey thorns pushed into His head.  Hammered to a cross:  hands, feet, metal nails -the ultimate spectacle.  Think of  Who is hanging there.  The King of the universe is hanging there – for us. Jesus is hanging there bearing the sin of the world.

The King of the universe, with no sin of His own:  He is on the cross for us, taking God’s judgement for us.

It's only in willing spiritual blindness that it's possible to dismiss Jesus, God's Son and such love.

Hebrews 3 “As it is said, "Today, if you hear his voice, do not harden your hearts.”

Our living God is, in the words of this modern Christian song,


Faithful One so unchanging
Ageless One You’re my rock of peace
Lord of all I depend on You
I call out to You, again and again
I call out to You, again and again

You are my rock in times of trouble
You lift me up when I fall down
All through the storm
Your love is the anchor
My hope is in You alone.

He loves me because He will, because of His grace.

How hideous and a total dangerous risk to reject such love and such a Saviour.

Could it be?

A quick left mouse double-click .............for a spot of self-search.

Sand-stone pedestrian bridge at Bastei, East Germany (15 April, 2011)

And here is a blog on the sovereignty of the Christian God and suffering.

The world is–after all - not out of control

Last night, after a lively work-committee meeting by the leaders of our mums and toddlers church-group, I caught a lift home with Laura.  We shared a bit of our lives with each other and then – what still shocks us even after 5 years – the reality-story of our son, Michael’s death came up.   I tried to sketch the outline briefly in our short journey from St Albans to Hatfield.   And once again, in the light of the mega suffering, the big hole, God’s sovereignty just came through powerfully.

How safe we felt with our Father then and now.  Christians who bow the knee to our Lord’s sovereignty will know exactly what we mean. 


Christians who mourn, Christians who submit to our “God-in-charge”s ultimately good plans  know that deep, deep security:   a total safety in sheltering with a 100% sovereign Protector and a 100% compassionate Father.  

Here is a photo of our son, Michael before he got cancer of the spine (Ewings Sarcoma) and died (physically only) 5 years ago.

Everlasting thanks be to Jesus – and to the Holy Spirit who shows us the great plans of salvation and our sovereign Saviour!

Here are the notes I jotted down while listening to PJ Smyth from Johannesburg in South Africa.  It was all bout God’s sovereignty.

Some points shone like the noon-day sun (in South Africa, not in the UK!)  At least not as in the UK, today :)

• God is wonderfully sovereign:  the world is not out of control.
• The thought of God not being sovereign, is horrific. 
• Praying to a sovereign God is not pointless.  Prayer counts and brings an outcome.    Pray, ask, knock, push, but thank God that He does not answer all our prayers. (Example: “Strike my boss down!”)
• Don’t prematurely judge what God is doing in your life. 
• God’s definition of best is BEST not best.  
• God wants more for us than giving us gifts: He wants us to grow in the image of the Giver. 
• Wow!  I worship a sovereign, huge, large, in charge God! This is my Abba:  big, strong and sovereign.  His ways are WAY higher than mine.
• There’s nothing that we have that He did not give to us.  Take the next breath – from a sovereign God! 
• The Potter can exist just fine without the clay.  This can be hard for a modern individualistic humanistic mind to acknowledge, I’m not actually at the centre of the universe – a sovereign God is. 
• The sovereign God cannot be domesticated:  He’s not your slot-machine, yours sugar daddy or a cosmic father Christmas.  He is our sovereign!

Pictures of God’s sovereignty in Revelation 19:

• See how this sovereign God loves us: Jesus takes the beatings for us, pays the price of sin with His life, while we were still His enemies.

God’s sovereignty..

• makes us want to worship Him!
• provokes our confidence and humility.

“If you get God, you get everything.”  

If you wish, (and I so wish that you do wish!),  check out Godfirst Church in Johannesburg

Verse 1 Salvation and glory and power belong to our God,

^{Verse 6} Then I heard what sounded like a great multitude, like the roar of rushing waters and like loud peals of thunder, shouting: “Hallelujah!
For our Lord God Almighty reigns.
^{Verse 11 to 16}  I saw heaven standing open and there before me was a white horse, whose rider is called Faithful and True. With justice he judges and wages war.

¹² His eyes are like blazing fire, and on his head are many crowns. He has a name written on him that no one knows but he himself.

¹³ He is dressed in a robe dipped in blood, and his name is the Word of God.

¹⁴ The armies of heaven were following him, riding on white horses and dressed in fine linen, white and clean.

¹⁵ Coming out of his mouth is a sharp sword with which to strike down the nations. “He will rule them with an iron sceptre.” He treads the winepress of the fury of the wrath of God Almighty. ¹⁶ On his robe and on his thigh he has this name written: KING OF KINGS AND LORD OF LORDS.

And lastly, one click to take you to  one of "those" questions.

Savour and worship God!

A reality-check on a rainy Saturday afternoon:
Do I really, really stand in awe of my God’s glory, tremble at His holiness and “can’t wait” for His return.  Do I?

Revelation 19 lets us listen to heaven’s worship, celebrating God’s triumph.

Verse 1:  "After this I heard what seemed to be the loud voice of a great multitude in heaven, crying, 'Hallelujah! Salvation and glory and power belong to our God, for his judgments are true and just.'"

John is so stunned that he falls down (v10) & starts to worship the angel who had come to him with all this revelation. But the angel stops him and says,

"You must not do that! I am a fellow servant with you and your brethren who hold the testimony of Jesus. Worship God."

God let John hear the celebration of heaven so that in his exile and his suffering he might join in and worship God.   John wrote it down in a book so that we might listen to the worship of heaven and join in.  Confirmed:

“In His presence is fullness of joy and at his right hand are pleasures forevermore.”

Savour and worship God!

• Worship is savouring the worth of God:  it is an open declaration of  His beauty and power and wisdom – His holy character. 
• Worship is pursuing and connecting with the living God, celebrating His salvation, glory and power with all our might. 
• It is all about  loving Him, honouring and admiring him;  fearing and enjoying him.   
• Private and public savouring worship is the open enjoyment of God as our own fountain of life.

For us to worship God the way the multitude of heaven worship, we have to see God the way they see Him.

In Revelation 19:1 they cry out, "Hallelujah [which is a Hebrew word for praise God]—hallelujah! Salvation and glory and power belong to our God."

Three Things the Multitude of Heaven sees of God :

1. Salvation
2. Glory
3. Power

• FIRST  they see them in the judgment on Babylon and the avenging of the servants of God. Verse 2: Heaven worships God for his truth and justice manifest in his final judgment.  Heaven worships God because his judgment is everlasting: "Once more they cried, 'Hallelujah! The smoke from her goes up for ever and ever.'" Evil and rebellion against God will never escape to arise again to torment the servants of the Lord.
• The SECOND thing that moves heaven to worship God is the sight of his absolute sovereignty as the Ruler over all things.

Verse 6: "Then I heard what seemed to be the voice of a great multitude, like the sound of many waters and like the sound of mighty thunder peals, crying, 'Hallelujah! For the Lord our God the Almighty reigns.'"

He is the Lord. He is God. He is Almighty, therefore he reigns.  Singing the praises of God with hope, confidence and joy is the rock bottom foundation for all worship.  God’s sovereignty brought a thunder peal of Hallelujah from the great multitude.  And – oh yes! – our God’s sovereignty will keep us singing with all our might, even if it costs us our lives.  (Another reality check).  Our God reigns over Babylon and over the beast and over every power in heaven and on earth and under the earth.

• And finally the THIRD thing that moves heaven to worship is the sight of the marriage of God's Son.

Verse 7: "Let us rejoice and exult and give God glory, for the marriage of the Lamb has come, and his Bride has made herself ready."

All of redemptive history for thousands of years has been aiming at this marriage in glory.

Revelation 19: 8: "It was granted her to be clothed with fine linen, bright and pure—for the fine linen is the righteous deeds of the saints."

1. Question: So how did the Bride make herself ready? Answer: By putting on fine linen, bright and pure.
2. Question: And what is the fine linen?  Answer: The righteous deeds of the saints.
3. Questions: But how did the saints come to do these deeds? By what power or means did the Bride of Christ clothe herself with fine linen? Answer (Rev. 19:8): "It was granted her to be clothed with fine linen."
4. Question: By whom? Answer:  By God.

Those who do  righteous deeds, is like a Bride getting ready.  Heaven cries out:  "The Bride has made herself ready."

But………we do not do one of these righteous deeds in our own strength.  They are a gift from God—prepared before the foundation of the world that we might walk in them (Ephesians 2:10).

How fitting it is for heaven to cry out:  "Give God the glory!”   Fitting for heaven, fitting for every member of the human race.

Today is the day I want to repent of and ditch lip-talk, lip-worship – and with a first love -  appreciate the salvation, glory and power of my Heavenly Father and my Jesus.   Glib cheerfulness or the occasional Hallelujah isn’t going to do.  Enforced optimism or being mildly pleased with God – only insult Him and His salvation, sovereignty and the marriage of the Lamb.  

I don’t want to go after a worship informed by who I THINK God is, but rather informed by the God’s revealed Word, inspired by the Holy Spirit.  Holy Spirit, please, show me Jesus and grant me the capacity to marvel and join in with heaven’s worship.

Our Father in heaven,

“Yours is the kingdom, the power and the glory for ever and ever.  Amen!”