Pause for Thought – 14 April 2021

Acts 11:1-18 John 13:31-35 A young boy enters a barber shop and the barber whispers to his customer, “This is the stupidest child in the world. Watch while I prove it to you.” The barber puts a £5 note in one hand and a pound coin in the other, then calls the boy over and…

Isaiah 6:1-8 Psalm 138 1 Corinthians 15:1-11 Luke 5:1-11 There’s a story told that in the early in the nineteenth century, the King of Prussia, Frederick William III, found his nation in great trouble. He had been attempting to bring prosperity to his land, but constant wars had drained the treasury. So, he wrote an…

Genesis 1:1-2:3 Romans 8:18-25 Matthew 6:25-34 A man was very surprised when a good-looking young lady greeted him, as he couldn’t remember ever having seen her before.  She realized that she’d made a mistake, and apologized, saying, “I ‘m so sorry.  When I first saw you I thought you were the father of two of…

John 20:1-18 Recently a group of Swiss psychologists have published research showing that the closer we are to someone, the less visual our memory of them is. What they mean is that we’re often better at remembering what strangers look like than our nearest and dearest. This is because we remember people we love at…

Joel 2:1-2,12-17 Matthew 6:1-6,16-21   I’m sure I’m not the only person who’s met people who’ve been damaged by low self-esteem.  Sometimes we don’t need a lot of help to see ourselves was worthless and bad, and sometimes, regrettably, the church hasn’t always helped that.  On Ash Wednesday, of all days, it’s not unreasonable for…