The arch bishop

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Originally uploaded by timebbs.

This is a picture of the ArchBishop John Neill makeing the final blessing at our carol service last year. I am starting to think as blogs go that pictures are much better than long writen pages! So I hope you enjoy. tim

It is funny I have been thinking a lot about our calling's recently and I was reading a Passage from Numbers 3, it is talking about God calling the levities. I have made two distinct observations, first God called them!

It was not that they wanted to be involved in the running of the temple, God called them!! He wanted them, they were not going out looking for position or to further themselves. I think so often we get involved in ministry for the wrong reason, especially when it is a visible ministry, we like people to notice what we are doing and how that makes us important, needed, valuable etc...

Second it says a few times in that chapter , "They were responsible for the care of the sanctuary on behalf of the Israelites. Anyone else who approached the sanctuary was to be put to death." There is just no bullying your way into a ministry, either you are asked in or you are not in! I think we often want to push our way in, and some times the timing is just not right, or we are trying to get into the wrong ministry. I do think God has a plan for all of us, it is just that we will all not be the front men or in the spot light, we need to be willing to serve God in what ever He wants us to do.

So God please help me to be totally willing to do what you want me to do and when you want me to do it, I want all my actions to be your best wishes and plans for me.

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IMG_2644
Originally uploaded by timebbs.

Here is a picture of some of my house mates this summer when I was over doing a worhsip school, with Don Potter

This is a Quote from a film that I really like, the Shawshank redemption! It is an amazing film if you have not seen it go ahead and check it out.. This is a line that Red says after his friend Andy has escaped from the prison

"Sometimes it makes me sad, though, Andy being gone. I have to remind myself that some birds aren't meant to be caged, that's all. Their feathers are just too bright and when they fly away, the part of you that knows it was a sin to lock them up does rejoice...but still, the place you live is that much more drab and empty that they're gone.

I guess I just miss my friend."

I totally get what Red is saying here, having to say goodbye to your friends sucks, but sometimes it is for theirs, yours and everyone's best. But like Red I guess I just miss my friend... I know it is hard now, but I still do trust God that it will all be ok and that His plan for all of us is best. I think for me I am having to come to terms with having to trust God even when it is scary and I have no idea that it will work out, but I guess that is what trust is. Believing in the reality of God and his provision and plans for us over what we naturally see or can imagine.

I was thinking about what to put on this blog so I thought that I would start with a poem that meant a lot to me and that I really like, from a poet (Gerard Manley Hopkins (1844–89)) who lived here in Dublin Ireland working with the poor of the city some years ago...

THE WORLD is charged with the grandeur of God.
It will flame out, like shining from shook foil;
It gathers to a greatness, like the ooze of oil
Crushed. Why do men then now not reck his rod?
Generations have trod, have trod, have trod;
And all is seared with trade; bleared, smeared with toil;
And wears man’s smudge and shares man’s smell: the soil
Is bare now, nor can foot feel, being shod.

And for all this, nature is never spent;
There lives the dearest freshness deep down things;
And though the last lights off the black West went
Oh, morning, at the brown brink eastward, springs—
Because the Holy Ghost over the bent
World broods with warm breast and with ah! bright wings.

I just think there is so much hope in this peom, I like it a lot. No matter what we have done to this world God is still here breathing his life into it!! What better hope can you get! He is still here and he still loves us and cares for us no matter how little we deserve it or walk away from his ways. WOW

Hey so here goes a first post for my blog, wow I cant believe I fianly gave in and got one of these things! After people like Sarah and some other friends begging me to get one for ages..