What, when & where.

1 Apr 2025 • Articles

Dear friends,

It only seems to be a few minutes since my last letter, yet here we are again. I am preparing this letter as we begin our Lenten journey. I have been very busy with the rest of the café team at

Uttoxeter with pancake lunch, Wednesday café and Lent lunches and a myriad of other things. Amongst all this busyness it has been good to see and share in all the conversations that have

been flying about. These have ranged from the general conversations around our health and wellbeing to theological questions about how we come to believe in God amongst others. It is as I

answer these questions and enter into the conversations that I begin to think about how God is involved in all that we do from the trivial to the sublime. Perhaps the writer of Psalm 139 was contemplating this question when they created it. The opening lines set the scene.

Lord, you have examined me, and you know me.

You know everything I do;

From far away you understand all my thoughts.

The words of this psalm echoing around inside my head when I was invited to go along to the World Day of Prayer, after the first Lent lunch, and I was immediately intrigued with the theme

song;

I am fearfully made, and wonderfully made.

Marvellous are your works

That my soul knows very well.

And I’ll praise you all my days!

It always strikes me as amazing that we can wander through our journey of life feeling Ok with God and all of a sudden, a word or sentence suddenly hits us and makes us concentrate more on what we are saying and linking that to our faith journey. God created us in his time and his design and purpose. How we take that on board varies by our being able to accept and absorb that fact. Our lives seem to get busier and the days fly by without our seeming to notice, it is only when we come across these little reminders of our creation by our God that we stop to think what, where and when.

What. What are we doing that makes God Known in our community and in the world. Are we open to God and available when he calls us to speak or listen to his children.

Where. This can be the difficult one. In one of our meetings at the vicarage many years ago we came to the end of our meeting and settled down to pray. I was leading the prayer session and placed a lit candle in the centre of the coffee table and people jumped up to clear the table. I requested that they left everything as it was because God is there with us right in the middle of all the muddle and chaos of our lives. We nearly have to hijack the Scouts motto of “be prepared” to be ready for anything that God passes our way.

When. This is the easiest part to answer, always and everywhere.

The final hymn for the service seemed, to me, to sum up all that is required of us by God. The hymn was The Day Though Gavest. All through the hymn there resounds the theme of continuous prayer and praise twenty four hours a day all around the world. I feel it is in that prayer and praise we are enfolded, not just in God’s loving arms but the loving arms of Christians across the world.

I will finish with the final line of the blessing from the service.

Treat yourself as precious and beloved child of God and treat others as precious and beloved children of God.

Perhaps these ramblings may help you to bring some harmony to your lives and your world. All

God’s blessings.

Rev Chris.