It begins...

This evening we are holding the auditions for the Christmas performance. I think I'm just about ready but really have no idea what to expect. There are just over 20 parts to distribute but everyone will have some involvement. I think my top priority is to try and avoid any tears from disappointed children who wanted to be the 'chief angel'.

Today I decided to stay at home this morning as I was not feeling great. I think the rest was needed but I would very much value your prayers for this evening and tomorrow. It seems that the changeable Athens weather is causing a few people to get ill. Yesterday we had some rain storms which was rather exciting (I like thunder and lightning) but it was followed by quite a humid afternoon. I was thankful for my chair man (as in the man who has made me a chair) lending me his umbrella. So long as my table arrives today I will get my new furniture this evening.

After a very tiring week last week, I have felt very upheld over the last few days. My Monday was particularly busy however at 7pm, about to start my final lesson of the day, I was still awake! Thank you for your prayers.

I wanted to share a thought, that is, something I have been thinking about especially at the end of that tiring week. The question - what's the point?

Now first let me assure you that everything is absolutely fine and I'm not having some kind of break down, but it's a good question isn't it? When you stop and think about the everydayness of life, I began to see even more clearly that without the existence of God, there really is no point. If this world just happened and there was no initial purpose for it to begin, the inescapable reality is that every accolade that I've been striving to achieve, every possession that I've been fixated on owning, every dream, every success, every failure, everything was for nothing. My everydayness endeavours will be long forgotten in how ever many years to come.

The writer of Ecclesiastes puts the question like this - what does the worker gain from his toil? (Ecc 3:9). But if God is there (and I believe He is), this dramatically changes how I view my everyday life for the very presence of a Creator means there is a purpose for the world and everything in it. In Ecclesiastes we read how 'He (God) has made everything beautiful in its time. He also set eternity in the hearts of men; yet they cannot fathom what God has done from beginning to end.'       

Do you see the conflict in this verse? God has made everything beautiful 'in its time'. We live in a world of temporary pleasures and are surrounded by things that do not endure. Yet, not only has God made everything beautiful 'in its time' - he has also 'set eternity in the hearts of men'. In other words, we were built for eternity. Nothing that this world offers can satisfy our hearts because they were never meant to. We were built to live not for created things but for the Creator. And so, because there is a God suddenly my everyday pursuits have meaning. They may appear insignificant and mundane but because God is there, I know He is working out a greater plan and mysteriously includes me in His eternal purposes. I may be but a knot on the back of the tapestry of life, but one day as I stand back to view the tapestry as a whole it will look beautiful indeed.

I know that everything God does will endure forever; nothing can be added to it and nothing taken from it. God does it so that men will revere him. (Ecc 3:14).   

To end this slightly rambled thought, there is a picture called 'the pale blue dot'. When I first saw it I was blown away by that moment of realising how small I am in the universe.

It is a picture of Earth taken from a record distance of about 6 billion kilometers (3.7 billion miles). Although I don't agree with his views on God and Christianity, Carl Sagan reflecting on the image said: From this distant vantage point, the Earth might not seem of any particular interest. But for us, it's different. Consider again that dot. That's here. That's home. That's us. On it everyone you love, everyone you know, everyone you ever heard of, every human being who ever was, lived out their lives. The aggregate of our joy and suffering, thousands of confident religions, ideologies, and economic doctrines, every hunter and forager, every hero and coward, every creator and destroyer of civilization, every king and peasant, every young couple in love, every mother and father, hopeful child, inventor and explorer, every teacher of morals, every corrupt politician, every "superstar," every "supreme leader," every saint and sinner in the history of our species lived there – on a mote of dust suspended in a sunbeam. 

I think the psalmist got it right when he said:

The heavens declare the glory of God; the skies proclaim the work of his hands. (Psalm 19:1).