Friday, January 19, 2018

Thought for the Day



As delivered at BBC Radio Bristol this morning. Joe is the presenter who does the travel news, early newspaper review and also accompanies guests from reception to the studio. He usually offers me a coffee:

How's your tea this morning? Half empty? Half full? Or just time for Joe to get another round in. Trolley services to the static radio presenter population of central Bristol.

Sometimes I read my Bible and find a pessimist in there:

St Paul looks forward to creation being liberated from its bondage to decay.

Then I open it again and find an optimist:

Neither the present, nor the future will be able to separate us from the love of God in Christ Jesus our Lord.

Different writer? No. St Paul again, a few verses later.

So? Is the world getting better or worse? What would you say?

On the one hand we hear this morning that when we drop our mobile phones they will have the ability to fix themselves, up to a point.

On the other hand we still haven't made our region a place without rough sleepers. There's that bondage to decay again.

But then we can be fixed in hospital from many illnesses and diseases which would have killed us 100 years ago - and we're all living longer.

Although we've not made enough progress in providing accommodation for those who get older and need care.

We live in the now and not yet era. In what I will call 'the Christian world' that is the age when we note that God has acted decisively in Jesus Christ, but we wait, longing for a greater fulfilment of all things.

And in the real world in which Christians live? Well more things are getting better than are getting worse, but sometimes it doesn't feel like that.

Have an expectant, hopeful and optimistic day everybody. Things are getting better and one day will be best.

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