Injustice can consume us; it can corrode us, our character, our trust, our very soul. It can dominate our thinking. It can sabotage our ability to trust God. And so in his kindness God offers more than binding up our hurt. He offers to take that awful pain, that deep injustice, and use it for good. Sin and Satan will not have the last word.There was an item on the news this week here in Ireland about a man charged with almost 100 counts of historic sexual offences. He was due to stand trial on Monday, but was killed in a car crash on Sunday. He smashed into a tree, no other vehicle was involved and the suspicion is, in light of the coming trial, that it was deliberate.
Hundreds of hours have been put into investigating the charges, preparing evidence, interviewing the witnesses. All that has ground to a halt. And far more significant is the emotional pain and anguish of victims reliving all the horrors of their past with the hope of some sort of justice and closure—all of that has been ripped from them, and the past left like an open wound.
News reports said that “as the victims learned of [his] death…they were distraught and angry he would not face justice.”
That’s understandable, it just doesn’t seem fair does it? It seems like an easy way out—if that is what he intended. And if it isn’t what he intended, it still seems that he got off easy, doesn’t it?
There is something hardwired deep inside us that longs for justice—as if the compass bearing of our hearts is configured to point to the true north of ultimate justice.
I don’t know anything about this case, but I do know many are in similar situations. They have suffered deep injustices; the people who perpetrated them have got off scot-free. Maybe the guilty are still alive, maybe they have been laid in the grave, but in either case they haven’t had to answer for what they did, and their escape taunts their victims. It seems grotesque—a double pain and insult.
Does the Bible offer any help?
Read More

Most significantly, it takes us away from where we are meant to get our identity from. From One who loves us and who never changes. Instead of being a fountain of failed promises, this One would lay down his life so that we could know who we truly were made to be. Jesus Christ is where we are made to get our identity from.

We used to live in a religious world, where your religious belief defined who you were—it was where you got your identity from. Religion flavoured every aspect of life from the cradle to the grave, taking in education, community, family, even work. But things have changed, now we live in a secular world—one, in a sense, stripped of religious input.
In this secular world people get their identity from many things—work, success, family, sport, looks—the list is endless.
Or at least it used to be endless. But that list has narrowed largely to one single item—Sex. Not simply the act, but all that goes with it. It has been transformed into our sole source of identity.
For the vast majority of history sex has been seen exclusively in terms of what we do rather than who we are. When I was at secondary school in the early 90s (not that long ago!), sex was a bodily function. But it is that no longer. Sexuality = Identity. You can see it in the vast array of labels there are to go under: homosexual, heterosexual, bisexual, asexual, gray-asexual, pansexual, polysexual, lesbian, transgender…
I am my sexuality, therefore I am.
Add an environment where there is the sexualising of everything, the cheapening of chastity, and the crushing problem of pornography addiction. Throw in the catastrophe of gender clinics failing to properly help young people who presented as struggling with gender identity, and the many heart-breaking detransitioning stories.
Add to that the complete lack of freedom to voice anything other than the approved mantras and dogmas. And dogma is the right word—for our secular world has once again become deeply religious.
Read More
Related Posts:

He sings of himself and his mission. He is on his way to the feast, to the Passover, but he is the Passover Lamb, and these are his songs. He sings of his trials, his trust, and his anticipation of triumph. Along with 113-118 these are especially “Anthems of the Dying Lamb”(as Phillip Ross titled his book on Psalms 113-118). And he sings to us—assuring us of the outcome of his journey to Jerusalem. Listening to him sheds new light on all these psalms, and it helps us with the psalms that don’t quite make it into our favourites. 

Many of us have our favourite pieces of music pulled together into a playlist on Spotify or on our phones. If we’re heading off on a journey, or we need to unwind, we set it to play. Within the book of Psalms there is a playlist for a journey. Psalms 120-134 all bear the heading “A Song of Ascents”—commonly understood to be songs sung as the Jewish people made their way to Jerusalem for the three annual feasts.
OT scholar, Alec Motyer, describes the collection as “possibly the loveliest single group of psalms in the whole Psalter”.
Among them are some of our great favourites—Psalm 121 sung at the start of many a significant journey; Psalm 122 with its joyous delight in gathering to worship; Psalm 124’s celebration of a great escape; the mighty cry from the depths of Psalm 130.
The whole collection is one of a journey. Starting far from home, they take us repeatedly towards Jerusalem, and eventually to the Lord’s house itself. Rescued, redeemed, returned, restored, rejoicing.
Alec Motyer points out that they are loosely clustered in groups of three with the first describing some element of stress or distress (trial), the second pointing us to our all-sufficient God (trust), and the third psalm in each case brings us home (triumph). This is the broad pattern for the first four triads, but in the fifth we find it all climaxing in the togetherness of God with his people unitedly serving him—home at last.
This journey theme is why they resonate so much with us. They are grittily realistic—no wide-eyed optimism here. In this world believers are slandered (120), catastrophe looms (124), saints are scorned (123), injustice threatens to reign (125), tears flow (126), and sin engulfs (130). But God is always sufficient, and the hope of home is always present. They fit our experience and our longings. They are perfect songs for the journey.
But what if there was another reason to love them even more?
What if they weren’t so much written for us, but for someone else on a journey?
Come with me and walk beside a group of men travelling south from Galilee to Jerusalem. One man is striding out in front with focus and determination. And as he walks he sings—they all do—these Psalms of Ascent. Listen to him sing them, because you will hear them sung like never before. They were our Saviour’s ‘Playlist’, his songs for the journey, before they were ours.
He sings of himself and his mission. He is on his way to the feast, to the Passover, but he is the Passover Lamb, and these are his songs. He sings of his trials, his trust, and his anticipation of triumph.
Read More
Related Posts:

 There are many days when we daren’t pray, “be gracious to me for I obey your word”. There may even be days where we can’t say, “Be gracious to me because I love your word”—days when we feel we can’t even look at God’s word, and we feel immense guilt for that. But few are the days where we couldn’t at least manage, “Be gracious to me, for I love your name.” Think of your reaction on hard days when you hear someone slandering your saviour—even then you wish to defend his name. It matters to you. That might be all we can manage—we may be able to say little else—but it is enough.

I was preaching on Jesus cursing the fig-tree recently, and the challenge to bear fruit. In conjunction with Jesus’ parable about a fruitless fig-tree there really is quite a challenge. No one wants to hear Jesus’ verdict of “Cut it down”. Or we think of the fruitless branches in John 15 which are cut off and thrown into the fire.
It is easy to preach the challenge in powerfully searching ways, taking aim at those who profess to be Christians but show little fruit—but it is also easy to crush wounded souls in the attempt. And not just wounded souls, but those who by nature are more self-critical.
We might ask the question: what fruit is it that Jesus is looking for? Naturally we turn to the fruit of the Spirit. But when you are a wounded soul, you are often a really bad fruit inspector, and so as you cast your eye over your life, you see little to no fruit. And any that there is, seems to you wizened or rotten in places. There are always areas you could have been more loving. Or more patient. Certainly more joyful. And on it goes, until you are convinced that the axe is at the root of your life.
But those aren’t the only fruit—there are wonderful fruits of repentance and trust. A person may feel a failure, but they are repenting over their failure. Remind them that that’s a fruit. A person may feel fruitless—they do not witness like others, they do not have a breezy confidence which they imagine others find attractive. But they trust—they trust amidst illness and affliction, amidst trials in work and in the home. They need to see that their persistent trust is a ripe and glorious fruit which Christ loves to see as he walks amidst his fruit trees.
But sometimes the fruit seem too high above our heads for us to see. But God has placed low rungs on the ladder of assurance that we might climb out of despair. We may not feel we can scale the dizzying heights of fruit-picking, and we certainly can’t see any fruit from where we are, but we can at least climb on the ladder.
What low rungs am I thinking of?
Read More
Related Posts:

True humility is not heard by talking about it, but by talking about others. By being less focused on self, and more focused on those around us. Ask yourself how much of your conversation with others starts ‘I’, ‘me’ or ‘my’? True humility is seen in serving out of the limelight—away from the attention of social media, rather than carefully documented ‘acts of kindness’.

I was watching a clip the other day about a 911 emergency call operator who twigged that something was up with a 911 call they received. Albeit it took them considerable time to figure out that the person couldn’t speak openly because the antagonist was within earshot. Apparently the person had tried several times to get an operator to realise the issue. But eventually this one did, and in the interview said, “I was so humbled to think that I had realised what she was saying when four others hadn’t.”
“I was humbled”—perhaps one of the least subtle of the humblebrags I’ve seen.  For those unfamiliar with the term ‘humblebrag’, it means to boast whilst seeking to appear humble.
It crops up all over social media—self-promotion in many ways being of the essence of social media. Often it incorporates a complaint of some sort, which acts as a foil to the real boast, “Why do I always get asked to work on the most important projects—something ordinary would be nice for a change!”
Or it may be a photo with a self-deprecating caption, but with some carefully positioned designer item in the background—a sort of “Hey, I want you to notice, but I want you also to notice that I didn’t want you to notice. I want the kudos for both.”
It is the manner of doing it—a desire to appear virtuous, while desperately drawing attention to your achievements, possessions, status, etc.
Read More

Jean-Pierre Adams was a French footballer in the 1970s and 80s, and he passed away on the 6th September, aged 73. But what makes this story remarkable is that for the past 39 years he has been in a coma, looked after tirelessly by his wife. In 1982 he went for routine knee surgery. The anaesthetic, meant to knock him out for a few hours was mis-administered, and he would never regain consciousness.

Last week I came across a remarkable story. Jean-Pierre Adams was a French footballer in the 1970s and 80s, and he passed away on the 6th September, aged 73. He was capped 22 times for France, and was part of a formidable defensive duo for the national side. He played over 250 games for Nice, Nimes and Paris Saint-Germain.
But what makes this story remarkable is that for the past 39 years he has been in a coma, looked after tirelessly by his wife. In 1982 he went for routine knee surgery. The anaesthetic, meant to knock him out for a few hours was mis-administered, and he would never regain consciousness.
At this point his remarkable wife, Bernadette Adams, stepped in. After some months in hospital, and seeing that he had developed infections through bed sores, she took him home. And there for 39 years she has cared for him.
She would sleep in the same room, getting up in the middle of the night to turn him. She would wash, shave, toilet and dress him daily. She prepared his food and fed him. She talked with him, gave him presents. She worked to ensure his muscles were exercised to avoid atrophy and its accompanying pains. She rose at seven each morning, and cared for him until he would fall sleep at around 8pm—if things went well, otherwise it could be all night.
For four decades.
Read More