“Come aside and rest a while,” Jesus said to His disciples. (Mark 6:31)
Life had been full-on (v 12); and then there was also the added stress of impending opposition (vv 14-19). There had been little let up for a while now: “For there were many coming and going, and they did not even have time to eat” (v 31).
It was time to rest, time to take stock.

Jesus did this frequently.
After one of His busiest days (Mark ch 1), “in the morning, having risen a long while before daylight, He went out and departed to a solitary place; and there He prayed” (v 35).

It is good to take time to pause and take stock. As I have noted before, “Life without white space becomes a meaningless garble.”
We need Selahs in the Psalm of Life to take time to pause and relect.

Since I began this blog, back in March last year, I have posted each week for 73 weeks (yes, the engineer in me is slightly CDO and I keep track).
This has been a labour of love. Each week, on Tuesday (unless I am away, and pre-post), I sit down to write, allowing then a few days for my post to stew, and review how I have expressed myself, before posting at the end of the week.
I have thoroughly enjoyed taking time to put down thoughts that have helped me, and that I pray will help others as well. Thank you for the feedback I have received from so many who have encouraged me to continue this ministry.
I intend to keep at it in the future.

But it is time to take a break and take stock. So I intend to hibernate for the last month of Winter, before I take up writing again in the Spring.
For the present there are difficulties we are working through in church life. Please pray for us and all those involved in this that the Lord will be glorified and that all of us will learn humbly at the feet of our Saviour.
In the meantime I thank God for wonderful and godly brothers and sisters in Christ; and for a wonderful and godly wife who has always been my “friend in need”.
And especially for that One who is “a Friend who sticks closer than a brother”.

So while I take a break here are just a few of my more recent posts that gave me extra pleasure to compose:

• The love of God is greater far…
• Christ, Our Righteousness
• Joy Inexpressible
• Wait, I say, on the Lord!
• Sorrowful AND Rejoicing
•  The Comfort and Hope that Come through Suffering
• A Tale of Two Sinners

The last of these was special as it reminded me of the great grace God has shown to me, despite past mistakes and failures.
As I note in Why this blog, one reason I began posting was so that “by sharing what I have learned I can help some at least not to repeat the same mistakes.”

But my overall purpose has always been to alert us to the siren voice of a world that would seduce us to be conformed to its anti-God way of thinking, with the result that “the world around you squeeze you into its own mould.”
Rather, I want us to encourage one another, and be encouraged, to “be transformed by the renewing of our mind, that we may prove what is that good and acceptable and perfect will of God.” 

Above the voices of the world around me,
my hopes and dreams, my cares and loves and fears,
the long-awaited call of Christ has found me,
the voice of Jesus echoes in my ears…
.                                                – Timothy Dudley-Smith

Lord, help me not to be seduced by the “joys” this world offers where those “joys” would remove me from real joy in Christ:

Man may trouble and distress me,
.  ’twill but drive me to Thy breast;
Life with trials hard may press me,
.   Christ will bring me sweeter rest.
O ’tis not in grief to harm me,
.   while Thy love is left to me;
O ’twere not in joy to charm me,
.   were that joy unmixed with Thee.
.                                    – Henry Francis Lyte

Even as I was writing this I was deeply saddened and distressed when news came through of the  apostasy of Josh Harris. Despite a few quirks, Josh was well known in New Calvinist circles and had been on a good trajectory towards a better understanding of Reformed theology and ecclesiology.
But more recently he has been back pedalling on a number of the issues he once championed, including going quiet on the issue of same sex marriage – till now he has come out the other end, apologising to the “LGBTQ+ community” for not actively supporting same-sex marriage, and declaring “I am not a Christian.”

I weep; I genuinely weep. The frog in the kettle thought it was embracing the warmth of its environment, but was in truth being boiled alive.
We grow discouraged when (what we all thought was) one of “Forty Wrestlers for Christ” abandons the warmth of God’s love, to crawl back across this frozen wasteland to embrace the warmth of the world.
“Let him who thinks he stands take heed lest he fall.” (1 Cor 10:12)

I weep. I am tempted to despair.
I turn afresh to God my loving heavenly Father, to Christ my sympathetic Saviour, to the Holy Spirit my Comforter.

Think what Spirit dwells within thee,
What a Father’s smile is thine,
What a Saviour died to win thee,
Child of heaven, shouldst thou repine?