Moods

As the deer pants for streams of water,

    so my soul pants for you, my God.
² My soul thirsts for God, for the living God.
    When can I go and meet with God?
³ My tears have been my food
    day and night,
while people say to me all day long,
    “Where is your God?”
⁴ These things I remember
    as I pour out my soul:
how I used to go to the house of God
    under the protection of the Mighty One
with shouts of joy and praise
    among the festive throng.

 

⁵ Why, my soul, are you downcast?
    Why so disturbed within me?
Put your hope in God,
    for I will yet praise him,
    my Savior and my God.

 

Psalm 42:1-5

 

Would you describe yourself as a moody person? Up one day, down the next?

 

Whoever wrote Psalm 42 might well have done so. Twice in this psalm (and then once more in the next) he puts to himself the same question: Why, my soul, are you downcast? Why so disturbed within me?

 

There’s nothing at all unusual about low moods in the psalms (or any other parts of the Bible, come to that), but very often the writer links them with either a strong personal sense of sin and guilt (eg Psalm 51), or with grief after news of a defeat or other setback for Israel as a nation (eg Psalm 44).

 

But Psalm 42 is rather different. There seems to be no specific reason why he feels the way he does: he’s just thoroughly down – and can’t quite put his finger on why. He has the faith to call God “my Rock”, but still feels forgotten by him (verse 9). It reminds me of a powerful line in a poem by Shakespeare when he is in a similar frame of mind: “with what I most enjoy contented least” (Sonnet 29). I imagine that even those of us who reckon to be pretty positive and cheerful by temperament know that feeling, when even our greatest pleasures somehow seem flat and stale.

 

(Some people, of course, suffer with clinical depression, which is far more than just feeling low and may well need professional help. Could that be the psalmist’s situation? Yes or no, such people need all the love, support and prayer we can offer them – and not just to be told to “snap out of it” or “pull yourself together”.)

 

Various things are worth bearing in mind.

 

First, low moods are normal.

 

As I’m writing, it’s the tail-end of March, and I got up this morning just as it was starting to get light. Light enough to see that it was raining hard; and I involuntarily groaned under my breath, “Oh, not again!” (It’s no accident that we sometimes speak of being “under the weather”, is it?) It didn’t help when a little later I picked up the paper and read about the large quantities of sewage being pumped into Britain’s rivers; or saw the word “crisis” applied yet again to the National Health Service; or saw news of the horrors happening in Gaza, or Ukraine, or Myanmar, or Sudan, or wherever; or saw predictions about “schools at breaking point”; or when, having turned to prayer, I called to mind the many people in my life who are grappling with long-term illness.

 

These things are raw realities – and they can’t be cheerily fobbed off with, “Well, at least it’s a good thing that God’s in control!” Try telling that to the parents who can’t feed their children, or the person struggling with terminal sickness. Somebody wrote a book a few years ago called “It’s OK not to be OK”. I don’t know if they were a Christian, but whether they were or not, that’s a basic truth we all sometimes need to get hold of. Is it a truth for you today?

 

Second, that truth doesn’t justify self-pity.

 

We need to notice that the psalmist, however wretched he feels, hasn’t given up on God; indeed, he tells us that “my soul thirsts for God, for the living God”. Job-like, he dares to question God; but he makes no secret of the fact that he feels abandoned by him. Downcast he may be, but he’s obviously making a brave attempt to “hang on in there”, as we say. And the psalm ends on an optimistic note: “Put your hope in God”, he says to himself, “for I will yet praise him, my Saviour and my God”. He is keeping self-pity at bay.

 

My wife has recently been reading through Lamentations – a book that doesn’t exactly promise a bundle of laughs. She was struck by the final verses, where the writer questions God: “Why do you always forget us…” That struck us as possibly crossing the line into self-pity - it’s the word “always” that does it, isn’t it? Do you remember, when you were a child, pouting and sulking and demanding to know “Why is it always me that gets told off?”

 

I’m probably doing the writer of Lamentations an injustice. Who am I to say? But perhaps it can serve to remind us that while doubt and questioning are not necessarily sins, self-pity – the “It’s not fair!” reaction, the “Poor me!” reaction – is, and we should struggle not to  give into it.

 

Faith can be hard, as the Bible demonstrates from beginning to end; but God is a demanding as well as a loving God, and he always looks for faith that refuses to die (and delights when he finds it – see Matthew 8:10).

 

There is of course a lot more that might be said; perhaps we’ll come back to it next time. But I’m sure the best final word is gloriously simple: Let’s always remember, God has sent to this world a Saviour who cried out in agony on the cross: “My God, my God, why have you forsaken me?” That, of course, is far more than a mere “mood”.

 

But, nonetheless, there is our God. Take comfort from that!.

 

Father, please help me to remember Jesus on the cross – and then raised on the third day – at all times, especially when my mood is low and heavy and I feel like the psalmist. Amen.

They crucified him

They crucified him. Mark 15:24

Next Friday is Good Friday. If ever there was a day for us as Christians to gather with our fellow-believers, this surely is it.

People instinctively come together at a time of grief, even if the person who has died did so peacefully and in hearty old age. How much more then when the death is especially tragic or unexpected. There is comfort in such a coming together, though words are hard to find and seem to achieve little or nothing. We all make a point of attending a friend’s funeral if at all possible, don’t we? It seems unthinkable not to make the effort to be there.

When Judas Iscariot and the soldiers arrested Jesus in the Garden of Gethsemane, Mark tells us that “everyone deserted him and fled” (Mark 14:50). By “everyone” he means the disciples, for who else was there with him in the Garden?

But before we judge their desertion too harshly – have we never reacted to a frightening situation in sheer, blind panic? – it’s only right to recognise that they do seem to have straggled back once the shock had sunk in a little. We know from John 19:25-27 that “the beloved disciple” was right there “near the cross of Jesus”, along, of course, with a group of women including Jesus’ mother; and I like to think that the rest of the male disciples were around somewhere not far off, even if in rather  skulking mode.

We weren’t around on that terrible yet wonderful day; we didn’t have the option of being with Jesus when he died. But probably most of us do have a choice about next Friday, and the words come to mind of the American Folk Hymn: “Were you there when they crucified my Lord?”. Not, of course, that we are mourning a dead person! But we do gather to remember his suffering – suffering endured purely for us and in our place.

Some of the best hymns and songs in the history of the church were written for Good Friday. They still speak powerfully, in spite of archaic language.

I love O sacred head, sore wounded, thought to have been written around 1100. It climaxes in a prayer anticipating death… Be near me when I’m dying,/ O show thy cross to me,/ And, for my succour flying,/ Come, Lord, and set me free!/ These eyes, new faith receiving,/ From Jesus shall not move;/ For he who dies believing,/ Dies safely through thy love. Thanks be to God for that! The cross of Jesus gives us solid hope.

And here is It is a thing most wonderful, written by W W How, who lived from 1823 to 1897… It is most wonderful to know/ His love for me so free and sure:/ But ‘tis more wonderful to see/ My love for him so faint and poor… (Which of us can’t say Amen to that!) And then this humble prayer: And yet I want to love thee, Lord:/ O light the flame within my heart,/ And I will love thee more and more,/ Until I see thee as thou art. (And which of us can’t echo that prayer?)

What about When I survey the wondrous cross, by Isaac Watts (1674-1748)?... Forbid it, Lord, that I should boast,/ Save in the death of Christ my God; / All the vain things that charm me most, / I sacrifice them to his blood/…   Were the whole realm of nature mine,/ That were an offering far too small,/ Love so amazing, so divine,/ Demands my soul, my life, my all.

There are some fine new(er) songs as well, of course. Thank God for hymn-writers like Graham Kendrick, who wrote in 1983… The price is paid,/ Come let us enter in/ To all that Jesus died/ To make our own. / For every sin/ More than enough he gave,/ And bought our freedom / From each guilty stain./ The price is paid, / Alleluia!

And here is Matt Redman, who is prepared to look the reality of our own deaths right in the face as he reflects on Jesus’ death… And on that day when my strength is failing,/ The end draws near and my time has come,/ Still my soul will sing in praise unending,/ Ten thousand years and then for evermore. / Bless the Lord, O my soul! Again, hope, given in the midst of what often seems a hopeless world.

I’m not writing this blog with the aim of “guilting” anyone into being in worship on Good Friday. No; if we are there it should be because it’s in our hearts to be there. But, as I suggested at the beginning, if by any chance we have of late drifted away a bit from church (perhaps never really got back after covid?), could there be a better day on which to renew the habit? And what better occasion to sing some of these wonderful words? The price is paid! Come, let us enter in!

The crucified and risen Jesus waits to meet us.

Lord Jesus Christ, I have known the story of your suffering, death and resurrection for so long that it has almost become stale and lost much of its wonder for me. Please refresh my faith. Please give me the determination and conviction to be among your people in worship and praise over this Easter weekend, on Good Friday if at all possible, as well as on Easter Sunday. Amen.

Justified by faith? (2)

To some who were confident of their own righteousness and looked down on everyone else, Jesus told this parable: “Two men went up to the temple to pray, one a Pharisee and the other a tax collector. The Pharisee stood by himself and prayed: ‘God, I thank you that I am not like other people—robbers, evildoers, adulterers—or even like this tax collector. I fast twice a week and give a tenth of all I get.’

“But the tax collector stood at a distance. He would not even look up to heaven, but beat his breast and said, ‘God, have mercy on me, a sinner.’

“I tell you that this man, rather than the other, went home justified before God. For all those who exalt themselves will be humbled, and those who humble themselves will be exalted.” Luke 18:9-14

Last time we thought about “justification by faith”, and how it has become crystalized into a “doctrine” which might be called the motto-definition of the Protestant Reformation: If you feel the need to be right with God (as we all should, for we are all sinners) then simply put your trust in what Jesus did on the cross, and abandon any attempt to put yourself right by your own efforts. God in his mercy will forgive and save.

I mentioned that the idea of “justification”, which is gone into in detail by the Apostle Paul (Romans 3:28 being a key summary) is used hardly at all in the Gospels by Jesus himself. It is in essence a term from the legal world, pretty much the equivalent of “acquittal”, “getting the verdict” or, if we might invent an ugly word, being “righteoused” by God.

But there is one outstanding exception to this generalisation: Luke 18:14, the final verse of a wonderful little story Jesus told to demonstrate what it means to be “justified” by God. It’s about two men, a very religious Pharisee and a broken, humble tax-collector, who go into the temple to pray – and how it was the second one, the one who didn’t try to “righteous” himself, who went home with the peace of mind that comes of knowing that you are forgiven. There, in story form, is the “doctrine” of justification by faith.

Jesus loved telling stories (I wonder, by the way, why we who preach seem often reluctant to follow his example!). Some of those stories, like the Good Samaritan or the Prodigal Son, are well known even outside Christian circles, for they glow with life-changing meaning. But they don’t come any simpler or more powerful than this one.

What is it that makes it so special? I would suggest…

First, it’s beautifully short (less than 150 words in the NIV Bible, roughly half that in the Greek). Yet in those few words Jesus conjures up the whole atmosphere and culture of those far off days by showing us these two people: and, I think, implicitly inviting us to find our place in their drama. It’s massively heartening to the humble, and, hopefully, massively challenging to the proud. Where am I – where are you? – in this story? The problem, often, with “doctrine” is that it can seem very wordy and hard to grasp; thanks be to God for Jesus’ little story!

Second, it’s beautifully simple.

The self-righteous man is not short of words; he presents God with a comprehensive list of all the nasty things he isn’t – a robber, an evildoer, an adulterer, and certainly not “like this tax collector” (can you see him looking scornfully down his lordly nose?) – and then he reminds God (though I suspect that God already knew, don’t you?) of a few of his plus-points: look, I fast twice a week! look, I even tithe my income! Aren’t I good!

The tax-collector, on the other hand, clearly knows his own true self. He belongs to a profession (probably employed, and paid, by the hated Romans) not renowned for their honesty. No doubt he has other moral and spiritual blemishes we aren’t told about. But what matters is that he is aware of his sinfulness: “God, have mercy upon me, a sinner” is all the prayer he can muster.

But… the wonder is that it is all the prayer he needs to muster! And so, says Jesus, he was the one who “went home justified…”, at peace with the one true and holy God. The gospel of Jesus is, then, essentially simplicity itself. It isn’t, first and foremost, a “doctrine” to be studied and puzzled over; it’s a wonderful truth that you discover, live, experience, and enjoy, a gift of God’s grace to be received with childlike faith.

Do you know what it is to “go home justified”?

There is a third feature of this story which is worth commenting on. Does it raise hopes that people who have never heard the gospel may be saved?

The tax-collector, obviously, didn’t believe in Jesus, because he had never heard of him. How could he? – he is, after all, only a fictitious character! and in historical reality, the cross hadn’t yet happened anyway. Yet he “went home justified”; his cry for mercy was enough.

Could the same thing be true of people throughout history who for various reasons have never had the opportunity to put faith explicitly in Jesus? From our human perspective it seems troubling to think of people – sinful people, certainly - condemned for failing to believe in a Saviour of whom they have never heard… as if God is a doctor who says to a sick patient, “I have a medicine which could cure you, but I am not going to tell you what it is, or give it to you”.

These are deep waters to swim in, and we have to be tentative! Our understanding of the mind of God is limited, to put it mildly. But I freely confess that I, for one, would be delighted if it turns out to be so!

Lord, have mercy!

Father, thank you for loving us so much that you sent your Son to save us. Help me, in return, to live a life of gratitude and glad obedience! Amen.

Justified by faith?

We maintain that a person is justified by faith apart from the works of the law. Romans 3:28

If somebody were to ask you “Are you justified by faith?” how would you reply? I hope – with a resounding Yes!

Justification by faith is a great phrase. Indeed, it is right at the heart of Paul’s understanding of the gospel of Christ (Jesus himself rarely spoke in those terms). It means, in essence, being declared “in the right” by God himself, in spite of being, like every other human being, a sinner.

But how can anyone be both “in the right” and at the same time a sinner? Isn’t that a contradiction? The answer Paul gives is: because Jesus has taken our sins upon himself, and in doing so has paid the price which was rightly ours to pay. Even though we still sin we can anticipate that verdict “justified” (that is, “declared righteous”) on the final day of judgment when we stand before God.

The doctrine of justification by faith is particularly associated with the name of Martin Luther, the monk who kick-started the Protestant Reformation in the sixteenth century. He felt that the church of his time laid too much emphasis on “works” that we human beings must do in order to be right with God. And, putting it simply, he found that however hard he tried to measure up, he just couldn’t do it (and, make no mistake, he tried hard!). His discovery (or perhaps I should say, his re-discovery) of Paul’s understanding changed both his own life and the history of the world.

The result is that the church today consists, broadly speaking, of three basic streams: Roman Catholic, Protestant (I imagine most people reading this blog fall within this block), and what is usually called Eastern Orthodox. As Christians we endlessly debate differences of understanding and emphasis – sometimes, throughout history, to the extent of killing one another, imagining that in so doing we are fighting the battles of God himself. The more you think about that, the more shockingly sad it seems.

Christian history makes plain the tendency of God’s people to form themselves into what we might call “tribes”, even within that threefold division. These might be according to denominations – Baptist, Anglican, Roman Catholic, Methodist, Salvation Army, you name it, plus the multitude of newer groupings that have emerged in more recent years.

Many of us try to play down such tribal loyalties, because we recognise that there is no such grouping which has it all right, no group which is doctrinally perfect. But it isn’t easy! In my own case, coming as I did from a non-church family, it “just so happened” (not really, of course) that God met with me as a teenager in the context of a Baptist church, and that’s where I’ve been ever since, aware of the imperfections of that tradition but grateful too for the many blessings received and therefore unashamed to have an affectionate and respectful sense of loyalty.

Within the grouping which is sometimes referred to as “evangelical”, various catch-phrases – one might even call them slogans (possibly even battle-cries!) – have emerged as a form of self-identity. In America, for example, there are those who routinely refer to themselves as “born again” Christians (but can there be any other sort!). Other buzz-words attached to “Christian” might be “practicing” or “church-going” or “sincere” or “Bible-believing” or “Spirit-filled” (but, again, shouldn’t such motto-words apply to any and every Christian!).

What has all this to do with justification by faith, where we started? I think it demonstrates how a concern for doctrinal correctness, certainly important in itself, can slowly harden into a means of tribal self-identification and even, putting it bluntly, into downright arrogance (as in, “We, of course, are the only true Christians in this neighbourhood, because we resolutely refuse to see works as being of any deep significance”).

But one moment… When Paul sat down to write to the Church in Rome, and especially Romans 3, he didn’t think of himself as writing what we now call “doctrine”: he just wanted to explain to the Roman Christians how he understood the good news of the gospel, and “justified by faith”, and all it implied, seemed an appropriate and accurate summary.

Dare I put it like this: correct doctrine is vital – yet it can also be a curse when in effect it becomes a new form of law. We need to use our imaginations to grasp what it must have been like for the first pagan unbelievers to hear the good news of Jesus. Trusting in him won’t have been presented as a condition to be met, almost a box to be ticked, even a threat to be warned about: “If you want to be put right with God, you’d better start believing in the death and resurrection of Jesus, and the sooner the better!”

No. It will have been presented as exactly what the word “gospel” means – “good news”: “You want to know how to be put right with God? That’s wonderful! Just trust in what Jesus did on the cross!” And that isn’t a condition to be dutifully met but an invitation to be joyfully accepted.

Let’s always remember: we are justified by faith; we are not justified by believing in justification by faith. Can you spot the difference?

Father, thank you that you sent Jesus not in order to put another layer of law upon us, but to stretch out your hands of love to all sinful men and women with the good news of Jesus crucified for our sins and raised for out salvation. Save me, Lord, from ever misrepresenting such joyful, liberating  good news. Amen.

Mary - the joy and the pain

Jesus entered a house, and again a crowd gathered, so that he and his disciples were not even able to eat. When his family heard about this, they went to take charge of him, for they said ‘He is out of his mind’. Mark 3:21

Mark 3:20-35 records a disturbing and rather puzzling episode in the life of Jesus. If we read it right through we find that he is drawing large crowds of listeners and there seems to be a danger of things getting out of hand. It gets so bad that Mary and Jesus’ brothers turn up to try and “take charge of him” (!) and take him home, for “they said ‘He is out of his mind’”. It seems they want to physically frog-march him away.

Who are “they”? It isn’t entirely clear. They could be people in the crowd or Jesus’ enemies. But many Bible teachers think that it’s a reference to Mary and the family: the literal meaning is “Those who were with him”, which would, of course, cover both his family and the twelve apostles. Whatever, it was a serious situation – Mary and the brothers were reduced to standing on the outskirts of the crowd, unable even to get to him (verse 32).

After the story of Jesus’ birth the Gospels tell us very little about Mary.

There is the episode of him as a twelve-year old boy going missing in the Jerusalem temple and seeming to dismiss their natural anxieties: “What worried you! Didn’t you know I had to be in my Father’s house?” (Luke 2:49).

That must have hurt! Of course they knew perfectly well that Joseph wasn’t his real father, but he had been in effect a father to him, so this question must have seemed like a slap in the face.

Then there was the occasion of the wedding at Cana (John 2:1-12). No Joseph now – presumably he has died, so Mary no longer has the comfort of his support. She naturally turns to Jesus for help when the wine runs out – a true social disaster; and he seems almost off-hand with her: “Woman, why do you involve me?… My hour has not yet come”. She turns to the servants with the simple instruction, “Do whatever he tells you”, as if to say, “I don’t understand him any better than you! Just do what he says!”

And it gets even worse in this incident in Mark 3. Could it really be that he has gone crazy? Is he no better than a ranting street-corner preacher who’s suddenly picked up a near-hysterical following? This isn’t what Mary had imagined when she received the angelic visitor all those years ago! Could this be what the old man Simeon had prophesied when he foretold many wonderful things – but then added the dark, ominous word to Mary: “And a sword will pierce your own soul too” (Luke 2:35). What must Mary have thought about that?

Well, we all experience doubts at different times in our Christian lives – doubt is not a sin, and not (not normally, at any rate) something to be ashamed of. But I don’t think it’s too much of an exaggeration to suggest that Mary experienced something far more: she seems to have suffered a crisis, a collapse, of faith. Is that going too far?

Most of us who have been Christians for any length of time will probably know people who have gone through this. When we first knew them they were radiant in their faith, solid as a rock. But then, perhaps completely out of the blue, a situation arose which plunged them into the depths of despair, and everything was doubt and confusion, rather as with Mary here.

I’m presently reading a book about the Christians who were nicknamed “Puritans”, back in the 1600s. They were renowned for the seriousness and intensity of their faith. They were strict in examining themselves for any hidden sin which might separate them from God. And, contrary to their dour reputation, they were often known for their deep peace and inner joy.

But even these stalwart followers of Christ were not immune to the type of thing Mary seems to have suffered here. “Brother Jones,” someone might record in his diary, “failed to attend worship this Sunday morning, afflicted once again by his melancholy…” They called it melancholy; today it would probably be described as “depression”.

You may have experienced such a thing yourself; indeed, you may be going through it at this moment. If this is the case, the message has to be: If such a special person as Mary – who received angelic visitors, who was used by God as the recipient of an extraordinary miracle, who knew joy almost beyond words – if such a person as her could suffer a collapse of faith, be encouraged!

Remember the end of her story. Watching at the foot of the cross as Jesus died, she was committed by him (at the very point of death!) to the care of the “beloved disciple” (what love was that on Jesus’ part!). And still more: after his resurrection she was numbered among the first believers in the upper room “where they were staying”. Luke, in Acts 1:14, gives us a run-down of the apostles, and then adds, “They all joined together constantly in prayer, along with the women and Mary the mother of Jesus, and with his brothers”.

This time they weren’t pleading with Jesus to stop the preaching and come home. No, they were confidently waiting for him to take them home, where they would be re-united with him and see him face to face.

In various ways Mary had a tough life; but Jesus brought her through. And what he did for her he will do for you and me.

May God help us to hold to him through thick and thin!

Dear Father, please help me to cling to you through the bad times as well as the good, confident that whatever you allow to happen to me will lead to my strengthening, and that the day will come when every sorrow will be banished and every tear wiped away. Amen.

Thinking about thinking

Finally, brothers and sisters, whatever is true, whatever is noble, whatever is right, whatever is pure, whatever is lovely, whatever is admirable—if anything is excellent or praiseworthy—think about such things. Philippians 4:8

You probably take a bit of trouble thinking about what you feed into your body. And rightly so – we keep hearing about an obesity epidemic, or about harmful substances which are added to our food and which we probably know nothing about. We may not feel any immediate effects after we eat, but the chances are it’s only a matter of time.

Some people, of course, turn healthy eating almost into an obsession, a mini-religion. I get rather fed up (if that’s the right expression) with a continuous flow of newspaper articles recommending one diet after another. “Everything in reason!” I want to shout. “Stop bullying me! I’ve got enough to worry about as it is!” (Are these the kind of people who Paul described, in KJV days, Romans 16:18, as “serving their own belly”?)

Well, that’s as may be. But where I want to go is – not food for the body, but food for the mind. This, surely, is far more important. You accommodate your body for a certain number of years, and then it is gone and decays. Yes, it’s important, and in fact it’s part of a Christian’s responsibility to look after it (see the startling and sobering words of Paul in 1 Corinthians 6:19). But what about your mind? What about the untold millions of words, thoughts, ideas, memories and images which we all tuck away without so much as thinking about it day by day? Are they wholesome? Healthy? Or are they the mental equivalent of junk food?

Paul has a habit of introducing lists into his letters: the most striking are probably Galatians 5:19-21 (“the works of the flesh”) and Galatians 5:22-23 (“the fruit of the Spirit”). But Philippians 4:8 doesn’t come far behind. Paul tells us what qualities and characteristics we should “think about” as a matter of course; in other words, he tells us about what kind of food we should be feeding into our minds.

His list has a slightly old-fashioned feel – “noble”, “admirable”, “excellent” (note please, not “incredible” or “fantastic” or “amazing”, words which in recent years have had all the juice sucked out of them through overuse). But that simply gives it an enhanced dignity and impressiveness. If you’re anything like me, you read these words and they have the effect of a beautiful warm shower: cleansing, reviving and invigorating. Or, to change the image, they call to mind some dear fellow-Christian who may well have been dead for 20 years – yet who, like Abel, ”still speaks” (Hebrews 11:4), such was the impact they made on you.

Such a person is reliable, trustworthy and solid, though not without humour (oh no, not without humour!). A person who you instinctively feel you’d like to model yourself on; a person who has made a significant difference to your life not so much by anything they have said but just by being who they are.

In a world where words and ideas are constantly flying around at breathless speed, pouring out at us from the television or the internet, people like this are desperately needed. They steady us and bring us back to base; they help to anchor us when we seem to have no stability; there is no shallowness in them.

A big problem about the food we put into our minds is that very often we absorb it without even realising what’s happening. Sit down and eat a meal and you know exactly what you’re doing; how can you not? But food for the mind comes creeping in often by a process of unnoticed infiltration: a newspaper headline; a slogan; a television programme that you’re only half-watching; something off the internet; a book that will only waste your time. And that’s why it needs watching.

James – ever the practical man – tells us that “Religion that is pure and faultless is this: to visit orphans and widows in their affliction, and to keep yourself unspotted from the world” (James 1:27). A big ask, that; but a vital part of becoming like Jesus.

Is it time to pause and reflect: what kind of food do I allow into the private sanctum of my mind?

Father, the beautiful world you have made has been tragically spoiled and corrupted, and we, to whom you have given the precious gift of life, are part of that corruption. Thank you for the word of Jesus, “Blessed are those who hunger and thirst after righteousness…” Please give me a true desire to be “filled”. Amen.