" The number of people out of work in the UK has risen again, taking the jobless rate to 7.9%, official figures show. The number of people unemployed increased by 210,000 to 2.47 million in the three months to July, according to the Office for National Statistics.Claims for unemployment benefit in August grew by 24,400 from July to 1.61m, the highest since May 1997."
The news today brings home how the current economic climate is really beginning to effect large parts of the population in this country and from all different walks of life. I think most people now either know someone who have lost their job or know somebody who is searching for new employment.
People with families and responsibilities struggling to pay the bills and in the developed west we have all been guility to some degree of taking things for granted. We also operate within a society which is very materalistic and we are all tied-in to an environment that means most of us have to earn X amount, to support X amount of mortgage, or have to earn X amount to support mortagage applications. House prices are still high comparative to earnings and whilst many of us might like to explore an alternative lifestyle it is very much limited to having to find the money each month to put a roof over our heads.
This story here made me think http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/business/8257198.stm
"It's so hard to go down from earning to having nothing. I didn't think I'd lose my job, it's all such a bad dream," he says, standing in his kitchen in a comfortable suburb of Haverhill in Suffolk. Peter is literally counting out the pennies on the kitchen counter. The coins are from his kids' piggy banks and cups of loose change around the house. The money, he says, will help feed the electricity meter or pay for his petrol. Six weeks earlier, he had been earning £19 an hour.
"This is what it's come down to, pinching it out of my daughter's tin to put it all together. It's ridiculous that the cash flow has just gone."
How many of us if we are honest borrow the odd pound coin from the children's piggy bank - I admit I have and thinking that any of us could be forced into doing that to survive is a pretty uncomfortable thought. It was pleasing though to hear in this story how a Christian Charity is helping people like this and I was quite impressed with what the the Trussell Trust are doing. Here is their website http://www.trusselltrust.org/content/home/home.htm
I know there are other similar Charities doing this type of work and good for all of them, there is much that can be done as Christians to show love and compassion on others, some of us struggle to find an outlet to do this even though we would like to. Perhaps contributing some food stuffs to such a cause is a small way of helping. I for one will be contacting the new one being set up in Colchester - maybe there is one near you?
Wednesday, 16 September 2009
Tuesday, 8 September 2009
A fleshy enemy attack
Sometimes, or perhaps often, when we are doing something for the Lord or obeying His commands in some way, it is at these times when Saturn will often try and trip us up. We may feel we are going on well in our Christian lives and then the enemy tries to put obstacles in our path, doubts perhaps, he loves to remind us of our failings. I think and hope that as we mature as Christians we get to know the tricks he likes to play and perhaps we are that little bit quicker in confessing and seeking forgiveness for our sin.
I am often reminded of how Saturn tried and failed to tempt Jesus in the Wilderness and how Jesus always answered him with answers from Scripture. That for me is the main thing to remember when under attack – the Bible is the sword. The other interesting thing is that the temptation of Jesus happened after Jesus had been Baptised and was led by the Spirit for 40 days in the Wilderness. So it is not surprising given that example that often the timing of the enemy attack is after we have taken a step of faith or are about to. Maybe the week after we have had a real close encounter with God, perhaps on return from conference or after a really good Sunday morning of Praise and Worship.
We need to look out for those little areas in our lives where the Devil seeks to cause conflict and bring us down, it might be something like a temper tantrum on our drive to work when that truck pulls in front of you without indication, or the driver that waits for ages at a junction and then pulls out (usually when there is nothing behind you !) We all have pressure points and Saturn loves to pull the levers and press the buttons. The cumulative effect of lots of different small things like this can really drag us down, a cunning enemy the cause. The antidote to this is the Word, Prayer and the Holy Spirit giving us power to overcome and begin to win those battles that we all face.
So yes are weak and display weaknesses of the Flesh, we are new Spirits in old bodies and it is this struggle between our flesh and our spirit that forces us to be wholly dependent upon Him, so that He would get all the glory, for the victory He freely gives us in Christ* To remember and to continually remind ourselves that we are nothing without God, he sustains our very being and it is by his Grace that we are saved. He has already won the battle for us, we just need to claim that Victory in our lives and when enemy attack comes call ‘behind me Saturn’.
* quote from http://justpray.org/WhyItsHard.html
I am often reminded of how Saturn tried and failed to tempt Jesus in the Wilderness and how Jesus always answered him with answers from Scripture. That for me is the main thing to remember when under attack – the Bible is the sword. The other interesting thing is that the temptation of Jesus happened after Jesus had been Baptised and was led by the Spirit for 40 days in the Wilderness. So it is not surprising given that example that often the timing of the enemy attack is after we have taken a step of faith or are about to. Maybe the week after we have had a real close encounter with God, perhaps on return from conference or after a really good Sunday morning of Praise and Worship.
We need to look out for those little areas in our lives where the Devil seeks to cause conflict and bring us down, it might be something like a temper tantrum on our drive to work when that truck pulls in front of you without indication, or the driver that waits for ages at a junction and then pulls out (usually when there is nothing behind you !) We all have pressure points and Saturn loves to pull the levers and press the buttons. The cumulative effect of lots of different small things like this can really drag us down, a cunning enemy the cause. The antidote to this is the Word, Prayer and the Holy Spirit giving us power to overcome and begin to win those battles that we all face.
So yes are weak and display weaknesses of the Flesh, we are new Spirits in old bodies and it is this struggle between our flesh and our spirit that forces us to be wholly dependent upon Him, so that He would get all the glory, for the victory He freely gives us in Christ* To remember and to continually remind ourselves that we are nothing without God, he sustains our very being and it is by his Grace that we are saved. He has already won the battle for us, we just need to claim that Victory in our lives and when enemy attack comes call ‘behind me Saturn’.
* quote from http://justpray.org/WhyItsHard.html
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