Churches May 2024

For our other group meetings, please see the Group Activities sections.

Visitors are always very welcome to all our events.

Contact Ian Pagan 788263 idpagan@btinternet.com

Website: www.longhorsleymission.org.uk

Thought for the Month - New Beginnings

At last a glimpse of spring. I was beginning to get an inkling of how it was for Noah. The pervading whiff of damp dog, wet coats dripping over the bath, muddy wellingtons lined up at the door; how it must have felt when he opened the window of the ark and at last saw blue sky. A window of hope.

We all love the story, the animals walking into the ark two by two, cuddly lions, friendly giraffes, all bobbing about on a brightly coloured boat under a blue sky - really? 

The reality was undoubtedly smellier and messier and a logistical nightmare; and darker. God felt pain, so much pain in his heart at the evil and violence which was in the world that he vowed to destroy the creation he loved, and sent a flood to wipe out every living thing; except for Noah. Noah believed in God, was faithful to God, and trusted him, whatever life threw at him. So God was faithful to Noah and spared him, and his family, and trusted him with a remnant of creation to make a new beginning.

I don't know what greeted Noah when he finally opened the door, probably a lot of mud, and we've seen farms around the country underwater, crops unable to be planted or to grow. But he also saw the most beautiful phenomena spanning the sky, a rainbow. God's covenant promise that he would never again destroy life and that the seasons would never fail as long as the earth would last. 

He has kept that promise, and that first rainbow has now become a symbol of hope for good.

The world however does not seem so different to Noah's day, violence and evil appear to have the upper hand, but God made another promise, hope for a new beginning when life can seem hopeless. He promised a child, Jesus his son, who would become the mediator for our rebellious humanity. Each Christmas we celebrate this promise fulfilled; and we celebrate Easter, Jesus’ crucifixion and resurrection from death, with a new symbol of hope, the Cross, God's new covenant promise. 

‘For God so loved the world that he gave his one and only son that whoever believes in him will not die but have eternal life.’ 

John 3:16

To separate ourselves from God, from that hope, is death; to believe in him promises life, now.

Lesley Smith, Longhorsley Mission

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