Thought for the Week - 7/3/2021

Dear Friends, 

One of the books I’m reading during Lent is the Archbishop of Canterbury’s Lent Book for 2021, written by Hannah Steele who is the Director of St Mellitus College, London, entitled Living His Story. The back cover states that ‘we are fascinated by stories. Every culture has them, passed on from generation to generation. Stories tell us who we are, where we belong and how we relate to the world around us. The gospel of Jesus Christ is the story at the heart of the universe, and yet the Church now finds itself in a culture that has largely forgotten this good news’. She goes on to talk about sharing the story of our lives and God’s presence in them and refers to the Saturday edition of the Guardian newspaper which has a feature called ‘Experience’, focusing on the story of an ordinary individual who has a tale to tell about their life. She writes, ‘These stories range from the near miraculous – the man who survived 76 days adrift in a raft on the Atlantic Ocean – to inspiring stories like the amputee who trained to be a professional tap dancer. Some stories make you weep…Others are more humorous… The point is, anyone is free to write in and share their story and we, the reader, are irresistibly drawn by them’. In John 4 we read the story of Jesus’ encounter with a Samaritan woman at a well, which ends with her going back to her town and telling the people, ‘Come and see a man who told me everything I have ever done! He cannot be the Messiah, can he?’ and then learning that many Samaritans believed in Jesus because of the woman’s testimony. So very often we may be afraid of speaking about our faith to others because of a lack of confidence, unsure of the reception, or thinking that we don’t know enough about it. But, as followers of Jesus, all we are asked to do is to simply tell our own story of what God has done in our lives and leave the rest to the work of the Holy Spirit.   

Grace and peace,

Neil