Thought for the Week - 18th February 2024

Dear Friends, 

A childhood memory that perhaps we can all associate with (and which may persist into later life) is holidaying at the beach and taking off our shoes and socks and running in the sand and sea barefoot, which always to me seemed to express a freedom and enjoyment that life not on holiday never quite gave. During Lent this year I’m using a book called Barefoot Prayers – a meditation a day for Lent and Easter by Stephen Cherry who is the Dean of Kings College, Cambridge. He says that ‘prayer is what happens when humility meets grace, or rather, when humility is met by grace. People today shy away from the virtue of humility for fear that to get close to it will make them weak in the face of hostile others, or in the fear that thinking themselves humble, they might slip into pride. Yet humility is the least negotiable of the Christian virtues. It is the basis of spirituality, wisdom and ministry’. The gospel of Matthew tells us of the story when Jesus’ disciples came to him and asked who is the greatest in the kingdom of heaven, to which Jesus placed before them a little child and said, ‘Truly I tell you, unless you change and become like little children, you will never enter the kingdom of heaven. Therefore, whoever takes a humble place – becoming like this child – is the greatest in the kingdom of heaven’ (Matthew 18:3-4). The apostle Paul, writing to the believers in Philippi says, ‘Do nothing out of selfish ambition or vain conceit. Rather, in humility value others above yourselves, not looking to your own interests but each of you to the interests of others. In your relationships with one another, have the same attitude of mind Christ Jesus had.’ (Philippians 2:3-5).

Grace and peace,

Neil   

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