As the world knows by now of the dreadful events at Bondi in NSW, Australia on Sunday, 14 December 2025, it strikes me that there is so much chaos being unleashed in our world.

Look at what has been happening and continues to happen in Gaza. So much destruction, so much suffering and which appears to be never ending. Then look at how Russia has been attempting to take over Ukraine. And, that fight continues without resolution. In the USA there have been more shootings resulting in more death. In Africa there continues the most dreadful massacres in the Sudan, and ongoing attacks and massacre of Christians elsewhere in the continent. The list is endless.

Now we have the unleashing of a terror attack on a Jewish gathering here in Australia. The media reports endlessly, and often in gruesome detail and which sometimes feels like a deliberate stirring up of fear and anxiety.

I am currently reading Revelation. What a vivid prophetic word on what’s ahead! I don’t know what it all means but it certainly is giving a picture of the end of our time. Our present world chaos is nothing compared to what I read about in that last book of the Bible. How does the chaos in our world today and what God has revealed fit together? I don’t know. What I do know is that God is in control. None of this is a surprise to him. There is a plan and God’s purposes are and will be fulfilled.

I choose to trust Jesus in the midst of the chaos. He is my hope. He gives me peace. I rest in him.

Bless you as you read this and ponder.

   

It’s been a while since I added anything here. Health issues are mostly to blame. I’m doing much better. It can be very challenging to want to do anything when feeling lousy. So many projects got left way back on the back burner. Now it’s a matter of trying to figure out where I was, where I am, and where I want to go. I’ve had plenty of time to think about the transitoriness of life generally and how fragile our existence really is. It is a very sobering experience.

Throughout my journey of these past couple of years I have felt God’s presence and loving care of me. I am so grateful. There were several things that I felt he showed me. Firstly, I was not alone. Jesus was with me, and would never leave me nor forsake me. Secondly, that he was carrying the bulk of my pain. I didn’t have to bear it by myself. Jesus is the true burden bearer. Phew, this has proved to be a real comfort and encouragement, and continues to be so. Thirdly, I am loved. And, nothing can change that. How wonderful!

So, there we are. We have hope because Jesus came as a human baby, lived a human life, and died to save us. Then marvelously he rose again shattering all the limitations that have keep us from being all we can be.

Life continues. Blessings this Christmas time.

   

Julian of Norwich, p 4 says,

” … our God wants us to value all his work very highly; the noble work of creation, especially the creation of man, which excels everything else…”*

It strikes me that this is really significant. God made man in his own image (Gen 1:26) and he declared that all he made was excellent in every way (Gen 1:31).
Satan has been attacking man ever since to get at God. He has been hard at work to demean man, to make him less than. It seems this demeaning is getting worse and worse. The most dreadful denigration of man is happening today – reducing the glory of man (made in God’s image) to an animal – sexual denigration, moral denigration (lying, cheating, killing, etc), cheap life (abortion, war, drugs), etc.
Satan had been robbing us of our glory out of his hatred for God. Are we going to let him continue? Time to take a stand, to resist him, and return to our true place in and with God.

*[ Julian of Norwich. 1987. Revelations of divine love. (This edition edited by Halcyon Backhouse with Rhona Piper) London: Hodder & Stoughton.]

   

I’ve been reading Hosea in the Old Testament. I’ve read it many times before but I’ve recently noticed a few verses in Hosea 4 (verses 1-3). Here’s what it says in the Living Translation:

“There is no faithfulness, no kindness, no knowledge of God in your land. You curse and lie and kill and steal and commit adultery. There is violence everywhere, with one murder after another. That is why your land is not producing. It is filled with sadness, and all living things are becoming sick and dying. Even the animals, birds, and fish have begun to disappear.”

My goodness, this sounds like a description of what is happening today all around the world! Watching the news, reading the newspaper, reading the news online gets to be pretty distressing with such an increase in unnatural events like murder, war, embezzlement, greed, etc. These have the consequence of polluting the land, polluting the world, polluting the very air we breathe. How many species of animals, birds and fish are now extinct or close to extinction? It seems that what Hosea had to say so very long ago is so very true for our now. Sometimes it seems so hopeless and I feel a “what’s-the-point” feeling creeping up trying to overtake me.
The world is filled with sadness, the land itself is sad. What reason has the animal world to fight to survive?
It makes me sad too.
However, there is hope. Hosea has the answer. It might not be palatable to many but I believe it is the way we should go. In the last chapter (chapter 14 verses 1-7), he speaks of our returning to God and of turning from our sinful ways. There’s some good promises in there.
Hosea is a good book to read. With very good advice to put into practice.  I encourage you to do so.

   

Jesus is the pure and spotless lamb sacrificed for us. Our sins are covered by his blood, a full and perfect atonement. Jesus is also the only High Priest who could offer up the once-for-all-time perfect sacrifice. He has made the WAY for us, the only way, out of the jaws of death and damnation back to our Creator in whose arms we truly belong.

There is much to reflect on at Easter as we trace Jesus’ last days — the triumphal entry into Jerusalem, the last supper, Gethsemane, betrayal and desertion, torture and the mockery of a trial, agonising death by crucifixion, burial in someone else’s tomb, and finally the resurrection. My prayer is that God will guide you as you reflect on this and that you will hear His heart for you. God bless you this Easter.

Throughout his life he resisted the persistent temptations of the evil one till now:

“For we do not have a high priest who is unable to sympathise with our weaknesses, but we have one who has been tempted in ever way, just as we are — yet was without sin.” Hebrews 4:15

Because Jesus was a person like us, he knows the temptations to which we are exposed. He will help us to resist them, and he paid the full price for all our failures.