With great joy comes great tragedy

It's with much gladness that I can announce that Searchers cafe has indeed been saved. I am not entirely sure of the details but for the meantime it remains open so praise God and thanks for everyone's prayers. However the joy from this news has quickly submerged as we found out that one of our dear friends whom we met through the café, has passed away.

I think if Cliff were here to see so many tributes to his life put down in writing he would be infinitely moved because I don't think he would have been aware just how many people cared about him. Much is made of his circumstances and the sad news of his death, but we can celebrate the fact that the closing chapters of his life were spent as part of a new family, the family of God. He finally got to glimpse what real faith looks like, and that truly is a blessing.

The world has lost a beautiful soul, and I can only pray that heaven has gained it. There seems to be so many tragic things happening. Hearing the news of the death of a great man of faith, Gareth Proctor; learning about the genocides and ongoing wars in Central Africa, it just moves my heart into a place of deep helplessness.

It feels like it is just too overwhelming to solve all the worlds problems, it makes you just want to give up. I mean where do you start, the cure for cancer? poverty, injustice, terrorism, tracifficking, corruption, financial crisis, global warming, knife crime, hatred....... the list goes on. Boy have we made a mess of God's 'good' creation, may God forgive us.

But in all of this mess, we are called to hope, Christ in us the HOPE of glory. Yes the worlds problems are too great for us to do on our own, that's why we need to unite as one body, to do it together, piece by piece, in the power of His name. We are told in God's word that if we had faith the size of a mustard seed we could literally command a mountain to move and it would be so. I mean I usually glaze over that verse, but are you serious God, can I really, verbally, communicatically, kinetically move a mountain?

And if that is the case then why hasn't anyone moved a mountain before, is it because we are so faithless that our combined faith doesn't even amount to as much as a mustard seed? Come on people! Lord give us the faith that we can't seem to give ourselves. Peronally I believe we have moved some mountains in Jesus name, they just aren't always what we expected. But then again we as a species have never really been very good expecting the things of God. One thing is clear though, we are in desperate need of Him.