Thought for the Week - Coming out of lockdown - our priorities

We’ve just been told that 6th July has been given as the provisional date when hairdressers and barbers’ shops will be permitted to open. After that date we can expect to see fewer cavemen hairstyles, piebald-headed women and the disastrous results of d-I-y scissor-happy coiffure artists.

There are, of course, some of us who don’t have to concern ourselves a great deal about hairdos, whereas there are others for whom the crowning glory is a matter of great concern.

Now it is interesting that our hair is something of which the Lord takes note. “But even the very hairs of your head are all numbered.” (Matthew 10 :30) And surely the thought that immediately comes to mind is that God knows absolutely everything about us. He knows more about us than our nearest and dearest. He knows more about us than we know ourselves. Now that’s a sobering thought! For if he knows that, and he says he does, then he knows all about the thoughts, words and deeds that we would rather he didn’t. Put bluntly, God knows that we are sinners. That is true, and it is something that everyone would do well to consider.

But our sin is not the context here, for Jesus continues “Fear not, therefore, you are more value than many sparrows.” His theme in this passage is God’s concern for us. And that too is something we ought to think about. When we put these two thoughts together – our sin and God’s concern for us – we are reminded of Romans 5:8 “But God shows his love for us in that while we were sinners Christ died for us,”

That is the good news of the gospel - and of all the things that concern us at this time – that is what really matters.

By Wor. Bro. Rev. Ian McClean, Grand Chaplain