thank the Lord - I'm Scottish!

The start of a new month (well, near enough) and as good a place as any to start what I hope gives an insight into my day by day living.

I want you to understand what makes me tick and fires me up and leaves me excited, enthused and expectant (most of the time - I have my days like everyone else!). And I want you, too, to get a sense of just how varied and unpredictable my day-by-day life, as a present-day disciple of Jesus, can be.

I'm a pastor and a preacher and (half the time) a mixed-up kid as well - as you can tell from the photo. The T-shirt is the give-away: look closely and you'd see it says, every day I wake up and thank the Lord I'm Scottish. I like it! And because there's no punctuation, you can take it either way...

I'm Scottish. I wake up every day and thank the Lord. That's how I try to start each day: and I figured that my noting here what each day brings is part, perhaps, of giving thanks to Him.

Anyway, enough of that for now. Back to the cooking! In the photo it was bangers on the barbecue on holiday: today, it's food for the soul I've been busy preparing, with Sunday coming up. I love this sort of cooking, working away at the text of the Book and getting the 'feast' all ready!

Today's been another good day! This morning I was jumping around like a little boy at Christmas time when we got delivery of our long-awaited 'Welcome Pack': called Your Guide, it's a super little booklet, colourful and glossy, giving (hopefully) a really helpful fool's guide to all that goes on in the life of the congregation. A lot of work from a number of talented folk over many, many months: great to see their work coming to fruition at last! I want to hand them out to everyone!

I certainly passed one on to the Korean pastor who, along with his wife and family, worship with us here. Fresh back from holiday, he called in today to bring me a gift of Korean tea.

How kind and warmly generous this family is: strangers in our land and yet so very much appreciative of all that's done for them and wanting in this way to show their gratitude.

I'm Scottish. They're Korean. But no matter who we are or where we're from, it's surely good, each morning as we wake, to thank the Lord for all his daily goodness to us here.