taste of heaven

We've encountered the phenomenon of 'Blue Screen Death'.

It's a computer problem and the name doesn't suggest that it's really all that healthy a thing. Not that I'm an expert on these things at all, but I don't think it is. All that healthy.

It's like the computer has gone on the blink. Except, it's not even blinking. It's just staring out from a blue screen with a whole lot of technical data explaining (if you hadn't already realised) that there is a problem.

We happened to have a computer expert in at the time. The guy who's been working on our database and who's been trying to fix us up in such a way we can 'network' between the offices. And we'll get another guy in tomorrow to take a look at things and see what can and should be done.

Computers are great when they work. And when they don't, well, it's a timely reminder of the need to ensure we can live without all these 'things' which become so much a part of modern life.

I was out at the school, anyway, much of the morning. We'd arrarnged for the database/networking guy to be in while I was out, since we knew my computer would be definitely free at the time.

So I missed a lot of the 'fun'. Instead I had my own fun over at the school.

Primary 5 again. Part 2 of the course on Christianity. This time on 'The Bible'.

Great! They're a super bunch of children, really well-behaved and always full of interest. And they cottoned on quite quickly and got the drift of things. It's a joy being in at the school to teach them there.

Quite a number of the children there were out at night at the Brownies. Well, the girls in the P5 classes.

I happened to pop in to the halls when they were meeting in the evening and stayed a bit. They'd just been learning a song and so they sang the thing to me. They're always so full of fun!

Douglas was in at lunch again - it being Tuesday. And so was my sister, up for the week from Wales. It was lovely to see her again.

She was speaking about the sort of work they're doing down there, building on the contact that they've had with children from the Holiday Club. Going round the homes each week with a children's magazine.

It's a point of contact. And that sustained contact week by week begins to grow relationship. And once there's that relationship, well, anything can happen.

I think that's what Jesus was all about. He just went around, doing good. Contact. Then relationship. Half the time, no doubt, there was nothing all that startling to report.

Except that simply by his being there, the taste of heaven sort of rubbed of on those around. And almost without their knowing it, they started to breathe the pure, fresh air of the kingdom of God and were bit by bit drawn in.

It's lovely to see that happen in the lives of folk today.

That's how we see the simple sort of ministry we exercise here day by day. It's the atmosphere, we pray, that'll bring such real refreshment and renewal to the many different people who come in.

The taste of heaven. A breath of God's fresh air.

And that's how I see so much of what I do as well. In at the school. In at the halls. Small moments of time where contact brings relationship.

And through sustained relationship the Lord himself is more and more made known.