The Jewel

I was out on the balcony Monday morning starting my studying for the week. It is the week of the Circuit Overseer visit and so the mid-week meeting moves from Thursday evening to Tuesday evening and I have to condense my week's study into two days.

The sky was wonderful, very blue but full of scudding white clouds, with an occasional rain cloud shading things as it hurried across, going somewhere else. The photo above is of a different sky, over the same beach, but also a lovely one. There have been floods in parts of the country. The sea was surging and roaring, and so beautiful. It was like being inside a living jewel, which I guess the earth is.  It is easy to pray when I am on the balcony, to thank Jehovah for all of it, and to ask that Col and me might be here in the paradise earth able, one day,  to thank Him from a perfect heart.

Tuesday morning was stormy, wind, rain, and a face to face appointment with my GP, hopefully to discuss what has happened to my eyes, and to see if anything more can be done or should be done - plus to get more info about the doubled meds. The young trainee I saw - very nice lad - checked my eyes - I may be referred to hospital Ophthalmology - and told me that nausea is a fairly standard side-effect of the increased meds, but if I take another daily med with it - one I already have but do not take often - that may help.

It all comes back though to my being past my sell-by date. While we were there, Col booked our next Covid jabs plus the winter flu one, to be done next month.

But the system of things on the earth... where to start... turmoil... disaster... I guess just watch any episode of the News.  But brace yourself.  With all that is going on the headlines here have been captured by one Russell Brand, who I have never watched, nor ever wanted to.  He has never hidden his behaviour, but if anything he has flaunted it - which is why I have never wanted to watch his act.

This is from a recent online article by Peter Hitchens in The Daily Mail: 

Mr Brand, remember, had in 2008 distinguished himself with his horrible, creepy prank, alongside Jonathan Ross, that he played on the actor Andrew Sachs.
Remember what he did. He left three messages on Mr Sachs' answerphone, making repeated lewd and graphic claims about his granddaughter. These were then broadcast by BBC Radio.

These remarks were then broadcast by BBC Radio. So it seems as if he has had a free pass for all sorts of bad behaviour, and suddenly it has been withdrawn.

Why?  Maybe he is as puzzled as I am.  Well, he has made his money at any rate. The world and its Movers and Shakers have both lauded and applauded him, or they did only just yesterday.

In shining contrast, the foremost quality of our Creator, Jehovah, the God of Abraham, is loyal love.  And he appreciates and rewards good and loving behaviour.  He will help us when we stumble and help us to get up again.  And his standards never change.  As James reassuringly tells us:

"Do not be misled, my beloved brothers. Every good gift and every perfect present is from above, coming down from the Father of the celestial lights, who does not vary or change like the shifting shadows." - James 1:16,17

The world of politics, the world of Moving and Shaking, can change at the drop of a hat it seems. What it applauded yesterday, it might condemn today.  But our Creator does not vary or change like the shifting shadows. We can rely on Him completely. His word is a rock of truth in a spinning world.

And I wish everybody could know that.  So I guess I need to keep on trying to tell them.