The Long Walk Home

It is fitting that my 200th post should be this one. Finally science can prove anything, hoorah. Tea is offically Good For You. Tea Goodness

The phrase, Hove actually, comes from the posh residents of Hove objecting to the notion that they are in any way connected to Brighton. Thus any conversation about where you might live would go like this:
Person 1: Do you live in Brighton?
Person 2: Well, Hove, actually.
This is a source of much comedy amongst some people in our fair city, when the film Love Actually came to Brighton many of the posters were changed to read, well I’ll let you work it out for yourselves.

It’s not just the residents that are this particular, no no. Hove has grass on the seafront, Brighton has none. Hove has a fetching deep dark green colour covering it’s railings and bars, Brighton has a lurid turquoise. Hove has helpful signs under the road names reassuring you that, yes, you are still in Hove. And Hove has Heritage. Or lots of signs pointing out the interesting things about Hove. Brighton is lacking in such items. This one amuses me the most, mainly because it underlines all of the above. The first thing of importance about Hove, is that it is separate and very different from Brighton. Got it?

Let me get this straight, I get paid to sit here at my desk and write some seminars about how much God loves, and I mean LOVES to spend time with us, and how wonderful He is in pouring grace upon grace on our lives. In that process I get reminded that it all applies to me as well, that He’s taken all my sin away and remembers it no more. And I get paid for this? To remind myself and others of God. Now really.

Once again, there is SO much that we don’t know, there is SO much I don’t get. But we cannot escape the relentless love of our Father. This world is His, He keeps and will never stop keeping us. We are safe in his covenant.

“O Love that will not let me go,
I rest my weary soul in thee;
I give thee back the life I owe,
That in thine ocean depths its flow
May richer, fuller be.”

“I know not why God’s wondrous grace
To me He hath made known,
Nor why, unworthy as I am
He claimed me for his own.

But “I know Whom I have believed
He’s able now to save
What I’ve committed unto him
Until that final day

I know not how this saving faith
To me He did impart,
Nor how believing in His word
Wrought peace within my heart.

I know not how the Spirit moves,
Convincing men of sin,
Revealing Jesus through the Word,
Creating faith in Him.

I know not what of good or ill
May be reserved for me,
Of weary ways or golden days,
Before His face I see.

I know not when my Lord may come,
I know not how or where,
If I shall pass the vale of death,
Or “meet Him in the air.”