Ahhh Sundays...!!

Ah yes, I knew there was something I loved about Portsmouth - Sundays! Especially Sundays that are like the Sundays in my first year which went something like this : Church, students being invited to someone's house after church for lunch or to some kind of pub, followed by some sort of afternoon activity like random games or a nice walk, followed by church again in the evening!

This type of Sunday was one of the things I loved most last year! At the time it was nice because it meant I could escape from Langstone for a whole day, spend time getting to know new friends and of course having a whole day away from work (which is what God gave us Sundays for in the first place!!) These Sundays kept me going last year, when I was missing home or stressed or lonely, they were days where I was able to be with my Christian brothers and sisters, and probably became my most looked forward to day of the week!

Now, this year I no longer need to escape from Langstone and those ''new friends'' have become people I love a whole lot and spend a good amount of time with but I realised today how much I still adore these Sundays just the same! The families at Eastney Church just amaze me with their kindness and generosity - especially as a lot more students come now than when I first started going! So I guess what Im trying to say with all this babbling is that I had a lovely day!

For this evenings service we had a guest speaker in who works for 'Open doors', which is an organisation that helps persecuted Christians all around the world. I have heard and read many things about Christian persecution but every time I hear more, something new will strike me. Today, the main things I took from the service is just how extraordinary the faith of a persecuted Christian is. We heard examples of Christians that have asked for people not to pray that their persecution would stop, but rather that they would never deny Jesus... Wow! How often do we have silly little problems that we go to God with and ask to be set free from? Not that thats wrong of course, I mean, God wants us to share our feelings and problems with Him, but it sort of puts things into perspective when people are daily being imprisoned, beaten or even killed for their faith in God.... and we worry about being laughed at for example....makes ya think hey?

Second thing I took from the service - how much we take the bible for granted. This point was hardly really touched upon but something (cant think of the exact sentence) that was said got me thinking. There are people going out and risking their lives, or certainly risking prison, to take Bibles to countries where they're not allowed and the people that recieve them treasure it with all they have. Most of them will read as much as they can, as often as they can, and here we are, in the Western world, most Christians owning more than one bible and how often do we read it? At church? Maybe a few times a week? Maybe when we ''feel like it''? Or maybe we do our 'once a day' like we feel we should. BUT my question is, how much do we really treasure God's word? And I mean really treasure it. Do we even completely realise what it is that we hold in our hands, or keep by our beds, or on our bookshelf? That book, contains every thing that we truely need to know about God and about being a Christian here on earth - EVERY THING!! Yes there are other things that we're not always clear about, or that we wish we knew, but right now, on earth, they're unimportant. God has given us all we need to know within the bible and I for one pray that I will treasure it and read it more and more whilst I have the freedom to. Who knows when that freedom wont exist anymore. And so how about you? Will you pray too that our so often complacent attitudes regarding the bible will be broken down and we'll treat it as the treasure that it is? And will you pray for persecuted Christians everywhere, and that the faith of the 'free' as it were, would be even a fraction of what theirs is? **Praise God** for our freedom but let's not take it for granted.
xxx