How great the love of the Father!

I don't know if you have ever had one of those realisations that arrest you, mid-thought, mid-speech, mid-life, without the crisis. A story was told by a friend of a time when he saved his son's life. It illustrates the worth that a father places on the life of his child, and I am sure his example would form the basis of many an aspiration.


Given the time of his life and his career, my friend was an upwardly mobile young man who believed in procuring only the best for himself and his family. He prized amongst his possessions a two door sports model sedan. It was one of the top of the range cars available at that time and had all sorts of additional safety features, one of them being a self-locking device if left standing unattended for too long. His wife left their five month-old baby asleep in the back seat of this car and the keys on the seat.

The intelligent piece of engineering that this was - it locked itself - keys inside, baby inside, windows closed. Panic ensued. Security companies were called and before long a mini-seminar was underway as how best to get to the child.

At this point my friend arrives having presumably been called by his wife, who by this time was in a state of extreme panic. The child, it appeared was already feeling the effects of a harsh African Sun, and had passed out. My friend without hesitation requested one of the security company officers to fetch a crow bar, and without hesitation wedged the bar into the door of the car and forced it open in order to rescue his son.

The surrounding reaction was one of incredulity. How could he force this bar into car door and so callously wedge it open?

His response - "What do you mean? That baby is my son and he is worth thousands of these cars."

So too our Dad. He will do anything, move heaven and earth and then back again to save us. I have an image of Father taking a crowbar and wedging open the doors of death and hell. I have an image of Father taking a crowbar and wedging open hearts that are cold  and wrapped around our earthly treasures.

Why? Because whatever we are holding onto and prizing so highly in terms of our own possessions or status, God values us, our lives our souls, our freedom, of thousands more times value than this.

He gave His only Son that we might have life, and have it to the full.

What a sleepy old year!

The 2010 school year lies gasping on the threshold of the finishing line, awaiting the final gun signalling the end of the race. Many disfunctional bodies lurch their way to the medical tent and look to get that crucial sustenance before heading out for the next leg.

That being said, we still have a busy week and a half to get through with resourcing to be finalised for the new school year and Matric marking to be done. It is "Hello, uncle, Hello, Aunty week" for our kids. Than-you, Lord for a strong support group.

Oh sleep, wherefore art thou?

Traffic is a state of mind.

It was a really bad day on the roads today - car packed with pre-pubescent girls with no volume control took a whole hour to travel the eight kilometres to work. Some poor hapless soul collided in peak traffic and so began the impatient snake of which my fun-wagon was but a tardy scale, trapped. As if to a struggling dysfunctional learner, the lesson was repeated on the way home from work, but apparently this time it was twelve hapless souls getting acquainted.

Search to the left, search to right - there must be some way to circumvent the jam. I cannot sit, passive while my life continues elsewhere without me.

And so the realisation: "You're in the traffic, so, you're in the traffic". From past experience the flight or avoidance tactic has often necessitated me reaching my destination after my allocated spot in the jam has dissipated, or traversed the place that would have been my original goal. Often the best place to be is in the traffic. Ultimately you will reach your destination, often at a greater pace than our well conceived, spur of the moment, makeshift solutions allow us.

A contemporary of mine from school has posted the pictures of his life from the last few years, as we are all prone to do. They ranged from London to Ibiza to skiing in the Alps. Beautiful locations, beautiful people, beautiful life. I kid you not, someone actually wrote that they would love to live his life. It would appear that he transcends the traffic. And yet, I sit bumper to bumper in just the right spot.

We get to nudge each other forward on a daily basis, hoping that we are all travelling in the same direction. As the traffic slows, I am able to see the people around me and really make eye contact, and smile.

So, you're in the traffic - I'll bet that you're in the traffic with exactly the right people that God, Almighty God in all his wisdom, wants you to nudge forward; and smile at; and prefer, giving them right of way. It's really slow for a reason: so that we can make eye contact, and wonder about on another, and care about one another.

I love the traffic - it's where I'm supposed to be.