All Good Gifts around us!

Hello! Once again thankyou for clicking that link and reading this blog, very much appreciated! This week at Eston it has been Harvest. So, yes, the songs in my head this week have included 'Bringing in the Sheaves' and 'We Plough the Fields'. I'm not really a fan of either song but they are the best ones for Harvest. Controversial? I hope so!

This week has been another good week and the thing that keeps cropping up in everything that I do is this vital aspect of ministry of building relationships and really going out of our way, out of our comfort zones and meeting the people where they are at. The perfect example of this was on friday when I sold the War Cry in the Pubs and clubs with Captain Gary and Una (a lady at the corps). We went to about 5 different pubs and in each one of them I felt that the people there were friendly people, enjoying the company of their friends and having a good time together. I really felt the presence of God in those pubs, there is an automatic view that going to the pub is wrong and the people who go to the pub are bad, but actually it is wrong to think like this. Actually when we look into the dynamics of a pub atmosphere we see people being happy, people enjoying being in each others company, people almost sharing brotherly love with their neighbour. Is this such a bad thing? To me it shows that God is working in and amongst those men and it is our job to be in that environment and to continue building those relationships so we can point out that God is here! He is already working. This is something that has really hit me and I just pray that as I continue this ministry, God will use me to show people where He is and that His work in that place will just grow and grow into something beyond what we could ever imagine.

So we have been preparing for the Harvest at Eston Corps and harvest this year has been in particular a bit more real to me. The idea of harvest is to gather the crop and the grain and store it all for winter, for when times get hard. But in the modern day we don't have to rely on the harvest. If there is a bad harvest in England we can just go to another country to get our produce and if there is a bad harvest there then again we can just move onto the next country. It would seem we have it pretty sorted... actually that couldn't be farther from the truth. I said in my last blog that there are people still coming to the Salvation Army for help so they can feed themselves. This is wrong. In this country, people are going hungry! So we as the Salvation Army collect food in which we can give to those who need it, we save it for those who are going through those hard times. So to have an actual part to play in that ministry is very challenging and day by day I am being challenged when I see people need the Salvation Army's help and when it is me at times who passes over that box of food, I have this awesome sense of humbleness that I am serving God by serving man.

One thing about Harvest that I really like is that it gets me to think about the special things in life that are around me and how blessed I am. If you read Matthew Chapter 6- verse 25, it tells us that God provides for us and at this time of year we focus on food and that sort of provision. But the way I kept on thinking about God's provision is the people he has put around me. Here at Eston I have a great support network of Gary and Lorraine, Trevor and Gillian and Phil and Dawn and there are others. God has placed me here in Eston but he gives me everything so I can fulfil the task he has assigned including these wonderful people. I then also think of the people back home who I hold close in my heart in particular I think of my Family and I think of Sophie, people I love and adore and these people who have influenced my life incredibly. God has given me them hasn't he? What a great gift to give me. But he also gave me his son, Jesus, the greatest gift of all. He gave his son to die for me and yet he rose again and now lives within us. What a gift, what provision! I serve a Great God. So, all good gifts around us, all good people around us most definitely come from Heaven above and all I can do is give my grateful thanks and praise to my God who provides me with all things.

I hope this blog has made you smile and also really made you think about the good things around you. I say this every week, please feel free to post comments about the blog or if you have any prayer requests please do post them below. And please do get in touch!

God bless you all!

@peggo36

pegg.j@hotmail.co.uk