Dear Friends and Colleagues,

Thank you especially to those who have contributed some thoughts along the lines requested last week. I found many of them very helpful. Following on from last Thursday’s zoom meeting the Cayman Ministers’ Association is preparing for a general meeting about the issue next month. Meanwhile we should not neglect to pray that the Lord will continue to expose to us the relevant factors and grant us the means to enable improvement. We continue also to pray for those who have been and still are immediately affected,.

At the same time there is a lot to be thankful about, and I do suppose that when we neglect to be thankful for so much it becomes easier to let those various forces that oppose our general welfare to dominate our consciousness. As people of Christian faith, to us, of all people, it is of ultimate importance not to neglect thankfulness.

The Collect for the Fourth Sunday after Easter is

O Almighty God, who alone canst order the unruly wills and affections of sinful men; Grant unto thy people, that they may love the thing which thou commandest, and desire that which thou dost promise; that so, among the sundry and manifold changes of the world, our hearts may surely there be fixed, where true joys are to be found; through Jesus Christ our Lord. Amen.

Our affirmation in prayer that it is Almighty God who can “alone” “order the unruly wills and affections of sinful men” is important in our age of marital and family counselling. I have no doubt that God uses the words and thoughts of - especially - counsellors who consciously give space to the Holy Spirit in their approaches to those who turn to them, and indeed it cannot be assumed that those who do so necessarily suffer from “unruly wills and affections”. For those of us who recognise such shortcomings in ourselves, we are urged to recognise the Source that alone can “order” them. For such ordering we are instructed by the prayer to receive two divine gifts for which we pray: that (1) we may “love" the thing that Almighty God commands, and (2) we may “desire” the thing that Almighty God promises. For then are we assured that “our hearts may surely there be fixed, where true joys are to be found”. 

If “through Jesus Christ our Lord” we indeed find where our hearts may be “surely fixed”, we have, through Him, indeed overcome the world, for all its “sundry and manifold changes”.

Laus Deo!

For directions about the services this Sunday the 15th May 2022, the Fourth Sunday after Easter, please see the website www.TruthWithLanguage.com . 

In faith in the holy Name of our Lord Jesus, who will continue to provide guidance by the Holy Spirit to all His people.

+ Nicholas