Dear Friends,
I am not the greatest lover of either participating in Sport or watching Sport. Nevertheless, I surprised myself at school by being a member of the under 15 hockey team and I was goalkeeper. These last weeks filled with great sporting activity, have impinged on me only to the extent of watching some of the Tennis at Wimbledon on TV, but, and apologies to fans, not one football match.
Sport and the Christian faith have much in common. They are ways of life that demand commitment and faith. Also the ingredient of hope which is drawn to our attention in our reading from St. Paul’s letter to the Romans. Whether one participates in or watches a game we have hopes, feelings of expectation and desire, and in this season it has translated to the hope that our team or favourite player would eventually win. There will be many that have been exhilarated and others that carry a deep sense of disappointment, others who accept there is bound to be a winner and a loser and look forward to the next opportunity to compete.
So it is in life, we are all involved in making constant choices in a world that is increasingly complex, and within that, our own individual battle with making choices between right and wrong. Scripture gives us many insights to Faith, Hope and Love. In the book of Hebrews chapter 11 illustrates how others have lived by faith. Faith being the assurance of things hoped for, which makes Hope a key-note of the Christian life.
“Father, hear the prayer we offer:
Not for ease that prayer shall be,
But for strength that we may ever
Live our lives courageously.
Be our strength in hours of weakness,
In our wanderings be our guide;
Through endeavour, failure, danger,
Father, be thou at our side.”
In Christ, Daphne
Daphne Cook, LLM