Today is an Exciting Day!!!!!!!!!

Today is an exciting day for me! Our church boiler which has had no end of problems is being replaced with a larger capacity boiler which is also a very well known make.

As our installer was ripping out the old boiler he found one of the causes of our problem which is that the gas valve was corroded on one side.

Over the past few weeks I have had to do all sorts of things to try to get the boiler working including running a hot tap to fire it up and then switching to heating. This has involved a lot of time and effort alongside the expectation and knowledge that at any point that the boiler might stop working.  I am glad that this is now over 🙂

It strikes me that often we do all sorts of things to keep on limping through life when sometimes we need to stop and face up to and try to resolve the real problem.

The corroded gas valve is never going to work properly and consistently and so it needs replacing.

If you are facing difficulties and you are bravely soldiering on then it might be time to stop and to consider if facing up to the problem and dealing with it might be easier in the long run.

Churches are often such nice places that we make allowances for strange and sometimes unreasonable behaviour. I think that this acceptance and grace is absolutely right and correct, but churches should also be places of healing and transformation as we encourage people to come to Jesus for freedom.

As I type this, the new boiler is being installed. YAY!!!! It is costing us more money than we would like 😦 and it has taken time and effort to bring us to this point 😦 but it will be worth it in the end :).

If you are  struggling through life, I pray that you would know God’s comfort but that you would also know his courage as you face up to what the real problem is. I pray that you would know God’s wisdom and guidance to know whether the problem can be resolved or if soldiering on is the only way forward. Most of all I pray that you would know the presence of Jesus who made a promise to his followers which is

‘I am with you always’.