This weekend was a gloriously busy one.

WeddingFlowersStill Time Band on Saturday evening. It was a great evening with around 150 people gathering together for some Gershwin and some gospel music.

A big thank you to goes out to Mike and the team, I personally received lots of very positive feedback.

The strawberries and cream at the interval and the abundance of flowers from the wedding the day before gave the whole evening a wonderful summer feel.

On Sunday we were joined by Cristi Murgu for both our morning and evening services. Cristi is originally from Romania but currently working as a Pastor in Carnforth.

Cristi used the film Sliding Doors as an way of illustrating the importance of the decisions  that we make. He then looked at the decisions that Blind Bartimaeus and the Samaritan Woman made.

How many choices do we each face every day?

How many of them are truly significant to our future?

It’s a very interesting thought.

As I look back at my own life some of the really significant decisions stand out loud and clear – job, marriage, house, etc. In some of these decisions the leading from God was clear.

Before we lived in the house we live in now we lived in a smaller house not far from here. We had a growing family and knew that we needed something bigger.

We spent some time looking around at the options and couldn’t find anything we could afford, or something we liked. We were looking for an older house with character, and didn’t really want a newer house.

JazzNightOne day we were nosing around the houses on the new estate they were building up the road from us. We looked at one particular house and wondered. We even spoke to the sales person to find out how much it would cost, but neither of us were convinced. It wasn’t an issue because we couldn’t afford it anyway.

One day while Sue was praying she felt a clear prompting from God to go for it, later on she was reading her Bible and again got a clear prompting.

To cut a long story short we went to the sales people and offered them significantly less than they were asking. They smiled politely and said that they would have to speak to Head Office and would get back to us in the next 24 hours. Not expecting any reply, as it was early evening and Head Office would be closed, we went home. Before we could even get home we had received the confirmation we were looking for via the mobile phone and we were moving.

There have been other times when I have wondered whether I have missed out on something wonderful because I wasn’t willing to step out and go for it.

I can be too timid and Bartimaeus stands as a shining example of dogged determination not to miss an opportunity even in the face of opposition. The Samaritan Woman is another example of someone who encountered Jesus in such an amazing way that she wasn’t willing to carry on being the outsider. And that is the fundamental difference, these people met Jesus and He changed everything for them – Bartimaeus no longer blind; the Samaritan Woman no longer an outcast. They took their opportunity.

I was particularly touched by Cristi’s description of the evens of the Romania revolution and his involvement in it. He had choices that day – life and death choices.

What choices are you facing today? Will they be Jesus choices or just choices?