Lazy Sunday musings

Happy Sunday everyone. Hope you're all having a good one, mine has been wonderfully laid back and relaxing so far even though I have been out and about.

I taught Sunday school this morning and I talked to my 6-8s about about how even though we can't see the Holy Spirit he is still our helper and can change and transform us. We were reading about Peter and Paul from Acts 5 and how they talked about Jesus in front of all the chief priests and leaders. When I was preparing this lesson I was really struck by something. You know how when you've read a Bible story a hundred times you sometimes don't really think about it? Well yesterday I thought what it would be like if a regular fisherman came and started talking to the church leaders about Jesus just like Peter did. I have a strong suspicion that a lot of 'leaders' would still react the way those chief priests did. So no matter how much things change they still remain the same in many ways... BUT amazingly God's word still keeps progressing. Praising God for this and for the fact that HE is all-round awesome!

After church I went grocery shopping and on the way back we stopped by a roadside nursery because my mum wanted to buy some pots for her small but beautiful balcony garden. That is where I spotted these beautiful earthenware pots and voila, they are my blip for today :)

Just before writing this I was watching the BBC for a bit and a show called The Editors was on, you know the one where they ask some big questions and then get a BBC editor to answer it based on interviews with different people. Two questions really stood out for me mainly because the contrast was so marked. One: is there hope and optimism in Pakistan in spite of all the challenges? Two: Why are the French so sad and depressed?

So on the one hand you had beautifully dressed people drinking wine and coffee in elegant Parisian roadside cafes and discussing why as a nation - in spite of having free education, free university, great healthcare benefits etc. - they are just sad and depressed (one academic called it The French Unhappiness Puzzle). And then on the other hand you had average middle class to poor Pakistanis sitting in a large but somewhat run down and not very clean park where their kids are playing barefoot with cheap plastic balls and broken cricket bats yet they look like they are having the time of their lives, AND they're talking about how they are optimistic, even though a good education is expensive and out of the reach of at least 40% of Pakistanis, old age benefits are basic to say the least, inflation is at a record high and terror attacks are a daily part of life. Amazing or what?

Now don't get me wrong. I would LOVE to live in a clean Pakistan where the basic systems just worked like they ought to, but maybe, just maybe, having too much and getting it all too easily makes life unchallenging and even a bit depressing.