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Psalm 17

The headline for this blog raises the question ‘what is a value?’ Companies often publish values and I did a quick search for some examples¹ The following is just one of 10 Companies who, according to the author of the article I read, have core values that actually reflect their culture

H&M

“Individually our values may seem obvious. But put them together and our unique company culture is born. Our values are part of who we are, what we stand for and how we act.”

• We Are One Team – Our great colleagues make the difference. It’s when we share our skills, knowledge and experience we become one team. Diversity makes us strong.
• Entrepreneurial Spirit – The day we stop acting like entrepreneurs, we’ll be just another fashion company.
• Straightforward And Open-Minded – We value diversity in people and ideas, as much as in personal style.
• Cost-Conscious – Being cost-conscious is about keeping an eye on expenses and making smart, sustainable choices even in the small, everyday things.

So, what is a value? I like to explain it as ‘something I hold dear, that affects the way I behave’. The implication is, that if I say integrity is one of my

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How should one react when the country is divided and everything seems a mess?

The UK parliament is due to ‘sit’ tomorrow morning, Saturday 19^th October, to consider the ‘Brexit deal’ proposed by Boris Johnson. According to the BBC, it will be the first Saturday sitting of parliament for 37 years¹². Apparently the last time it sat on a Saturday was in April 1982 when it discussed the invasion of the Falkland Islands.

The situation currently faced by the UK is not the first example of a divided country in a mess. People have had differences over how countries should be governed, families have been fatally divided by politics and/ or people caught on ‘the wrong side’ of the border for centuries. The recent past has

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The default settings on mobile phones and computers seem to have all sorts of ‘pop ups‘ enabled as standard. Almost any website seems to require ‘cookies’ to be enabled to ‘ensure the best browsing experience‘. As a result, I often have an advert that asks me ‘how much do I need when I retire?’ or ‘will £X be enough for my retirement?’

What has struck me is how completely Psalm 15 ‘reframes’ the picture of security.

The answer the psalmist gives, is ‘security comes from living in a way that does not lead to a broken relationship with God’. He begins by posing a

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Some many years ago our daughter, Hannah, came home from school and said to my wife and me “Xi asked me whether I would go to China with her in the summer, she is visiting her grandmother, but I said no!”

Hannah’s comment prompted some discussion between the three of us which included me asking her “Why did you say no?” She said, “Because I

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Only a fool says there is no God

The concept of atheism, as we know it and talk about it in the Twenty First Century, is not what the Psalmist has in mind when he says “Only fools think there is no God.”¹

The culture of the Ancient Near East (ANE) had nothing akin to today’s atheistic conception that there is no spiritual realm, that no God or god’s exist.² The ANE was dominated by a beliefs, that involved a multitude of

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How long God?

I started writing this blog on 29th Nov. My previous blog on the Psalms was posted on 5th November. It’s now another 12 days and I am only just ‘picking up’ writing again! That’s a long time, especially as I had hoped to write about one psalm each week, or is it?

All sorts of things have got in the way; some of them have been trivial but, others more serious. Whatever has transpired, time has gone by!

The idea of ‘quick answers’ to prayer is not a common one in the bible.

Hearing God speak seems to take time even for established prophets!

Jeremiah prayed for 10 days before he received God’s word a group of Army officers who wanted to know whether or not they should flee to Egypt (Jer 42:7). Daniel prayed and fasted for three weeks before an angel visited

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Leaders always set the ‘tone’ whether they intend to or not!

Organisational culture or, what I want to describe as, the ‘atmosphere of a country’ is inevitably set by the way in which the leaders of an organisation or country behave and speak. There have been a number of things in the news recently that underline this observation. The ‘Google Walk Out’ is an example of what can happen when organisational culture goes wrong. The response from from Sundar Pichai has received a mixed reception and there is a suggested alternative response written and

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Just over 30 years ago I was working for a small publishing company and had poured my ‘heart and soul’ into the relaunch of a magazine. Not only was I an employee of the company, I was also one of three shareholders. Then, without notice, the two other shareholders decided that ‘my’ project should be taken over by another company with which they were associated.

I was devastated. I literally cried, the grief was overwhelming, what could I do?

I think that David must have felt something similar when

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