Thought for the week

I HAD the privilege of leading worship at Tobermory and Dervaig last Sunday.

One of the things I like most in any church is chatting with the children before the service, and what lovely conversations I enjoyed on Mull.

The children were discussing the subject of where they had been born, with many interesting stories around their births.

However, little Ewan really trumped us all. Ewan is about five years old, but has the wisdom of someone with much more life experience.

Ewan informed me that his place of birth on his birth certificate is a grid reference.

Ewan was arriving sooner than expected and his mum was flown off the island. Ewan explained with a twinkle in his eye that he was born in a helicopter.

What a great story this will be for him throughout his life and no doubt he will use it in many situations.

I thought about this after our conversation and pondered that we must all have a grid reference around our birth.

I thought about the God who brought us to life, the one who has the hairs of our head counted, and I reflected that he would indeed know the grid reference for every one of us.

Grid references are wonderful life-saving tools for locating people who have gone missing or got lost in hills in fog or rain.

The person can be pin-pointed and help organised to bring them back to safety.

How comforting to know that God doesn’t need a grid reference to find us.

He knows exactly where we are every moment of our lives and his love is the only life-saving tool we will need to bring us safely home.