Cheesed Off

CHEESED OFF Here at Sanctuary First we’ve chosen the theme “Cheesed Off"for the month of January because it reflects how many of us feel just after Christmas. The weather has been cold and miserable, the nights are long and dark and for a great number of people all this has been compounded becausethere is no prospect of the present economic situation getting any better in the near future. Some have lost their jobs, others have had to takea pay cut and the truth is if we hear the word austerity one more time it might just be enough to put the best of us over the edge. The prayers and Bible readings this month are going to help us explore remedies to cope with being “Cheesed Off”.How do we deal with our families when we feel aliened from them, our work situations when we work twice as hard and seldom receive any recognition, our Church especially if we’ve stopped going, our life when everything seems up in the air, and above all God when he seems distant and uninterested in our situation? We think is important to realize that it is not possible nor even desirable to be living in a high all the time. We need the troughs and the challenges because these are the experiences that make us human and also make us more compassionate people. Sometimes we Christians are our own worst enemies and preachers and Bible teachers can be equality culpable when they preach in such a way that people are led to believe that the normal Christian life is about living in a high. Many of these ideas arepromoted by thehigh gloss tele - evangelist that hog theGOD Channels ontelevision. Some preach and teach if you follow Jesus and are completely committed to the Christian life there will be no more worries, no more financial difficulties, all illness will disappear and indeed God will wave a wand over your life and everything will be perfect. Now while they don’t always say this in so many words that is what people hear.Sanctuary First this month will take a look at the hard times and encourage us to see the hard times as stepping stones across our lives.This month we’ve invited Albert Bogle to explore family conflict in the lives of the Patriarch’s children Eusa and Jacob or indeed how it affected Joseph and his brothers or the attitude Abraham had towards Ishamal and Hagar. Week two Alec Shuttleworth will be writing about work life through the eyes of the prophet Elijah. He faces a time of great stress and anxiety as he reflects on the challenge of his life’s calling and his inability to face up to the challenges of his work place as a prophet. Then we’ve taken the story of Jonah and how he dealt with God. Jonah was seriously annoyed with god when he thought God was going to show compassion on people whom he had written off as worthless. Mike Frew is looking at how God often challenges believers by his surprising grace towards sinful people. Then we have Steph Macleod looking at the Church through the eyes of Jesus. The seven letters in revelation give us an incline as to what the risen Christ might be thinking of the church today. Finally we invited David Ford to think about the character of Job and how he dealt with the challenges that life threw at him.