Thought for the Day
A one-minute read to inspire or challenge. Written by members of the church and updated every few days.
12th August 2026
After a slow journey north along the M6, car warning light on (eek!), we turned off at Penrith for the Lake District. The hills and mountains were ahead of us, around us – and our spirits lifted. I had somehow forgotten quite how beautiful it is in this part of the world. It was also all so green compared with a parched Bristol!
It feels a real privilege to gaze out of the window at what my guidebook tells me is England’s 4th highest mountain, Skiddaw. I’ve not quite burst into song, but somewhat out of season, an Advent hymn comes to mind: “Hills of the north rejoice, rivers and mountain-spring”.
In the Bible, mountains are places of transformative encounters with God, where His presence is experienced in particularly powerful ways. We talk of “mountaintop experiences”. Moses receives the Ten Commandments on a mountain – and then there’s the Transfiguration. The prophet Elijah, in fear for his life, has a different sort of mountain based experience. God comes to him not in wind, earthquake or fire, but in a still small voice.
Our experiences of God, close to us, can come in many places and forms. Today I am certainly finding it easy to give thanks to God for His beautiful creation.
Hopefully you’ll forgive me for returning to some favourite words from another hymn – and pray that this might be true for us all:
I lift my eyes
to the quiet hills
to a calm that is mine to share;
secure and still
in the Father’s will
and kept by the Father’s care.
Ruth Allen
7th August 2026
Languages have long held a fascination for me. Indeed, I’ve often wondered where I’d have ended up if I’d placed the emphasis on languages rather than science when I chose my O Level subjects, followed by A Levels, followed by my first degree in Botany. Assuming at some stage I’d still have felt a call […]
5th August 2026
THE PORNOGRAPHY OF VIOLENCE. Reading the paper the other day, these four words stood out for me – the journalist was writing about how sophisticated drone warfare had become, so accurate that beyond the old ability to target a tank or other armaments, it is now possible to target an individual soldier and graphically display […]
1st July 2026 – Taking a break
Thought for the Day is taking a short break, but we’ll be back on August 5th.
26th June 2026
Merry and I can now report achieving our ambition to spend a night on the beautiful island of Iona – in fact, we had three. The weather was mixed, but this is the Scottish West Highlands after all! We heard corncrakes, exchanged ‘hellos’ with countless passers-by, enjoyed wonderful skies and the sea in a variety […]
19th June 2026
Sarah Dodds, good friend and former member (and organist) of Tyndale, has kindly given me permission to share a prayer she wrote for Music Sunday (14th June): Dear Lord, we thank You for the gift of music; for all the ways it enriches our humanity, touches the deepest parts of our being and brings us […]
17th June 2026
Some of you will know that I have become evangelical about hearing aids since I took the plunge and got a pair at the end of last year. My life has been transformed by them: I knew that I was not hearing very well but I had no idea just how many high-frequency sounds I […]
12th June 2026
I have been reading two psalms over the past couple of days. The first, Psalm 33, is from the lectionary for this week; the second, Psalm 88, is from Guidelines Bible reading notes. You may want to read them in full – they are quite short – but here is a selection of verses that […]
10th June 2026
What is beauty? I think the mathematical result e^iπ = -1 is beautiful. Your reaction is likely to be “I always thought she was odd”. It would take me a while to explain why I think this, even if your maths was at least A-level. Beautiful usually means more than it says. If you say […]
3rd June 2026
‘Everything that appears as a “limit” – incapacity, illness, old age, suffering, vulnerability – tends to be seen primarily as a defect to be corrected, rather than as a reality through which our humanity matures and opens itself to relationship.’ Arresting words, which challenge our ingrained modern assumptions that life and fulfilment are all about […]