Standing at the Anzac Day parade this year, two things struck me: Many people were present because their father, grandfather, or great‑grandfather came home. We came to give thanks to God. Others might have been born just before their father left, like my cousin, whose dad was shot down over Norway. And there were veterans, but all of us stood there to honour those who never returned, who sacrificed their lives so we could live ours.

Secondly, world war 2 was not all about aggression but about people who believed some values were worth defending. A man may pray for protection, but love for his home and children sometimes demands action, and there came a time when the “Christian West” felt its people and values must be defended. When Hitler’s war machine rose, Churchill warned of “The abyss of a new Dark Age.” He wasn’t talking about lost territory. He was warning of a collapsing moral framework and the erosion of human dignity, freedom of conscience, freedom of speech, freedom of belief, and freedom of choice. These have long been understood by many as rights given by God, not granted by governments.

Totalitarian systems — whether Nazi, communist, or radical Islam, claim ownership of the mind. They demand that the state or leader become the ultimate authority, leaving no room for individual conscience. By contrast, God gives us the right to choose and to bear the consequences of those choices.

Anzac Day reminds us that the liberties we enjoy were purchased at a cost. Men marched believing their families, Christian culture and its freedoms, were worth protecting. We honour their sacrifice, but we must recover the values they fought for.

This is why national sovereignty matters. A nation is like a home — held together by shared values. When those values fragment, the will to defend them weakens. Today, freedoms once seen as God‑given are being eroded by laws, censorship, and cultural pressure. My friend Steve Maile, preaching in his own town square, was recently arrested in Britain while holding a British flag and expressing concern about the loss of Christian values.

Friends, nobody wants war. But the real question is this: Before Jesus returns, will the West live in peace because there are no wars, or because people in the West no longer have values worth defending?

In 2025, we visited Malta, specifically to see the Bay of St Paul, where Paul was swept ashore after his ship went down. We travelled for an hour to a mountain village, where the bus broke down. We waited in 40‑degree heat for the replacement, which came so late that we no longer had time to reach St Paul’s Bay. It wasn’t the day we imagined or planned!

Paul’s story carries the same shape. He thought he would sail all the way to Rome, but the ship broke apart. Acts 27–28.  Yet we know Paul still reached Rome, just not by the path he assumed. Sometimes what we think is necessary to reach our destination isn’t needed at all. God often takes us by a route we never expected to bring us His desired plan.

With rocks approaching, the sailors tried to escape in the lifeboat. Paul told them to stop and to cut the boat loose. Faith often looks like releasing the thing we were relying on and trusting God. When the ship finally shattered, the sailors reached Malta by clinging to broken planks of wood. In Scripture, wood often points us to the cross—Moses throws a tree into bitter waters, and they are healed. This time, wooden boards carry the endangered to safety. Clinging to the cross is still our strategy. It can bring us from shipwreck to shore if we hold on. Hold on and look to the One who was nailed there for you. The cross is the sure promise of His love and purpose for your life.

Friend, your life may not have unfolded the way you thought it would, but God can still bring you to His desired destination. In our shipwrecks, understanding God is optional, but trusting God is essential. Perhaps you feel like you are the broken thing? Being broken doesn’t deter Him. If you’ve failed, He can restore you. And if you are not right, you can call on the Name that is always right. The storm may rage, and the plans you thought would work may be sunk, but God’s promise stands. God fulfilled His plan for Paul, and He can do it for you.

The other night we saw the movie “What About Bob? a man trapped in unreality, plagued by compulsive behaviours who believed he had many illnesses despite no medical evidence. While Bob lives in unreality, he mirrors our spiritual state before we met Christ.

In Mark 5:15 Jesus met and delivered the insane man from the tombs, who then sat listening at Jesus' feet, clothed, and with a sane mind. He was free of demonic thoughts and ready to follow and witness for Jesus. That is sanity!  Scripture teaches that without Jesus, we are literally insane—our minds darkened, our perceptions distorted, our fears unchecked, but when we are born again, God gives us a spirit of power, love, and a sound mind.  (sōphroneō: saved and sane 2 Timothy 1:7)

Every person, including PhDs, politicians, parents and preachers who reject Christ, are biblically insane, believing things about the universe that are not real. Atheists who have no access to the spiritual realm brazenly claim that God does not exist. Marxists believe joy comes from the state controlling all things. Materialists believe happiness is owning more. Modernists trust only science or themselves.  Pantheists believe they can meet god by touching their hair to a branch of a tree. Woke believe that the “marginalised” are always right, and postmoderns tell themselves that deconstructed relationships are better than marriage, when even recent secular research says different: “Adults who are married report being far happier than those in any other relationship status, according to a Gallup Poll published Friday. 9 Feb 2024. Married couples report higher trust and satisfaction in their relationships compared to unmarried cohabitating partners, according to the Pew analysis. 21 Apr 2024. Couples who are merely cohabiting might be less willing to invest in their relationship and associated social networks as compared to couples with the relational stability that comes with marriage. Statistically, cohabiting men are four times more likely to cheat than husbands, and cohabiting women are eight times more likely to cheat than wives.” Blekesaune, 27 Mar 2021.

 Yet, people choose to live in unreality and self-selected echo chambers, education and media reinforce their delusions. Unbelievers live in a frightening world—without God, hope, or help. And sadly, for some people, it is literally traumatic. For them, denial can become a comforting defence, but it cannot deliver.

So, friend, how is your sanity? Are you seated at Jesus’ feet, clothed in His love, filled with gratitude, and ready to tell of His goodness? Yes? Great! People so need to meet Jesus, because until they do, they’re just nuts.

In 2016, we were running late and trying to get to the airport in Portugal. On the motorway, the GPS was slow to refresh and appeared to say to turn right. We did and ended up on one of the longest bridges in the world. We couldn't turn around for 20 kilometres! There are moments in life when it feels like you’ve taken a wrong turn and ended up on a bridge you never wanted to cross. Maybe it’s a financial burden, a health crisis, a broken relationship, or a spiritual dry spell. We didn’t plan it, but here we are.

David returned to Ziklag to find everything gone—his city burned, his family taken, and his men ready to stone him. David had every reason to collapse under the weight of grief, fear, and exhaustion. But in that moment, when no one stood with him, David did something powerful: “But David strengthened himself in the LORD his God.” 1 Samuel 30:6. He didn’t have answers. He didn’t have support. But he had a history with God. Kings need to know how to stand alone. It was only a short time after that, that he was crowned King.

Encouraging yourself in God doesn’t mean pretending everything’s fine. It means remembering who He is, what He’s done, and what He’s promised. It means choosing to believe that God who blessed your going out is still with you in your coming in—even over a bridge you hate.

Friend, your bridge isn’t forever and God isn’t finished yet. So look up and go ahead. Encourage yourself that God is still good, still present, and still in control. Because crowns come to those who are faithful in trials. And by the way, we just made it to the check-in, and they opened the bag drop again, just for our bags!

Abraham looked up and scanned the heavens. As a million stars twinkled, he thought, “How can it be?”. Childless Abraham was given a promise—his descendants would be as numerous as the stars. But then came the test: offer up Isaac, and incredibly, he did. “By faith Abraham, when he was tested, offered up Isaac…” Hebrews 11:17.  God didn’t explain or reassure. He watched. Because sometimes silence is not absence—it’s examination. The teacher doesn’t speak during the test.

Usually, the promise from God comes via a process and a test. We love the idea of increase, but we often resist the path that leads there. Yet there is no glory without a story, or a crown without a cross. Tests are not meant to hurt us—they’re designed to reveal us. They expose what we believe, what we fear, and what we’re willing to surrender. And if God seems silent in the test, it is not rejection—it’s refinement. It is not because He’s distant, but because He’s developing something deeper in us. We want to skip the process, but the process is what makes us like Jesus.  Our Father who loved, called and tested Abraham is developing us too.

Friend, don’t stumble in the silence. And when the Father speaks, you’ll find that you’ve grown closer and stronger and more ready for the promise than you ever imagined. Keep walking. Keep trusting and keep surrendering, and you will find that He has a resurrection of the promise and a supernatural provision for you.

The lamp glowed in the dark, and in the distance, Paul could hear sounds of shouting somewhere in the soldiers’ barracks, but then Paul heard the voice of God. “…You must also bear witness at Rome” Acts 23:11l” Paul had a word from God, and he was soon confined on a Roman ship sailing for Italy. He wasn’t free to move. He wasn’t in control. And yet, he was still in purpose. The prison ship wasn’t a detour. It was the vehicle to his destiny. The journey would include a violent storm, a shipwreck, and even a snake bite. But none of it meant the promise had failed. God often gives us the destination but not the details. He tells us where we’re going, but not what we’ll face on the way.

Like Paul, we may find ourselves in seasons of confinement or surrounded by difficulty, unsure of how the promise will unfold. But confinement doesn’t cancel your calling as a child of God. Storms don’t sink destiny. And silence doesn’t mean God has left. Sometimes the very thing we want to escape is the thing God is using to shape us. The prison ship teaches us that God is not just the God of the promise—He’s the God of the process.

Friend, Our Father is present in the storm and sovereign in the silence. What appears to be a setback may be the setup for your next success.   Trust the One who called you, because if He started it, He will finish it.

Elijah arose quickly and left town, heading south for Beersheba. He hoped that his early exit had discouraged Jezebel from pursuing him, but he was worried. He had already faced forty knife-wielding false prophets, yet on this day, he was afraid of a woman and ran a marathon.

Elijah was burnt out, overextended and depleted from ministry. He was coping with apparent failure, withdrawal and tendencies toward self-destruction. He was finished.

Jezebel may never have sent an assassin after Elijah, but her intimidation had worked. If the enemy cannot kill us physically, he seeks to kill our future, tormenting us with tomorrow’s fears or yesterday’s failures.   In the desert, Elijah fell back against his tree and said in despair to God “It is enough!” But God is never finished with you until you finish. Whenever we think it is too hard to go on, God sees and understands our struggles and He provides the strength and the food we need for our next journey.

Friend, when you’re in the desert thinking “It is enough!” think about Him, who stayed on the cross, until he could say “It is finished.” Because He finished, we can lean on the cross and receive strength from God and know that “It is enough.”

Jesus took His disciples on an educational tour of pagan Caesarea Philippi, where He asked His disciples, "Who do men say that I am?"  They told him that the people thought He was a prophet but Jesus asked, "But who do you say that I am?"  Simon Peter answered and said, "You are the Christ, the Son of the living God."    Jesus replied "Blessed are you, Simon Bar-Jonah, for flesh and blood has not revealed this to you, but My Father who is in heaven.  And I also tell you that you are Peter, and on this rock, I will build My church, and the gates of Hades shall not prevail against it.” (Mat 16:13 -18 )  Both Peter and Jesus declared who the other person was.  Peter said Jesus was the Christ and Jesus said Peter, was a rock. Both revelations are necessary before the Church can be built. Jesus was saying “You perceive me rightly, and you must perceive yourself rightly too!” The church can be built when we see ourselves rightly. 

Have you seen yourself lately?  You’re a world changer! God doesn’t see your limitations for He knows what He can do through you. At Jacobs well, in Samaria Jesus did not see the women as dirty but thirsty. Not as a powerless immoral woman but an evangelist; a divine witness and a well springing up into a river of life into her community. She came for a bucket full and left as a river full.

Friend, Jesus always sees you more correctly than you see yourself. When we see Him correctly, He will help us see ourselves correctly. When we leave Him who sits on His “throne well,” we will see ourselves as a river of life ready to flow out to the lost, as He builds his church.