Countdown to Meltdown

One of the big news stories this week was switching on the CERN particle accelerator located on the borders of Switzerland and France under the Alps. There were dire predictions that the world would end at 8.30am on Wednesday September 10th. Some people were fearful that the scientists didn’t fully know what to expect and would accidentally create a black hole into which we would all disappear.

One newspaper wrote: ‘Well, it works, and not a black hole to be seen. No explosions, no end of the world, just a lot of very happy scientists. The Large Hadron Collider, the biggest and most expensive scientific instrument ever built, was turned on today for the first time and everything worked like a dream.’ In an interview on the News the previous night, Stephen Hawking joked about holding an ‘end of the world’ party but reassured us that there was no danger of it actually happening.

As I listened to XFM and Capital Radio that morning (not my choice of stations I should add) there were a lot of frivolous comments about the countdown to meltdown. The DJs weren’t taking the scare stories very seriously. And yet, it was sobering to entertain the possibility of the world suddenly ending. What would people have done in their last few hours if the threat had been real and completely credible? And if there was a chance to escape the coming disaster wouldn’t we want to take it? Wouldn’t we want to do whatever was necessary to avoid a catastrophic end? The bible is clear that the world as we know it will come to an end when Jesus returns - but will we be ready?

'Then I saw a new heaven and a new earth, for the first heaven and the first earth had passed away...' (Revelation 21:1)

I bumped into one of my neighbours in Schiphol Airport

I bumped into one of my neighbours in Schiphol Airport a couple of months ago! I was travelling back from a meeting near Utrecht and arrived at the airport in plenty of time. In the food hall I suddenly saw a lady I recognised who lives in the next road. As I had a good idea she was Dutch I wasn't entirely surprised to see her and assumed she had been visiting family. I didn't get a chance to say hello and lost sight of her, but later when I was sitting in the departure lounge, I saw her again and she came and sat next to me. I turned to her and introduced myself - which shocked her a bit because she hadn't recognised me! She had been visiting her brother not far from where I had been staying. We had a good chat about neighbours in the road - some of whom go to Queens Road Church.

Then shortly after that I heard about another neighbour who had been travelling in Thailand and bumped in to a school friend and then a friend who spotted another local church leader and his family at O'Hare Airport, Chicago when he was on holiday.

The world is a big place and yet sometimes it seems very small!

The psalmist cried: 'Where can I flee from your presence?' (Ps. 139:7) and concluded that it was impossible to avoid God - wherever we go, He is there! From God's perspective it is a very small world. You never know where you might bump into Him!