Westy's Weekly Blog

I sometimes have to smile when I think of a Reject Shop.   It’s not that I don’t occasionally purchase goods from the Reject Shop.   They have many good things and often at bargain basement prices.   It’s just a little ironic to go “shopping for rejects” because normally a reject is something that has been discarded or thrown out.   Our garbage bins and recycling bins are where rejects normally end up. The Old Testament part of the Bible was familiar with rejects.   There is an expression of rejection that occurs 29 times in the Bible.   It’s the expression: “outside the camp”.   The skins and other offal from their sacrifices had to be taken “outside the camp”.   The ashes of their sacrifices were also taken “outside the camp”.   Their toilet facilities were “outside the camp”. But it wasn’t only what we would regard as rubbish that was taken outside the camp.   Some people ended up there too.   When two sons of Aaron were puni...

Here at the Gold Coast where we now live, a sporting club recently got itself in trouble with some patrons.   Located near the beach, the place is popular for its contribution to the ‘hospitality industry’.   It’s well patronised at meal times – and there‘s always a goodly crowd of people enjoying their lattes, cappuccinos and smoothies, complete with snacks. So why the fracas?   Well, the club decided that women wearing just thong bikinis were no longer welcome.   Some accused the club of being out of date and appealed for them to lift the ban. Our family spent some ten years in the relative isolation of regional New South Wales and I must confess that coming back to the coast was a bit of a culture shock – particularly at the beach when it came to what is euphemistically called, ‘women’s swimwear’.   It seemed to me as if something in the water caused swimming costumes to shrink. So what’s the problem?   A number of things. First, consider the Bib...

My wife, Merle, and I mark correspondence course Bible lessons for prisoners through an organisation called Crossroad Prison Ministries.   It’s a wonderful program where we often see amazing results.   But mentoring prisoners can also be a little confronting and students do often ask perceptive but difficult questions. A recent lesson from Roy was a good case in point.   Roy’s lesson included a study of Psalm 139.   This Psalm of David begins by highlighting that God knows us intimately and He is everywhere.   David makes clear that we cannot hide from God; nor can we hide anything from God, because, as David puts it, “Before a word is on my tongue, You, Lord, know it completely.”   Psalm 139 also has some beautiful images of God forming us in our Mother’s womb and it reminds us that God ordained all our days for us before one of them even came to be.   Psalm 139 is a favourite with many Bible-readers. However, the closing section of that psalm of...

The young Mum was shocked by a phone call that came out of the blue.   The woman caller said to her, “I have reason to believe you may be my sister by another mother.”   In denial about that possibility she protested the caller must have rung the wrong number.   But the caller was persistent and began describing her Dad in some detail, then pleaded for them to meet over coffee in town to talk further.   By the time Shelly (not her real name) came to talk to me she was in quite a state – not wanting to believe what she’d heard but finding certain pieces of life’s jig-saw puzzle suddenly coming together.   Her father had a demanding job with a big company.   For most of her life he’d been absent at weekends.   He had a shack somewhere out in bush and everyone knew he was a keen fisherman and hunter.   He claimed that his stressful job required him to have weekends alone to hunt and fish so as to enable him to cope with his work.   I met Shelley...