“Arise, shine, for your light has come, and the glory of the LORD rises upon you” (Isaiah 60v1).
Over recent months I have said to my sister: "It feels like our country has gone downhill." I remember when I first started coming into London 18 months ago, there was not one trip where I couldn’t smell “weed” aka cannabis on the street or the train, or hear news stories about building more prisons, families in temporary accommodation, knife crime, county lines, and homeless people in need of love and transformation… I’m sure there is much more that I haven’t even added here. I want to share one story from my everyday context.
I often pass a young homeless man called Sam when I come out of the tube station in North London. I’ve chatted to him a few times and he always has a smile and asks how I am. One evening fairly late, I’d come out of the tube station and he asked me if I’d talk to him. So, I did. I asked if I could pray for him; he’d told me he’d been in hospital, and in other conversations, he told me he’d been given a place to live but it turned out to be temporary. I got to the point where I’d had enough. I said to the Lord: “I have to help him. His life is being wasted.”
