Today I left at 630 am for a meeting in Birmingham. As I left it started to snow and I considered turning back. I didn’t when, 5 miles away from my home, the snow stopped and I had a slow but clear run to Birmingham, not arriving till 1045 for an 11 meeting.

I left the meeting early as Sarah phoned to say the snow had not stopped falling and roads in Kent were being closed. As I traveled back and listened to the travel news I soon realised that there was only one route, out of a normal three, for me to get home on and so prayed for a safe journey home.

The weird thing is that the journey back was the best I have ever had and all the way back to Kent I saw no snow at all. When I reached the Dartford crossing I phoned home to say ‘ha ha very funny’ as there was still, 20 miles from home, no snow to be seen in the air or on the ground. Sarah assured me that it was still blizzardy in Gillingham.

I saw my first bit of snow 4 miles away from home, on the Gillingham side of the Medway tunnel. Sarah was right – I did need to come home as driving was then dangerous and getting difficult with iced up and blocked roads.

It was amazing that the snow had been falling since I left (by then for 11 hours) in such a localized and fairly small area. The army have even been called in to help in some areas of Kent.

On reflection of the day this makes me think about how we can sometimes view God and church. As I write at the moment I can look out into the darkness and see the snow falling and the snowman the height of Joe that we built a few hours ago. It is very clear, blindingly obvious, to me that things are happening in the atmosphere to cause loads of large snowflakes to fall. It is so dramatic that lifestyle and practice has to change.

5 miles down the road towards London, however, the scene is very different. They see nothing and are going about their normal lives as they normally do.

I think that at times we can be like this in our churches and when we look what God is doing in our locations . Some people long to see stuff happening and just don’t see that it is, only it is just round the corner!. To others it is blindingly obvious that God is at work and they get frustrated because others just do not get it!

I think my experience today reminds me that we need to look around and not become so embroield in where we are that we miss the wonderful things that are happening around us. In some ways this is the ‘older brother’ scenario where we can become so self centred in what we want, in what we need and in what we like that we do not notice, and so cannot join in the joy, of the fantastic things that God is doing around us. It is not ok to just sit around and wish this and that were happening, there is a necessity to get out and do something about it, or to get out and look for it. If we don’t, we could majorly miss out … just because we could not look around the corner.