Welcome to St Cuthbert’s , an inclusive community BRIDGES PEACE

Dates For Your Diary

GODLY PLAY: Every Sunday at 9am in the Parish Centre

MAINLY MUSIC: Resumes for term 2 on Tuesday 9 May at 9.30am in the Parish Centre

BRIDGES TO PEACE: A multi faith service, conversation and supper. Sunday 14 March 4pm - 6pm

IDAHOBIT: Church of the Ascension, Midland, 12.30pm on Wednesday 17 May

ST CUTHBERT’S YOUTH (SCY): Resumes 21 May at 3.30 pm

Rector: The Rev’d Julie Baker T: 0459 471 894

E: rector@hillsanglicans.com

Parish Office: 6292 0074

Email: info@hillsanglicans.com

Mail: PO Box 77 Darlington, WA 6070 Australia

Services: 9am Sunday

Find us on Facebook at Hills Anglicans

Website: www.hillsanglicans.com

Worship In The Style Of Taize

On the first Sunday of each month at 6.30pm St Cuthbert’s is lit by candles and we enjoy a time of chant, silence, readings and meditation. Even though it’s at the end of the weekend and the last thing you want to do is go out again, you could find that it‘s worth the effort. In the dim candle lit church you might find a place for refelection and peace. It’s only 45 minutes out of your day ... give it a try. It’s a bit special.

forward. I simply do not want to live a moment without Him. He is so present that imagining His absence isn’t something that I want to try and comprehend.

The good thing though, is that I know with certainty that nothing can separate me from God; nothing apart from myself, my choices or my desires. He hasn’t chained me to Himself. I am free to leave our relationship at any given moment. Apart from my own free will to leave, He is here to stay, ever present and active in every moment of my day.

I often think of King David's words in Psalm 51 when he called out to God ‘Do not cast me away from your presence, and do not take your Holy Spirit from me.’ David was described as a man after God's own heart, and knew He couldn't go forward without God.

It’s not that God would have left David, God delights to be with a heart that has even the smallest glimmer of desire to be with Him and David deeply loved God and loved God's ways. It is that David was aware of His own actions at that time. Actions that a holy and majestic God would have no part with, should have no part with, and David was aware that His actions had gone against the hopes and plans God had for his life.

David had chased after the desires of his own heart, instead of the desires of God’s heart. A series of awful decisions had been made and it had brought death and destruction. When he said these words I imagine David was possibly remembering the King who had come before him, King Saul, who had also followed the desires of his own heart. So much so that God had actually removed His Holy Spirit from Saul and God had cast Saul away from His presence.

Two Kings, the first and the second, both anointed by God, both making mess and destruction after following their own hearts desires and two

WHAT'S

ON: that has ever lived. Saul went on without God and ended up continuing in destructive ways until he couldn’t bare living a moment longer and died upon his own sword. have entirely different outcomes to the ways of God. They teach us that there is a way that seems right to a man but its end leads to destruction and death. They also show us the hope and certainty that no matter the outcomes of the first, no matter the destructions, the lack of wisdom, the presence of evil and the seeming impossibility for recovery, that God can, and does, and wills to bring a second chance, a second choice and a secondary outcome. He redeems, He restores and He renews.

The two unfolding events of these men’s lives are gripping. Their interactions with each other are amazing, their relationships with God, their Kingdoms and their people, their wives and their children, their victories and their failures, are all emotionally stirring. Seriously, Hollywood could make a movie about them both called "The Two Kings" and it could easily become a blockbuster.

In His hands a second way is always made. A new way. An escape from the old. A way where God brings life from places that look dead. A way where His purposes remain and will be fulfilledno matter what tries to come against them. The first looks like certain destruction, but God is good at bringing beauty from ashes and has made a way for Life to reign, even before the foundations of the earth were laid. In short: God is victorious; always was and was always going to be.