“Failures in particular circumstances don’t mean the failure of the kingdom. Our Lord is faithfully warning us from the beginning that we are going to meet with a variety of failure and that that is always going to pain us. One thing we must never do and that is to turn every failure onto ourselves and say, if only we as a church had been a more loving, and a more holy and a more evangelistic congregation then there’d have been no failures. The minister too must resist personalising [sic] the loss of every one who turns back, and blaming himself: ‘If only I were a more powerful preacher and a more hardworking pastor then tehre would be no falling away.’ Of course, let’s all seek to be more holy and loving and evangelistic, and let’s be steadfast and unmoveable and always abounding in the work of the Lord, but don’t get crushed down into sinful lethargy because some you know and love have given up the faith. Keep going, keep sowing, keep farming! We carry the weight of such disappointments for the rest of our lives, and we go over all the circumstances too much so, but they must drive us to God not to despair. There is a work to be done and a harvest to be reaped” (Geoff Thomas in a sermon on Mark 4.1-20).
How did my mail get to Aberystwyth?