Sandyknowes Blog

Living beside the busiest roundabout in Northern Ireland gives plenty of opportunity for watching the world go by. Sandyknowes Blog is the personal blog of Niall Lockhart (minister of Ballyhenry). Pull in and have a read…

Psalm 29 - The LORD gives strength

13 April 2020

Psalm 29 celebrates the LORD’s power over all creation. We live in a culture where God’s name is often ‘taken in vain’. It is taken in vain when people who do not believe use it as a throw away swear word. It is also taken in vain when religious people use it casually, or presumptuously, tagging it on to their own plans or agendas. 

In this Psalm David mentions the LORD’s name 18 times. David looks around him, he looks to the north (Lebanon, vs 5), he looks south (Kadesh, vs 8), he looks out to sea (vs 3), and there he sees evidences of God’s glory and of His strength.

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Psalm 28 - My Rock

12 April 2020

There is something very special about the morning of Easter Day. A garden tomb, a stone rolled away, a risen Saviour and amazed witnesses, it is is so many ways the centre piece, the moment, at the heart of Christian faith. 

However, for me personally, there has always been something very special about the evening of Easter Day. I love the story told in Luke’s gospel of how that evening Jesus appeared to  two of his followers on the road to a small village called Emmaus. The story is told in Luke 24 vs 13-49. I would encourage you to read it. 

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Psalm 27 - My light and my salvation

11 April 2020

Is it naive to be confident in a time of uncertainty and challenge? It depends. Some people are naturally pessimistic about life. On a nice warm day they are warning you that the next shower probably isn’t far away. Other people are natural optimists, the kind of people who always think that things are going to ‘clear up’ and that tomorrow will be better than today.

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Psalm 26 - Level Ground

10 April 2020

Psalm 26 is a Psalm about washing your hands, somehow a very topical theme:

‘I wash my hands in innocence, and go about your altar, LORD.’ (vs 6)

At times I have struggled to make sense of Psalms like these, or struggled I guess to relate to them. The writer of this Psalm begins with the words ‘I have led a blameless life. I have trusted in the LORD and have not faltered.’ 

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Psalm 25 - I Trust in You

9 April 2020

The word ‘trust’ is a Bible word. It’s used 140 times in the Old Testament and 30 times in the New. ‘Trust’ is a doing word in the Bible. Time and again in the Bible we see people putting their trust in God and when they do it plays out in how they live and what they do. So for example in Exodus 14:31 when the people ‘put their trust in LORD’ they kept their eyes on the pillar of cloud by day and the pillar of fire by night, following the LORD day by day across a treacherous and previously unnavigated wilderness.

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