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 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.’ 

Read more

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.

Read more

Psalm 24 - Lift up your heads

8 April 2020

The word ‘everything’ is a very big word. It leaves nothing out, it overlooks nothing. This is the word we meet in verse 1 of Psalm 24: ‘The earth is the LORD’s, and everything in it.’ This is a mind-blowing truth. There is nowhere we can go, or visit, or imagine, where the LORD does not stamp His mark of ownership. The reason everything belongs to Him is given in vs 2, it is because He created all things that He now owns all things.

Read more

Psalm 23 - My Shepherd

7 April 2020

Last year on holidays we were in London and one of the places we visited was Downing Street. It is of course a very famous place, a place associated with history, power, momentous events and the seat of government. The news last night, and this morning, that the Prime Minister Boris Johnson is seriously ill in intensive care in hospital has come as upsetting news and a stark and shocking reminder of the seriousness of coronavirus. Much closer to home some have lost loved ones in recent days, others are becoming aware of people they know who are worryingly sick.

Read more

Psalm 22 - Cries of Anguish

6 April 2020

Today we find ourselves in these ‘in between days’ between Palm Sunday and Good Friday. We stand in between remembering Jesus’ much welcomed arrival into the city of Jerusalem and his brutal execution, five days later, upon a lonely cross.

The Old Testament part of the Bible points forward to the life and mission of Jesus. It is the Old Testament which helps us to understand who Jesus was and what He came to accomplish. Psalm 22, which we are reading today, is a key Psalm in helping us to grasp what happened at the time of the first Easter.

Read more

Pages