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 6 - Deliver me

21 March 2020

Sometimes we imagine that certain people cope well with things and that we are the only ones who struggle. In our journey through the Psalms we have already realised that David is a significant character in this book, with his voice lying behind much of what we read.

David was King in Israel and in all sorts of ways David was a very capable King. He was a successful military leader, a strong ruler and popular head of state. But in Psalm 6 we find a very vulnerable David.

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Psalm 5 - In the Morning

20 March 2020

There is a rhythm to life and a rhythm to creation. The opening words of the Bible name God as the maker of all things. God didn’t create time to just go on and on. He created a world with order to it, a world with seasons and a world with day and night.

Reading on in through the book of Psalms it is striking how much anguish and dis-order form the backdrop against which these words were written, prayed and sung. Psalm 5 describes itself as a lament, a mournful calling to God in the midst of great pain. But even in this pain there is a steely-ness to David’s words. 

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Psalm 4 - In Peace I Lie Down

19 March 2020

Music is a very powerful thing and it has the ability to connect with us in a deep way. We know from the titles that many of the psalms were written originally not just to be read but to be sung. Psalm 4 (the second of David’s Psalms) was written to be played ‘with stringed instruments’.

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Starting this Sunday (22nd March) - Ballyhenry On-Line

18 March 2020

This coming Sunday (22nd March), following Public Health Agency Advice, we will not be meeting for church in Ballyhenry. (It is anticipated this will be the situation for some time.)

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Psalm 3 - A Shield Around Me

18 March 2020

We don’t know who wrote all the Psalms, but we know that half of them (73 out of 150) were written by David. The story of David’s life is told in the Old Testament books of 1 and 2 Samuel. It’s an amazing story of ups and downs, success and failure, love and war, times of blessing and moments of judgment. David was a great King and yet at the heart of his story lies a tragic and painful episode where his own son Absalom turned completely against him. Absalom plotted to overthrow his father and steal the throne from him.

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