Sitting watching the Williams’ grunt at each other in Wimbledon from the metropolis that is a place called Surlingham in Norfolk. I’ve been spending the week with my beautiful girlfriend and her lovely family, and am now live-blogging from their sofa!

I’ve had the pleasure of being chauffeured around all week - she’s a good driver, for a girl! On Monday we went to Blakeney for a boat trip to see the seals, the seals were cute, as was the boat’s dog called Titch who was a friendly Jack Russell. On Tuesday we went to Holkham Beach, apparently it’s one of the largest beaches in the UK and was used in the film Shakespeare in Love, but I wouldn’t know I’ve never seen it! This was a beautiful place - could have been in the Med or some tropical Island! On Wednesday we went to Norwich, to see a Norman Castle and Cathedral, saw shops, 4 DVDs for £20 at Zavvi, but sadly didn’t see Susie Fowler-Watt or Stuart White, or any other Look East presenters. I had the privelege of having a personal tour from a former Cathedral chorister (my angel), saw the little hidden bits in the Cathedral and found the pretty old streets.

The G’s little bro is a clever chap, so on Thursday we went with the family for an open day at Cambridge, Raa! I was too tired to hire a punt so we just wandered from shop to cafe to shop to cafe to shop to ice cream van. Friday went to Southwold, made me feel young - cos I remember being there when I was little, also we did bring the average age down considerably! The weather has been really nice, Norfolk is beautiful, the family have welcomed me (with good food!), and the company has been classy - all in all, good times!

So I won’t be at the rest of EMA, today I’m heading to Haverfordwest for Adam’s wedding, which is a stupid amount of miles from here, really people should get married at Oxford Services or somewhere easy to get to… Best Man’s “speech” has come together, sort-of… my inspiration has come from ‘Have I Got News for You’, hopefully there’ll be no libel cases afterwards!

As you can see there was a day when I had lovely blonde hair, and looked slim standing next to Adam. Mmm custard creams!

Here’s a few bits and bobs that have been happening in the life of Hugh…

1. Exams are finished! Results on 20th June.
2. I bought a car! A 2005 Citroen C2, in Navy Blue. I spent £5000 on it which seemed reasonable, but then I had to pay £700 to insure it, £120 to tax it, and £40 to fill the petrol tank!
3. Did an apologetics talk at the Medical Christian Union - “Isn’t the Bible full of errors?”
4. My university cricket team has made it to the quarter finals of the national BUSA competion, playing Luton tomorrow, unfortunately I can’t play in this match (see below).
5. I’m currently suffering with tonsillitis, so I’m sitting around, not doing much, gargling paracetamol and sucking on Soleros.

My mum passed into glory 8 days ago. Here are some words she was reading recently and wanted to be read at her funeral.

You are taking down my earthly tent with much tenderness and love. You have prepared a house not made with hands, eternal in the heavens. May you never leave me nor forsake me, ’till I be with you, where you are, and be like Christ and enjoy him for ever and ever! Yet a very, very little while - hold on, faith and patience - and I shall see Jesus in his glory, which is the heaven of heavens. - William Romaine

She was also able to choose some songs; ‘See what a morning’ and ‘The Lord’s my Shepherd’…

And we are raised with Him,
Death is dead, love has won,
Christ has conquered;
And we shall reign with Him,
For He lives, Christ is risen from the dead!

In Romans 8 Paul reminds us of two great promises…

No, in all these things we are more than conquerors through him who loved us. For I am convinced that neither death nor life, neither angels nor demons, neither the present nor the future, nor any powers, neither height nor depth, nor anything else in all creation, will be able to separate us from the love of God that is in Christ Jesus our Lord.

1. Nothing shall separate us from God’s love that we find in the cross of Christ, not even death.

2. We are conquerors of death, no more than conquerors, through Christ.

Go back and listen to Piper’s talks again… he says that we are more than a conqueror of death because death serves us, he says “Death! Get up and serve me well!”. Death serves us by bringing us to see Christ face to face, so in him we conqueror death and make it serve us. - Isaiah 25:8

In 1 Corinthians 15 Paul taunts death…

“Where, O death, is your victory? Where, O death, is your sting?” The sting of death is sin, and the power of sin is the law. But thanks be to God! He gives us the victory through our Lord Jesus Christ.

Death has no victory. It is only sin that makes facing death scary, but Christ has defeated sin and defeated death. The victory is ours in Christ!

Go and listen to John Piper’s talks on suffering and sovereignty from New Word Alive again…

First BUSA game of the new season, against Writtle College… was horrible, was wet, and we ended up playing at a Brighton council ground. Anyway we won… I scored 25 runs, my highest score since moving ‘darn sarf’, didn’t get any wickets sadly, but good to get back to playing some cricket!

Sad news though, my trusty Hunts County bat broke, cracked all the way through, was gutted! But it’s a good excuse to go down to Newbery and get a new one!

This morning I was roused from my bedroom at the unearthly hour of 10am. I was expected the gas man, so I just picked up the phone and buzzed him in. To my surprise I was greeted at the door by two averagely well dressed young men. They said they were from the Jehovah’s Witnesses, and asked me if I’d like a leaflet about the Bible… you can guess where this is going.

I said I already knew a fair bit about the Bible and that I was a Christian. I think they might have left it there, but I couldn’t resist asking them why my translation of John 1:1 was so different to theirs… I kept trying to get an answer as to why their translation, the New World Translation, changes the phrase “and the Word was God”, to “and the Word was a god“. I tried to explain that all other translations I know of, those translated before and after the NWT all use “was God”, and only theirs renders it differently - and completely changes the meaning.

These guys weren’t able to answer the obvious translation issue. But they’re not stupid (well they are a bit) they had another argument up their sleeve… If Jesus is God then why did he pray to his Father in John 17? This brought back happy memories of Mike Reeves on the Trinity at Word Alive, I explained that Jesus is in nature God, but is a distinct person from the Father, and the Spirit… you know, Trinity, Father, Son and Spirit loving each other?? They said, “oh you believe in the Triune God?” as if it was some weird and wacky belief.

The other guy then took me to Colossians 1 - “Jesus is the firstborn”. I explained that firstborn is not the same as being born first, or being created first but is to do with Jesus’ pre-eminence and heir status over creation. I asked them why humanly speaking Jesus died, why it was that that the Jews brought blasphemy charges against Jesus??

The first guy sensed they weren’t really getting anywhere so made moves to go… I enquired once more about the accuracy of their bible, but no answers. But they said they might come back, part 2 pending, maybe…

A Biblical Response to JWs

Key Verses to look at

What do you do when your world falls apart? What do you do when everything goes wrong? What do you do when as the Psalmist says, your flesh and heart fail (Psalm 73:26)? What do we do, how do we respond when we face suffering, and what seems like pointless random suffering?

I thought those were just theoretical questions before a few years ago, and they were challenged again after receiving the news of a mate from back home dying suddenly on Friday. He wasn’t a close friend, but he was a mate; we played football together, we went to the pub together, we played Football Manager together… we grew up together. From perfect health, to illness and death within a few days, 23 years old - it is tragic and sobering.

(some of) The Riseley Boys: Campbell, Czaicki, Stu, Me, Bonce, Boom

How do we respond? Shock - sometimes when people die it’s a long process, people have time to prepare, this was sudden and shocking. Grief - I cried, I’m a long way from home right now, I’m not there with the guys to grieve, but am still in mourning. Shaken - it shakes me up to the reality, the brevity of life… will I make my life count?

How do I respond as a Christian? How do I respond to the fact that I believe in an all-powerful, all-loving God who has power over life and death and all things in this world, yet let this tragedy take place? First, I grieve (John 11:35), I cry out to God to bring the pains of this world to an end. But why would God let it happen, surely this suffering is pointless? Jesus is asked some tough questions like this in Luke 13… there’s some people at a place called Siloam who get crushed by a falling tower (18 people die)… Jesus doesn’t focus on those who die, but on those who are left, those asking the questions… he says that one day you’ll die too, and face God. The only way we can escape death is to trust the One who beat death, Jesus Christ.

Why do I keep going? Why do I keep trusting a God who lets this stuff happen? Jesus said, “I am the resurrection and the life. He who believes in me will live, even though he dies; and whoever lives and believes in me will never die” (John 11:25-26). Why then must I persevere - because there is hope! There is hope of life, true life, eternal life, for whoever puts their trust in Christ.

I’ve just come back from New Word Alive. On the final night Richard Cunningham spoke on our call to serve God, in his talk he spoke about David, his nephew. David was diagnosed with Leukaemia at the age of 11 (he died a few weeks ago) at his diagnosis he said to the doctor - “I’m not scared of death. I’ve got a friend called Jesus who will keep me safe”. That is simple, child-like faith, but that is all that is required to receive new life, a simple trust that Jesus is king, that he died in your place for your sins, and that he rose to new life that we might too.

If you’re not a Christian, can you give any answers to the problem of suffering, do you find hope or meaning in tragedy? Seek Jesus, only the One who has suffered to the point of death, and now lives can help, can give answers. If you are a Christian is your view of God big enough, is He sovereign enough to answer these questions? If you’re not currently experiencing suffering, do you have a theology of suffering which is rooted in the cross and the glory of God’s sovereignty - if not, how do you expect to stand when the storm comes? I can’t commend highly enough a book by Marc Maillefer called ‘God in the Storm‘, it will help you to focus on Christ in your suffering.

Hopefully will be standing here on Saturday. Probably in the rain. What a weekend to choose for a stag-do in North Wales.