Dear Friends,

I wonder, if you had a family motto what would it be? The Wesley family motto is ‘God is Love’, the Disney family ‘vincit qui patitur’ (The one who is patient wins), and the house of Windsor ‘je fie en Dieu’ (In God I trust). A rather odd motto is that of the Gillespie family – ‘Touch not the cat without a glove’. Maybe you like to live your life under the heading of Carpe Diem (seize the day) and try to live every moment to the full. I’m sure there are as many outlooks on life as there are families and indeed individuals.

I wonder as a Christian family what should our motto be? There’s no shortage of options from The Bible. I don’t think we could do much better than the theme chosen for this year’s Week of Prayer for Christian Unity: ‘act justly, love kindness and walk humbly with God’. When it comes to deciding how we should live our lives as Christians it seems that some people get tangled up in the hot-button issues that really don’t have a lot to do with the three simple commands above.

So, I wonder how different would our lives be if we chose to shape our lives and our concerns around those three commands. How different would our churches be? How different would the world around us be? The fact is, the prophet Micah tells us that this is what God requires of us. So can you make it your motto, your rule of life? Act Justly, Love Kindness and Walk Humbly with God or facere iudicium et diligere misericordiam et sollicitum ambulare cum Deo tuo (if you think that sounds better!)

Blessings
Amy
February 2013.