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When God commissioned His prophet Jonah to leave Israel and preach repentance to the most fierce enemy they had ever known, Jonah tried to avoid his call by running in the opposite direction. It wasn't that he was afraid of Assyria, Jonah's problem was that he hated them, and consequently he didn't want God to show grace to them. Even in the story of Jonah's flight from God we come to realise that God's intention to save will not be so easily subverted.

Moses was an unlikely hero. He was an impetuous man on the run for murder. Despite his history, God determined to use Moses as the agent He would use to bring Israel out of captivity in Egypt. Moses himself was full of objections to the plan, but God was persuasive. Once the Israelites were on the move, it was they who started with their own objections. They didn't want the uncertainty of freedom as much as they wanted the predictability of life as slaves. To Moses, to the Israelites and also to us, the message is the same. Our objections are just a smoke-screen. Follow obediently after God to freedom.

The call of Abraham (or as he was known at the time - Abram) wasn't such a random and sudden event as we sometimes think. Abram's father Terah was actually the first one to strike out for Canaan. The family didn't get there, settling instead in Haran. It was after Terah's death that Abram renewed the journey and came to the land. Abram's journey marks an important turn in the flow of the narrative of Genesis; a turn from rebellion and judgment to obedience and blessing. In Abram, God found a willing and obedient heart; a man who would be both a good follower, and in turn, a good leader.

Travel used to be much more difficult and more hazardous than it is today. Nevertheless it seems that God is likely to be at work in peoples' lives when they are on the move. When we are on journeys we tend to take the travel time for granted, but sometimes the journey becomes as much part of the story as the starting point and the destination. For two initial brief examples consider Paul on his way to Damascus, and Amos, a shepherd and orchardman from the south who was sent north to deliver a difficult message. The journey itself can become a key component to the message.

“Lord, teach us to pray” said the disciples. We are still asking the same question two thousand years later. How do we approach an invisible God, and what kinds of prayers should we be bringing before Him? James helps us to gather our thoughts and come to God with confidence and dignity.

We hate to wait. Waiting is unpleasant. In the age of microwaves, next-day delivery and even instant coffee, we are trained to avoid the wait. But as any farmer will tell you, some things just can’t be hurried. There are seasons and circumstances that must be allowed for. And the development of our faith is like that. Sometimes the waiting is part of the plan.

Jesus spent more time talking about money than He did about hell. He even shared a little joke with His disciples that it was easier for a camel to pass through the eye of a needle than for a rich man to enter heaven. James isn’t in a joking mood when he talks about the hazards of having money to burn. He tells it straight: self-indulgence is no way to prepare for eternity.

How refreshing it is to spend time with someone who is genuinely humble. Naturally we should all want to learn true humility. Augustine reminds us that it was pride that changed angels into devils, and Ruskin noted that pride is at the bottom of all great mistakes. Two reliable markers on the barometer of pride are a judgmental attitude and a sense of invulnerability. Time to tap the glass and take an accurate reading.

It’s not a misprint – fools leave tread-marks wherever they go. Blundering through life without care or caution, they leave a trail of pain in their wake. When you ask a fool why his life is in chaos, he will often blame anything and anyone except himself. But James tells us that a fool’s problems arise from within. He’s at war on the inside, and that struggle affects everything he does.

Proverbs 16:16 tells us that wisdom is more precious than gold or silver. We have reliable ways to identify precious metals, but how do we recognise true wisdom when we see it? Wisdom has a set of characteristics about it that are as easy to spot as the hallmarks on a silver spoon. When you need a little wise advice, make sure you don’t fall for a cheap imitation.