Reunions are so incredibly special: Family reunions. Class reunions. Catching up with people with whom, over the years, you've developed a deep bond.

For those of Chinese heritage, Chinese New Year is such a time. Families travel long distances to reunite and share the most important meal of the year together. 

I know that when I catch up with the men with whom I trained to become an army officer almost fifty years ago, it's that same, deep, familial bond. We are, in a very real sense, made to be together.

And with all my heart, can I say, we're made to be one with God as well. He yearns for us. He sent Jesus to die on that cross so our sins could be forgiven when we believe in Him; to rise again to bring us a new life here and now, of freedom, of deep inner peace, of overcoming the sin that plunders our lives.

And make no mistake, He's coming back … to kick off the reunions of all reunions. To His disciples, just before He was crucified …

John 14:1-3 Jesus said, "Don't be troubled. Trust in God, and trust in me. There are many rooms in my Father's house. I would not tell you this if it were not true. I am going there to prepare a place for you. After I go and prepare a place for you, I will come back. Then I will take you with me, so that you can be where I am.

Trust Him. He's coming back … for you!

That's God's Word. Fresh … for you … today.

Here is a practical reflection on how to discern God’s quiet, trustworthy voice amid the many competing voices of our noisy world.

As we toddle along through life, we inevitably find that we each have 'stuff' going on that, whilst not acutely painful, nevertheless contributes to a chronic sense of unease. And that's simply no way to live, wouldn't you agree?

Take your sleep, for instance. Sure, you can get by with inadequate sleep for a while – for years in fact, until you realise that it's contributing to stress, hypertension, even diabetes and cardiovascular disease. Unless you do something about it … it'll kill you.

And the same is true of the 'stuff' going on in your heart that's emotionally, relationally and spiritually damaging. Take, for instance, chronic anger. How good is that going to be for your sense of wellbeing, your marriage, even your relationship with God?

For King David of Israel, his 'thing' was lust. He committed adultery and even had the woman's husband killed so he could take her as his own. His life was on a downward trajectory … until, that is, he came to his senses and prayed this prayer:

Psalm 51:10-12 Create in me a clean heart, O God, and put a new and right spirit within me. Do not cast me away from your presence, and do not take your holy spirit from me. Restore to me the joy of your salvation, and sustain in me a willing spirit. (NRSV)

What is it that has your life heading down that same path? Perhaps today's the day for you to come to your senses. Maybe today's the day for you to clean house.

Create in me a clean heart, O God, and renew a right spirit within me.

That's God's Word. Fresh … for you … today.

There's a streak in each one of us that wants to rebel. You know – kick our heals up and just party. But you can't live like that all the time without there being some consequences.

My hunch is that there are a lot of people on this planet who are wandering in some kind of spiritual wilderness. It's a wilderness experience that looks something like this: I've been wandering around here for what seems like years. I know … I know it's out there somewhere but I just can't find it. Well, well probably … probably I can. I just don't think I'm ready, I just don't think I'm good enough. Besides, when I find Him, He'll want me to change. He'll want me to give up this and that and then life won't be fun anymore. So, I'll keep on wandering through the wilderness, that's fun, at least it used to be. But now, now I don't know anymore.

It's a dilemma faced by a lot of people. When it comes to God, when it comes to Jesus, some of those people may never really have bumped into Jesus out there at all. Maybe some of those people wandering in that spiritual wilderness have and they've walked with Him for a while, but then they went their own way. And maybe some of them, well they thought they were walking with Him but He seems to have wandered off somewhere while they were busy doing something else. And what started off feeling like an oasis, what started off feeling like it was fun, what started off feeling good, after a while it just feels a bit like a desert, it feels like a wilderness because it is.

I think I'll stay here, I don't think I can go back, I don't think I can go looking for Him, if I take that first step back towards Him, oh man … It could be a long road to home. And it doesn't matter from which direction we've come, it doesn't matter where we started from, we can all end up in this same place, in a spiritual wilderness. In a place where, I don't know, there's no fulfilment there's something empty, there's a hole, we're looking for something we can put our finger on it, maybe we've met Jesus somewhere along the way before but we don't know whether He's real or whether He's for us. We all face that dilemma at some point in our lives. What do we do? Where do we go? How do we deal with that dilemma?

This week we're going to look at that dilemma from A Different Perspective through a story that Jesus told. It was a parable, not a real story. It was a parable to illustrate what He was trying to get across. And it's a story about the prodigal son. Maybe you've heard about it, maybe you've never heard about it. Today and the next four days on A Different Perspective, we're going to work our way through that story and say, "What was Jesus trying to say to the people He was talking to, and what's He trying to say to us now about this spiritual wilderness experience?"

I've called this little series "The Long Road Home". It all starts … starts with an impulse we all have at some point – It's time to party, it's time to kick up our heels, it's time to rebel against authority, against structure, against routine, against norms. Whatever it is, at some point in our lives we all want to kick up our heels.

My aunty who's something of a bush philosopher, she would always say, "You know if your kids are kicking up their heels you should thank God because we all kick up our heels at some time in life and its better they do it when they're young than when they're old." You know, I think maybe she's got a point. But we have this impulse to rebel, that's why young folk put studs in their eyebrows and have orange or green hair.

Back in my day it was jeans, you know denim jeans in the 60's and 70's were a sign of rebellion, that's why most of us baby boomers, even thought we're in our forties and fifties and dare I say it, even in our sixties, still wear jeans. It was our symbol of rebellion.

As adults we rebel against authority in the workplace, maybe we rebel against a marria

Have you ever felt completely inadequate for a task? Yeah, me too!

Ignatius of Loyola was a vain, glory-hungry young soldier in 16th-century Spain—more interested in fame and romance than faith. Clueless about God's calling, he chased honour on the battlefield until a cannonball shattered his leg and his plans. During a long painful recovery, he had nothing to read but stories of Jesus and the saints.

Slowly, conviction replaced ambition. That once-aimless dreamer surrendered to Christ and went on to found the Jesuits, one of the most influential missionary and educational movements in history.

Sometimes God calls the clueless, not because they're ready but because He's about to make them ready.

I so relate to that – how about you? When I stepped in to lead the media ministry of Christianityworks, hey … clueless doesn't begin to describe where I was at. I had absolutely no idea what to do. I felt called, I had childlike faith, I had business skills to be sure, but reviving a dying ministry on life support was completely beyond me.

What Ignatius discovered, what I discovered, what countless others down through the centuries have discovered, is that in God's service, it's okay not to have it all figured out.

Proverbs 3:5-6 Trust in the LORD with all your heart, and do not rely on your own insight. In all your ways acknowledge him, and he will make straight your paths. (NRSV)

In other words, we're not meant to have it all figured out. God doesn't require perfect plans of us; He simply asks for our trust. His guidance comes as we walk with Him, not according to our less-than-brilliant plans.

That's God's Word. Fresh … for you … today.

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One of the most confounding things about God is that He allows us to suffer. I wish I could give you the "whys and wherefores" of that, some concise reconciliation of a loving God and our terrible suffering, but I can't. What I can say is that He didn't even spare Jesus, His Son, from dying on a cross for you and me. In this imperfect, fallen world in which we live, it's pretty obvious that suffering is an essential part of loving.

In 1967, at age 17, Joni Eareckson Tadawas paralysed from the neck down in a diving accident. For years, she pleaded with God to heal her. He didn't — at least not physically.

But through her weakness, something extraordinary happened. Joni became a speaker, author, and advocate for people with disabilities. She paints with her mouth. She leads a global ministry. And through decades of pain, she's lived out these words:

2 Corinthians 12:8-10 Three times I pleaded with the Lord about this, that it should leave me. But he said to me, "My grace is sufficient for you, for my power is made perfect in weakness." Therefore, I will boast all the more gladly of my weaknesses, so that the power of Christ may rest upon me. (ESV)

Both the Apostle Paul, who wrote that, and, centuries later, Joni, discovered in their own experience that true strength doesn't come from ourselves or our circumstances, but from Christ dwelling within us.

Your biggest weakness, your biggest character flaw, your biggest limitation is the very place where His strength shows up and shines. Bottom line: in Christ, you're much stronger than you think, because His grace is sufficient for you.

That's God's Word. Fresh … for you … today.

While faith is practiced freely in some places, others follow Jesus at great cost. We’re called to carry each other’s burdens as one body.

Sadly, many people unthinkingly acquiesce to the unhealed wounds of their past: childhood cruelty in the schoolyard, harsh words from a parent, a broken relationship, an unresolved regret. I say "unthinkingly" because in order to be set free from the hurts of the past, we need to think about them.

Allow me to be blunt. My first wife left me for one of my best friends. I wasn't a bad person, but as a hard-driven Type-A achiever, decades later, I totally get it. So, no judgment. But that rejection left a deep wound in my soul.

The inevitable grieving process took a few years. But at some point, we each have a decision to make. We can either choose to heal, which inevitably involves change, or we can pick the scab, leaving it prone to bleeding and infection.

Sadly, many choose the latter. They never get over the hurts of the past or take responsibility for the changes they need to make. 

Philippians 3:13-14 Brothers and sisters, I know that I still have a long way to go. But there is one thing I do: I forget what is in the past and try as hard as I can to reach the goal before me. I keep running hard toward the finish line to get the prize that is mine because God has called me through Christ Jesus to life up there in heaven.

The Apostle Paul, who wrote that, had a painful past of persecuting Christians. Yet he chose not to let that define him. Instead, he pressed forward with purpose, focusing on God's calling rather than past regrets.

When the past calls, don't answer.

That's God's Word. Fresh … for you … today.

You have a son. He's out walking one night. A car hits him. Leaves him for dead on the freeway so that a few minutes later, the next car on that dark road kills him. Imagine.

This week on a different perspective we've been talking about forgiveness. In a world where we often experience emotional bumps and bruises it turns out that forgiveness is as important to our emotional well being as physical healing is to our bodies. But every now and then in life a tsunami hits, something so incredibly overwhelming that we could have never predicted it or imagined how we would cope.

I always thought that the most incredibly difficult thing would be to bury your own child. To stand by the graveside and look at that wooden box and think, "It should be the other way around." What if someone killed your child? How would we get on and live life? I'm joined again today with Lorraine Watson who's going to take us through exactly that, Lorraine, welcome.

Lorraine Watson: It's good to be here, Bernie.

Berni Dymet: So Lorraine, your son died recently. How long ago was that?

Lorraine Watson: Just over 18 months.

Berni Dymet: That's pretty close; it's not that far.

Lorraine Watson: No, it isn't.

Berni Dymet: How did that happen? What happened?

Lorraine Watson: Well, my son was running across a motorway where he shouldn't have been running in the middle of the night and the car hit him. The man left the accident without stopping and left him lying on the ground. Subsequently some minutes later another big BMW hit him and killed him.

Berni Dymet: Can you remember when you got the phone call when they told you?

Lorraine Watson: Yes, we got the phone call from his wife and I can still remember the absolute horror in her voice as she kept saying, "I'm sorry, I'm sorry" as if it was her fault. When we heard the news it was the worst thing that you could imagine.

Berni Dymet: Yes, it must be a tough thing to try and even get your mind around that.

Lorraine Watson: Well, for quite a period of time we couldn't move, we just sat. It is almost impossible to imagine. He was our eldest son.

Berni Dymet: He had kids himself?

Lorraine Watson: He had two little boys that he left behind.

Berni Dymet: How did they cope?

Lorraine Watson: It was very difficult for them. They were four and five and the little boy particularly, the four year old was very, very angry and he kept saying, "I'm sick of this, I just want my daddy back!" So that was really hard. And because they look very like him it's very hard to see them as well at that time.

Berni Dymet: What's his name?

Lorraine Watson: Chris.

Berni Dymet: Tell us about him. What was he like?

Lorraine Watson: Chris was a very active person. He was a runner and just enjoyed life really. He was a businessman and a very successful one and he just liked doing all sorts of different things really.

Berni Dymet: So did they catch the guy that knocked him down? What happened there?

Lorraine Watson: Well, the first guy took his car and hid it at a people's place and they saw the crime watch program that featured the accident. They knew that this car had done the damage so they rang into the police. So he was found almost immediately, but he denied it. And for 12 months we had court case after court case trying to determine what had actually happened.

Berni Dymet: And the outcome has been?

Lorraine Watson: He admitted it at the last moment that he had used the car.

Berni Dymet: So justice has taken its course presumably.

Lorraine Watson: Well, he only got some hours, community service and $10,000 to his children because they couldn't, in fact they didn't prove that he killed him because he didn't. Because the second car actually did that.

Berni Dymet: Wow, how does that feel?

Lorraine Watson: It was really horrific. I think the