Every day of our lives we assess complexity and the need for the appropriate time and resources to complete some tasks. When you get out of bed you have already considered most of the expected tasks for that day.

Another man worth considering in this regard is Daniel. He and his friends began life as part of the royal family of Judah (Dan 1:3-4).

There is a story about a small-town business owner whose clothing store was threatened with extinction. A national chain store had acquired all the properties on his block and had told him, “We’ll build all around you and put you out of business”.

How those words must have echoed around the court of Pharaoh and in the minds of his listeners. We see a proud monarch, clinging tenaciously to his own beliefs, having enslaved God’s people, yet determined to resist His Hand. The time had come for Israel’s deliverance, and such was the scene from which God would extract a people called after His Name.

Have you ever considered the power a word uttered can have on others? What effect the words we write by way of texts and emails can have on others?

Throughout the four gospels we frequently read of people following our Lord. Many followed out of a desperate need to be cured (Matt 4:24). Others followed him out of curiosity, purely to see miracles performed (John 6:2). Some sought him out for personal gain (John 6:26) and others sought to destroy him (John 5:16).

The relatively recent discovery of ocean currents is attributed to Matthew Maury (1806-1873) who was an American naval officer and oceanographer.

Who do you think you are? It sounds simple, but it's a question that you might not have carefully considered before. How do you define yourself? Who do you identify as? What do you say when someone asks you, “Tell me a bit about yourself?”

When you scour the Bible to examine the lives of men who ‘made it’ in terms of this life, what you find is that those who did, never intended to. Take, for example, the young man Joseph, who shot up to the heights of the Egyptian society (Gen 41:40-45).

“We should be too big to take offense and too noble to give it” — Abraham Lincoln.