Smashing Ashtrays

When I was three - so family legend goes - I wandered around the house smashing every single glass ashtray I could lay my hands on. Even at the age of three I was an anti-smoking protester!

I remember nothing of this, by the way.

My parents gave up smoking 14 years later; so the ashtray strategy didn't work.

That same year I was baptised and the scripture given to me was Zechariah 4:6, "Not by might, nor by power but by my Spirit". It has stuck with me ever since, sometimes as a garland of grace but at other times as a chicken bone in my throat. God knew that beyond my teenage years I would take his purposes and try to achieve them through my own methods and my own strength. I see a little boy running ahead of his father only to fall and graze his knees or was that a rebellious toddler willfully smashing ashtrays? As a man, when I graze my knee or smash ashtrays it is a tad more serious.

I write this remind myself of those words spoken to Zerubabel all those years ago that nothing of any eternal worth is attained by the wisdom of men.

I write this to remind myself of the young zealous man I once was to somehow reignite the passion I used to have.

I write this to you the reader to promise that I won't fill this blog with foam and frippery but only what is honest, true and just. It's my contract with you.