by Keith Walker, SIM Northern Europe Director
13 July 2005
I write as news is breaking of bombs exploding in London. Yesterday London rejoiced over the International Olympic Committee's decision to site their 2012 event in the city.

We live in an uncertain world, and those of us involved in mission are often exposed to those uncertainties in distinct ways. Some who receive this have lived recently through heightened states of preparedness for evacuation.

Some have suffered at the hands of criminals. Some have been bereaved.

Perhaps the most disturbing of uncertainties arises when we are confronted by the sinfulness of Christians close to us. The disappointments and distresses occasioned by terrorists, political unrest and natural disasters can be devastating. The dismay of being let down by fellow believers, even colleagues in ministry, is another thing again.

I am regularly driven back to the story of Peter. Our Lord invested so much in Peter. He committed revelation to him, that which flesh and blood cannot reveal (Matt 16:7). He trusted him in the ministry of preaching and healing as one of the twelve (Luke 9:1-6). From a human perspective, he risked to trust Peter again after he had failed (John 21).

Our ministries inevitably involve risk in an uncertain world. May we be kept from the cynicism that disappointment and distress so easily breeds, remembering the Lord's grace not only to the Peters of Christian history, but to us in our failures also.