Official Report 1032KB pdf
Good afternoon. The first item of business is time for reflection, and our time for reflection leader is Wayne Sutton, senior pastor, Carrubbers Christian Centre.
Presiding Officer and members of the Scottish Parliament, thank you for allowing me to join you this afternoon for your time for reflection.
It certainly is good to stop in the midst of the busyness of our lives and reflect. Socrates once said that an unexamined life is a wasted one, and so we need to reflect, because we have only one life and how tragic it would be if that life were to be wasted.
Mine almost was. I never thought that I would be living in Scotland or, for that matter, standing before the Scottish Parliament. I grew up in New York and, although I had a very loving and supportive family, I fell into bad company in my early years and it was not long before my life was consumed by drink and drugs. I am sure that it is fair to say that, if I had kept going on that road, I might not have had a life at all or be standing here today.
My life was interrupted and transformed by the person of Jesus Christ, who has given me not only my life but also my reason for living. The Bible tells us that every one of us has been created in God’s image and according to his likeness, and, because we are, every one of us has dignity, meaning, value and purpose.
The Bible calls it glory or, if you like, being made to express the greatness of who God is in our lives, which is our very reason for living. However, the Bible also tragically describes our fall from that glory, reminding us that
“all have sinned and fall short of the glory of God”—
hence the awful mess that we find throughout all the pages of history.
If that were the end of the story, it would truly be tragic; but, amazingly, it is not the end of the story, because our creator was not willing to leave his world without the hope of restoration and redemption. So, he entered this world himself in the person of Jesus Christ in order to deal with the predicament and the power and the presence of our sin, and to offer us hope and life through his death and resurrection.
Today, many people across Scotland are struggling with life and trying to fight the pain with the temporary pleasures and numbing of drink and drugs and more, desperate to find hope, meaning and purpose. Jesus put it this way:
“The thief comes only to steal and kill and destroy. I came that they may have life, and have it abundantly.”
I tell you my story knowing that Jesus’s story is not too good to be true. It is true, and it is a perfect cure to a wasted life.
Air adhart
Business Motions