Have you noticed over the past few years how figures have grown to such an extent that it is now very difficult to get a grasp on things? This is particularly true with money. Just today we heard of the Government pumping in £50 billion to keep a bank afloat, - I wonder what that means in the general scheme of things?

There was a time when a millionaire was a pretty unusual person, now many people through property ownership find themselves in this category. Now the wealthy people are billionaires! It is hard to conceive of such wealth. It has been shown that once people have their basic needs met, they find no additional happiness in accumulating more wealth, but no one of course believes that. You somehow feel that a billionaire could do so much good with their money and make a real difference in the world, but it doesn't seem to work like that.

We were asked by Annie (my wife) recently in a sermon in church to imagine a pair of scales. On one side we were to imagine three billionaires and on the other side 60 million people from the developing world - a powerful and true image of how the world is and the huge injustices that exist. This morning a spokeswoman from the World Food Programme was talking about the crisis in the world food supply pushing up the price of food. The effect was that the programme had 40% less food to share with the world's poor than a year ago. She also told us the harrowing statistic that every five seconds a child dies of starvation in the world. It is encouraging that our Government are at least bringing the rich nations together to try and see how we might better assist the world's poor.

In terms of the poorest of the world we in Britain might as well be billionaires and we are in a position to use some of our resource to make a difference to the lives of others. Jesus said 'as much as you do it to the least of these you do it unto me' and that compassionate and generous heart is the true mark of a Christian follower.

This month sees Christian Aid Week May 10-17th and once again we as a church will be given an opportunity to make a difference to the lives of others and bear witness to the generosity of God.

Best wishes

Peter