Plenary, 01 Jun 2005

Meeting date: Wednesday, June 1, 2005

Official Report 424KB pdf

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Time for Reflection

Good afternoon. Our first item of business is time for reflection. Our time for reflection leader today is Mr Jim Campbell, from the National Prayer Breakfast for Scotland.

Good afternoon, ladies and gentlemen. It is a great honour and privilege for me to share with you this brief time for reflection in this beautiful building.

I am no stranger to Edinburgh, being the son of an Edinburgh man who, on leaving school, moved west to the royal burgh of Renfrew, where I was born, the youngest of three children. From my earliest childhood, I was aware of the great sporting competitiveness within my family, coupled with a desire to pursue strong Christian values, which I took on board as a young man and have sought to live by ever since.

My boyhood ambition to play for Queen's Park Football Club was realised between the late 1950s and the very early 1960s—a phase of my life that I enjoyed immensely. However, over and above that, I realised the importance of the Christian values that had been instilled in me since boyhood.

In recent days, we have witnessed the state opening of the Parliament at Westminster, with all its pageantry and tradition. This morning at Prestonfield House in Edinburgh, more than 300 people gathered for the annual National Prayer Breakfast for Scotland and specifically remembered politicians from this Parliament in prayer.

Many years ago, five young college students spent a Sunday in London and were anxious to hear some well-known preachers. They found their way to Spurgeon's tabernacle. While they were waiting for the doors to open, a stranger came up to them and said, "Gentlemen, would you like to see the heating apparatus of this church?" They were not particularly anxious to do so on a broiling Sunday in July, but they consented almost at once. They were taken down some steps and a door was thrown open. Then their guide whispered, "There, sirs, is our heating apparatus." They saw before them approximately 700 people, bowed in prayer. Who was their unknown guide? It was none other than Charles H Spurgeon himself.

Here you are today in this chamber, with great responsibilities resting on your shoulders as you seek to lead this nation forward in the coming days. May you be assured that many people in our nation are praying regularly for you, and may that inspire you in all your deliberations.

Be with your servants here in this place as we remember them at this time. We also remember their families and their loved ones. Make their homes places of love, where they may find spiritual resources for the strain and pressure of their duties here, through Jesus Christ, our Lord.

Amen.