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Frustrated?

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18 January, 2026Colin Archibald (Lay reader)

Sermon - Frustrated - Colin Archibald 20260118.pdf
Epiphany 2A

Golfers can be quite an amusing lot with some of the names and terms they come up with. For example, they can tee off with a wonderful stroke only to look down and see the ball still on the tee – this is known as an ‘airy’. Or then there’s the helicopter! - Everyone knows what a helicopter is but they actually exist on the golf course too. This usually takes place in the bunker, where after numerous attempts – instead of the ball soaring out to land on the green; it’s the club that is thrown out spinning at similar revolutions to a helicopter’s rotor blades.

This is normally brought about through the sheer frustration of the golfer.


This got me thinking and I came to the conclusion that life can be like a game of golf. We all like to do well, be on par or better as we go through life. Indeed some might be able to drive straight down the fairway of life and even score a hole in one!

But sometimes things in life go wrong and we find ourselves in situations that are beyond our control. After a few years we struggle to get up ‘Cardiac Hill’ (as it’s affectionately known), or we end up in the rough or the bunker of life despondent and feel like we have no strength left and have achieved absolutely nothing. We may even have performed our own version of the helicopter out of sheer frustration!


Without a doubt, there are times, life can be very frustrating.


We may even find ourselves asking – ‘Where’s God in all of this?’


Frustrated – that is the name of this week’s sermon.

Isaiah 49:1-7 

1 Listen to me, you islands; hear this, you distant nations: before I was born the Lord called me; from my mother’s womb he has spoken my name.

2 He made my mouth like a sharpened sword, in the shadow of his hand he hid me; he made me into a polished arrow and concealed me in his quiver.

3 He said to me, ‘You are my servant, Israel, in whom I will display my splendour.’

4 But I said, ‘I have laboured in vain; I have spent my strength for nothing at all. Yet what is due to me is in the Lord’s hand, and my reward is with my God.’

5 And now the Lord says – he who formed me in the womb to be his servant to bring Jacob back to him and gather Israel to himself, for I am honoured in the eyes of the Lord and my God has been my strength – 6 he says: ‘It is too small a thing for you to be my servant to restore the tribes of Jacob and bring back those of Israel I have kept. I will also make you a light for the Gentiles, that my salvation may reach to the ends of the earth.’

7 This is what the Lord says – the Redeemer and Holy One of Israel – to him who was despised and abhorred by the nation, to the servant of rulers: ‘Kings will see you and stand up, princes will see and bow down, because of the Lord, who is faithful, the Holy One of Israel, who has chosen you.’

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