Comment from Harborough churches: Keep the Faith - although Leicester City's current form is testing us!

Recently I was down “the citeh” (Leicester City Football Club), watching Leicester play Southampton. After drawing with Brentford on the first day of the season and then losing to Arsenal, this should have been our first win of the season. I had scoffed a Southern Fried Chicken wrap from Morrisons, and, more importantly, I had beaten my older brother at golf that morning. Things were looking good.

The first 20 minutes were pretty encouraging, some decent build up play and we created a few chances, but no goal. The rest of the first half then became a mediocre affair and so stuttered its way to half-time. Still, shortly after the break Maddison scored a quality free-kick, and surely this was the platform for a convincing win. Two Southampton goals later proved my optimism to be ill-founded.

The final whistle drew the inevitable chorus of boos.

Manager Brendan Rodgers said: “It's a challenging time, there's no doubt about that.”

You’re not wrong there Brendan! My mum, a life-long City fan, thinks Rodgers should be sacked, as she repeatedly told me that weekend, but I’m not so sure, after all, one of our slogans is “Keep the Faith!”

This got me thinking about what’s happening in the world and in our nation right now, and how, as Rodgers says, it's a challenging time. As someone who believes in God, who tries to follow Jesus in my life and in my ministry, I’ve found how crucially important it is to keep the faith. Faith in God is not a crutch to lean on, or some kind of wishful thinking, but rather a relationship with the God who cares deeply about what’s going on and who promises to be with us in all things.

Faith is the source of real hope for the future, it’s the light that shines in the darkness, and no matter how dark things may become, it can never overcome the light. And because of that, faith enables me to look beyond my own situation so that I might be of some help to others, and looking out for one another is something we’ll all need to do in these coming months. So as I try to keep my faith in “the citeh”, I will definitely keep my faith in God.