Month: February 2021

A line in the sand

How do we grapple with modern Christianity? Voices on every side telling us what it means to be a Christian. What you must believe, who you should support, what cultural idea you should adopt. Its everywhere. Both sides.

We seem to have politicized our faith. This is something that causes me great concern.

Several years ago, we began a very personal road of faith and just couldn’t find a ‘church’ where we could hang our hats. We have many supportive friends, family, and a great community, which we built over that time instead. For us this was a good thing. As a result, our relationship with God has been intensely personal.

I realize this is not the answer for everyone and I would never hold our experience up as an example. But I do believe God protected us from much of the chaos that I see happening in churches today. From the outside it seems many Christians have lost focus and confidence in their beliefs. It looks to me like churches have come under direct assault from the cultural changes.

Like in the Old Testament, in the story of Joshua, the Israelites also had come to a crossroads. Joshua stood before the people and gave his great speech. I can see it my minds eye. A rousing speech reminiscent of the great orators of old. A Winston Churchill “We shall never surrender” sort of speech.

It appears to me that we are at that kind of crossroad as followers of Christ. We are reaching a point where there is a line in the sand, and we need to pick which side we will be on.

Last year I painted a sign and we put it up in our entry way. I want it to be a daily reminder of where we stand. I want my family to remember who we serve!

 Joshua 24: 14-15 “Now therefore, fear the Lord, serve Him in sincerity and in truth, and put away the gods which your fathers served on the other side of the River
and in Egypt. Serve the Lord! And if it seems evil to you to serve the Lord, choose for yourselves this day whom you will serve, whether the gods which your fathers served that were on the other side of the River, or the gods of the Amorites,
in whose land you dwell. But as for me and my house, we will serve the Lord.”

The secret garden

There is a secret garden. A small space forgotten by time and the race of humanity.

The narrowest of paths leads to its unknown location. This path is rugged. This path is lined with thorns and branches. But if we persevere it leads to the narrowest of gates. A rusty, creaky hard to open gate. Behind this narrow gate, enclosed in tall walls is the most unexpected place. A garden.

It’s not the showy beauty of a cultivated garden. There is nothing civilized about it. It is wild and untamed. It is frightening in its chaotic order. It seems untouched by human hands. Nothing there seems planned and yet it was planted by someone or it wouldn’t be within the walls.

The array of flowers is surprising and unlike anything we could imagine. Our imagination being confined to what we already know, what we can see in our own minds eye. This garden is not the product of human ingenuity and labour. It is created by a mind far greater in scope.

No detail is missed. Every provision for every songbird is here. Every tree for afternoon shade grows by plan. The garden seems limitless once you pass through the gate and dwell inside the grey walls that surround it.

But above all else there is a peace. A quiet rest in the safety of the great walls. Visitors are now wrapped up in the same secret hiddenness of the garden itself. The burdens of the world lifted from our troubled hearts.

This is what our lives are like when we trust God. We walk the narrow, dark and dangerous path that he bids us take. Our future with Him is beyond what we can comprehend. And the peace of His love will wrap our burdened souls.

Matthew 7: 13 – 14   “Enter through the narrow gate. For wide is the gate and
broad is the road that leads to destruction, and many enter through it.
But small is the gate and narrow the road that leads to life, and only a few find it.”

One step at a time

If you are like me (and the odds are you might be) at the first sign of trouble you start to look for an exit. Fight or flight instincts are strong. I am a fighter, but only after I can’t find a way out. My instinct is to try to avoid problems. But… some problems are unavoidable. We can pray and beg for a way out, but it has been my hard-fought experience that the only way through most situations is straight down the middle.

Straight into the mud, muck, and ugliness, that is the only way out. If you try to skirt the problem, you can end up in a worse situation. Go forward into the darkness and pray for God to light your feet. That is the only solution I have found. At some point the journey will end, and the light of God will grow ever greater.

It sounds like it takes courage and perseverance to do this but, it only takes enough courage to take the first step. Then the next day a tiny bit of courage to take another step. By the time you are in the thick of it your tiny bits of courage have brought you that far. The by-product of these daily choices is perseverance. It is not something you have at the beginning of a journey, but it is built in you by the end.

In this way we can get through some very dark days, just one step at a time. The rewards of hardship are not always great material blessings, sometimes it is simply perseverance and wisdom.

In our saviour we have an example of ultimate suffering. God so loved us that he not only acknowledges our sorrows, but he came and participated in them. How rich an idea that is! Just let your mind dwell on that.

The next time you feel overwhelmed by your path reach to Jesus, our saviour. He truly does understand and will give you comfort.

Psalm 119: 104-105  I gain understanding from your precepts;
therefore I hate every wrong path.
Your word is a lamp for my feet, a light on my path.

Waiting on the Lord

Through my life I have had seasons of waiting. As a young girl I waited for school to end so I could start my adult life. As a young woman I waited for a relationship that would be the start of my family life. As a young mother I waited for my kids to grow and mature. I’ve always had a sense that I’m just a bit out of step with life. I would wait for things to fall in place. Wait for the right job, the right house, the right thing that would make it all make sense.

I then realized that maybe that isn’t what I’m truly waiting on. Maybe I’m waiting on the fulfillment of God’s promises in my life. Maybe what I’m waiting on is beyond the veil, just out of reach?

It’s ok to wait on God. He is faithful. He will meet us and walk with us slowly as we wait. He understands our impatience, our frustration, our confusion. But he also knows what he has planned and like a parent who keeps the secrets of Christmas morning, he also holds his knowledge tight. Until it is time.

So, I wait on Him. One day I will know his plan. For now it is enough to believe in Him and believe He has a plan.

Isaiah 40: 31  But those who hope in the Lord will renew their strength.
They will soar on wings like eagles;
they will run and not grow weary,
they will walk and not be faint.

Lamentations 3: 22-24  Because of the Lord’s great love we are not consumed,
for his compassions never fail. They are new every morning; great is your faithfulness.
I say to myself, “The Lord is my portion; therefore I will wait for him.”

Dealing with regret

What happens when you do that thing, or say that thing, that you should not have said? You can’t take it back. You can’t undo it. What do you do?

There is little you can do but try to make amends, apologize, and then live with the results of your mistake. We can’t undo our sin, but we can ask God to remove the burden. We can ask him to help us live with the reality of our own imperfection and our own failure. We can’t undo the damage, but we can hopefully grow and learn.

David was a “man after God’s own heart.” God loved him. And yet he was very imperfect. He fell into sin. The passage where Nathan comes to confront David has long been one of my favourite passages. It gets to the heart of how hard it can be to see sin in our own behaviour. It can sneak up on us and catch us unaware. But David, humbles himself. In doing this David becomes a very real role model for other sinners, like me.

Going through hard times does not protect you from temptation, rather it can open certain temptations. Things like pride, self pity and isolationism are among my greatest stumbling blocks. The events of the last year have been an extreme strain. I need to examine my own reactions and accept where I have failed.

But I also need to remember that this is the very reason why Jesus came to earth. It is for me he died.

I found this little video clip. I thought it was worth a watch. Taken from 2 Samuel chapter 12.

Top verse search

I started wondering last night about which verse in the Bible is highest in web searches. I suspected John 3:16 would top the list. This morning I decided to do some searching of my own and see.

This year presented a few changes. The top spot was taken by Isaiah 41:10 pushing the perennial favourite John 3:16 into second place. Third was taken by Jeremiah 29:11.

Seems wonderful choices to me. There is speculation that people are fearful, whether it is the pandemic or the response to the pandemic, or the economic failures, or any number of reasons. As a result, Isaiah 41:10 has risen to the top for 2020.

I will not speculate too much; I’ll just share the top three verse and you can see what people all over the world are finding online.

  1. Isaiah 41: 10   So do not fear, for I am with you; do not be dismayed, for I am your God. I will strengthen you and help you; I will uphold you with my righteous right hand.
  2. John 3:16  For God so loved the world that he gave his one and only Son, that whoever believes in him shall not perish but have eternal life.
  3. Jeremiah 29:11    For I know the plans I have for you,” declares the LORD, “plans to prosper you and not to harm you, plans to give you hope and a future.

Who among us


My oldest daughter is reading a book about a World War II spy. So naturally this dominates her conversation. At supper last night she asked, “Which of us in our family would make the best spy?”

I suggested that Dad before his stroke would have made a good spy; quiet, reflective, incredibly observant, and strong. But I said, “But not since his stroke.” Wes stuck his tongue out at me. He does that now since his stroke. “Because of that,” I added.

“He’d tell someone now,” said my oldest. We all laughed, and Dad stuck his tongue out at the kids too.

There was much discussion among the kids. All their spy like qualities and their fatal flaws. Finally, they began to discuss what kind of a spy their Mother would be.

“Mom would make a terrible spy!” said my oldest. “They would send her somewhere and she would forget why she was there.” Yes, my boy. That would be the likely scenario. I had to agree.

It was great fun, and we all had a laugh at our own expense, mostly at Mom’s expense (which is fine with me). I later thought about that type of hypothetical question. The kind of child like comparison we make all the time. “Which among us is the best at this, or that?” Even Jesus had to deal with this kind of question from his disciples.

Mark 10: 35-37   Then James and John, the sons of Zebedee, came to him.
“Teacher,” they said, “we want you to do for us whatever we ask.”
“What do you want me to do for you?” he asked.
They replied, “Let one of us sit at your right and the other at your left in your glory.”

It always caused me to wonder why this was in the Bible text. It seems such a strange interlude. But really it is very human. We want to be important. We want to be good at something. We feel special if we are recognized. Like children we compare ourselves to others. We want to be set apart.

The reality is we are set apart. We are chosen. All we need to do is welcome His grace and we have a gift better than all the recognition, skill, and riches in the world.

A question of value

“We believe in being moral, but that is evolving,” said my friend. “We just don’t see how an ancient, out of date book, written in a different time can be relevant to us in today’s world. I don’t see value in going to ancient texts for my morals. How does that make sense?”

This isn’t an unusual statement for me to hear. Most of my neighborhood friends are atheists. My beliefs are often being put up to a modern ruler stick. Most of the folks around me think Christianity isn’t meeting up to today’s moral standards. They tolerate me and my weird beliefs.

I ponder this statement. Does this hold water? Is this true?

Then I go to the Bible and I read. I find so much guidance, so much knowledge of human nature, so much wisdom. I conclude that my friend isn’t right. She just doesn’t know the Bible. She hasn’t read it, she has just decided that it doesn’t work for her.

Again, this makes me ponder. Why would someone write off a book without even reading it? I’m not sure I have an answer for that.

But I read the Bible. I see passages that are simple and yet wise. It is hard for me to comprehend how anyone could just dismiss this text.

Micah 6: 8  He has shown you, O mortal, what is good.
And what does the LORD require of you?
To act justly and to love mercy and to walk humbly with your God.

The joy of parenting

I was not a “baby” mom. I didn’t really enjoy the baby stage. But when my kids hit the age of eighteen months or so, I started to hit my stride. I would say, “I enjoyed my kids before, but I really love the stage we are in now.” After a while I noticed the pattern. Each “stage” seemed better than the last.

I kept waiting for the hard years to hit. Not that there weren’t hard times. Six years of forcing my son to go to school wasn’t easy, but on the scale of problems that was not tragic. Of course we had lots of medical issues, but as that was not under my control I didn’t see it as a parenting issue.

Parenting is hard, specially if you are trying your best to do it well. We will all have difficult problems and hard days. But for the most part we were able to find joy in the moments. We have always laughed a lot as a family, and I think that helps.

As our kids age, I often feel overwhelmed by the joy they bring to our lives. To see them flex into the world, develop, and become the people God designed them to be is my great privilege. I think of parenting like gardening. You plant the seeds, you work the soil, you wait, you water, you try clear the weeds, you guide them as they grow, but for the most part you leave it up to God.

I am extremely grateful to God that he has spared us the pain of that comes with a rebellious child. I have witnessed this pain and I am keenly aware of the blessing we have been given. These three children, I mean growing teens, are our richest blessing and we are very thankful for them.

3 John 1: 4  I have no greater joy than to hear
that my children are walking in the truth.