1150 Blogs

There are many people out there that do the same thing I do, week in and week out. Most of them sit down at their computer and try to think of something that the readers might be moved by. I started this way back in 1997 while I was pastor at Drumbo Baptist Church. That means, over all these years I have written over 1150 blogs. They started as a weekly article for the Ayr News published in Ayr Ontario.

In all these years I have written about joy & sorrow, learning & sharing life, and about learning to be a Christ Follower. While, at the same time, letting all of us know that God can be in every area of our lives. We just have to let Him. I have even communicated to you about getting it right in so many ways. Every part of who we are has been addressed in these Monday morning & Wednesday's Paper, “Something to think about” articles. During this journey I have learned a lot about you and myself. This is supposed to be about connecting faith and life. It is where we discover more and more about what it means to connect the dots of life with the dots of faith. There is no greater way of doing this then recognizing that we connect spiritual, physical, mental, emotional, and social parts of life.

It is also something that happens when we live life and live it in the best way we know how. The start of this column began with an experiment. Many of you were there. I had no idea what I would do but week after week, let alone knowing what I was doing. It started with just writing about what I was working out in my own mind. God stepped into this experiment to let us know in many small ways that we cannot separate our faith from life.

Now, after all these articles, we find ourselves knowing what our present motto here at the church means in connecting faith, life, love and laughter. Maybe that is why we are here every Monday morning, trying to get it right. Yes, we make mistakes and fall down. But we don’t make the mistake of not getting back up again and moving forward.

I learned that in many ways we are all alike. We are all looking for the best way to get to the end knowing that God is not just in the end but in the journey. Didn’t Jesus say, He would never leave us nor forsake us? At times like we are in right now, God is helping us in our insecurities, to keep moving forward one step at a time. I believe He is in all five areas of life. We just need to hold on to Him while dealing with the one area of life we are struggling with at the time. We also, are doing it with each other. Glad you are here.

Today, I believe He is teaching us all to Stay Safe & Be Well.

Something to think about.

Rob

What's Normal

I have a question for all of you. You can write me back with your answer if you would like. Here goes. ‘What is normal?’ Lots of people are talking about getting back to normal. What does that really mean? If normal means doing anything and everything, I have some misgivings about that.

On the other hand, if they mean normal to be doing things that entertain, or to go and be part of a crowd that watches something, sometimes it’s true and sometimes not. Well, in my mind it is. Or, how about the normal meaning doing things that are necessary to get through life unscathed.

My problem with this is, I have questions on what people think are vital & necessary. Do we need to watch a cricket match? Yes, they are entertaining, but vital? Then there is getting out dog groomed? You get the idea and make a list of thousands of other activities. Which has me thinking about what we consider a necessary activity.  

A long time ago someone said that we can and should, under God, do anything we want with one important exception. It reads this way: “Do anything you want as long as it doesn’t hurt anyone.” That is actually what God said to us in the Bible when He told us to Love our neighbour as ourselves.

We need to do things that, first of all, don’t hurt us. Secondly, we don’t do things that would hurt others.  And lastly and most importantly, we only need to do things that don’t hurt God Himself. So, what’s normal? I believe it’s what we are doing now. And I say this after my wife gave me a haircut with my face mask on and wearing my baseball cap that reads, “God Gives HOPE”

Something to think about.

Robin

ATTACK!!!

Today is a great day! It is. I’m not saying that there won’t be some trials or problems or difficulties or struggles.  But I am saying it’s going to be a great day. Pretty simple to say. We wake up in the morning, maybe even lay there for a few extra minutes with our eyes closed. I have a suggestion for each of you. But being you are already up, maybe try this tomorrow morning.

Tomorrow, when you are keeping your eyes closed, forget about opening that one eye to check the time. Take a step back from that moment and just take a few moments to talk to God.  I know, you talked to Him last night as you drifted off to sleep, but just maybe you didn’t finish talking to Him then. So, start the day finishing off what you were talking to Him about last night.

Just so you know, all those things you will be facing in the next few hours can wait in the wings. Every day of ours is filled with a whole kaleidoscope of events. It will include, thought our lives, the greatest as well as the horrible. But be reassured, our life is on a bell curve and most of what we experience is right in the middle and it’s all pretty good.

I think we can increase all the pretty good things. We can do that each and every morning, but talking to God and asking Him to accompany us on our journey through the day. It’s not just our physical & intellectual  journeys, it is also our social journey related to the people who come and go in our lives. Lastly, there is our spiritual journey. That is where we can meet with God each morning and turn the day over to Him. He did say, He would watch over us and go before us through our lives. That means He goes through it all before us. So ask Him to be with you today before your today starts. He will. And by the way, don't just seize the day, ATTACK! Jesus is on your side.

Something to think about.

Rob   

JOY In The Worst of Times

Right now, here at that the church, we are in a study into the book of Philippians. It is no coincidence we are in this book at this time in history. God really knows what we need and when we need it. And right now we need a word from Him. Covid-19 has changed our world, our society and even our own personal world.

Not many of us knew what it was to be isolated. It’s not strange for individuals to know what this is all about if they got in trouble with the law. Hearing about people in jail gave us a glimpse of what it must feel like. But we didn’t do anything wrong. We were going along, minding our own business and BAM! we were told to hunker down in place. Stay at home, stay safe is what they dictated to us.

I’m very lucky that I have a nice yard to get out into, where I can talk to my neighbour at a safe distance.  There is always something on the property that takes me outside, if not just to relax on the lawn chairs and watch the Robin’s flying around and the woodpecker making some beautiful tapping.  Yes I know you can open your windows and experience similar things.

There is a good side to this. A wonderful side that we can read about in Philippians. Paul was in jail. The prison in Rome was deep in the ‘bowels of the earth’ and he could not see the sun or the moon. Couldn’t see the flowers or feel the breeze on his face. There were no birds he could see or hear. There was just the ugly stench of a pit where men were caged and treated like animals.

What we need to know about this amazing book is Paul wrote primarily about JOY. Really? Yes, really. Even in the second chapter he encouraged people to stop grumbling and complaining.Basically he was letting them know how good they have it. Without saying it, he might have said; "Walk a mile in my sandals".  But in the first chapter he talked about how excited he was to hear all the good and great things that were happening back at church. We are still astounded by the first chapter, knowing that he was writing from jail.

We are not in jail, we are being directed by those who know, how to be safe and well. It is for our own good. Something similar to what Christ did for us. He died to pay the price that should have put us all in Jail. He came to save us similar to what the gov’ts are trying to do to keep us safe and well.  Sit back today and read the whole book of Philippians and read it in light of what is happening in our life of isolating and staying safe and well.

Something to think about.

Rob