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Walking in the Dark
“My soul thirsts for God, for the living God…. My tears have been my food day and night, while men say to me all day long, ‘Where is your God?'” – Psalm 42:2-3 (NIV) Have you ever felt like asking, “Where is my God?” Even those of us who have experienced great joy and delight in the presence of God will sometimes go through dark nights when God seems distant, or even absent altogether. It sometimes feels like God disappears just when we need him the most, when we are at our weakest and most needy. How do we reconcile this with the concept of a loving, caring Father in…
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Solving the Mysteries of the Universe
Okay, so the title is ambitious. I don’t really think that you and I are going to solve all of the mysteries of the universe in this article. Besides, if we know anything at all about the universe, we know she is very coy, and likes to reserve a few mysteries and keep some things to herself. Personally, I think that there are mysteries that are unknowable this side of eternity. God doesn’t tell us everything. He wants to leave a few truths open to interpretation by faith. He has planned that we shouldn’t know everything at this stage of the great game. This is only a good thing. Faith…
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Love Is In The Air
One of the seminal movies for baby-boomers was a sentimental tear-jerker called Love Story. It remains the quintessential chick-flick, and came to mind while seeing one too many commercials for Valentine’s Day. The jewelry outlets and florists are geared up for the big day. Hallmark banks on the tugging of heartstrings. Every marketer imaginable gets in on the act. Each sixty second blurb presents a love story filled with hopes and dreams. The sparkling eyes and bright smiles of the actors give the impression that love will conquer all, which can inspire optimism, even among world-weary cynics. Love is in the air. However, love is many things to many different…
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But is it Bread?
The book of Isaiah is one of my favourite reads in the Bible. Some of the church's most beautiful and meaningful images come from these writings. In chapter 55 verse 2, the prophet asks an extremely loaded question: "Why do you spend your money on that which is not bread?" (RSV) As you can probably guess, Isaiah was not talking here about flour and yeast alone. In the lifetime that I have been endeavouring to be a Christ-follower, this question has come back to me over and over again in many guises, as I have tried to make the best choices as to how to spend my money, my time,…
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No Helmet Required
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Look, Listen, Kneel, Pray
In the movie Twelve Monkeys, Brad Pitt’s character gets worked up into a psychotic excitement and utters these prophetic words: “There’s the television. It’s all right there, it’s all right there. Look, listen, kneel, pray. Commercials. We’re not productive anymore; we’re not used to making things anymore. It’s all automated. What are we for then?..."
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Ready to Go
As the patriarch Abraham faces the death of his beloved wife Sarah and ponders his own mortality, he realizes there is an important task left undone. The son of his old age, his heir Isaac, is in need of a wife. Appalled by the immorality of the people around him, Abraham decides that the only suitable wife for Isaac would be a woman from his own clan, and from the faraway land of his origin.
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Advent Musings Revisited
Christopher Columbus rattled the establishment. In 1492 he sailed west from Spain to discover a new trade route to the Far East, but instead he followed the stars to the Caribbean Basin. At the time, Nicolaus Copernicus was a nineteen-year-old astronomer working on a radical theory that placed the sun at the center of the solar system and not the earth. It was a revolutionary concept because it challenged Aristotle. Scientists and philosophers held true to Aristotle’s principle that the earth was the fixed center of the universe.
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Budgeting Our Attention
I’m writing this near the end of December, the time of year when we take stock of where we’re at as we look at the past year, assess our progress, and plan for the new year to see where we can improve. We scrutinize our budgets, especially at the Christmas spending season, to analyze what went wrong, and to prevent similar mistakes in the new year. While we hope to be careful managing our money, we also need to be especially careful about managing our attention. We have only a limited number of attention units. That is why, in an increasing number of places, there are laws that prohibit talking…
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Weight of Glory
While Canadian winters are known for their shortened days and darkness, what I love the most about a crisp winter's day is the quality of the sun's light when it does deign to shine. There is a blue, piercing quality to the light of winter that doesn't exist at any other time of the year. It is a purer, truer light that shines on a sunny December morning.
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No Helmet Required
Last summer I had the opportunity to spend some time in the beautiful state of Ohio. With its verdant, rolling hills and miles of scenic roads through lush Amish farm country, Ohio is a motorcyclist's paradise. One other thing that makes it so is Ohio's lack of a helmet law. While young bicyclists in Ohio are expected to wear helmets, motorcyclists are free to ride bareheaded. I admit it caused me to do a double take every time I saw a helmetless biker.
