March 7th

I was watching our church snow-clearer do his stuff the other day. Ralph was sitting way up in his mighty tractor, pushing the snow around with the greatest of ease which made for a pretty good show. After all, not being a winter person myself, there’s nothing better than seeing snow getting a thorough thrashing.
As I watched Ralph’s mighty machine go through its paces I noticed that the shovel was attached in a rather odd way. Basically speaking, it wasn’t connected to the front of the tractor, even though that’s where it was. It was actually connected, by means of a couple of serious looking steel bars, to the rear of the tractor. I thought this a little odd until Ralph explained that the shovel had to be attached to the strongest point of the tractor, which happened to be at the rear. Of course, that makes a lot of sense because tractors are usually pulling things rather than pushing them. Since it would go against reason to pull the snow from behind, the shovel had to be placed at the front of the tractor, but it still had to be connected to the strongest point of the machine. Otherwise you might end up with a bent tractor and that’s not a good thing.
Human beings have a solid internal structure, our skeletons, that provides strong attachment points for all the bits that connect to the outside world. However, we don’t connect to that world just physically. We also connect to the broader world mentally emotionally and spiritually. That means we need a strong mental and physical structure in order to ensure that we don’t come apart when life gets a little strenuous.
There is no stronger structure available to us mentally, emotionally and spiritually than Jesus Christ. The Son of God, who is also our brother, can provide for us the strength to carry on in the toughest of times. He offers us the backbone to stand straight when failure threatens to knock us down. He offers us the stability to stand fast when temptation pushes us in the wrong direction. He offers us the strength to go toe to toe with evil. And when we’re too weak to stand on our own, he provides us with a safe, secure place to stay put for a while.
Some people might say that counting on Jesus is a cop-out. They say that believing in Him is no better than trusting in fairy tales, but when they say those things, they fail to take into account the truth and the power that He offers those who believe.
Sure, you can try it alone. Sure, we humans have great innate strength. But there is even more power available to us in the Son of the living God than anywhere else. I’ve seen lots of people come apart at the seams. Funny thing is that none of those folks sought Jesus’ help. Anyone I know that trusted Him for strength, even in the most trying times, was never let down. For the greatest support in all that we do there is no-one or nothing that we can count on as much as Jesus. At least that’s the way I see it.

February 28th

I was looking for a picture to use during a recent worship service, which isn’t always a linear process. That is, often while looking for one thing on the internet you take little detours and find yourself in the oddest places. Thus it was that, finding a suitable image on a nice Christian lady’s website, I noticed another young lady’s site with the tag-line “Once was lost but now am found.” With a title like that I had to take a look and see where she had been lost and how she had been found.
Wow! What a story. The young woman had been in the porn industry for six years and had learned that there was a better way to live. That life has led her to try and help others like change her life In her own words: ”I have passion now. My passion is to let other women know they are worth much more than their sexuality. Society and media will tell us different. It's true though... you are precious. You are worthy of love. You are special. No matter how hard of a road you have been down. There is hope for you. You are loved by the King!!!!”
What struck me about her journey was the fact that God is the only one that could have changed her life. We are in the midst of the Olympics. No-one has ever changed their lives because of the Olympics. The football season is done and the Superbowl a fading memory. No-one has ever changed their lives because of football. I have just finished acting in a play put on by Theatre Kent. No-one has ever changed their lives because of a play. Only God can change our lives. Only God can make us whole.
Notice, however, I didn’t say only Church can change our lives or only with regular worship can our lives be made better. Absolutely, without a doubt we need consistent worship and time with God, and there is no better way or place than by going to church. God, however can work miracles anywhere. He can bring wholeness through somebody working at the Olympics. He can save a life through a football fan. He can lift a porn star from sin to salvation. He can heal a broken soul through a loving Elder. It doesn’t matter where we are or who we are. God can change anyone, anywhere, anytime.
Only God can bring about a life-change, nobody else. Only God working through an Olympic worker, or a football fan, or a porn star or an Elder. Unfortunately, while can work through anybody in an situation for any person, we rarely look for it. Folks pour their energies into their activities but rarely do those activities offer them the blessings God has in store for anyone who cares to ask.
Still, amazing things do happen even to the unlikeliest of people in the unlikeliest of surroundings. Of course, the other side of the coin is that God can also use the unlikeliest of people in the unlikeliest of situations to bring about some pretty amazing things. Isn’t it wonderful to think that you too might be one of those unlikely souls that God can work on, if you let Him, or that He can use if you’re open to Him? At least that’s the way I see it.

February 21st

Whenever I make a mistake while typing I tend to erase everything until the error point. Say I write ‘fiath’ instead of ‘faith.’ Rather than go back to the misplaced a or i, I simply would hit the backspace key and remove all the letters, even the correct ones, following the mistake. Even if it’s a long word, or even a short phrase, my natural instinct is to just lean on the backspace key rather than being more selective about my error correction.
‘Tis rather a trivial thing, I know, but it kind of bugs me because it’s as if I am taking the good out with the bad. Instead of being selective and extracting only the letter that is either incorrect or out of place I delete the whole word. Sure, I guess it’s easier or maybe even faster. After all, one way or another I have to get back to the error-point so hitting the backspace key and wiping out everything up to including the mistake is very efficient. It means I take care of business without having to first return to the scene of the crime and then erase the boo-boo and enter the correction.
Hitting the backspace key, I guess, is just faster and simpler. On the other hand, it does seem wasteful. Not all the letters erased are wrong, so rubbing them out means I have to put them back in later on. Being more selective with what I delete would spare me having to rekey the good stuff I had already entered which means faster and simpler goes right out the window.
Call it instinct. It’s what I do. Maybe you do it to. Maybe like me, when you’re  typing you toss out the good along with the bad when you make a boo-boo. Nothing really wrong with that. It happens. I wonder, however, what it would be like if we did that with bigger, more important things. Imagine tossing out a whole page of text because of one mistake. Or perhaps digging up an entire garden because one flower dies. Or giving up a whole life just due to one wrong decision.
Foolish, isn’t it? Sheer nonsense to think of wiping out a complete effort just due to one slip up. Better instead to get rid of the one thing that is wrong, to cross out the typo on the sheet of paper, to pull up the one dead flower, or to move on from a poor choice.
That’s what God does with us. When we make a mistake, God forgives us and encourages us to carry on. The good stuff remains, the bad stuff goes away. Sometimes it happens right away, right the moment we are aware that we blew it. Sometimes it takes a lifetime before we figure out where we’ve gone wrong and that there’s a better way to do things. Whenever it happens,  God is ready and willing to erase that one bad bit from His memory so we can be as close to Him as possible. Unlike a typo, however, God leaves us the lessons we’ve learned from our boo-boo. He forgets it, he gets rid of our guilt and shame, but leaves enough of a trace of it so that we can know what to avoid later on. Not too much, not too little, God’s forgiveness takes out only what’s bad, which is very good for us. At least that’s the way I see it.

February 14th

As part of my role in the church I recently sat in on a few special meetings designed to take care of conflict in another congregation. The meetings were overseen by a specially trained mediator in order for all parties to be able to get their point across, and to ensure that each side heard what the other had to say.
With great skill and care the mediator would open the door for conversation, encouraging folks to share their thoughts in a loving, respectful way. At times she would stop the conversation in order to clarify a point. Every once in a while she took a moment or two to summarize what had been said in order to make sure that the speaker and listener were on the same page. Throughout the process she made it clear that the folks were not to there to point fingers or assign blame, but to work through their issues.
Watching and listening as a somewhat detached figure gave me the freedom not only to hear what was being said on both sides of the issue, but to observe the mediator that was directing the process. I noted that she used the phrases and expressions I had heard many times before in mediated discussions of all kinds. This unique vantage point led me, at one point, to think to myself, she’s spouting a lot of psycho-babble and to have a quiet but loving chuckle at her expense.
Don’t get me wrong: I absolutely recognize the value of her work. I also respect her a great deal for being able to help people air their issues and then find a way to overcome their problems and find a mutual solution. What I found funny was the special language used by her to describe or explain the process. It’s a very special set of words that, taken out of context can easily sound like mumbo-jumbo. On the other hand, when led by a trained professional like her, that language is very powerful and very helpful.
For most folks, anyway.
There are folks that just don’t get it. As that “psycho-babble” thought passed through my mind it was with one single person in mind, an acquaintance that I feel would have just laughed at everything the mediator had to say. That’s what struck me as both funny and a little sad. This guy doesn’t have the ears to hear the love and genius that motivates that special language of mediation and problem solving. And, in a broader sense, I don’t know that they even have the ears to hear the loving words of the God behind that process of mediation.
Thankfully, God has other ways of getting through to people. Words may not touch this man, but actions might. Caring, serving and loving speak volumes without a single word, filling in where language falls short. The wonderful thing about those acts is that they require no special training. One way or another, we can all care, serve and love and one way or another, by word or by deed, we can let God be known to others. At least that’s the way I see it.