Whatever He Says

I published this originally on May 20, 2019. I never imagined that less than a year later the world would be coming to a stop, which is why I'm republishing it: The dream stayed with me all day. It came in the moments before I woke up, right after a dream about forgetting pages with words to songs for our worship team (one of those dreams you get over and over when you have low-level anxiety about something.) The one I am writing about here was different, though, and the feeling of it lingered, In it, the world was utterly silent. Last weekend we woke up on Sunday morning to a planned hydro shut down for routine maintenance that I'd forgotten about. We had no hot water, no light, NO COFFEE! What I noticed immediately was the silence. We live with many sounds that we don't hear until they're not there. The silence in my dream though, was a complete worldwide silence--I knew that it signified the end of everything as it was the day before on earth. Everything had st...

By Belinda   3 And I set my face unto the Lord God , to seek by prayer and supplications, with fasting and sackcloth and ashes. ( Daniel 9:3 , American Standard Version ) With golden sunshine as a backdrop, shoulders back, chest out and up, she balances on one foot while grasping the other across her thigh. With hard won grace she is demonstrating an exercise position. "Heart to the sun..." Brenda says it is the phrase her instructor uses as a prompt to good posture. She has been working hard of late to get in shape and has admirable focus and discipline. Change "sun" to "Son" and it reminds me to keep myself in constant awareness of my need for God's grace. For I am prone to slouching spiritual shoulders; slumping; drifting and to wobbly legs. I think that to be human is to be prone to wandering. Heart to the Son. I need a reminder often to turn Son-ward. To orient myself towards home. Come Thou Fount of Every Blessing Robert Robins...

Isaiah 64:4 (New International Version) 4 Since ancient times no one has heard, no ear has perceived, no eye has seen any God besides you, who acts on behalf of those who wait for him. I've been thinking a lot about time this weekend. It all started on Saturday morning, listening to Fresh Air with Jeff Goodes on CBC radio as I got ready for the day. Jeff's guest that morning, Harold Taylor, said that people have it all wrong when they think about organizing their time. He said that we should really think about spending "life" not "time" because that's what we're really doing--spending our lives. "Spending life"--that does have a different feel to it than merely "spending time." It was a bit of a wake up call. I want to spend my life--every minute of it--in a way that leaves me with no regrets--but I struggle to understand how to do that and am thankful for any words of wisdom on the subject. I visited Harold's web site, http:/...

Numbers 33:55 (New Living Translation) 55 But if you fail to drive out the people who live in the land, those who remain will be like splinters in your eyes and thorns in your sides. They will harass you in the land where you live. The people of Israel were camped on the opposite side of the river Jordan, looking across to Canaan, the Promised Land, when God gave Moses these instructions for them. Theirs was to be no army of occupation--they were to completely drive out the inhabitants of the land, destroying the images of the gods the people worshipped, leaving no trace of them. It's easy to see how hard those instructions would have been to follow, but God warned them that anything less than that--any compromise or half-hearted commitment--would have painful consequences. The people who remained would be like splinters in their eyes and thorns in their sides--an endless stone in their sandal. I'm a long way from Canaan, but there are a few "Promised Lands" in my lif...