Whatever He Says

So grateful for the intimacy of relationship with God--his Spirit speaking to mine on a level that is softer than a whisper, but as sure as a shout...sweet communion. As I quiet myself--embracing silence, God speaks. As I still myself--creating space, God enters with his presence. Acts 17:27b   says that God is not far from any one of us. Revelation 3:20  speaks of God standing at the door and knocking, with a promise that where he is welcomed as a guest, he will come in. Daily I face a battleground populated by forces opposing quiet and stillness. My own undisciplined impulses and natural bents populate the field. My waking thought is to reach for the electronic device under my pillow to check the time. My next reflexive action is to check in with the world of social media. Before I know it, I can have frittered away my first waking half hour or more. Time gone forever from a finite day. .  Late already, I battle procrastination--"I will sta...

By Belinda John 18:28-29 (New International Version) 28 Then the Jews led Jesus from Caiaphas to the palace of the Roman governor. By now it was early morning, and to avoid ceremonial uncleanness the Jews did not enter the palace; they wanted to be able to eat the Passover. 29 So Pilate came out to them and asked, "What charges are you bringing against this man?" Is it just me, or is there something bizarre about worrying that you might become ceremonially unclean by entering a Roman palace; while you are carrying out a plot that will bring a man to his death? When I read this passage recently, I felt as though God had tucked this piece of irony into the gospel of John; first, for us to see the humour in, and then to ponder. I enjoyed it, and I've been thinking about it ever since. I've learned that it doesn't pay to laugh too long, because usually under the humour, there is a dead serious point to be found and it is usually hits uncomfortably close to home. So I...

It's not that my life is a battleground exactly, but I have found myself thinking a lot lately about the "taking of hills," which is military terminology, I think. I've actually found it a helpful mental image, as if ground gained is ground I want to keep and defend. It might be, for instance, a pound lost in the battle of the bulge. Or it could be substituting a new habit for an unhelpful old one. Whatever small victory I have just won, on my mind's eye I see myself planting a flag on a hill with the a word or number to symbolize it. My flags are decorated with my own coat of arms, with four quadrants, representing the four most important areas of my life. Distilling the important things down to four, for someone like me, is a very good thing and helps me develop focus. I can approach life like a book-aholic in a book store, intoxicated with the smell and feel of so many books, so many choices, and wanting to fill my shopping cart with far more than I could hope ...

Haggai 1:5 (New International Version) 5 Now this is what the LORD Almighty says: "Give careful thought to your ways. What a perfect verse for this week of pondering and listening. In fact, in the short book of Haggai, an exhortation to give careful thought is repeated at least four times. Haggai writes in verse 9: " You expected much, but see, it turned out to be little. What you brought home, I blew away. Why?" declares the Lord Almighty. "Because of my house, which remains a ruin, while each of you is busy with his own house." As I read the words, " What you brought home I blew away," I thought of the disembodied fingers of a human hand that appeared at King Belshazzar’s feast . The message that the fingers wrote on the wall was about a life measured and found lacking. Sobering thoughts to start a day; being busy, but with the wrong things. So I listen and ponder. I give careful thought. So much of my life is out of order. I get some of it right...

Jeremiah 10:5 (New International Version) 5 Like a scarecrow in a melon patch, their idols cannot speak; they must be carried because they cannot walk. Do not fear them; they can do no harm nor can they do any good." "Like a scarecrow in a melon patch"... He stands, arms spread wide; bright checkered shirt fluttering in the breeze, his hat at a jaunty angle. The scarecrow does his work well. By his mere presence he discourages hungry beast and bird. At closer scrutiny his eyes stare vacant and his lips are frozen in a forever smile. But a quick and careless glance from a distance, and he could easily be mistaken for the real thing. And between me and a place of fruitfulness there too, can stand a man of straw, in whom I invest too much power and who holds me back through fear. The preceding verses, 3 and 4 say: For the customs of the peoples are worthless; they cut a tree out of the forest, and a craftsman shapes it with his chisel. 4 They adorn it with silver and gold; ...

Belinda, Making Room is beautiful. In this world where we create such busy lives for ourselves; where sometimes the lines cross between what He lays on our plates and what we take on; in this life in North America, in this decade--there's so much at the "all-you-can-eat" buffet. It's hard to make healthy choices...it's hard to find those nutritious, healthy foods...it's hard to have the self-control to know when to stop. Just like in life....so many choices...some healthy and wise...some empty of eternal value...feels good but of no merit in His Kingdom. It's hard to make room sometimes when our plates are already full....when we don't know what to let go of...when we're addicted to being "stuffed" and we don't even know that we've lived here so long...Oh Belinda,I pray that you...that I, that others would know how to make room...that there would be room simply because our schedules aren't so full...wearying, keeping us busy, ...

Philippians 3:10-12 (New International Version) 10I want to know Christ and the power of his resurrection and the fellowship of sharing in his sufferings, becoming like him in his death, 11and so, somehow, to attain to the resurrection from the dead. 12Not that I have already obtained all this, or have already been made perfect, but I press on to take hold of that for which Christ Jesus took hold of me. As I crossed the borderland from night to day, from sleep to waking, the sound of the wind greeted my consciousness: blowing around the house; buffeting it, wind fingers prying at tiny gaps to rattle doors, rushing around the still sleeping village and the dark snow covered fields. Later in the morning, I talked to my brother Robert, in England, and he told me that there too, it was a very windy day. I felt then as if it must be the same wind rushing around that tiny village and that the world was very small after all. I love the wind. When I'm in, the sound of the wind outside onl...

I am home in Canada, but I called my other "home" in England this morning, needing to reconnect with Mum--to hear her voice. I called Robert when I arrived yesterday evening to say we'd arrived safely, but Mum's light in her flat downstairs was already off and the hour was late, so he didn't disturb her. Mum finds it hard to find her way to all the words that have been held captive inside her since her stroke 4 years ago. She can say so little of what she is thinking, but we laughed a lot together over the past three weeks, as I tried to understand when she fought to convey more complex than usual thoughts. She was endlessly patient and resigned, never complaining, as I would do, at the frustration of it. It was poignant then, this morning, when she said, "Everything is different today...," and, "The leaves are falling; they are sad." Those few words spoke more eloquently to me than thousands could have. We spoke of "next time," but e...

Matthew 26:42 (New International Version) 42"... may your will be done." Jeremiah 10:23 (New International Version) 23 I know, O LORD, that a man's life is not his own; it is not for man to direct his steps. "This feels like you O Lord, and I feel a rising sense of excitement." I journaled these words recently as a new door cracked open in my life. I had gone to bed the night before, knowing that the thing I was considering was impossible without God. I woke up excited, knowing that yes, without God it would be impossible, but I am not without God. He is with me. There are some things that I do automatically when an opportunity arises and I found myself reflecting on them this morning. 1. I really pay attention to my basic physical reaction. Often my body tells me before my mind does, if a step is a good one for me. If my stomach is in a knot and I feel panic rising in my throat, I listen and don't go further. On the other hand--my breath being taken away a...

Psalm 119:32 (New International Version) 32 I run in the path of your commands, for you have set my heart free. The reading from Amy Carmichael's Edges of His Ways yesterday morning spoke of that great missionary to India, receiving a letter with "power to disturb," right in the middle of her Quiet Time with God. She said that it dropped like a stone flung into a pool and that much seemed to press around her of things to be done. As I meditated on Psalm 119:32, which was in that evening's Daily Light on the Daily Path, I thought of a true story entitled Runaway recorded by Ray Wiseman in his book, A Difficult Passage that recounts his boyhood on the prairies in the 1940's . The scripture text and story have a connection to Amy's struggle. *Ray tells of one fateful day towards the end of a school year when he and an assortment of fellow students were being driven home by a driver named Montana in a green van pulled by "a spirited team of matched bays....