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Friday, January 10, 2014

LESSONS IN THE DARK


All I wanted to do was find him. At first I thought he had gone to play music at the church. Maybe he had gone running, but the dog that goes with him was still here. I just didn't know where he was...until in the dark of something-past-seven my daughter called to ask if he had come back. “Come back from where?”

“That boy is too stubborn, Mom! I told him not to go. He said he was going fishing for the last time.”

Where exactly had he gone? My first guess would be on the rocks on the bluff not far from our house. I went outside, round the back to the steps where my husband was sitting relaxing in the darkness under the stars. Sensing my unspoken anxiety he got up and came around. The main door had been locked since we returned from a meeting, and we had entered the house through the kitchen door, after an anxious moment of fumbling through my purse to discover that I did, after all, have the key to that door. I grabbed my solar flashlight while my husband fiddled with a battery-powered flashlight which seemed to have a problem. Not a sense of urgency. I wished he would hurry.

The minutes ran like a fire racing through a dry coconut branch. Gone and irretrievable. He was wasting precious time. He just was not reading me. This, of all times, he chose to be a mechanical engineer. I saw the flashlight in pieces on the kitchen table and I was going to break out of this nightmare. I was not going to be stuck in a dream. He could stay but I was going to find my son!
“I'm going,” I said, and shuffled down the stairs in reduced night vision, alone, across the road and down the pasture where the neighbours' goats and sheep huddled down for the night, the younger kids and lambs sheltering the salty wind blasts against their warm mothers' coats. It was an area familiar to me over the three decades I had made that area my home, leaving my homeland like Abraham and settling in a land that God had shown me.

As my eyes tried to adjust to the darkness of the bay side and my ears strained for any hints of movement I heard the wild rushing down the sloping pasture which was partially eroded by over-grazing. The sound tore past me, claws scratching and scattering the loose gravel in its path. I guessed, before I saw, my stumpy jet black dog who had slipped off its chain, intent on beating me to its perceived maritime adventure.

All of a sudden, what I thought was familiar territory seemed strangely unfamiliar in the darkness. The rocks that my husband and I had traversed so many times before in our earlier years of marriage were at once enclosed by a fence, leaving a narrow ledge for persons so inclined to have access to the bluff and the platform below from where generations of casual fisher-persons, including myself, have thrown hand lines that fastened hooks under the rushing waves, with eels happily dragging the bait and tangling the lines beyond salvation.

My dog found him before me. How that roly-poly dog made its way down the slippery rocks without injury remains a mystery. His sense of smell served him well. From the top of the cliff I scoured the platform with the weak beam of my uncharged solar flashlight. My son flashed back in recognition. Relief! He was okay. Using the skills acquired through the years, I climbed down the rocks in the darkness, carefully, as the loose gravel or a weak piece of rock could at anytime send me hurtling down to my last earthly expedition.

I made it. Thank God! All the young man wanted was to spend some time alone in an environment where he feels at one with his maker, where the therapeutic sounds of the sea and the tug of the reef species (perhaps) remind him of the dominion given to him by the Creator over the birds, the fowls, the beasts and the fishes. At least that's what I concluded.

My husband soon joined us, having accomplished his engineering task. I stuck around for just a bit and decided to leave the “boys” to play around with their fishing line. I began my climb up the cliff but soon discovered that age had taken its toll on my eyesight. It was easier going down than climbing up. It was precarious and the darkness just seemed to saturate my spectacles. I removed them to see if there was any improvement. Not at all. I was halfway up the cliff and I could not see where I was going. If I moved to the right there was a good chance I could fall onto the rocks below. If I continued climbing straight up, chances are I might end up too far up and away from the ledge where I was supposed to move across. I could not see to go back down. I was stuck on a rock. I sat down. I could not help myself. Cornered. What could I do but wait? I knew the others would pass my way sometime. They would help me find my way home. At that time it probably felt, to a lesser degree, like a person whose house was about to be repossessed because they couldn't find the mortgage payment; whose business was about to fold up because the creditors were closing in; whose hope for a cure was slipping into morphine shots that were already losing their effectiveness; whose friends had gone and had forgotten.

But God! God was there. No, God IS there! Is, was, will be. The One Who Was, Who Is, and Is To Come. I wasn't sure what time they would come but I held on to the belief that they eventually would. I quit trying to work my way out of the jam I had gotten myself into and I sat in the dark with my run-down flashlight, and my faith that I would be rescued.

They did come. They had seen my weak light searching. They realized that I was stuck, so they packed up the fishing gear and came to meet me. I was relieved yet amazed to see how easily they walked across the ledge and helped me find my way home. In broad daylight I would have seen where I was going. In the darkness I was lost. Life has its moments like that. All seems dark and lost. You don't know where to turn—whether to continue, whether to turn back, whether to hope and whether to give up. God knows you are on the edge of your cliff. He knows the pressure you are under. When you feel you can't go on, shine your weak light. Fill your heart with faith that the good God who cares about a sparrow, and cares much more about you, will step in after your trial has worked His purpose in you and deliver you. Surrender. Lessons I learned in the dark: don't walk by sight ---it will fail you; walk by faith—it will sustain you.

May God bring you joy in the morning, with a peace beyond comprehension.


2 Corinthians 4:8                   2 Corinthians 4:17

Saturday, September 15, 2012

SIN--THE NEW DIRTY WORD

Sin is one of the easiest things to do.  Most times it can be fun.  Where once, not too long ago, sin was abhorred, it is now adored and encouraged.  Sin has been rebranded.

"Misappropriation of funds" now bears the less shameful tag for "stealing a person's money".  "Partial Birth Abortion"  nicely repackages the new and improved "Infanticide".  Disingenuous is the softer label for lying. You would find it hard to recognize sin by its outer labels.  You have to do some peeling first to see the actual product.

The great lie from the famous garden lives on and thrives even in the "Christian" community today.  "You shall not surely die!"  Just as the devil sneaked into the garden, so has he intruded the Church.  Same old message, same objective--to get the human species to distrust and disbelieve God and to cut mankind from his rightful relationship with his Creator.  It is a strategic war for your soul, for it is a soul tie that binds us to one another and to God.

Now, not everyone who looks the part is a genuine Christian who is truly committed to living by the instructions and Spirit of Jesus. Hey! Not everyone who plays an instrument is a musician.  It takes practice, discipline and commitment, and the results are clearly evident.  Saying that I am a musician does not make me one, and having the endorsement of my friends and family certainly does not make my off-key, rhythm-less noise qualify in front of a panel of discerning judges.

Simply put, God says, "This is the way to go if you want to walk with me.  If you choose a different path I won't go that way with you."  We are of worth to God so even if we go down the wrong path he will help us if we turn around and come back to him.  Our ancestors made choices that affect us down the line.  Some sins are harder to break off because of the spiritual forces behind them.  We normally see sin in the light of the person doing it and the consequences.  But we hardly discern the demonic influences lurking in the background.  Sometimes they team up in order to render the person helpless and enslaved, regardless of how much praying they or others do on their behalf.  So the individual reasons, "Well I must have been born this way, so I will stay this way."

Of course!  We ALL were born this way.  We inherited sin in our spiritual DNA, which went bad after our first parent's choice. The cure for this can only come from the master Physician, Jesus Christ.

Similarly there are some cases in the natural that came about as a result of things going wrong in the womb.  Take the case of hermaphrodites, some of whom undergo sex reassignment surgery in infancy.  It creates a dilemma for persons who would want to judge by external appearances.  There are some things in this life that are too complex for the human mind to fathom.  It is necessary then to have compassion as our Saviour did and not behave as if we have all the answers. Their sin was paid for at the cross.  GOD will determine in his own wisdom who belongs to him and who does not.

If we sin wilfully, consistently, insisting that WE should decide what is good and what is evil, regardless of what God says, then the day will arrive when God makes his final choices known.  If we stubbornly hold on to the devil's lie that we are like gods, knowing good and evil, we shall surely die.  Revelation 21:8.

Need I define the repackaged name for "death"?




IMPLICATIONS OF A PRO-CHOICE GOD


It was the off-season. On a hot, slow Thursday night in September my husband, my post-teenage son and I joined our two friends from New York for dinner at the local pizzeria. 

With a table and entire restaurant (plus staff) to ourselves, we caught up with the happenings in our families, work, community, mutual acquaintances, and, inevitably, politics—local and American. Politics led to religion, which in turn raised the issue of personal conviction, and an examination of their relationship to current social systems and their legal frameworks. Our friend, whose wife in her quest for meaning in spirituality has settled for Buddhism, wanted to politely pin me down with the harder questions about homosexuality, its origins, and the pro-life debate. It was encouraging that we could all participate in the discussion without making each other feel intellectually inferior.

The time just flew. We could have gone on and on but it occurred to me that we might have been delaying the staff so we continued our deliberations in the car as we drove our friends home. The final question posed to me concerned whether God would send people to hell. I could have tried a “Jesus tactic” on him—answering a question with a question. I could have asked him, “What do the scriptures say?” and asked him to read Revelation 20:11-15 and Revelation 21:5-8).

Instead I speculated that under our imperfect human system of laws although a person is guilty there are clauses that provide leniency for the defendant. How much more the Great Judge. The important thing is that a person hearing the gospel and refusing to rightly respond by surrendering one's life to the authority and instructions of Christ should not feel unjustly condemned when he is sent to hell. Let God decide how he will deal with those who never heard.

We parted on good terms and in peace that night. However, lying awake in my bed the following morning I could not help but reflect on the pro-choice argument. 

Liberals and even some conservatives vigorously defend a woman's right to choose whether to terminate a pregnancy or to allow the child to develop. According to their reasoning a parent (in that case, the mother) has every right to decide how many children she will keep, and how many she will discard, as well as make selections based on the sex and health of the unborn baby. Yet more often than not it is a highly offensive offensive notion to pro-choice advocates that God could also be pro-choice.

Why not? If he is the parent, spiritually speaking, why is it not his prerogative to decide how many children he wants and which ones to abort in the trash can of hell?

If there is no hope (cure) for a foetus with a defect (sin) could it be more merciful for him to terminate life in the womb (this transient existence on earth)?  Then why are people finding it unconscionable? In this light, let us evaluate sin and determine whether people born with this birth defect are worth saving or should be expelled...

Friday, April 20, 2012

Stinking to High Heaven


I wanted to write a disgusting article today--so disgusting that you would see life in a different light.  Therefore, brace yourself and come with me on a journey that can take you to where only a few brave and unwavering people choose to go.

I keep my dogs on a leash.  They are well fed and shampooed. But the slightest chance they get to run away from home they head down to the bay side and scavenge for the smelliest fish guts washed up between the rocks.  The next round is to roll in the neighbour’s fowl manure.  With the taste of freedom, they roam the neighbourhood searching for their street pals, picking up a few ticks and fleas in the process.

I love my dogs but they cannot come home and lick me with their tongues that only moments ago were lapping up the remainder of rotting fish guts on the bayside.  Nor will I open my arms wide and swoop them up in a loving embrace, with all that greenish foul-smelling stuff on their backs.  No Poochi-poochi or Puppy-puppy

Imagine--soft, smelly dog poop, heavily soiled feminine napkins, rotten maggot-filled rubbish, a bloated dead dog swarming with blue flies, cat vomit…

To us humans, these are nauseating and repulsive.  Naturally, you would not want them inside your house.  How about going to visit someone else’s house and dragging this filth along with you to your host’s home?  You wouldn’t.  But it is possible for human beings to get so accustomed to living or working among filth or obnoxious smells, that it doesn’t even bother them anymore. 
 
Sin, spiritually, is like that.  Detestable! God cannot and will not get accustomed to sin.  As in the natural, there are some things that are more disgusting than others (for which you can simply look away or walk away, while others might bring your stomach to your mouth), in the spiritual I believe that some things are equally abominable to confront than others.

God is holy.  His house is immaculately clean, and if we want to visit his house or want him to visit ours we must allow him to clean us up.  That is the purpose of Jesus’ blood.  It is the bleach or the cleaning agent that takes away our sins.  How dare we think that we can go traipsing into heaven covered in filth, stinking to high heaven and demanding that God let us in?

Imagine your house rule is, 
“Everyone Please Check In At the Fountain.  Leave all shoes, clothes and other belongings with the door attendant. Bathe and change into the fresh new garments provided.  Then come in”. 
What would you do to anyone caught illegally trying to enter your white-carpeted house, dripping with sweat mingled with mud and bits of leaves? On their feet smeared with black sticky tar are shoes that are already yawning their tired goodbyes to the good old days, while the smell of “cat piss” and decaying onions give warning of an accident on the way to a comfort station. Would you give him a great big hug and offer him a seat on your spotless sofa?

Our sin, however small, is detestable, and God does not want a trace of it whether he travels to earth or lives in the heavens.  His provision for cleaning up is His Son.  You’ve got to pass through his Son.  I repeat:  you’ve got to pass through His Son.  That’s the entry requirement.  It doesn’t matter who else tells you, “You are not too dirty.  Come enter through my door.  You don’t have to go through all that hassle to clean up.” 

Everyone has to check in at the fountain, and that includes you.

Go through any other door that promises safe passage, and I am certain you would not be happy with where you end up.  Many would take the easier way in but which really is the way leading out, far away from where they thought they were heading.  What a laugh the misleading door keepers are having as they try to keep a straight face, diverting the seemingly intelligent and sophisticated through what God’s Son calls the “wide gate and broad way”.   Wow! Lovely street names—Widegate and Broadway.  But it leads to destruction and many go through it.  Matthew 7: 13-14

The ignorant, gullible, unsophisticated, by worldly standards, choose to enter on “Straightgate and Narrow-way.  God’s very own son, when he was down here in human form, left the instructions for getting on the way to Life.  He gave clear directions on how to get to the grand reconciliation with God after our severed relationship with him.  Once we get there we are welcome to live in a harmonious relationship with the Creator and creation, forever.

Now if that isn’t the way to go, I put a reader's discretion warning here:  GTH.  You figure it out.

Sunday, November 13, 2011

When God Puts His Foot Down In China

You are more likely to hear Made In China than God In China.

On the International Day of Prayer for the Persecuted Church I had the pleasure of reading this bit of good news from China.  I think you will find it encouraging and you will be spurred on to pray as never before:

http://www.persecution.com/public/newsroom.aspx?story_ID=NDM2&featuredstory_ID=Mjkx&clickfrom=ZmVhdHVyZWRzdG9yaWVz


A great hallelujah to our God.

When "Bless Me And My Family" Are Not Enough

Today, November 13, 2011, International Day of Prayer for the Persecuted Church, I am moved to tears.

How much we take for granted our freedom!  How many of us who are proud to say that we are Christians wake up on mornings without even saying, "Good morning God"?  It is more important to wash our faces or comb our hair or listen to the radio than to seek out, first thing in the morning, the God who gives us the breath of life that enables us to step out of bed and reach for the articles we think we cannot do without.  How insulting to God.

I asked my community kids this morning how many of them would ever leave home for school without brushing their teeth, and all of them vehemently denied that they would ever do such a thing.   I asked for a show of hands of those who had thanked God for the new day this morning and I couldn't find one.

Again, I say we take things for granted until we realize what it means for fellow believers in "closed" countries to identify with the name, Jesus Christ.

Please watch these short videos and get it in your head that prayer is much more than "God bless me and my family".  There are others counting on your prayers and my prayers for making it through each day and night. May their stories change the way you pray for ever.


http://www.onewiththem.com/


God bless the persecuted church.

Saturday, September 17, 2011

Beyond the Sounds of Music

There is no running away from music.  I just closed my eyes and tried to imagine what it would be like without music in this world.  But I discovered that music exists all around. 

One of my dogs was barking at one pitch, then another across the village joined in.  Another of my dogs joined the chorus and soon all the others in the neighbourhood yapped in. At the same time a truck passed by and tooted his horn.  And another responded.  The two engines hummed at different levels and another zoomed past with the roar of a motorbike on its trail.  Someone was using an electric plane making an "Ooo-wah-ooo-wah" sound. A curtain flapping in the breeze that fingered its way through the swaying leaves of the coconut trees, could have easily been the sound of a sheep-skin drum.  In these parts roosters crow at will. I could not decipher whether that one was singing "I'm Not Sleeping" or "Are You Sleeping Brother John". The noisy refrigerator kept up a fast Rap in an unknown tongue.

When put together what I heard was a composition for an album that could be called "The Music of the Village".

Music affects the body, mind and spirit--for better or worse.  Notice how soothing or irritating it can be.  Your fingers, you feet, your head, your hips respond to it.  And when the right song is played, observe how it puts you in an atmosphere of adoration and worship for your Creator.

As a music lover I have bookmarked pages to my favourite music, and wanted to share with you, like I would my sugar-coned ice cream, the different flavours to be found online.  So please enjoy.

Note: [Nicer if you play in full screen]

This one is for young people:




http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cM6PdBgyog4&NR=1


This next song sings about the extent of God's love for us and how much he is jealous for  our affection.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?annotation_id=annotation_449103&feature=iv&v=OCBpSINhu6Q&src_vid=geHF1zbA25U


I love the next one because it is the true picture of the love between a father and child, and love how it brings out the tender and playful side of the Creator.  It's called "Peek A Boo Daddy".


http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FMw-ntHYpG4



Francesca Battistelli makes you want to get up and dance.



Jewish worship music is absolutely wonderful always seems to be combined with dancing. See Barry and Batya Segal's "In The Latter Days".  So beautiful.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xXZHNKq5wPE&feature=BFa&list=PL4F66B739D4982F7A&lf=results_main


 This is another of their well-choreographed dances to In the Latter Days.



And after this, here is a power-packed Jamaican song, good to exercise to and lose some physical and spiritual fat.  This is DJ Nicholas.


Wouldn't it be a good idea to purchase some of these as end-of-year presents for your friends and family?  Sometimes it is so difficult to decide on what to give. So maybe you can play them some samples from the above artists if you liked them, then start purchasing while it's still early.


And now forgive me if I throw in the last song: "Forgiven" by TrueVibe: