Consider this

            The “As then/so now” principle states that past habits are the best predictors of future actions.   In other words, regardless of your dreams or your best intentions, you are likely going to keep doing what you have always done.   King Josiah is an exception to this rule.             Josiah became king when he was eight years old (2 Chronicles 34:1).   At the age of sixteen he began to seek the God and when he turned twenty he cleared all the idols out of Jerusalem and the surrounding area (verse 3).   At the age of twenty-six, he reopened and repaired the temple in Jerusalem (verse 8). During the renovation, the workers found a book of the law of God and they immediately brought it to the king and read it to him (verses 14-18).               Now, many times when this story is told, it is stated that finding the book of the law was the turning point in the life of Josiah.   However, that is not true!   Finding the truth was not the important part.   Rather, it was

“How old is your little boy?” I asked the man sitting in front of me at the Bruins’ game a few weeks ago. “Nine months” was the reply. The reason I asked was that this little guy was putting on quite a show. First he would lean over his dad’s left shoulder, look at Sara and me and smile. Then he would look the other way at my daughters and their friends and laugh. Then, back to us. Then back to them. He was having a great time. In fact, he was not the only one having fun. I think we missed an entire period of the game making faces at this happy little boy. Three rows down sat a row of older boys. None of them were smiling. In fact, most of them were angry, yelling and throwing things at the visiting team. It was an interesting contrast. The happy, smiley person in our section received smiles and laughs from those around him. All the not so happy people got was a warning from the security guards.  It is a simple truism, but one worth thinking about: You get what yo

            One hundred dollars seemed like a lot of money for two little pictures at a garage sale.   In fact, most people just walked right past them.   One man, though, picked them up, looked them over, gladly paid the price and left.             This past May, a small, untitled oil painting, measuring just 28 by 21 centimetres, was put up for auction at “Maynards Fine Art and Antiques” in Vancouver.   Identified as being the work of iconic Canadian artist Tom Thomson and depicting a sunrise over Ontario’s Algonquin Park, typical of many of his works before his death in 1917, it sold for $110 000.               A second small painting, this one a water colour by “Group of Seven” artist Fredrick Varley was sold as well.   It brought $6 500.               By now you have likely figured out that the paintings that sold at auction for a total of $116 500 were the $100 garage sale paintings that most people overlooked (Interestingly, they were valued at closer to $300 000