Consider this

Willie McMillan passed away yesterday. He was 95 years old. You will not hear about his death on the news, but you probably should have. He was someone worth knowing. I first met Willie in 1987 when I did a summer internship with the “Wawota Church of Christ”. He and his wife of 72 years, Marie, lived on a small farm on the edge of Moose Mountain Provincial Park. They did not have many material things, but they were happy and hospitable. Even though he outlived most of his contemporaries, when word got out yesterday that he was gone, the tributes started pouring in. “Facebook” was filled with people’s favorite memories of Willie as young and old recalled the impact that he had on their lives. Words like; like, nice, fun, forgiving, humble, generous and friendly filled the computer screen. He was described as a “Godly man”, a “great example” and “a blessing”. Maybe the most telling thing was that most of the tributes did not refer to “Willie McMillan” but rather “Grandpa M...

“If Jesus Christ is to regenerate me [make me new or different], what is the problem He is up against? I am not holy, nor likely to be; and if all Jesus Christ can do is to tell me I must be holy, His teaching plants despair. But if Jesus Christ is a Regenerator, One Who can put into me His … holiness, then I begin to see what He is driving at when He says that I have to be holy. Redemption means that Jesus Christ can put into any man the… disposition that was in Himself…. The moral transaction on my part is agreement with God's verdict on sin in the Cross of Jesus Christ” (Oswald Chambers, “My Utmost for his Highest”). That quote is deeper than many of the things that you will normally find in this article, but it is worth some thought. What is our faith about and what is it based on? Is it about trying harder? Is it based on me being perfect and holy? If it is, then I am in big trouble! As Chambers says, “I am not holy, nor likely to be”. Faith cannot be about me remakin...

When I was a kid, I liked jumping my bike off ramps. One day I thought, “If I set up a ramp in the side yard, then I can race down the hill beside the house, swing into the yard and hit the ramp with some real speed.” Everything was great until the bike left the ramp. That was when I noticed that I was heading straight toward the front step. The bike landed on the front tire. With the back tire in the air, I could not stop and with all the weight on the front tire, I could not steer. Hitting the step, I jammed the end of the handlebar into my stomach so hard that I could not breathe for what seemed like several minutes. I learned something about foresight, planning and taking care of little things that day. The time to plan your landing is before you take off. The time to think, “Is this a good idea” or “Is this safe” is long before you are racing down the hill. After that, it is too late. Jesus often spoke about the importance of looking after the “little things”. ...

Ever since his sister backed her car into it, the driver’s side door on Bill’s truck would not close properly. Too busy to get it fixed just then, he just put it out of his mind. Late one night as he drove highway 18 towards Torquay, Bill did not see a slippery section on the road ahead. When the truck hit the ice, it began to slide sideways, slamming Bill against the driver’s door. The door opened and (in the days before seatbelts) the next thing he remembers is sliding down the highway at 60 mph. The truck made a few revolutions on the highway, came straight towards him and then veered off into the ditch at the last second. When Bill finally stopped sliding, he got up and surveyed the damage. He had a small cut on his head, his jeans were torn and the wallet in his back pocket was worn half way through. Otherwise, he was ok. In fact, he got back in his truck, closed the door a little more securely this time and drove home. Bill unintentionally proved that it is poss...

A couple of years ago, my daughter Megan wanted only one thing for Christmas: “Aqua Dots”. Aqua dots are liquid-filled beads that can be arranged into designs and sprayed with water to hold them together. The finished product could then be made into a bracelet or hung on the wall as art. Every time she saw the commercial on TV, she said, “That is what I want” and so, one day in October, Sara bought the best Aqua Dots set up that she could find. We eventually wrapped it and put it under the tree knowing that Megan was going to be a very happy girl. Christmas morning came and you would have thought that we had given Megan a million dollars! She was so happy with her present that everything else was left on the living room floor and we spent the next hour setting it up and getting it ready to use. In the meantime, one of our friends called and in the course of the conversation, she found out what we had bought for Megan. “Didn’t you hear that those have been recalled”, she aske...

John 21 opens with Peter and several other disciples going fishing. This was not unusual; after all, they were fishermen when Jesus first met them. It is not unusual, but it is a problem. Remember that they had spent the previous three years in the presence of Jesus. Of all the people on the face of the earth, they knew more about the Son of God than anyone did. However, instead of teaching and sharing what they knew, they had gone back to their old lives. Instead of influencing others, they were fishing. At this point, Jesus appears and has an important conversation with Peter. He begins by asking, “Simon son of John, do you truly love me more than these?” (Verse 15). Notice that Jesus calls him “Simon”. Simon was his old name, his fishing name. It was Jesus who named him “Peter” (which means, “rock”). However, he was not acting like Peter. He was not acting like the man Jesus had trained, so he calls him by his old name, “Simon”. You can be sure that Peter notic...

Have you seen Jupiter in the night sky? If you have looked at the stars in the last month or so, the answer is “yes”. Jupiter is the very bright “star” that is visible in the southeastern portion of the sky right after sunset. How do I know this? Well, I have an interest in astronomy. In fact, I have several books about it and I have tons of “star charts” that are supposed to help me. Unfortunately, for all my books and charts I still have a hard time figuring things out. I mean, the stars are not always where they are supposed to be according to the chart. Then, of course, there is more than one bright star up there that could be Jupiter, so how am I supposed to be sure that I am looking at the right one? So, how did I figure out which one Jupiter was then? Well, when we were camping at Kenosee this past week, a group of people from the “Regina Astronomical Society” set up their telescopes on the lookout point and gave us a tour of the ni...