Consider this

“Lord, the God of heaven, the great and awesome God, who keeps his covenant of love with those who love him and keep his commandments, let your ear be attentive and your eyes open to hear the prayer your servant is praying” (Nehemiah 1:5-6). That is the start of a prayer by a man named Nehemiah. At the time, he was facing a daunting task. Success looked remote at best and so he prayed. The important thing to notice here is not just the fact that he prayed, but to whom he prayed. Look at his description of God. It will not only give you a good picture of God, but an idea as to why he prayed in the first place. The first word to notice is “Lord” which means, “One who owns or controls as a master… the one in full control”. Nehemiah knows that he is not in charge and that there is a bigger plan to be lived by than his own. That is a hard lesson to learn, but it is the starting point of all spiritual growth. Next he refers to God as “the God of Heaven”. This may be a simple referenc...

It may just be the “Cinnamon hearts” talking (I am eating a handful as I type this), but I have to say that I like Valentine’s Day! Now, before you flood my inbox with emails stating how Valentine’s Day is just a fake holiday made up by the card companies to force us to spend money needlessly on a bunch of junk that we did not want or need, let me assure you: I get that part. If you want to point out that one should cherish their loved ones every day of the year and not just when some day in February tells them to, “check!” Some will say that Valentine’s Day is nothing more than commercialism to the extreme where the only valid way to express your love for someone is to buy them something. If you think it is bad for that reason, I am with you there. However, I still think that Valentine’s Day is valuable simply because it reminds us to do what we know should be doing. It is a fact of life that many good things are taken for granted simply because they are a...

Last Sunday I spent part of the afternoon watching the “58th National Hockey League All-Star Game” from Raleigh, North Carolina. Normally this is a boring game with no hitting and a lot of highly talented players skating around at about half speed. One interview, though, made it worth my time. During the third period, the CBC’s Scott Oake interviewed Daniel Briere from the Philadelphia Flyers. Following that, Oake turned to Briere’s thirteen year old son, Caelan, who was standing on the player’s bench behind his dad and asked, “What has been the best part of the All Star weekend for you?” Did Caelan talk about meeting all the players? Did he mention getting to watch the All Star game from the player’s bench? Did he talk about the big hotel room that the NHL made available to his family? Did he mention all the stuff that the game sponsors gave them? Did he say that he liked all the good food in the fancy restaurants? If you saw it, you know that he did not mention any of t...

At a news conference in December, the Nobel Prize winners gave away their secret strategies for winning the prestigious, $1.5 million award: Don’t try! One man, who shared the Physics award, said that winning “requires creativity, humour and patience, with little aspiration to actually win”. The other man added, “It’s definitely extremely detrimental to think that you can win the Nobel Prize; then it basically occupies your mind… if you think and deliberately try to win the Nobel Prize there is something wrong”. The winner of the Chemistry award agreed saying, “I did not plan it, or try to do it, it just came by itself”. The winner of the Economics prize summed up his approach by saying, “Anyone who’s engaged in creative life – whether they’re a scientist, economist, writer or artist – has many ‘aha’ moments, many moments to discovery, otherwise they would not be doing it… they do not do it with some golden prize at the end”. Their philosophy may be summed up by saying, “Focus o...

The other day, as my daughter and I watched “SpongeBob SquarePants” (I think he is funny), I started thinking about the commercials that we were seeing. First there was the “yogurt in a tube” that exploded and sprayed yogurt all over because it had “too much flavour to be contained”. Next a swashbuckling sea captain was in a sword fight with… well, someone who was trying to steal his cereal (Because that happens all the time). Then a remote control truck was climbing over rocks, smashing through brick wall and speeding down the sidewalk. Now, I am all for remote control trucks, but the kids in that commercial looked like they were having way more fun than that truck could provide. Most of the commercials were for unhealthy snacks and the premise of the commercial had little or nothing to do with the product. It was all hype. When marketing is aimed at children, it is easy for me to see how silly it is, but then I started to wonder “Am I as good at seeing it when it is aimed at me?...

“Rejoice in the Lord always. I will say it again: Rejoice! Let your gentleness be evident to all. The Lord is near. Do not be anxious about anything, but in every situation, by prayer and petition, with thanksgiving, present your requests to God. And the peace of God, which transcends all understanding, will guard your hearts and your minds in Christ Jesus” (Philippians 4:4-7). As I thought about my “New Year’s Sermon”, I could not get Philippians 4 out of my mind and so I have decided to make it the theme for our congregation this year. Throughout the year, we will come back and look at a little more of the passage, but this week I want to focus on just two words. The first word is “rejoice”. It has become fashionable in our society to be critical. You don’t have to sit very long in a coffee shop before the conversation turns to complaining about something. Maybe that is not unique to us as North Americans. Maybe it is human nature to look at life from the “half empty glass” pe...

Kids like to test their balance. Whether it is walking on a fence, a sidewalk curb or a “Balance beam” in a gym, there is something about the challenge of seeing how far we can go without falling off. “Balance” is a key idea when we are grown too. He are some ideas about how to “keep your balance” in the New Year. First, we need to look back. Past successes and failures have a lot to teach us if we would just take the time to remember and think about them. God’s people, Israel, were very concerned about where they had come from and what they had learned. For example, when God stopped the water so that his people could cross the Jordan River, they were commanded to take twelve stones from the river and pile them up on the other shore. The Bible then says, “In the future, when your children ask, ‘What do these stones mean?’ tell them that the flow of the Jordan was cut off before the ark of the covenant of the Lord” (Joshua 4:6-7). God did not want them to forget how he had t...