Grains of Sand

Pixabay I've lost count of how many times I have told this story—most recently last week at a Seniors' Residence! But here goes once again. Years ago, as Director of Christian Education, in the days when that role for me involved kids, we did a lot of Christmas programs. On this particular Christmas the play was called Three Wise Men and A Baby . In one scene the shepherds (three boys from the Junior Department of the Sunday School) were to be sitting around their fire just minding their own business and talking their long, boring evening away as they watched their sheep. The angel who was to appear to them, was a tall, skinny Jamaican kid. You can imagine what he looked like in his white robes and gold tinsel halo. He was to enter from the choir loft door, above the platform where the shepherds were seated. When the angel appeared he was to introduce himself with the words, " Fear not! " and the shepherds were then to scream in fright! That was exactly what h...

Google Images During the debacle of the Golden Calf (Exodus 32) God tested Moses twice. When God said that His anger against the people was great that He was going to destroy them and make Moses into a great nation (32:9, 10), Moses interceded for the people and pleaded for their lives. Here was his opportunity to become truly great in his own right, and he passed it up. A little later, after he had seen for himself what the Israelites had done and realized how terrible the offense was, he went back to the Lord to beg God’s forgiveness for the sin the nation-to-be had committed—to the point of offering his own life as a substitute for theirs (32:30-32). Moses put himself on the line for the people he served. Then God announced that He would send His angel to take Moses and the people to the land He had promised Abraham (33:2). “ Go up to the land flowing with milk and honey. But I will not go with you, because you are a stiff-necked people and I might destroy you on the way ” (33:3...

Google Images How is it possible? I wonder how many times I’ve said or thought those words? Life is never perfect but it helps if it is predictable. For Zechariah, life was predictable. He fulfilled his priestly duties every day. And once in a while, when his turn came, he went up to the temple to offer incense to the Lord. He and his wife, Elizabeth, were growing old as gracefully as they could. Even their childlessness was predicable—they were long past conceiving children. Perhaps the bitterness and disappointment of that reality had faded in time, though it appears that they had prayed for a son (Luke 1:13) to carry on the line. Then Gabriel came along and announced a change in the whole equation. While Zechariah was performing his duties in the temple, the angel of the Lord appeared to announce that he and Elizabeth would have a son in their old age. If Gabriel had appeared to me I probably would have doubted too. “ Zechariah answered the angel, ‘How can I be sure of this? I a...

“ See, I am sending an angel ahead of you to guard you along the way and to bring you to the place I have prepared ” —Exodus 23:20, NIV I wonder if Moses ever got writer’s cramp? We often think of the Ten Commandments as only, well, ten. In fact, there followed the giving of the basic ten a whole waft of others along with instructions for every detail of building the Tabernacle. And in the middle of taking note of the myriad of instructions about the laws that were to govern the new nation of Israel comes this wonderful promise. Perhaps this was the point at which Moses was thinking, as he rubbed his sore fingers: “How on earth am I ever going to do all this stuff?” The weight of responsibility for the physical and moral well-being of a couple of million people tracking through the desert was not a light burden. Moses had seen God’s provision in the past. But like all of us, each fresh challenge seems to require a fresh assurance that the God who looked after business yesterday...

Psalms 34-36 I began a series of studies last night as part of our Wednesday night electives at church. The theme of the series is angels and what the Bible teaches about them. Some of us might remember Billy Graham's classic book on angels published back in the 70s and reprinted many times since. We remember Frank Peretti's book, This Present Darkness , a work of fiction that unfortunately spawned some incorrect ideas that Peretti regretted. It was, after all, fiction. And who can forget the more recent television series Touched By An Angel whose reruns are still out there on classic TV. The New Age movement is littered with ideas about angels that don't coincide with what the Scriptures teach. Angels are everywhere—the fictitious and the factual. Several people in the group came to me afterward to share their stories about encounters with angels. One even asked if she could come early next week to share with me a dream her husband has had about angels that he wants...