How precious to me are your thoughts, O God! How vast is the sum of them! Were I to count them, they would outnumber the grains of sand…
—Psalm 139:17, 18
A Promise for Today
Get link
Facebook
Twitter
Pinterest
Email
Other Apps
A picture is worth a thousand words. Couple the picture with the
promise and we have a winning combination. Great picture, fantastic
promise! God is good.
Genesis 23-26 Among the many interesting aspects of these chapters is an incident that jumps out at me. This year I’m looking at my Scripture readings in the light of changes, adjustments, course corrections that have to be made, and what the Scriptures say about them. Abraham had died. Isaac was living in Gerar under the watchful eye of Abimelech. God blessed Isaac to the point that there simply wasn't room for him and all that he had gained to lived peaceable among the Philistines. There were issues of envy which resulted in some nasty events: “ So all the wells that his father’s servant had dug in the time of his father Abraham, the Philistines stopped up, filling them with earth ” —Genesis 26:15. Abimelech asked Isaac to move a little farther away to prevent any more conflict. Isaac did what he was asked and moved, reopening the wells that the Philistines had stopped up when his father was alive—presumably the result of a different generation of envious neighbours at Abraham’s
Such little things under ordinary circumstances: a few pots of lettuce and a little spinach. But in a country like Pakistan, and in the heart of the Sindh, anything resembling salad is as hard to find as hen’s teeth; well, in this case, peacock’s teeth. My friend, Hannah, is a retired missionary nurse. Actually she became a retreaded missionary nurse, having returned to Pakistan several times several times after retirement to fill a desperate need for nursing staff at the hospital she first went to serve in back in the 1960s. A wall surrounds the hospital. On the grounds are the homes of the medical staff and some of the Pakistani people who work at the facility. It also seems to be the favourite place for the peacocks from the local Temple to hang out. It had to be the lettuce and the spinach that attracted them. When she first noticed the peacocks, Hannah admired their beauty—until she noticed that they were lunching on the spinach. She tried to shoo them away. “Persistent” seem
This morning our pastor was speaking about expectations, specifically the expectations that both Mary and Joseph would have had if they had turned out to be an ordinary Jewish couple, betrothed to be married. Their expectations were not to be the reality that they lived. As he was speaking I thought about this story I had written several years ago. It kind of dovetails with the sermon so I thought I'd share it. The Worker in Wood Lovingly, he caressed the smooth surface of the oak. He had carefully cut it, shaped it, and planed it until it lay finished before him—the most beautiful cradle. It was fit for a king. Joseph remembered the stories of old, the story of Abraham sitting under the great oaks at Hebron when the Lord appeared to him. Joshua had prepared a memorial stone and placed it under an oak near the holy place to mark the covenant between Israel and God. An angel had presented himself to Gideon seated beneath an oak. Absalom had met judgment under an oak. Israel’s histor
Comments
Post a Comment