Grains of Sand

Pixabay I linger in the blackness, seemingly invisible to passersby. My night is cold and lonely, devoid of the warmth of human touch. There is only God, and though He speaks, I do not hear from Him what I desperately want to hear. He begs me to trust His will, but that will lies heavily upon me, like a shroud. His will is solitary. His will is hard. He bids me be patient, but the fruitless, empty, years pass me by, heaping their rewards on others. Shared laughter mocks me, as groups of two, three, and four, walk by. Their eyes seem to meet mine but then slide past unseeing. I follow them, heading toward the open doors ahead that they are passing through. I long to cry out after them: “Look at me. See me. Hear me.” I don’t. They are busy with better, more productive, things. I bless the Lord for all their successes even as I envy them those blessings. Like a swift running current, they flow past my stagnant pool. It seems pointless to call out to them. Even if they saw and heard, ...

clarionenterprises.com (Google Images) An old friend went home to be with the Lord over the weekend. Bob was delivered from cancer, Parkinson’s, and all the beating and battering of life that remind us that, though this world will one day be restored to the pristine beauty and perfection of creation before the fall, it is now only our temporary home. As I read Psalm 33 this morning the last few verses would describe Bob’s hope, and mine. He has now seen the realization of this hope as he stands in the presence of Jesus, whom he loved greatly and served faithfully. For those of us who remain the promise lacks its crowning moment, but it is nonetheless a promise that can be trusted even while we wait to see it completely fulfilled. “ …the eyes of the Lord are on those who fear him, on those whose hope is in his unfailing love, to deliver them from death and keep them alive in famine. We wait in hope for the Lord; he is our help and our shield. In him our hearts rejoice, for we trust ...

rickhiggins.org (Google Images) “ Because the hand of the Lord my God was on me, I took courage… ” —Ezra 7:28. It only takes a few words to say a lot. Ezra the priest, teacher of the Law of Moses, was one of the exiles serving out the Hebrew nation’s time in captivity. He has been sent back to Jerusalem with the task of rebuilding the temple. He has the imperial stamp of approval and support of the king of Persia whose favour was divinely inspired (Ezra 7:6). But even with the support of the king and with the help of all those who journeyed with him, Ezra’s task is huge. The invasions of Israel’s enemies has left behind nothing but ruins and a hostile population of foreigners who have been been exiled to Israel to keep the weeds from overrunning the place. Ezra, as a teacher and a priest, is likely given to quieter and more solitary pursuits. But here he is. And as he faces the challenge he senses again the presence of the Lord. He remembers how God has already moved to make all th...

Google Images There is still a lot of work to be done, but Joshua and the Hebrews have entered Canaan. The land has been divided among the tribes, cities of refuge have been designated and the Levites have been assigned their towns. At the end of Joshua 21 comes this wonderful summary statement: “ So the Lord gave Israel all the land he had sworn to give their forefathers, and they took possession of it and settled there. The Lord gave them rest on every side, just as he had sworn to their forefathers. Not one of their enemies withstood them; the Lord handed all their enemies over to them. Not one of all the Lord’s good promises to the house of Israel failed; every one was fulfilled ” (Joshua 21:43-45). It’s the end. God has kept His word and brought them to the place He had promised to bring them. It’s the beginning. A new page. A fresh start. Certainly they brought some “baggage” with them. Some things can’t be parked at the door of opportunity. They are who they are—at times reb...

" Your LOVE, Lord, reaches to the heavens, Your FAITHFULNESS to the skies. Your RIGHTEOUSNESS is like the highest mountains, Your JUSTICE like the great deep. " —Psalm 36:6 This psalm begins with a terse statement about the wicked and then, unexpectedly, comes this marvelous declaration on the character of God. Whatever the wicked are, however deluded, however devious and destructive, God is greater. The psalmist continues the declaration of his faith in the One in whom he can find refuge (vs. 7), the One who provides in abundance (vs. 8, 9), and the One who vanquishes any evildoer who plots against those who belong to God. The pairing of these four characteristics intrigues me. True love must be faithful. True righteousness demands that justice be served. The love of God, as profound as it is, will never let us down. God cannot, and will not, prove faithless. God is righteous, perfect and holy. That righteousness cannot turn a blind eye to sin, but must demand an accountin...

Photo: stock.xchng My mother made the best pie crust in the world. She gave all the credit to Tenderflake and often told me about her struggles in the early days on the farm when her parents rendered their own lard. The consistency varied from year to year which made pie making a bit of a challenge—you could never be sure how the crust was going to turn out. Making good pies was a matter of reputation since the threshing crews that came through to help with the harvest were experts in pie crust and if a certain farmer’s wife presented them with tough, inedible crust, the whole neighbourhood would soon know about it. When it come to pie crust, we want tender, flaky and melt-in-your-mouth. Someone once said that promises are like pie crusts—lightly treated and easily broken. Unfortunately, that is often true. Promises are easily made and just as easily forgotten. “Tender” is good in pie crusts, but bad in promises. We often make better promise breakers than we do promise keepe...

Reading: Hebrews 5-8 No one is indispensable. We think we are. We act like we are. We’d like others to consider that we are—and appreciate us accordingly. I chuckle over the times I’ve announced that I was moving on and people have told me that they don’t know what they will do without me. Funny how life goes on so smoothly after I’ve left! I should either be insulted by their insincerity, or have my ego battered and bruised at the discovery that I really am NOT indispensable, or I should, as I do, laugh and say “You see—you got along just fine.” But there is one Person who is indispensable and I’m so glad He’s on the job right this moment. “…because Jesus lives forever, he has a permanent priesthood. Therefore he is able to save completely those who come to God through him, because he always lives to intercede for them ” (Hebrews 8:25, NIV). This verses refers specifically to salvation. Jesus never retires from the job of saving a repentant sinner. He never goes on holiday...

“ You gave me life and showed me kindness, and in your providence watched over my spirit ” —Job 10:12, NIV. This tiny ray of light appears in the middle of a long list of complaints that Job expressed to God as he went through some of the toughest times of any man’s life. How true to human nature is his example. How easy it is to forget the one truth that should hold us close when our world collapses around us. I guess the question we all end up asking ourselves is whether or not we really believe that the God who gave us life, showed us kindness and watched over our spirit in the past, would suddenly turn against us. Do we believe that God is always consistent? True to form? Of steady character? In the dark places of our lives, we sometimes think he has suddenly become fickle, deciding out of the blue to be vindictive, petty, or mean. Like Job, we don’t understand him all that well, nor do we understand the reasons for why his does what he does in our lives. This is where f...

“ Ruth replied, ‘Don’t urge me to leave you or to turn back from you. Where you go I will go, and where you stay I will stay. Your people will be my people and your God my God’ ” —Ruth 1:16, NIV Ruth’s words are often used in wedding ceremonies—the pledge between a wife and her new husband. In fact they were a promise made between a daughter-in-law and her mother-in-law—after the husband and son had passed off the scene. Added to that unusual circumstance, Ruth was a Moabite who was about to embark on a journey to a foreign country with a women who could make no promises in return. Naomi was going back home without her husband and her sons, without protection or the expectation of provision once she returned to Bethlehem. But the bond between the two women was held together with much more than a now defunct marriage or a shared widowhood. What Ruth saw and heard in her mother-in-law’s life during those years when Naomi and her family lived in Moab, was enough to convince Ruth ...

Psalm 28-30 I went through a period over this last year when God seemed silent. It wasn't that I thought that he had left me because I could see his hand on my life in many areas. It was just that in the areas where I wanted him to speak, he wouldn't. I felt a lot like David who wrote: " To you I call, O Lord my Rock; do not turn a deaf a ear to me. For if you remain silent, I will be like those who have gone down into the pit " —Psalm 28:1 NIV. The poet returns to a similar point in Psalm 30:7 when he writes: " …when you hid your face, I was dismayed ." In my desperation for answers that heaven was reluctant to give, I wondered if I had committed some sin that was keeping God from delivering. Since he was still blessing in other areas, that conclusion didn't make a whole lot of sense, but I asked him to examine my life anyway, to search out whatever might be causing the barrier in communication. Finding nothing that would result in such a huge ...

Transitions are always hard. I seem to need constant assurance from God that everything is going to be fine. I'm not sure that indicates a lack of faith. It's possible, but I prefer to liken it to the relationship of a young child to his parent. A child trusts implicitly that his parent will look after him, but still needs to be regularly hugged and reassured. It's a little like justification and sanctification: an already declared and certain state of being but one that is proved and lived out in the crucible of daily life. So in the midst of the insecurities of transition, I appreciated these words from Moses's charge to Israel and to Joshua at God's instruction: " Be strong and courageous. Do not fear or be in dread of them, (transitions and the insecurities they bring can be enemies) for it is the Lord your God who goes with you. He will not leave you or forsake you…Be strong and courageous, for you shall go with this people into the land that the Lord has ...

Job 25-27 These chapters are short, but powerful. Job’s description of a part of God’s works is absolutely amazing: “ He spreads out the northern skies over empty space; he suspends the earth over nothing. He wraps up the waters in his clouds, yet the clouds do not burst under their weight. He covers the face of the full moon, spreading his clouds over it. He marks out the horizon on the face of the waters for a boundary between light and darkness. The pillars of the heaven quake, aghast at his rebuke. By his power he churned up the sea; by his wisdom he cut Rahab to pieces. By his breath the skies become fair; his hands pierced the gliding serpent. And these are but the outer fringe of his works; how faint the whisper we hear of him! Who then can understand the thunder of his power? ” —Job 26:7-14. There are some who believe that if God created the world, he then left it to run on its own. From these verses we know that Job certainly wasn’t one of those. He believed that though nature...