Marching Forth!

In our family, we love board games.  Playing a game together is one of our first choices on a family night.  One of the games in our closet is called "10 Days in Asia," a favourite of Laura.  Players can walk or use a airplane or train to connect their international destinations.  Being a person who loves to organise things, Laura plays the game exceptionally well.  Cambodia is one of the countries in the game, and a country God-willing I will visit on a 10 day trip that begins tomorrow. Cambodia is historically a country that has endured much suffering at the hands of its leadership.  During the years spanning 1975 to 1979, nearly two million people were killed at the command of Pol Pot of the Khmer Rouge .  It was a tragedy of such immensity the wounds have only begun to heal.  The hurt is so profound that even time can hardly numb the pain:  only God has the power to redeem such misery.  Wherever the Gospel goes, love, hope, and joy...

Christmas Eve and 40 degrees Celsius in the shade!  Converted to Fahrenheit, that is a toasty 104 degrees.  As I sit in my sweltering non-air conditioned house baking birthday cakes to celebrate the birth of Jesus Christ, I can hear thunder rumbling in the distance.  Maybe we will have a downpour or some hail before the day is over.  But I didn't drag myself up the stairs to post on this blog just for a weather report, as interesting or unimportant it may be. Yesterday we had the pleasure to accept a friend's invitation to a Christmas carol presentation at his church.  It was a grand affair with thousands in attendance, bright lights, skilled musicians, talented vocals, and booming volume.  As I was singing along with "God Rest Ye Merry Gentlemen," I noticed one of the opening three lines was curiously omitted.  It has come back to mind several times today, and therefore I feel compelled to expound upon the deleted line. The familiar carol begins, ...

I have met many people who are professing Christians but cannot see the need to regularly attend church.  There are a vast amount of good reasons to do so.  The primary reason is that God's Word commands us to.  Hebrews 10:23-25 reads, " Let us hold fast the confession of our hope without wavering, for He who promised is faithful. 24 And let us consider one another in order to stir up love and good works, 25 not forsaking the assembling of ourselves together, as is the manner of some, but exhorting one another, and so much the more as you see the Day approaching ."  Gathering together to pray, worship God through song and the preaching of God's Word are also modeled throughout scripture.  Because all born again Christians are part of the universal Body of Christ, we have all been given talents and gifts to glorify God and edify the church.  It is impossible to edify a local or international Body of Christ without personal involvement. God lament...

We live in a rotten world.  It is a world of unspeakable beauty yet unfathomable evil because of the deeds of the wicked.  It is the wicked who kill the innocent and their shed blood cries out for justice, justice only satisfied by an eternal, holy God.  Inevitably in times of grief we shift our gaze from the individual perpetrators and take aim at society as a whole.  What could have been done to prevent such tragedies like Columbine and Sandy Hook Elementary?  When it is so fresh, what can we do but weep?  It sometimes feels like the pain of the victims, their families, and even the perpetrators are lost in the ensuing debate.  Since sane people cannot fathom what exactly drives a person to such insanity, we can only stab in the dark for answers.  For every suggestion, it seems there are more who disagree than agree. It has been said that an ounce of prevention is worth a pound of cure.  The trouble is, all the prevention in the world ca...

" Then the LORD turned to him and said, "Go in this might of yours, and you shall save Israel from the hand of the Midianites. Have I not sent you ?" Judges 6:14 The tasks God calls His people to undertake will always require faith.  These will always be greater tasks than a man can accomplish in his own strength.  The Israelites had been greatly impoverished by the Midianites who brutally oppressed them.  God called Gideon and said to him, " The LORD is with thee, thou mighty man of valour ."  Gideon did not look or feel the part.  He certainly was unable to destroy the Midianites on his own or he would already would have tried to do it!  It was God that prompted him to even consider the crazy notion of massing a force to defeat the mighty Midianites.  It was God and His mighty sword that routed the Midianite nation. God said to Gideon, " Go in this might of yours !"  It was not that Gideon himself was mighty.  Because God was with hi...

I am blessed to be the dad of two budding men aged 13 and 10.  It dawned on me the other day how fast the time is going.  It was depressing to think that in 5 years Zed could leave for university or that my wife and I could have an empty nest in less than a decade.  Whoa.  A lot can change in that amount of time, but it saddened me just the same. Years ago at a men's retreat, the LORD gave me a vision of our Jeep Grand Cherokee.  It was wrecked beyond imagination, a twisted mess of metal.  I just knew my family was in there when the crash happened.  It literally made me cry, thinking about their deaths and what an empty loneliness it would leave inside me.  In that profoundly sad moment, I rejoiced that God did not take my family from me.  He wasn't showing me a picture of the future (we have sold the Jeep!).  But I heard His still small voice tell me that I needed to give them back to Him.  I needed to give them away.  That ...

I love the book Do Hard Things by Alex and Brett Harris.  It is a challenge to all people to boldly undertake tasks bigger than yourself with faith in God for His glory.  While it is true that a chronic problem exists in society of holding low expectations for youth, people of all ages have a propensity to abandon tasks when faced with obstacles.  Christians can adopt an unfounded idea that because God is in us, the Christian life is similar to a cake-walk at a fair:  you have your ticket in your hand, walk around in a circle prompted by happy music, and in a couple minutes you'll have your pick of a sweet dessert.  Christianity is not the life you've always wanted - it is the life God has designed for you to embrace.  It is a life of doing hard things that God does through willing vessels completely committed to Him. In Australia we have a saying.  When someone chooses to do hard things, they are "doing the hard yards."  Everyone loves the ide...