Redeeming Halloween

Halloween has turned into a very ghoulish event with more and more cemeteries, skeletons and grinning skulls showing up on people's lawns each year. I have always liked the dressing up and candy collecting parts of this annual event, but I can't stand the macabre parts. In fact, I wonder what parents who are usually so protective of their children are thinking when they expose them to hawk-nosed witches, groaning corpses in caskets and haunted houses filled with ghosts. Mocking evil and death may be our way of turning up our noses at the Grim Reaper, but it is hardly conducive to a child's good sleep.
Thankfully, kids have a way of focusing on the costumes and the treats, making it a good experience over all. In the meantime, others have found ways to redeem the night so that good still trumps evil.
Among those redeeming Halloween are the teenagers from various church youth groups in the area who will be out collecting food for the local foodbanks. When you see them coming to the door, trick or treating for hope, receive them with respect and give them some groceries. In so doing, on the most ghoulish night of the year, you can, in the words of a Bruce Cockburn song, help them "kick at the darkness 'til it bleeds daylight."

Close Call

The best laid plans of mice and men can quickly go awry, as Robert Burns said in his poetic apology to a field mouse after overturning her nest while plowing a field. Last night our lives almost went terribly awry when the pickup truck we were following lost a ladder. The truck had just passed a slow car and sped away, putting a lot of distance between himself and following traffic. Then we also passed, moved back into our lane, and suddenly saw ten feet of aluminum lying on the edge of the pavement, a disaster waiting to happen. Had we still been following the truck more closely, we would surely have been hit! Thankfully, the ladder had fallen parallel to the shoulder of the road, rather than sideways across the highway and we easily skirted it while the pickup driver parked and waited to retrieve it.
Some might say that we were lucky. I prefer to say that we experienced God's provision and protection and that He had other plans for us.
I encourage you to also live your life with an open-eyed awareness of His provision, protection and good plans for you.

Still Thankful

Apparently, it's a rare thing for everyone to get along in a family. But by some miracle, whenever my siblings and all of our spouses get together, we have a fabulous time. That's ten adults, each a leader in his or her own right, who can be together for a week without one person ruining it for everybody else.
For us, it begins with liking each other. And it continues with all of us accepting each other, quirks and all.
Perhaps the real key to our compatibility is another rarety: all ten of us love Jesus and are actively involved in a local church. All of our parents get a lot of credit for modeling joyful commitment to each other and to the Lord. But God gets all the glory for five couples in their fifties who enjoy each other's company and still have a living faith despite life's ups and downs.
A family wedding last weekend brought us together. And once again we talked non-stop and wished we could spend still more time with each other. That's why, despite feelings of sadness about their departure, I'm still thankful four days after the Thanksgiving weekend.

There But For the Grace of God Go We

The news that David Dewees, the Grade Ten teacher from Toronto accused of sexual luring over the internet, committed suicide over the weekend is devastating not only to his students and colleagues, but to all of us. Such a desperate act! We can only imagine this young teacher's agony as he made his way to the subway station and placed himself before an approaching train. We can only imagine the confusion and pain of every young person he ever taught at school or led at Camp Pioneer. We can only imagine the horror and sorrow of his parents and family.
At times like this we must rely on God's grace and remember that Jesus died for us while we were yet sinners. This includes Christians who struggle with double lives or face the future without hope.
If the charges against him are proven to be true, we will need to pray for any and all the victims of his alleged sexual abuse. In the meantime, our prayers are with his extended family and all the kids who experienced him as a wonderful role model.
As we sort out our own feelings, let's be quick to admit "There but for the grace of God go I" and examine our own lives for anything that would hurt others and harm the cause of Christ.

A Devastating Week

It's been a devastating week for the Christian faith. The Catholic bishop who brokered a $13 million dollar settlement with the sexual abuse victims of the Mount Cashel orphanage in the Maritimes has allegedly been caught with kiddie porn on his laptop. A 32 year old Toronto teacher has been charged with sexually luring two teenagers that he met while working as a camp counselor at Camp Pioneer, a Christian camp in Huntsville. Not unexpectedly, many people are more suspicious than ever about anything related to the church and to Christianity.
I hope that these two men will get the help that they need, that their alleged victims will find healing and that the cause of Christ will not be harmed. I also pray that Christians everywhere, including all of us at Hope Fellowship, will take stock of our personal and private lives and make daily choices that lead us closer to the Lord, instead of farther away. This bishop and this teacher are not the only ones struggling with sin; their exposure and the devastating aftermath may be just the wake up call that many of us need with respect to our own vices, temptations and deceits.

Fear or Faith

Fear keeps driving the world in a negative, downward direction. It's contagious and making even believers afraid of the future. Will I have a job next week? Will I be able to give next month? When will I become one of the layoff statistics? For times like this, faith is the only antidote. We have to trust that the Lord will give us our daily bread and more. We have to relax in God's identity as "Jehovah Jireh", the one who will provide in even the most desperate circumstances. What is faith for, if not for a time like this! As Christians this is an opportune time to let our neighbours and colleagues see what it means to trust in God and to give all of our cares, worries and fears over to him. Rooseveld was right when he said, "The only thing to fear is fear itself." And the apostle Paul had it even more right when he said, "The Lord is near. Do not be anxious about anything."

Watching the snow fall

Authentic worship is not possible unless we recover three "in's". First, we need to be "in awe " of God. As I watch the snow fall through my window, I realize that the number of flakes that fall in one minute on the tiny patch of the world that I can see is more than the world's biggest number. Multiply that by all of the snowflakes that have fallen on the world since time began. Then consider that each snowflake is different. If that doesn't fill you with awe for God, I don't know what will. I am definitely "in awe " of God today, and I urge you to recover your awe for him so that you will see the glory of the Lord filling your life. I'll tackle the other two "in's" in my next two blogs.