Yearly Archives: 2016

Some days thinking back and imagining a previous season is just plain fun.

In the last while, I’ve been jotting down some phrases that might make for good titles, beginnings of blogs and just fun word play.  Here are a few:

• Stumbling blocks or stepping stones
• Passion leads to impatience
• Forgive:  suffer to become less intense
• True hearted and right minded
• Reverential work
• Our voices are a treasury of sampled sounds
• Instructional versus relational
• When purity of doctrine trumps love of others

I’m looking out my relative’s window at a small pond.  Our Christmas festivities will be fun, with possibly cleaning off the pound and shuffling around the ice.

The water’s edge was the location of cities in the past.  We all need to have water.  Without ease of access to aqueducts and pipes, the easiest thing is to locate next to the water.  Simplicity of access and maintenance sure beats some of the headaches of pipelines.

The water’s edge was the location of fun times and beach play.  We all need to have re-creation time.  Without ease of access to internet and video games, the easiest thing is to locate next to a space that allows for games and adventure.  Simplicity of access and the ability to just walk out the door sure beats some of the headaches of digital complications.

The water’s edge reminds us that things change and we need to take advantage of whatever comes our way.  From the choppy waves to the smooth ice, you can enjoy the environment.  Or you can choose to complain. 

So, even if all I do this festive season is look at the water’s edge, I’ll be reminded that creation is a good thing – and the creator intended this world for our enjoyment.

What a great title!

I guess for quite a while I have struggled with the word repentance.  I’ve come to see the term as referring to a change, a turning around, a conscious choice.  Unfortunately, I have seen the term used to bludgeon others, to condemn others who aren’t like us, to expect that the turning is all that is important.

The word “into” is the term I would like to attach to the term “repent”.  Just knowing what is bad is bad enough.  Not knowing what is good is really bad.

The list of bad needs to be accompanied by a list of good. 

Into the later decades of life, few people repent of the learning that they have done over the decades.  Merely pointing out to them that something is bad is not enough.  They have survived the bad.

Pointing out what they are repenting into is much more effective.  Building a picture that portrays paradise, when they are surviving in hell, is much more effective than painting a picture of the hell they already live in.  They know that hell, and they are surviving in that hell.  They want a hope of paradise – of a resurrection from death into life.

I like the term “Merry Christmas”!

For God so loved the world that he gave his one and only son so that whoever believes in him should not perish but have everlasting life.  Christ came into the world, not to condemn the world, but that the world through him might be saved.  (Scripture passage – John 3:16-17)