Just Thinking

When things get dark.

One of my favorite books, you know, one of those ones you keep reading again and again, is “God Was In This Place & I Did Not Know It” by Rabbi Lawrence Kushner. It’s a collection of various rabbis understandings and thoughts on the passage in Genesis 28:16 where Jacob wakes up from a dream and exclaims … well, he yells the title to Rabbi Lawrence’s book.  It has been a constant reminder to me to be aware of God’s presence with me at all times.  It always amazes me how blind we are to the miraculous that hides just behind the ordinary, and just beneath the mundane minutiae of our daily lives.  It’s one of the things about my character that I am most frustrated with.  This past week was another reminder for me. Read more…

So, this morning my friend Robin sent me a link to a cartoonist’s blog name Jon Birch.  I spent a few minutes looking over some of his past posts; chuckling at times, thinking at times, and even getting a little irritated.  His work is definitely thought provoking and very difficult to dismiss.  You should check it out!

One of his cartoons caught my eye and made me think about a conversation I had with my friend Tim a few weeks ago. Read more…

'Till Death Do We Part

I’ve been married for 13 years to an absolutely amazing woman.  I definitely got the better end of the deal there, but I have a bad habit: I take her for granted.  Now, while it’s certainly not okay that I do it, I’m pretty sure I’m in good company.  In fact, most guys I know take their wives for granted everyday.  It’s something we’re all prone to do, and it doesn’t just stop with our relationships. Read more…

"Casting their nets..."

Sometimes I chuckle when I’m reading a passage of scripture.  I mean, there are some pretty funny parts in it.  For example, when Matthew is telling us about Jesus going into the desert to fast for forty days he says this, “After fasting forty days and forty nights, he was hungry.”  I always laugh at that.  Did Matthew really think he needed to add, “he was hungry”?  Did he honestly think we wouldn’t catch that? Read more…

So a few weeks ago I was down in the states for a friends wedding.  My buddy Aaron and his fiance, Joanna, were scheduled to exchange their vows, and commit themselves to each other for the rest of their lives and they felt that I should be present to witness this occasion.

Some people would have seen my role as a legal witness, others would have seen it as a spiritual witness, but I feel that my role was to look sexy in my tux (A role I feel I accomplished completely.) Read more…

What Not To Wear

I was surfing through the channels the other day and I ran across a show I used to watch all the time: What Not To Wear! Lately, I’ve put on a few pounds and have outgrown some of my favorite outfits, so I was thinking how much I would love to win a $5000.00 shopping spree in New York.  My friend and I have even talked about buying a bunch of ugly used clothes and trying to pretend that they’re my normal clothes to see if I can get on the show.  :)  I even went on the show’s website and did some of the quizzes.  I’m proud to say I did so well I scored a “Shut up!  You’re so fashion forward” from Stacey.   Not bad, if I do say so myself.  The truth is, one of the reasons I like the show so much is that they try to find an image that works well for the person they’re working with, rather than just trying to shove something else on them.   It’s not about a random image, or fashion trend, but, instead, it’s about figuring out what image best suits the individual. Read more…

Holy Spirit, fall like rain.

It’s raining today, here in Barrie.  In fact, it’s raining pretty hard.  I like watching the water flowing along the street when it’s raining hard enough to keep a decent amount of water there, watching the drops dance when they slam against the wet pavement.

For some reason I got thinking about the Holy Spirit.  The idea of the Holy Spirit falling like rain is a fairly popular idea in modern worship songs.   Hillsong put out a song a while ago that says, “Holy Spirit, rain down, rain down, Oh Comforter and Friend, How we need Your touch again,Holy Spirit, rain down, rain down.” I’m not sure we mean that though.   I’m not sure we really think through some of the metaphors we use in our worship, really examine what they mean, and what the implications are.   The truth is, I think there’s a bit of danger in that.  So often we fail to realise that everything we do is teaching something somehow to everyone involved.   So what are we teaching people when we say that the Holy Spirit is like rain? Read more…

I thought I’d post the video from my message this past Sunday.  We were looking at the life of Joseph and some of the ways he managed to survive a life in the pits.  I should warn you that it’s a pretty large file.  :)

Download the message video here.

No food allowed.

Why does fasting make time feel like it’s going slow?

Okay, so let me explain what’s going on in my head and heart these days.  I think God wants me to fast for a while this summer, and I don’t want to.

Last Monday, Carrie and I, and the kids all headed down to Toronto to visit the Science Centre for a family day.   As we were heading down the Don Valley Parkway, we drove by a skyscraper that had some window washers hanging off the side of the building.   These workers weren’t the ones that get to stand in those big huge metal cages, but instead they were sitting on what looked like an old wooden swing hanging hundreds of feet above the pavement below.  I was pumped.   I said to Carrie, that I would love to get a part-time job doing that in Toronto.  The truth is, I would probably even do it for free, just for the thrill of getting to rappel down the side of a building like that.  I was telling my friend Tim about that and he just quivered.   See, Tim is uncomfortable with heights.   I was going to say that he is afraid of heights, but that’s not really true anymore.   This summer he’s been working on the roof of a house he’s building, so that’s helped a little with his fear of heights, so I’d say that he’s graduated to just being extremely uncomfortable with heights.  We all have different fears. Read more…

To often we miss the purpose of the blessings in our lives and get myopic rather than outward focused.  Why is that?

Watch \”Blessed For Blessing\” on YouTube.