viewoutsidethepew

When troubles come, especially the ones which we cause to ourselves, we can change our ways or blame someone else for the mess we made of it.

If you smoke and then get cancer, don’t blame God. If you eat the wrong foods a lot don’t blame God for your heart problems. If you grouch at people, gossip and criticise don’t blame God (or people) for your loneliness. And so on…

Now, on the other hand, the Bible does teach that God does bring problems on people sometimes. Read more…

Twenty years ago we lived in a house completely surrounded by trees. One night, after midnight, we heard the scream of a baby in pain. We got up and searched, thinking someone may have thrown a baby from a car into the trees. Despite the cries we could not locate the baby.

Finally I felt inspired to look up into the trees. There it was up a tree! Read more…

Even fine spiritual Followers of the Way can get swept up in the flurry of activity, parties, planning and, whatever at the end of December and to start the new calendar. As the culture-imposed hectic season begins to wind down a worthy exercise would now make sense, to assess why we do what we do the way we do. Read more…

I want to share a Merry Christmas to my blogging Community. This gives me a chance to say again how much value there is to me to have people from all over the world sharing faith in Jesus. Even though it is unlikely that Jesus was born in December (my research leads me to consider a Passover date in the spring the most likely) we cannot know the date. God hid it on purpose, obviously. Read more…

Today autumn turned to winter. The scientists said so. This year, the weather agreed.

A winter storm blows across a large area of southern Canada and into the USA. For me, it felt good to have snow on the ground, even if we didn’t get hit hard by this storm system.

Fresh snow, when it covers the ground, creates an almost magical effect. It sparkles. Before human contact the clean surface builds a treasure for the eye. Read more…