Monthly Archives: June 2022

Morning Musings

Global Warming.

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                                                    Global Warming.    (30th  June 2022)

        We hear a lot about global warming and climate change these days, and while we cannot deny that things HAVE changed somewhat, we don’t need to worry or to think that things are out of control altogether due to what man does or doesn’t do. True, the weather does change, but it always has and it always will. That is the way it has been decreed, by the Maker of all things. When the tides were put in place due to the pull of the sun and moon, God said, “Thus far you shall come, and no further” and He reminded  the man called Job of this, saying “The proud waves shall come no further!” (Job 38:11)

   Then again, we hear that the ice cap is melting and this will make the sea rise to swamp all the lowland areas. Have you ever looked at a bottle of water that is frozen? It expands in the middle when it is frozen and when it thaws out, the water level is still exactly the same as  before it was frozen!! This can give us confidence that even if the sea DOES melt around the icecaps, the sea level can’t rise any more than before it was frozen. In many areas of the earth  where the sea freezes over, we don’t hear of the water level rising when the thaw comes. Yes, there may be floods at that time, but everything levels out again once it is all over. There is truly a wonderful Creator who has put everything in place and decreed that this is how it will stay until the end of time.

     People say, “Well, look at the Pacific Islands that are being covered by the sea now, and how much worse it will be in the years to come!”  We can’t deny that in some places, the sea is covering what used to be dry land in the past. But stop and think a moment, these islands are formed from many deposits of coral that over the years is slowly breaking down, so in actual fact, the islands are slowly sinking rather than the tide over-all getting higher!

    So take heart, there is no need to be afraid of what is being said by those who think they know. Instead, look into these things from the point of view of the Creator of all things, who looked at His Creation in the beginning when it was completed, and said, “These things are VERY good!”

Random Devotional Thoughts

Near Enough??

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    We were working on a project together, and I was thinking it  was time we were finished. “Well, that’s near enough”, I said as I put my gear down. My brother looked at it, and said, “Near enough is not good enough, Sis, you’ll have to spend a bit more time on it!” Those words have stuck with me for over fifty years, and whenever I am tempted to think “Near enough”, they come back to haunt me.

    It reminded me of a talk we heard once about King Solomon in the Bible….when King Solomon first became king, God appeared to him in a vision and told him to ask whatever he wanted and He would give it to him!  What a gift!!  Solomon asked to be given wisdom to rule his people well and wisely;  he chose what was good, but it was not the best.     We would normally think that the fact that he asked for this, was a good thing to ask for, but in his older age he stopped trusting the Lord for safety, and used his human reasoning instead. He figured that if he married princesses from the surrounding nations, that their fathers would not attack the land their daughter was in!

     But there seemed to be more and more of these princesses, and he ended up with “seven hundred wives, princesses, and three hundred concubines: and his wives turned away his heart. For it came to pass, when Solomon was old, that his wives turned away his heart after other gods: and his heart was not perfect with the LORD his God, as was the heart of David his father. And likewise did he for all his foreign wives, which burnt incense and sacrificed unto their gods. (1 Kings 11:3,4,8)”. Not only this, but he built temples for them!

    What a warning this is for us! No-one could have had a better start than Solomon did and yet he allowed himself to be swayed by the opinions of others rather than what God had told him. We have to be so careful that we continue to read what God’s Word has to say to us, and to follow what it tells us. Those who we associate with closely, have a greater influence over us than we think.

    We all know the dangers there are in our teenagers keeping company with the wrong crowd, but here was a mature man, and supposedly a very wise man, being swayed by the opinions of his many wives. Instead of him being the leader of his house, he was being led by the women of his household. He could have said his thoughts and actions were “near enough” as far as God was concerned, but they weren’t enough to keep him safe from turning away from the things of God.       So you can see that we need to be so awake to the dangers around us and not allow ourselves to be swayed by anything that will take all our thoughts….any game, club, or interest that takes all our time or thoughts needs to be pruned out of our minds!

Random Devotional Thoughts

How Clearly Can You See?

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This week I had an operation to remove cataracts that had been creeping insidiously over my eyes for some years now. I knew that my eyesight wasn’t as clear as it should have been, and when the optometrist told me  what the problem was, I knew something had to be done about it, so appointments were made and the operation done. What a difference it has made! My spectacles have been made redundant, and even for reading they are totally useless! Going down the hill into our town, I couldn’t believe how clear the trees were that covered the far hill….I can now see each individual tree! The horizon is clear cut too, and the colours brilliant!

      That is the plus of clear eyesight, but the negative side is all the cobwebs that festoon my living room that I didn’t know were there!

      It made me wonder just how clear our spiritual eyesight is…. there are many things that creep  in unawares, clouding our perceptions of things. Especially in this day and age when “every man believes what is right in his own eyes”. We are told that things we once believed implicitly, are now just “our opinion”, despite what God says about them. If that were really so, how would we know what is right and what is not just our wishful thinking?

   An old friend once had the following ditty stuck on the dashboard of his car….”God says it, I believe it, and THAT settles it!!” If we follow that saying, we will have peace of mind and heart.    If what I believe the Bible says, is NOT right, then I haven’t lost anything at all, but if my beliefs ARE right, then I have everything to gain, and my spiritual eyesight will be as clear as a sharply focused photo. It doesn’t pay to push these things into the background, but bring them out into the open and examine them thoroughly….is what God says right, or is my thinking right?

Stories for Littlies

Differences!

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I heard a sermon recently  concerning how all believers are part of the body of Christ, and as such, need to work together in unity…we are to concentrate on the things that unite us, and forget the things that are different. It reminded me of this children’s  story….

    Jack and his sister Sue were squabbling out in the yard. Jack was playing with his new toy truck, and Sue wanted to have a turn. She got very cross when Jack picked it up and ran inside. She followed him and tried to take it from him . “Leave it alone”, Jack shouted, “It’s a boy’s toy! Girls don’t play with trucks! They’re too dumb! They play with silly dolls and things!”   “Mum!” Sue wailed, “I’m  not dumb, am I?” Mum tried to keep the peace. “Of course not,” she said, “But you ARE different to Jack just the same, not silly or dumb, just different! You are both part of our family and we love you both the same. We need you both.”   Sue quietened down and left Jack to his truck while she ran to get her doll. “Not silly”, she thought, “My dolly is the best after all!”     Jack made loud engine noises, and ran his truck around among the cushions on the floor. “Silly girls!” he muttered.

    That night, after Jack had got into bed, he started thinking about what he would do with his truck the next day. His thoughts got fainter and fainter as he drifted into sleep. Suddenly he heard voices. Somehow he knew it was his head talking. It was saying to his feet….. “I don’t need you! I’m the important one! I’m at the top and you are only at the bottom end of Jack!”    “Don’t be silly”, said the feet, “Where would you go without me? But I’m a lot better than the hands, they are only halfway down Jack!”  The hands answered in a high crabby voice, “And what would put the socks and shoes on you if it weren’t for me? Besides, my fingers are a lot longer than your toes!!”    “My toes might be short, but they are just as important as your silly fingers! Remember when my little toe was sore last week? I had to hobble around to save it getting hurt worse!”      “Be quiet!” the head commanded in a loud voice, “I’m getting tired of listening to you fighting! You ALL need each other. And I need you all too. Who would put the food in my mouth if the hands didn’t work? And where would we all go if  the feet didn’t take us? It’s quite true that when one thing hurts, we all hurt with it. Why, I felt that sore toe too when it got hurt. So be quiet, and be satisfied with what you are. We are ALL important, we are just different, that’s all.  And we are all part of Jack!”

     Jack woke up with a start. It seemed so real. His different parts all arguing with each other? How silly could they be! As he snuggled down under the blankets again, he thought how glad he was that he had all those parts and that they all did different things for him. He still remembered that dream the next morning, and then thought how he and Sue had been fighting the day before. Of course they were different! She was a girl and he was a boy. But they were all part of the same family. Perhaps he could let Sue have a turn today.

Life Lessons

Who are You Following?

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    I’ve been watching a documentary on a man following migrating geese in the Northern Hemisphere, and what a fascinating watch it has been! It reminded me of the parables that our Lord told His disciples, taking things they could see and drawing lessons from them  illustrating the truths of God to them.

     The man in our story determined that these geese would know him as their parent, and he watched over the eggs every day, talking to them as they developed. Isn’t that just like our Father in Heaven watching His creatures on earth right from conception? The Psalmist in the Bible says….I was cast upon Thee from the womb: Thou art my God from my mother’s belly  (Psalm 22:10)  Some of us have needed to be called many times before we realised this, while others have had the desire for the things of God right from a very early age.  Whichever way it happened, God has had His hand on us right from the time we were born, and He will never let us go.

      When these chickens eventually hatched, the man was there with them as they came out into their new environment. Like many newborn creatures, they identified with the first moving thing they were aware of, and in this case it was the man who had watched over them so faithfully.

      As he walked along the paddock, the baby geese followed him, and in time they began to fly. As they did this, he took to the air beside them in his microlight plane. Where he went, they followed, and every night he brought them back to the safety of the pen. As he fed them, he would chatter away to them in their language as near as he could follow it.

    There were eight of these young geese that were hatched out together, and at last the instinct began to burn within them to fly to a warmer climate for the winter. There were many dangers on the way, and the young geese had to learn which things to keep away from. Sometimes they took notice of the man in his microlight beside them, while other times they had to learn from their own mistakes. How like this we are! If we would only take heed to what God tells us in His Word, what a lot of trouble we would save ourselves! Again, the Bible says, How shall a young person cleanse his ways? By taking heed to Thy Word. and, Your Word I have hidden in my heart so I will not sin against You (Psalm 119: 9, 11).

     One of these dangers was a wind farm which tended to break up the flight path of these migrating geese, but as they began to separate, the man called out to them and they regrouped in formation following his microlight.

    One evening, they could see a golf course below them and what a delightful place it seemed. All that green grass and blue ponds called to them, but there were hidden dangers there too, in the balls that came flying at them from those smooth looking greens. This reminds us of how what looks inviting and tempting can sometimes lead to disaster. Our birds were fortunate in that none of those flying balls hit them, or interfered with their journey. Unfortunately, we don’t always  get off as freely as our birds. Sometimes we suffer the consequences of our own behaviour, and other times God steps in with an accident or some other way to bring us up with a round turn. What sometimes seems a total disaster, God can turn into good….Joseph could tell his brothers that what they meant for evil to him, God turned it into good for all of them (Genesis 50:20) and Paul tells us in the New Testament that ALL things work together for good to those who love Him (Romans 8:28)

      But this was not the end of the journey for our birds, and once again they all took to the air. The man knew what lay in store for them, and he knew what the end would be….they would have to leave these lush looking grounds and go it alone into the wide blue sky without him at their side. But they were not totally alone….even though the man could not go the rest of the way with them, a flock of migrating geese from elsewhere caught up with them, and our birds joined in with them and they were able to put into practice what the man had taught them up to this point.

    This is where our parable changes. As we go towards our heavenly goal, we do not have to fear being left alone at the end of our journey….it is not a crowd of heavenly beings that join with us, but our Lord Himself who takes us to Himself, even through death….He will never leave us. We only need to hang onto the words of Psalm 23 to have this assurance….even in the Valley of the Shadow of death, I will fear no evil, for You are with me, Your rod and Your staff comfort me.

     Let’s see that we each one do this, for it is the only way of no fear in our life journey right through to the end.