What times are these?

by Anne Elmer

What times are these? Difficult times, a time of recession, times of change, times of transition, the end times? So much is being said at the moment about the times we are living in that I felt nudged to read once more that beautiful passage from Ecclesiastes 3:1-8:

“There is a time for everything, and a season for every activity under heaven:
A time to be born and a time to die; a time to plant and a time to uproot.
A time to kill and a time to heal; a time to tear down and a time to build.
A time to weep and a time to laugh; a time to mourn and a time to dance.
A time to scatter stones and a time to gather them; a time to embrace and a time to refrain.
A time to search and a time to give up; a time to keep and a time to throw away.
A time to tear and a time to mend; a time to be silent and a time to speak.
A time to love and a time to hate; a time for war and a time for peace.”

If you have time, I recommend that you look into the Hebrew meanings of some of those comparisons. But the general message is that the God who lives outside time (that concept is too big for my imagination) wants us to understand that everything has its time.

At any moment in our time, there are individuals, families, communities and even countries experiencing some or all of these things mentioned above.

What time is it for you at the moment? If you are living in good times personally and spiritually, then be strengthened and prepared for the next season, because surely it will come. If you are going through a difficult time, then be encouraged because it will have its season and its close. God uses the times and seasons in our lives to test us, train us, and prepare us for what is coming next.

One thing you can be sure of, whatever time you think it is for you, the Lord has a plan for your life, and you are alive today because God wants it that way (read Psalm 139 to be reassured). He knows where you are living, what you are doing or not doing, who is around you, and it is more than probable that God has put you right there.

You are Living in Your Time

What time are you living in? I want to say, you are living in your time; the time for you. God's plan is that you are alive now to help fulfill His purposes on the earth. Yes, our seasons of life change, but Jesus' Words don't. He still says to his followers, "Go in My name and make disciples" (see Matt. 28:19). He still tells us to heal the sick, cast out demons and speak in other tongues (see Mark 16:16-18). He still invites us, as he did Peter, to get out of the boat (see Matt. 14:29).

Maybe you don't agree; maybe you are thinking: "The Lord says, 'Be still and know that I am God,'" and of course you are right, but that time of being still will pass as well. And even if we are being still, then we must still pray without ceasing (1 Thess. 5:17), for those who treat us poorly (Luke 6:28), for those in authority (1 Tim. 2:2), and many, many more.

Maybe your argument is that you are a nobody who can do nothing worthwhile. Maybe the circumstances of your birth are nothing to be proud of. Please understand that the God who is outside time as we know it does not sit and scratch His head and say, "Oh dear, another baby! What are we going to do with that one; we need to rewrite the plan for humanity!"

My friend, you are not a nobody, you are not an accident. You are important in God's Kingdom. God wants you here, now, today. You are not here because somewhere in your family line a contraceptive pill was forgotten or someone drank too much, or someone was abused. You are not here because way back in the generations something secret happened in a hidden place. No! You are here today because God has a plan for your life. Just look back through two or three generations, and see what lengths God went to to secure your birth.

In my own life here in western Europe, my parents and grandparents survived two world wars. My paternal grandfather, in the first year of his marriage, had a very serious accident in a stone quarry blast. This took his sight, but his life was preserved. By chance? No, the will of God for a future generation. My maternal grandfather survived many accidents working in a coal mine. Was he just very lucky? No. God wanted him to give life to my mother, so that I and my children and my grandchildren would be born. I haven't mentioned plane crashes, road accidents, natural disasters, and all the other dangers God protects us from in order to fulfill His purposes.

What times are these? They are your times, they are my times. It is time for us to be the people God is calling us to be. Let's do it in His strength, in His name, and in His time.

____________

Author of  Transported by the Lion of Judah, Anne Elmer lives in France with her husband, Malgwyn.

Farewell but not goodbye to Louise Cooper

by Bill Gliddon, St. George’s organist and choirmaster

Louise Cooper’s arrival in Haliburton and her association with both the Haliburton Highlands Secondary School (HHSS) and St. George’s began 40 years ago, in 1969. A terrific math teacher and Guidance Counselor at the high school, she also began a long and much appreciated term as organizer and secretary of the HHSS Scholarship Fun. Deserving graduates received bursaries, awards and scholarships thanks in large part to Louise’s work.

Joining St. George’s choir that same year, she became a valuable addition to our small alto section. The next year she brought in her son Paul as a new member of the Junior Choir, and in later years her wonderful husband Sid joined the bass section.

With her organizational skills, Louise quickly became ‘choir mother,’ responsible for gowns, books and supplies. Those same skills proved valuable when she also took on the role of church treasurer. Louise assisted in so many facets of our choir and church life and will be greatly missed.

We pray God’s blessings on her as she goes to live nearer her son Paul and his family.

Bill Gliddon thanks Louise Cooper for her years of dedicated service while choir joins congregation in standing ovation (photo by Krystyna Stanton)

Rejoicing Always

(excerpted from Graham Cooke's October Newsletter)

Living in Christ makes us vulnerable to laughter. Laughter is more than a choice; it’s a requirement for us that we be happy. God’s highest plan for our lives includes a desire for us to find, live in, and love the joy that is in Christ. God is good news! His love and presence is an absolute tonic for us. “These things I have spoken to you, that My joy may remain in you, and that your joy may be full,” Jesus said in John 15:11.

Every time God speaks to us, or reveals more of His nature to us, joy is part of that equation. Beholding Him and becoming like Him is an invitation to party and celebrate with Him. Everything God says to us is designed to bring us into joy. Everything in the Kingdom of Heaven is about gladness, joy, happiness, and laughter. God wants to bring a smile to our faces.

God is joyful because He knows what’s coming next. He knows the final score. When you know the end from the beginning, you can’t help but laugh at all of evil’s schemes and tricks. They become irrelevant when you know that you win. There is a continuous joy in Christ that runs so deep that no one else can even touch it. But to access it, we need to learn how to rejoice in all things.

For me, joy is a safeguard. It’s a shield against the enemy. When the enemy comes, we can laugh in his face—because God laughs at him first.

I once had a dream where I was on a battlefield. We had just fought off the enemy, but we had lost a lot of good people. There weren’t many of us left; we were small and pitiful, to be honest. Every one of us was wounded. I myself had at least a dozen sword gashes on my arms. I was bleeding badly, and was absolutely exhausted.

Suddenly, a trumpet blew, and I saw another enemy army take the field in front of us. I looked around but saw no reinforcements for our battered side. The enemy was powering up. Their ranks were swelling with every passing moment. It was a hopeless fight, but our ragtag band of survivors gathered close together and got ready.

As I set my feet and gritted my teeth in preparation for the enemy’s charge, I noticed a man next to me was dressed as a restaurant waiter. Perfectly-pressed black trousers, a bowtie, a crisp, white shirt, and a white towel slung over his arm.

“What are you doing?” I asked incredulously.

“Would you like the melon or the soup?” he replied.

“What?” I asked.

“Melon or soup?” he said.

“How can you talk about food at a time like this?” I demanded.

The waiter ignored me and went from person to person, asking, “Melon or soup?”

“Are you mad?” I said. “Don’t you see what’s happening? Don’t you see the blood all over the ground? Don’t you see the enemy over there? How can you talk about lunch at a time like this?”

“Mmm-hmm,” he answered. “Melon or soup?”

I lost my temper completely. “Are you stupid or something?” I screamed. “You want to talk about food at a time like this?”

Suddenly, I woke up to find myself shouting, “Talk about food!” in my bedroom. In that instant, I received a powerful revelation, found in Psalm 23:5—“You prepare a table before me in the presence of my enemies.”

When we’re on the battlefield just trying to survive the next wave of the enemy, God is thinking about menus. He looks around and says, “What a great place for a picnic! We can have sausage rolls, meat pies, cheese sandwiches. This will be perfect.” He is so secure in who He is and in His power to defeat any enemy that He can feed us in the middle of the worst battle of our lives. And that confidence should be a source of pure joy in our lives.

Making cleanliness next to Godliness

As flu season sneaks up on us again, people seem more panicked than usual at additional threats from the H1N1 virus (aka ‘Swine Flu’).

“Cleanliness is next to Godliness” your mother or grandmother may have reminded you way back when. In this little reflection, we’ll see how to make it begin to come true!

Obviously among your best defenses against flu are good sanitary practices: washing hands frequently, sneezing into your sleeve, not re-using tissues, keeping fingers away from your face (especially eyes and mouth).

Another obvious help we receive free thanks to our government: flu shots. Get yours. You’re protecting yourself as well as all those you come in contact with.

Hand-sanitizers―now appearing in churches, hospitals, supermarkets, washrooms, wherevers—offer another small step not only in staying healthy ourselves, but also in helping us avoid a flu pandemic.

Here however is a new way to think/react each time you use one of those hand-sanitizers. Just as that disinfectant helps purify our hands and helps us stay healthy and considerate of others, so our ‘being the church’ should help us remain close to God, and, simultaneously, help us prevent an epidemic of wandering from God.

So pause for a second next time you're rubbing some of that stuff into your hands! While your hands are together, join them as if in prayer:

“That my hands may be the hands of Christ, bringing the healing touch of prayer, praise and perseverance into the world.” Selah.

[Idea originated in an article by the Rev. John Ohmer, rector of St. James’ Episcopal Church in Leesburg, Virginia & published in their Nov. 2/09 St. James’ Episcopal Church e-Pistle. Thanks to Lynne Johnston for passing it along.]

Healing choices: controlled by circumstances or character?

(adapted from a Rick Warren daily devotional)

When we say things such as, 'That makes me so mad . . . so sad . . . feel so bad,' we’re actually admitting that circumstances control the way we feel. Yet, we do have a choice. We have the ability to make healing choices. We can choose to remain positive; we can choose to not let some circumstance 'make' us mad.

The ability to control our reactions, to handle hurt without retaliating is called meekness. Jesus promised, "Blessed are the meek, for they will inherit the earth" (Matthew 5:5 NIV). Meek people control their reactions toward life, and this gives them far more control over a situation than if they simply react.

If you are a meek person, you are no longer a victim. You control your choices. The best definition of meekness in the Bible is Proverbs 16:32: "It is better to win control over yourself than over whole cities" (TEV).

During World War II, the noted psychiatrist Victor Frankl was a prisoner in the concentration camp at Auschwitz. He said, "They took my clothes, my wife, my kids, my wedding ring. I stood naked before the SS and I realized they can take everything in my life, but they cannot take my freedom to choose how I will respond to them."

That is a freedom you will always have. How do I react? How do I choose to react to those people who hurt me?

Jesus says we will be blessed when we show self-control. You might be thinking, 'That leaves me out! I can't control my reactions! I can't get them under control!' The secret of controlling your reaction is letting God's Spirit fill your life moment-by-moment. He'll break all those bad habits, all those patterns of reacting, all those old ways of being negative, defensive―reacting in fear, in anger, in sarcasm. He can break all those old patterns in your life and fill your life with power, love, and self-control (2 Timothy 1:7).

Some of us are stressed out by life, by circumstances, by relationships. What do we need more than anything else? We need to develop the quality of meekness; the quality of controlling our reactions by the Spirit God has placed in us.

What God seeks

More than anything, God seeks our love.

God's great commandment is that we love Him, ultimately, with all our mind, heart, soul and strength. As we do, we fulfill all He requires of us (see John 14:15). And it is as we love Him that He orchestrates all things to work together for our good (see Rom. 8:28).

Beloved, loving God is not hard. We can fulfill any assignment – auto mechanic or housewife, doctor or college student – and still give great pleasure to our heavenly Father. We do not need ministry titles to love the Lord. Indeed, God measures the value of our lives by the depth of our love. This is what He requires of every true God seeker: to love Him where we're at.

_____________
Excerpted & adapted from Francis Frangipane's newest book on seeking God (currently untitled), due out in November.

God’s Goodness will pursue you!

“Surely your goodness . . . will pursue me all the days of my life”
— King David in Psalm 23:6 (NLT)

Even in the middle of your hurts, habits, and hang-up, God is watching over you. King David is not saying, "Surely only good things are going to happen to me!" He knew as well as anyone that bad things happen to good people.

David’s point is only that God’s goodness will follow after or pursue him. No matter how bad, evil, or difficult something seems, God will work it out for good.

It’s one of God’s great promises that He has given to believers: We know all that happens to us is working for our good—if we love God and are fitting into his plans (Romans 8:28). If you're a believer, the Bible says all things are working together for good—not that all things are good—but working together for good.

There is no difficulty, dilemma, defeat, or disaster in the life of a believer that God can’t ultimately turn toward His purpose

(Adapted from a Rick Warren devotional)