When your kids say they're homesick!

When your kids say they are homesick what can you do?

Really there is nothing that can be said or done to make that feeling go away. I think it is just a nicer way of saying that they are grieving. And when someone is grieving you just be there for them, embrace their sorrow, and pray for their comfort. Not much else you can do!

It does help to have talks in between greiving that make it a little easier when those times do come. A good verse is that the Lord is close to the broken hearted to remind us all that this sorrow is not ignored nor is it pampered by the Lord who was greived and sorrowful as well.

But in the end, no amount of sermonizing can stop grieving nor should it try to do so. The inbetween talks and verses from scripture or just wise sayings are meant to simply encourage before, after and during hard times.

Good to know that God is Good all the Time!

The Friendliest of Experiences

It suddenly dawned on me the other day that our hopes and dreams are directly connected to our fears. I wondered if there is a single hope out there in the universe that doesn’t have a fear or a few fears attached to it. Sort of like the two sides of a coin, one side is the hope you hold out for something and the other is the fear that that hope will not work out. Think about it for a second, what is one thing you are hoping for right now? Now, is there a fear attached to it? I would be surprised if there would be a single person out there that would deny the presence of fear hiding somewhere in the shadow of a hope.
My hopes here are of course that all would go well, that our family would thrive even under all the various stresses of moving here. I hope that our finances will be provided for us, our church will grow with new believers, and strong Christians who are moving to the area and need a good church. I hope for health and strength emotionally, physically, mentally and spiritually to meet the challenges that each day brings. These are just a few of my hopes in a long and over worked list of hopes. But each one has a "what if" kind of fear that is lurking around the corners of my heart and mind. It seems to try and eat away at my faith and my hopes.
How do we deal with such fears? Move on, pretend they are not there? Sometimes I suppose, but what about prayer? I prayed that God would take all my hopes and dreams and each fear I could think of that was associated with them all and surrendered them to Him! The fears left and the hopes grew stronger. I think prayer has got to be one of the friendliest experiences of a human beings life. Conversations with a God who is your friend and has your best interests in mind. What a great faith we have. Cast all your cares on him for he cares for you.
God is Good All the Time.

sermons online

I went to preach at a friends church this morning and he showed me how to put my sermons online. He recorded mine from today so that I could put it on the website called "Twango". On the side of my blog I now have a link you can follow to this site if you want to hear my sermon or you could just click this link and listen here to the sermon. I will be trying to put more up as the days go by if you are interested in hearing what I am preaching these days. The next step for me is to figure out how to go about recording my sermons at ICC so I can put them on this website. Hopefully I will get that done soon.
God is Good All the Time! OOPS! I guess you need a password to get into my sermon site. type in kevinnichol in the ID slot and then peachy07 in the password slot and you should be able to listen to the sermons. If you get lost just type in nichol in the top search bar and it should take you back to me.

Ministry and Money

I guess one could say that the penny has dropped and now we are fully aware of what it meant to leave Canada with only a small portion of our needed funding. I wish we could just not have to think about money and the raising of it but that is not the reality we live in. This week during a few unguarded moments I was having a bit of a pity party. I can’t remember when we have ever really brought in a decent wage. I have worked my butt off for more than 20 years of ministry and most of that time we have been well underpaid. But I suppose it is part of the world of church and ministry we live in. Making money is not why I do what I do but sometimes ya just gotta wonder. Money makes the world go round and it certainly cost lots of money to minister the word of God. I wonder how those TV guys get away with making millions from their TV preaching programs. There is money out there in the kingdom for that kind of ministry. I suppose I could go on gripping about this whole thing but it wouldn’t help one little bit. I have to ruthlessly trust that God will provide regardless of how I feel in my unguarded moments. I guess that discouragement is on the other side of this feeling if I don’t guard my heart for out of it flows the wellspring of life. There now that just feels a bit better! Sorry if you had to read this I guess I should have put the disclaimer at the beginning of the blog. Caution: Dangerous whining in progress!
God is Good All the Time!