And this is what it looked like this week in my current home town of Peachland...need I say more!
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Monday, October 30, 2006
A Study in Contrasts
This is what this week looked like in my home town of Beaverlodge Alberta
And this is what it looked like this week in my current home town of Peachland...need I say more!
And this is what it looked like this week in my current home town of Peachland...need I say more!
The 20 Year Old Flag
Curious things flags are. When I was about 25 I decided I wanted to collect flags. I was really serious about it at first. I got my first flag free when I wrote to my local MP and told him I was going to live in the Philippines for a year. He sent me a big 3 ft by 5 ft Canadian flag. I didn’t have anywhere to put it in the tiny little flat we stayed in so I used it as a bed covering. But while I was there I mentioned my desire to get a Pilipino Flag to a friend and low and behold it wasn’t long before I was able to find one. That got me pretty excited. I remember looking around the city of Manila for more flags but could not find a store that had flags for sale. I’m sure there must have been one there but I couldn’t find it. It was not like I searched high and low or anything it was just one of those things I had in the back of my mind and from time to time I would look for a flag shop when I had a bit of spare time.
On our way back to Canada after my year long experience there we traveled home via Hong Kong. It was there that I stumbled across a flag store but to my dismay they were all way to expensive and I only had a small amount of money left over. I seem to remember stumbling across some older cloth flags that were on sale so I decided to spend my last bit of money on this flag that I thought was pretty cool. It was packed away in my suit case, and then it was packed away in a box of memorabilia, and over time it made its way from the top of the pile in the box to the bottom of the pile.
Yesterday, (about 20 years later) as I was packing up our house to move I stumbled across this box. There is lots of stuff in it from my world travels, money I had colleted, t-shirts that were from all over, even some old vinyl records that kept for some reason and of course those three flags; Canadian, Pilipino and the third flag made of cloth, which I am pretty sure I bought while wondering the streets of Hong Kong. You’ve probably already guessed what country this flag is from but if not it is the Flag if New Zealand. Now, I don’t think I can read too much into such a "coincidence" but you have to admit, it is very cool that something I purchased some 2o years ago would have such a bazaar comeback two months before we move to New Zealand, the land of the Southern Cross.
Just another cool story to add to the many we have been experiencing these days.
God Is Good All The Time.
On our way back to Canada after my year long experience there we traveled home via Hong Kong. It was there that I stumbled across a flag store but to my dismay they were all way to expensive and I only had a small amount of money left over. I seem to remember stumbling across some older cloth flags that were on sale so I decided to spend my last bit of money on this flag that I thought was pretty cool. It was packed away in my suit case, and then it was packed away in a box of memorabilia, and over time it made its way from the top of the pile in the box to the bottom of the pile.
Yesterday, (about 20 years later) as I was packing up our house to move I stumbled across this box. There is lots of stuff in it from my world travels, money I had colleted, t-shirts that were from all over, even some old vinyl records that kept for some reason and of course those three flags; Canadian, Pilipino and the third flag made of cloth, which I am pretty sure I bought while wondering the streets of Hong Kong. You’ve probably already guessed what country this flag is from but if not it is the Flag if New Zealand. Now, I don’t think I can read too much into such a "coincidence" but you have to admit, it is very cool that something I purchased some 2o years ago would have such a bazaar comeback two months before we move to New Zealand, the land of the Southern Cross.
Just another cool story to add to the many we have been experiencing these days.
God Is Good All The Time.
Saturday, October 28, 2006
God's Waiting Room
Sorry to all my faithful blog readers out there for the lack of Blog enthusiasm coming from me these days. All that has been happening in our lives has really diminished my interest in blogging or even reading other blogs. But now that the house is sold and the tickets are bought and we are in the stage of gathering more support, cleaning, organizing and packing up our house, and it seems that daily we are being surprised by the Lords provisions for us, I am more interested in blogging once again.
The journey of the past few months has included a long and almost depressing wait. God's waiting room is one of the most frustratingly gracious places in the universe.
What do I mean by that...? I mean that the process of waiting is extremely foreign to us in this instant culture. We just don’t see the reason for or any benefit at all from waiting. We see it as a waste of time, we feel as though we are spinning our wheels and going nowhere fast, we don’t like the thoughts that come scampering through our minds at odd hours of the day or night. These thoughts come in the form of deep searching questions that may have undesirable answers or even no answer at all. Time spent sitting in a waiting room or in a traffic jam or in a line up can now be eased by cell phone conversations, PDA's with internet access, ipods with movies, mp3 players with music and laptops with work on them. If we fill it with enough noise or activity it may seem to pass quicker. This habit is hard to break when it comes to being patient while in God's waiting room.
Why? There are probably many reasons for our impatience not the least of which is a sinful lack of ruthless trust in the Lord. But I wonder these days if that lack of trust, as it relates to waiting, has something to do with our concept of Sabbath rest having long since been forgotten. I think we would find this waiting time much more rewarding if we have practiced the power of an attitude of Sabbath in our lives on a daily or at least regular basis.
At the root of Sabbath rest is a simple trust in the Lord that he has our best interest in mind and he will provide as our Jehovah Jirah! When we practice Sabbath it is like working a muscle to strengthen it so it is strong when it’s tested. Likewise when we are in God’s waiting room we find that our trust is tested. If we have exercised trust in regular Sabbath we will benefit from the waiting.
The journey of the past few months has included a long and almost depressing wait. God's waiting room is one of the most frustratingly gracious places in the universe.
What do I mean by that...? I mean that the process of waiting is extremely foreign to us in this instant culture. We just don’t see the reason for or any benefit at all from waiting. We see it as a waste of time, we feel as though we are spinning our wheels and going nowhere fast, we don’t like the thoughts that come scampering through our minds at odd hours of the day or night. These thoughts come in the form of deep searching questions that may have undesirable answers or even no answer at all. Time spent sitting in a waiting room or in a traffic jam or in a line up can now be eased by cell phone conversations, PDA's with internet access, ipods with movies, mp3 players with music and laptops with work on them. If we fill it with enough noise or activity it may seem to pass quicker. This habit is hard to break when it comes to being patient while in God's waiting room.
Why? There are probably many reasons for our impatience not the least of which is a sinful lack of ruthless trust in the Lord. But I wonder these days if that lack of trust, as it relates to waiting, has something to do with our concept of Sabbath rest having long since been forgotten. I think we would find this waiting time much more rewarding if we have practiced the power of an attitude of Sabbath in our lives on a daily or at least regular basis.
At the root of Sabbath rest is a simple trust in the Lord that he has our best interest in mind and he will provide as our Jehovah Jirah! When we practice Sabbath it is like working a muscle to strengthen it so it is strong when it’s tested. Likewise when we are in God’s waiting room we find that our trust is tested. If we have exercised trust in regular Sabbath we will benefit from the waiting.
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