On Being a Father

A few years ago, a grateful son wrote about his father,

A dad have I who is not perfect, never played for Yankees strong,

Feats and features cannot measure what it takes to be a man.

Fosbury’s bar will yet be raised by hopefuls and by champions

Yet ‘tis Redmond’s race that I remember

The father running to the son.

Redmond, of course was Derek Redmond, Britain’s record-holder in the 400-meter sprint. In the 1992 Barcelona Olympics, he was favored to win gold. But half-way through his semi-final race
Redmond snapped his hamstring and collapsed to the ground as the competition raced past him.

On Being a Pastor

When my wife’s friends heard that she was planning to marry a pastor, they cringed. They feared she would lose her vibrancy and relevance. In fact, I think her zest for life has made me a better pastor.

I love being a pastor. It challenges and stretches me and brings me deep joy. I would be a pastor even if nobody paid me to do it; it’s what I’m wired up to be.

The term 'pastor' comes from the world of sheep-herding, from biblical prototypes like Moses and David who made their living tending sheep and later became effective national leaders. Some pastors I know are kingdom-builders, dynamic visionaries, mobilizers and history-makers; others guide and shape souls one-by-one. Like teachers we’re largely catalysts in the God-energized growth of others.

A Great Cloud of Witnesses

Tomorrow is All Saints Day, when the church remembers and pays tribute to its spiritual ancestors.

In Hebrews 12 they are called “a cloud of witnesses”, a great throng that grows larger every day and that provides huge motivation for us who are still alive and struggling to finish our race.

Hallowe’en is the secular precursor where kids dress up to impersonate (or scare off) the ghosts of the departed - or simply to play make-believe for a night.

Harvest Providence

This week-end is Canadian Thanksgiving. . .

And this word from Psalm 65 seems like the perfect 'water' text for the occasion

You care for the land

and water it;

you enrich it abundantly.

The streams of God

are filled with water to

provide the people with grain,

You drench its furrows

and level its ridges;

you soften it with showers

and bless its crops.

Psalm 65:9-10

Icelandic Geyser

Last week I promised regular posts from Iceland on the wonder of water, but unfortunately the wonders of technology failed me.

Now that I’m back on-line, here’s a glimpse of one of Iceland’s most famous landmarks – a hot-water spring in the town of Geysir. That name comes from the Icelandic word for ‘gush’ – and gives its name to all geysers on earth.

Geysers occur when geo-thermally heated water becomes trapped in narrow fissures deep in the earth. Cool surface water flows down on top of this hot water and pressurizes it. The super-heated steam builds to the bursting point and then gushes upward, blasting out whatever volume of water lies above it.

A Large Family Circle

In the previous two posts Fertile Crescent and Beer-sheva, we have followed the journey of Abraham from the rich waters of Mesopotamia to the arid land of the Negev where Abraham settled in response to the call of God. He named his settlement Beer-sheva, ‘the well of the oath’ to commemorate both his treaty with the resident king who recognized Abraham’s legitimacy and his ownership of a contested well that Abraham’s servants had dug.

Gerar Valley

It turns out this was not the only well Abraham dug to sustain his herds and flocks. A generation later when Abraham’s son Isaac settled in the Gerar Valley, 15 miles west of Beer-sheva (about 10 miles east from modern day Gaza) the locals harassed him by plugging all his wells with dirt and debris, ‘wells that his father's servants had dug in the time of his father Abraham,’ Genesis 26:15.

Wells and cisterns were crucial in the Negev for economic survival, and clearly Abraham had invested considerable effort to acquire them as means for prosperity. Wells were an important

Learning to Trust - or Distrust God

At the end of forty years, God told Moses that the years of Israel’s deprivation in the desert had had a purpose. 'My design', God said, was ‘to humble you and test you in order to know what was in your heart” Deuteronomy 8:2. 'As a father disciplines his son, so the Lord your God disciplines you’ (v.5) ‘to do you good in the end’ (v.16).

Hunger and thirst are powerful tests – and God wanted Israel to internalize deep in their consciousness a conviction that they could trust their covenant Partner. Experiencing God’s provision of water and food in God's time would lay a foundation of trust in other areas of life. But Israel never seemed to pass the trust-test. They were habitual whiners, constantly grumbling against God, testing God’s patience.

Getting Water from Rocks

Back in November I wrote come comments reflecting on the Exodus story -

Deserts are relentless – and humans are not well-adapted to desert demands.

As the Israeli tribes travelled deeper into the wilderness of Sinai toward their promised home, their principal need was water.

Once, in Exodus 17, when the need was especially acute, God told Moses to smack a nearby rock. To everyone’s astonishment, water gushed out. God knows the map-line of every underground aquifer and how to provide for his people.

Terra Firma

The famous Tower of Pisa began sinking by the time the second floor was being built. The cause – a weak foundation and unstable subsoil.

By contrast, the Golden Gate Bridge withstands enormous tides and currents and survived the 1989 Loma Prieta earthquake unscathed in part because it sits on solid foundations, at one end on a bedrock ledge and at the other on a massive pier the size of a football field.

The Secret Power of Spring Rain

Okay, the calendar may say Spring, but Nature has a mind of its own and treated us overnight to a cruel dump of wet, unwelcome snow.

Yesterday I took pictures of crocus shoots triumphantly announcing the new season. Today they’re buried in white.

Having endured 5 months of winter, I’m not about to let a spring blizzard get me down. I know what’s coming. I’m Canadian. I’m a man of hope. Still, I’m tired of winter and itching to get my hands dirty in the soil again, to participate in the annual miracle.

In the land of the Bible, the spring rains are vital for bringing the winter growing season to its climax. The ‘early rain’ falls in late October and softens the summer-hardened soil for planting. January brings the peak rainfall, but most vital is the spring rain, also called ‘the latter rain’, just ahead of the heat that plumps the harvest. No rains, no harvest.

Noah Part 2 - Preserving Life

In the story of the great flood Noah built a massive boat – a barge with three floors. It was a microcosm of creation, designed to preserve life through the year of devastation ahead. In this project we see Noah fulfilling the vocation of all humanity – partnership with God and zealous care for God’s creation.

Noah coated the ark with pitch inside and out to keep his fellow-passengers dry. The water had to be kept at bay at all costs.  Water is a paradox - every animal needs to drink, but that very water, unchecked, threatens its survival. The ark became a place of refuge as everything else went down.

Noah Part 1 - Flood Story / Love Story

Many cultures of the world have stories of mythic proportions about a flood that virtually annihilates human civilization. Cultures as far apart as Scandinavians and Polynesians, Australian aboriginals and American Navajo, Celts, Mayans and Thai all tell a story of a great inundation.

The story of Noah is quite literally a watershed event in the Biblical narrative. (Genesis 6-9)  It is catastrophic - human and animal populations are all but destroyed. It is like a reversal of creation – the unmaking of earth. How are we to understand this devastating over-whelming of the earth?

Leadership Springs

Time was of the essence. The senile King David shivered in the hours before his death, but his scheming son kept his eye focused on his father’s crown. Adonijah was handsome, shrewd and self-serving. Aware that the king favored Solomon as his heir, Adonijah moved quickly to grasp his advantage. (Read 1 Kings 1)

With a small bodyguard, he organized his own coronation. He invited all his royal brothers except Solomon to a lavish feast at the En-Rogel spring outside the southern walls of the city – a country barbeque – to celebrate his accession to the throne and, no doubt, to enlist their support.

But news of his conspiracy leaked out and the prophet Nathan roused the dying king to act. David immediately named Solomon his successor and ordered Nathan to convene the official coronation of Solomon at the other spring – Gihon, a few hundred meters north of En-Rogel.

Rizpah and the Rain

Suffering sometimes triggers good soul-searching. And a three-year drought set King David on a desperate search for answers.

What he uncovered was a story of treachery and genocide that hadn’t registered a flicker on the national conscience.
See 2 Samuel 21:1-14.

It involved one of Israel’s tribal neighbors, the Gibeonites, who lived east of the Jordan. By ancient treaty, (see Joshua 9) these people had enjoyed protection and immunity from attack by Israel. But David’s predecessor, Saul broke faith and attempted to annihilate them – and almost succeeded.

David and Goliath

This iconic story celebrates the gutsy little guy taking on the giant and beating the odds.

But between the unlikely hero and the big bully lies a small creek-bed – and that creek holds the secret to what the fight was all about.

The valley of Elah was a strategic piece of real estate. It runs roughly east-west at a point where the Judean hills in the east drop down to the coastal plain inhabited by Philistines. The Philistines eye the valley as a corridor to the agricultural interior of Israel. Pushing their way inland up the valley they pose a formidable threat to assert dominance over Israel.

A Fruitful Vine Climbing over a Wall

The dying old man whispered his words blessing upon each of his sons. At last he came to Joseph – the one who had made the whole family proud.

Joseph will be a fruitful vine near a spring, whose branches climb over a wall.”
See Genesis 49:22-26 for the full text of this blessing

Joseph’s great mission in life had been the preserving of life, but it had not been an easy mission. God had preserved him from a dry cistern in the desert, from the schemes of treacherous brothers and slave-traders, from dark forgotten dungeons of Egypt. Joseph came into fame, fortune and economic power, but used these not for private advantage, but to be the saviour of his generation.

Testing and Resting

Deserts are relentless – and humans are not well-adapted to desert demands.

As the Israeli tribes travelled deeper into the wilderness of Sinai toward their promised home, their principal need was water. Once, when the need was especially acute, God told Moses to smack a nearby rock. To everyone’s astonishment, water gushed out. God knows the map-line of every underground

aquifer and how to provide for his people. That happened more than once as God proved his faithfulness to his people.  Israel immortalized God's power in poetry and song:

He split the rocks in the desert and gave them water as abundant as the seas;
He brought streams out of a rocky crag and made water flow down like rivers.
Psalm 78:15-16

But song alone can’t change character and Israel never seemed to pass the trust-test, complaining constantly, testing God’s patience, quarreling with God. Moses even named a couple of memorable landmarks Massah (i.e. Testing) and Meribah (i.e. Quarreling) to mark these low-points in their spiritual odyssey.

Many Waters Cannot Quench Love

Four years ago this week . . . Tiffany and I exchanged vows of marriage, vows of life-long devotion to each other.

Our ceremony included these words about water and love from Song of Solomon 8:7:

Many waters cannot quench love;

Neither can floods drown it.

Lots of water has streamed under our bridge since then, but it has not quenched the joy or love in our hearts.

Thanksgiving

Give thanks to the LORD, for he is good.

His love endures forever.

Psalm 136:1

Tiffany and I celebrated Canadian Thanksgiving on Saturday, leisurely canoeing a stretch of the Grand River south of Kitchener under a cloudless sky.

We confirmed the great exultation “the earth is full of God’s unfailing love” especially the trees, radiant in October extravaganza, displaying God’s majesty in orange, ruby and gold, mirrored in the river inviting us to join their 'Ode to Joy' in awe and gratitude.

Fountain of Life

Yellowstone National Park in Wyoming is home to more geysers than any other place in the world. Half of the world’s 1000 known geysers are here.

Geysers occur only in particular hydro-geological conditions, usually near active volcanic zones, where surface water works its way down to a depth of around 2,000 meters where it meets up with hot rocks. The resultant boiling of the pressurized water produces the geyser effect.

Every 90 minutes or so, Yellowstone’s most famous geyser, Old Faithful, serves up a fountain of 15,000 to 30,000 liters of boiling water and spews it 150 feet into the air - thunderous power and surprise, dramatic beauty and unfailing reliability.

The poet-king David never visited Old Faithful, but in Psalm 36 he wrote about his experience of God with equally dramatic nature imagery.