I’ve Been Amazed This Week

First off, I’m amazed that the first month of 2020 is already behind us! (Is it too early to start the Christmas-countdown clock?! 🙂 )

Just kidding… we’re still hanging on to the last threads of this Christmas. Decorations came off the tree yesterday and the tree itself (artificial) will come down today, leaving a huge, gaping hole in the living room that we’ll have to get used to again.

This week I’ve been amazed a number of times, for various reasons. Let me give you the low-down….

Amazed at my family…

On Sunday, I stood back for a moment to take in what I was seeing.

The black & white pictures at the top show the kids in February 2015. They’d just arrived and were getting pointers on playing together, keeping rhythm and chording. Soph & Dominic had both taken lessons in their instruments but had never really played together. Timo, who could barely see over the top of the drum kit, had never taken drum lessons or played with his siblings

Look at them now… 5 years later. (have we really been here 5 years already?!?!?!)

Not only are they confident leaders musically, but while Timo handles the media during the balance of service, Dominic & Soph help Liz out with our Sunday school kids.

Please keep the kids in prayer next weekend.

Dominic & Sophie are headed to “Breaking the Chains”, a church conference in Norway (Wayne Huntley & Nathan Harrod will be ministering) while Timo will spend the weekend with the youth in Bordeaux. Pray protection as they travel – particularly in light of coronavirus fears in major airports).

Amazed to pass through CANADA…

Yes, you read that correctly, although it’s not quite what it seems… This is the Google Maps message on my phone as I was driving home from Angers the other day.

On the other side of the Loire River, there’s a little community (VERY little) named Canada! (Although I didn’t see any Tim Horton’s … so I knew it wasn’t the real Canada 🙂 )

You just can’t make this stuff up!

Amazed at another BOTT service…

This time the speaker was Raymond Woodward and it was special because he was the Assistant Pastor in Saint John when we started attending Mission Point back in 1997. He & his wife graciously gave us a lot of their time. We’re extremely grateful to know this great Bible teacher!

Amazed for more unfortunate reasons…

I hesitated about what word to put in today’s feature picture. I started with “Bewildered” and moved through the others before settling on “Amazed”. I didn’t want to begin on a negative note, nor did I want the bad to outweigh the good.

That being said, I have found myself in utter amazement at goings on in the United States Senate.

I do not understand how such blatant and bold-faced abuse of power (nepotism, self-dealing, you name it) can be swept under the rug out of fear of the president’s base or bully pulpit.

It’s possible to honour the office of the president while still having checks & balances on the glaring mountain of moral shortcomings of the president that have reduced America’s influence on the global stage.

This doesn’t mean that I’m a democratic sympathizer. I’m a decent human being sympathizer. I get it that republicans want to maintain a grip on legislative power, enacting socially conservative policy (which, by and large, I favour), but you can’t tell me that those goals can’t be achieved with another republican president.

Honestly… if the current president is the best that Republicans have to offer up to the presidency, then America’s not as great as it once was and not nearly as great as it could be.

Politics or politicians are not the be all and end all solution to societal ills (only the Lord fills that role), but the rise of populism and the normalization of mankind’s baser instincts (globally) affects us all.

Just plain amazed…

I could write and write and write… but I think I’ll end with these three final thoughts:

…at the accuracy of God’s word:
The profound uneasiness that I feel in my spirit is a reminder that, as Paul reaffirmed to Timothy: we are living in the last days and more than ever we need to positive examples of Christ-followers.
- “This know also, that in the last days perilous times shall come. ²For men shall be lovers of their own selves, covetous, boasters, proud, blasphemers, disobedient to parents, unthankful, unholy, ³Without natural affection, trucebreakers, false accusers, incontinent, fierce, despisers of those that are good, ⁴Traitors, heady, highminded, lovers of pleasures more than lovers of God;“
  2 Timothy 3:1-4
…at the timeliness of Raymond Woodward’s message illustration: “When giants fight, it’s the grass that suffers.” … as Government leaders fight … it erodes the public’s faith in them as leaders and society is weaker.
…at God’s goodness that outweighs the shortcomings of man
- ³⁷Nay, in all these things we are more than conquerors through him that loved us. ³⁸For I am persuaded, that neither death, nor life, nor angels, nor principalities, nor powers, nor things present, nor things to come, ³⁹Nor height, nor depth, nor any other creature, shall be able to separate us from the love of God, which is in Christ Jesus our Lord.
  Romans 8:37-39