Wednesday, February 28, 2024

They thought I was kidding.

This morning I was at the dentist for a couple of fillings. Two of the technicians were working over my open mouth. 

The one asked me if I was still a pastor to which I replied yes. Oh he said where do you Pastor? I told them at a small country church about half an hour to the southeast. 

It was quiet for a minute when, tongue in cheek, he said to her; "You know you should go to church. You need forgiveness." They both giggled and she replied that she thought he had more that needed forgiveness than she did. They laughed and went back and forth, convinced the other needed more forgiveness. 

Finally through their cajoling they asked me, "What about you Pastor, who do you think needs more forgiveness?" 

With their hands in my mouth I mumbled "I think you both need help!" To which the room exploded in laughter. 

They thought I was kidding.





















Tuesday, February 27, 2024

A Prayer For The Day

Psalm 19 

For the director of music. A psalm of David. 

1 The heavens declare the glory of God; the skies proclaim the work of his hands. 2 Day after day they pour forth speech; night after night they reveal knowledge. 3 They have no speech, they use no words; no sound is heard from them. 4 Yet their voice goes out into all the earth, their words to the ends of the world. 

In the heavens God has pitched a tent for the sun. 5 It is like a bridegroom coming out of his chamber, like a champion rejoicing to run his course. 6 It rises at one end of the heavens and makes its circuit to the other; nothing is deprived of its warmth. 

 7 The law of the Lord is perfect, refreshing the soul. The statutes of the Lord are trustworthy, making wise the simple. 8 The precepts of the Lord are right, giving joy to the heart. The commands of the Lord are radiant, giving light to the eyes. 9 The fear of the Lord is pure, enduring forever. The decrees of the Lord are firm, and all of them are righteous. 10 They are more precious than gold, than much pure gold; they are sweeter than honey, than honey from the honeycomb. 11 By them your servant is warned; in keeping them there is great reward. 

12 But who can discern their own errors? Forgive my hidden faults. 13 Keep your servant also from willful sins; may they not rule over me. Then I will be blameless, innocent of great transgression. 14 May these words of my mouth and this meditation of my heart be pleasing in your sight, Lord, my Rock and my Redeemer.


Jupiter in the Southern Sky





Tuesday, February 13, 2024

Lenten Reader Prayer Devotional

Joel 2:1-2, 12-17
   
1   Sound the trumpet in Jerusalem!
    Raise the alarm on my holy mountain!
Let everyone tremble in fear
    because the day of the Lord is upon us.
2 It is a day of darkness and gloom,
    a day of thick clouds and deep blackness.
Suddenly, like dawn spreading across the mountains,
    a great and mighty army appears.
Nothing like it has been seen before
    or will ever be seen again.
   
   
   
12  That is why the Lord says,
    “Turn to me now, while there is time.
Give me your hearts.
    Come with fasting, weeping, and mourning.
13 Don’t tear your clothing in your grief,
    but tear your hearts instead.”
Return to the Lord your God,
    for he is merciful and compassionate,
slow to get angry and filled with unfailing love.
    He is eager to relent and not punish.
14 Who knows? Perhaps he will give you a reprieve,
    sending you a blessing instead of this curse.
Perhaps you will be able to offer grain and wine
    to the Lord your God as before.

15 Blow the ram’s horn in Jerusalem!
    Announce a time of fasting;
call the people together
    for a solemn meeting.
16 Gather all the people—
    the elders, the children, and even the babies.
Call the bridegroom from his quarters
    and the bride from her private room.
17 Let the priests, who minister in the Lord’s presence,
    stand and weep between the entry room to the Temple and the altar.
Let them pray, “Spare your people, Lord!
    Don’t let your special possession become an object of mockery.
Don’t let them become a joke for unbelieving foreigners who say,
    ‘Has the God of Israel left them?’”
   
   
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There are times when life with God becomes so mundane.

We believe there is more to be experienced with him because we’ve heard about it, and we’ve read about it in the scriptures. But we don’t know how to get from there from here.

So we try changing things up to try and improve. We might get up early for devotions. We might volunteer down at the food bank. We might try to memorize some verses. We might join a small group. All good things yes. But all the kinds of things that fit nicely into a New Year’s resolution.

Our passage from Joel today tells us that there is something we can do, but we might not think it’s written for us today. The prophet Joel gives us ample warning that the day of the Lord is coming. A day of sober sadness, a day of darkness and gloom perhaps unknown in our lives. It may be THE day of the Lord, or it may be a day of the Lord’s visitation in our lives. Whichever it< might be, it is a message of warning that Joel was called on to deliver to his generation, and to us.

What if this Lenten season we received his warning, and began to act on it as he instructs us. What if we would turn towards God with a sorrow filled heart? What if we were to call our hearts to a sacred assembly, a holy meeting with God, and repent?

Oh, we may say we have nothing to repent of. Our relationship with Christ is good.

Yes, I know it is. Mine is too. However, I found when I started to heed His warning, and I intentionally stopped and turned towards Him, and I asked Him what I should repent of, He showed me my selfish acts. My acts of pride. My incidents of self righteousness. He showed me my moments of anger. He showed me my envy and my careless attitude. On and on He showed me. I began to repent, and it has led to more repentance, and its turned into a season of repentance.

It turns out I do have things to repent of and to clean up between Jesus and me. (And if I run out of things to repent for, I can start repenting on behalf of my nation.)

And you know what? Life gets a little clearer, and my step gets a little lighter and gladness takes the place of what was once mundane in my relationship with God.

Amazing how that works.




Evangelical Covenant Church of Canada 2024 Lenten Reader





 


















Friday, February 09, 2024

Letters

Dear __________

Yes, please do call me Randy. When I moved from Winnipeg to Prince Albert to pastor the church there, there was already a guy called Randy Friesen there. So I shifted to my actual name, Randall. But as I age, I miss the old Randy, so I am more and more introducing myself as that. So, please feel free to call me by name.

Processing so much life when we are thoughtful individuals can be a real challenge. So we listen to a preacher or a talking head and it makes us think deep thoughts, and we need a place to process that stuff. Normally, when I preach, I try to focus on one big idea for the day, because usually one big idea is enough for people. But I find with this recorded format that I tend to sometimes be a bit all over the place. That also comes from not writing down what I’m going to say before I say it. The reason for that is it just takes so much extra time to work that out, so the recording can be a bit all over the place. I do try to edit that out to some success, :-) but it is what it is, and I am praying and trusting the Lord to use whatever there is there for his glory.

I do quite enjoy the discipline of it. The daily time in the word and prayer is good for my soul. The numbers aren’t vast, but I felt like when God was asking me to take it up again that numbers didn’t matter, hearts did. So I’m trying to leave that up to him and just focus on obedience and faithfulness.

All that to say, sorry about stirring up too many things each day. 🙄

One of your comments resonated with me so well. I believe it was where you identified that your upbringing was considerably safe or sheltered. That’s been my experience as well. And so it’s taken me well into my adult years to meet people who are actually wicked. I used to think that was just a Bible term but no, there are very wicked evil people out there. And for reasons that only God might know right now, the hearts of so many people are being exposed, and wickedness is found within.

The world is not what it was when we grew up. The divisions between races and genders, sexualities, and politics is so pronounced in these past years, That it feels like violence is just around the corner every day. If not physical violence, then certainly spiritual or emotional or mental violence comes at us every day. As you infer, it is exhausting. And so different from our childhood. I sound like an old fart when I say, I miss those days when we had some things in common with our neighbours.

(I heard an author the other day, who was indicating that her research, and the point of her latest writing was that you can tell that a culture or a country is about to die when it begins to wrestle with its identity in human sexuality. This is pronounced when the society moves into areas of gender, changing, and reassignment. She had observed it in her studies of nations of the past. But her point was that western civilization is now going down that road and so there is reason to believe that western civilization timing is up. And so we may watch as it disintegrates.)

So I suppose part of the tension we feel, and the violence we experience, is just in how our society is falling apart.

And then we see nature pushing back whether it’s killer fires in Chile, or killer rainstorms in California, or killer snowstorms on the east coast… And that’s just this week.

Rather than see them as God, calling us to attention, calling us to repentance, we blame global warming, and those people on the other end of the spectrum from where we might reside.

As you might’ve put together by now, the state of the world is high on my list of neediness right now. We are in trouble and I can only wonder that things will get worse.

I like your closing thoughts as well. That we only have our little corner of the world to manage. That’s what I tell our kids, all we have power over is our corner of the world and we can make a big difference there. And a wonderful, healthy world could be discovered as everyone just takes care of their own little patch. That’s all we can do and that’s all we’ve been entrusted with.

As I say, I enjoy your thoughtfulness, so yes, feel free to drop me a note anytime.

We need each other as we fumble towards glory. And so I am glad there are people like you in this world, making a difference.

Many blessings, Randy