Tim and Olive's Blog

How is it that the grandeur and splendour of a natural wonder like Niagara Falls has attracted such an odd assortment of businesses? It is sad to see that so many “attractions” that have sprung up in the downtown part of Niagara Falls are really distractions from life: Ripley’s believe-it-or-not, wax museums, haunted houses, tatoo parlours and more recently, the much celebrated casinos. It’s like all the weirdest stuff, the out-of-ordinary, the ghoulish and fantasy have all collected right beside one of God’s amazing creations. It’s just bizarre. On one hand, you have the magnificence of what God has to offer. And on the other, you have the pitiful emptiness of what humans have to offer. The clincher is this: the experience God offers is free, while the other option will cost you your wallet (and maybe more).

Although they claimed to be wise, they became fools and exchanged the glory of the immortal God for images made to look like mortal man and birds and animals and reptiles.
~Romans 1:22-23~

WORD OF THE DAY: FRANGIBLE

(from dictionary.com)

frangible \FRAN-juh-buhl\, adjective:
Capable of being broken; brittle; fragile; easily broken.

me.

But we have this treasure in jars of clay to show that this all-surpassing power is from God and not from us.
~2 Corinthians 4:7~

ALL THINGS NOT EQUAL

I bought a bunch of bamboo a couple months back. Since they were too long, I cut off some inches from the bottom before I stuck them in a vase of water. They have now happily grown a healthy entanglement of roots.

The short bits that I cut off, I stuck in their own little glass container with some pretty white pebbles to keep them standing straight. I’d seen a friend do this before and hers started to grow leaves. I figured I might as well give it a try too. I put my little “garden” next to the sink in my bathroom. I like how it greens things up.

Anyway, they have started to grow leaves. What intrigues me though is that some of them have leaves about 3 inches long, while others are only just starting to show a little nub. In observing their growth, I’ve realized that God’s creativity extends to the timing of things. I mean, He could easily make them all grow at the same rate – and the human perfectionist in me would be more satisfied if that were the case – but He doesn’t.

In the same way, I think He allows people to grow at different rates as well. Too often, we are tempted to compare ourselves with others (imagine one bamboo comparing itself with another one!) and we might even complain that God’s not being fair, but reality is that His love and grace is just as plentiful for each of us and that He is glorified in the variety and differences.

God…makes things grow.
~1 Corinthians 3:7~

WHO DOES GOD TRUST?

At a retreat this past weekend, in one of the prayers, the person thanked God for trusting Himself to the care of a teenage girl when He came to earth. That’s a pretty incredible thought. That God would trust humanity to take care of Him. That the Creator would trust Himself to the created. Then it dawned on me that God not only trusted Mary, He trusted many other people in the Bible. He also trusted many others throughout history. He trusts each of us who know Him. And most incredibly (to me anyway), He trusts me.

This is something I’ll need to think more about – that God’s character is trusting.

[Love] always trusts.
~1 Corinthians 13:7~

REMARKABLE!

Yesterday, a friend and I had lunch on the 12th floor of a hotel by the beach. Looking out over the rhythmic waves as they washed up along the shore, we prayed for each other. She thanked God for His love and that His thoughts about me outnumbered the grains of sand. After we finished praying, we both looked at each other and wondered, “What could God possibly be thinking about us that He would have THAT many thoughts about each one of us?!”

Could it really be that Someone out there loves me THAT much?

How precious to me are your thoughts, O God!
How vast is the sum of them!
Were I to count them,
they would outnumber the grains of sand.
~Psalm 139:17-18a~

MIRACLE

I think I’m finally starting to believe that I really am loved.

I will give you a new heart and put a new spirit in you; I will remove from you your heart of stone and give you a heart of flesh.
~Ezekiel 36:26~

BROKEN

Today,
The water isn’t running,
Our apartment smells like sewage,
The internet is temperamental,
I was fortunate to have a seat on the bus one-way,
It’s taken me almost 2 hours to make a simple soup,
And all I want to do since I woke up is go back to sleep.

This soldier is broken.

I waited patiently for the LORD;
he turned to me and heard my cry.
He lifted me out of the slimy pit,
out of the mud and mire;
he set my feet on a rock
and gave me a firm place to stand.
~Psalm 40:1-2~

FRUIT-LESS

This post has been rattling around in my brain for a while now and I thought it was about time to set it free…

In my devos one day, I read about a gardener who was asked about his abundant and lush grape harvest. He explained that when he first acquired the vineyard, he pruned all the plants and for two whole years he had no harvest. I saw a parallel in my own life. I’ve been feeling fruitless lately but it was as if the Lord spoke and affirmed to me that it is actually quite unnatural and impossible for a plant who is in the pruning process to bear fruit. A pruned branch cannot bear fruit! Nor is it expected to. A pruned plant has only one task: to drink in the sunshine and take in the nutrients from the earth through the vine. And one day, when God deems it time, flowers will bloom and fruit will come forth. Even more fruit than was ever possible before.

Christ’s yoke is much lighter than my own. Hallelujah!

…Every branch that does bear fruit, he prunes it so that it may bear more fruit.
~John 15:2~

WHAT AM I DREAMING?!

This past week, my sleep has been full of really strange dreams consisting of many, many people. I’m not sure what’s going on, but if you think of me, please pray for undisturbed sleep. Sleeping is making me tired.

This morning, I had the weirdest dream I’ve had in a long time. Curiously enough, I think God had something to teach me through it. I’ll try to narrate it here without confusing you – it was really quite something. (I actually feel vulnerable posting this; you might think I need therapy after reading it!)

So in my dream, a handful of friends and I were taken down in an elevator 99 floors underground. The elevator operator warned us that there were spirits in the form of snakes, looking to find people to inhabit. He told us to be careful lest we be bitten by a snake and inhabited by a demon. He also told us that the floor we were getting off at had an illusion of reality and that we should remember not to trust what we saw.

The elevator stopped and we got off. After a while, we found ourselves in a room containing different themed sections. One of my friends had this child’s bedroom setting with a big bed in the middle against the wall and pictures and things surrounding it. As we tried to decipher what the operator meant by this being a place of illusions, my friend figured out that the place where the bed was was actually a fireplace with a mantle on top. The bed was an illusion. The fireplace was reality.

We were excited to discover the truth. Each of us then began to realize that our areas of the room also had been distorted somehow. Even more exciting was that as we saw the truth, we were released from the oppressive place and able to return back to above-ground reality. As we worked on unmasking the illusions, the employees there kept trying to dissuade us from our work – they kept telling us there was no reality behind the illusion and that we were wasting our efforts. We did not listen to them but kept encouraging each other to seek freedom. And for some reason, we felt a pressing sense of urgency to finish the work.

What was even more interesting was that those of us who figured out the reality of the place did not get whisked above-ground right away. We only becme invisible so that the workers could not harass us anymore. We remained in the room to encourage those who hadn’t fully discovered reality yet. It wasn’t until we had all seen the truth that we left that place.

Another strange thing was that the whole time we were there, not even one snake was seen.

As I reflected on this dream and asked the Lord to teach me from it, I saw the oppressive place was this earth. As we live life here, what we see is not all we get. Through Christ, we are able to see reality. As we find the Truth, we are set free from what the enemy wants us to believe. There are also those who want to discourage us from seeking truth – they discourage us and tell us that it’s all a waste of time. Just as there are lies planted in our minds – rumors of snakes – that are meant to frighten us and give us anxiety. And for those of us who have seen the truth, we are shielded from harrassment from the enemy and we continue to remain on the earth so that we can encourage others to keep seeking truth. And undergirding the experience is a sense of urgency.

In a broad sense, I see this as an allegory for the work of the gospel. People need to see the truth about their lives here and the reality of eternity. There is an enemy who wants to discourage them from seeing the truth because when they find it, they will be out of his grip. He wants them to think that what they see is all there is to life. We urgently need to exhort people to keep seeking the Truth.

Personally, I think this is an allegory for my journey to unmask what’s really behind the tireness and discouragement that I’ve been battling lately. I sense the Lord encouraging me to keep persevering and allow Him to dig deep so that He can show me my true condition and free me from my warped perspective.

You will not fear the terror of the night.
~Psalm 91:5a~

RISK

A couple weekends ago, I had the pleasure of an after-dinner hang-out with a few of my favourite people. Over some blended coffee drinks and tea, the conversation turned toward the topic of risk. The question posed was, “What are some of the biggest risks you’ve taken in your life?” We took turns sharing our stories.

It was my turn. As I opened my mouth to speak, I began to realize that although I’ve taken quite a few risks (especially in the last few years), I didn’t really consider them risks. I made my decisions because I knew God was in them. To not take the risk would be the bigger risk. To obey has been the safest thing for me to do.

We had stumbled upon yet another example of the upside-down workings of the way of the Cross: what seems a big risk is really the safest thing; and what seems safe, may actually be the riskiest thing.

I’m really not that much of a risk-taker. I’m just foolishly obedient. ;)

Whoever tries to keep his life will lose it, and whoever loses his life will preserve it.
~Luke 17:33~