MOMENT OF TRUTH

A building without integrity may receive structural damage, or even collapse, in a storm. Similarly, people without integrity are blown about by the winds of misfortune and destroyed by catastrophes, for they lack the firmness, solidity, and strength of character to weather any storm. Dr. William Menninger (1899 ~ 1966) called integrity one of the six essential qualities that are the key to success.

By Jean Jantzen

WHO HAS SEEN THE WIND? AN INCREDIBLE GIFT

By Jean Jantzen

Who has seen the wind?

Neither I nor you.
But when the leaves hang trembling,
The wind is passing through.
Who has seen the wind?
Neither you nor I.
But when the trees bow down their heads,
The wind is passing by.

Christina Georgina Rossetti

The wind blows wherever it pleases. You hear its sound, but you cannot tell where it comes from or where it is going. So it is with everyone born of the Spirit.” John 3:8.

Most have read the books or watched the series Anne of Green Gables. Anne’s house, Green Gable’s on PEI suffered fire damage. People were emotionally distraught over this fire. Even though Anne is a fictitious character, people from around the world flock to see her supposed childhood home. Why is that? For many of us, for one reason or another, at one time or another, we have suffered the same pain as Anne. I was talking to one elderly gentleman who was orphaned at about twelve years of age and he said “I felt great comfort from Anne’s story.” Over the centuries Christians have suffered rejection, persecution; they were hated by the world. Jesus tells us straight forward “If you belonged to the world, it would love you as its own. As it is, you do not belong to the world, but I have chosen you out of the world. That is why the world hates you” (John 15:19,20). For eleven long heart-breaking years, Anne suffers complete rejection. But there is more to the story than Anne’s pain. She made it! And she did it with courage, grit and determination. Anne’s story gives people hope—hope that they too can triumph over life’s inequities.

God has called us to be part of something bigger than ourselves—family—a Church family now, then God’s family at the return of Jesus Christ. Life in our Church family can prepare us for that millennial family.

The bond that links your true family is not one of blood, but of respect and joy in each other’s life. Rarely do members of one family grow up under the same roof.

—Richard Bach

Sometimes the poorest man leaves his children the richest inheritance.
(Ruth E. Renkel)

By profession I am a soldier and take pride in that fact. But I am prouder — infinitely prouder — to be a father. A soldier destroys in order to build; the father only builds, never destroys. The one has the potentiality of death; the other embodies creation and life. And while the hordes of death are mighty, the battalions of life are mightier still. It is my hope that my son, when I am gone, will remember me not from the battle field but in the home repeating with him our simple daily prayer, “Our Father Who Art in Heaven”.
(Macarthur, Douglas 1880-1964 American Army General in WW II)

Don’t think you’re on the right road, just because it’s a well-beaten path

The inclination of 20th century societies to disregard God has resulted in social degeneration foreseen in the first chapter of Romans as a direct result of failing to fear God. “When they knew God, they glorified Him not as God…”so God gave them their pleasure in unrighteousness, certainly not as a reward, but as a curse. And what a curse it has proven to be!

Gretta Vosper in her new book With Or Without God: Why the Way We Live is More Important than What We Believe asks, “Why do we need a ‘revolutionary’ voice from two millennia ago to guide us? We have fabulous ideas of our own, that are constantly weakened by having to tie them back to Jesus and Scripture.” The book description is as follows: “God does not answer our prayers. Jesus is not the Saviour who saved the world by dying for our sins. Simply put, Christianity is “love one another.”