Sitting here  with the sun shining at 9:30 in the evening, I find myself at a familiar place. Last week I welcomed a new minister to town and my church. I sat waiting at the church house for 2 hours past the time they were supposed to show up and missed a friends BBQ as a result. The first concern out of the minister’s wife’s mouth was was there a contract for cutting the lawn and shoveling the snow in the winter? Next was did we have someone to come in and clean on a weekly basis? Oh, and would it be possible to bring the washer and dryer upstairs as it was too much trouble to go up and down stairs just to do washing? Since then I’ve purchased a new microwave oven, helped them to get NWT plates for their car, and drivers licenses. Today, I had to set up their Internet and next week, it’s the satellite TV. Having the minister will likely bankrupt the church within 2 years at the current giving rate. I really don’t blame the minister or his wife. Most of these are things that I would do for anyone else new to town, but maybe a little selfishly, I’m tired of it being me again doing it!  As my wife and I look back over the years, we’re hard pressed to remember a time when we weren’t the givers and had someone giving back. Maybe that makes us a little cynical, but it speaks to the way we feel and I’m sure we’re not alone. If life is just about taking, then why bother? How is this any different than everyone else? We continue on as troupers knowing at least theologically that our treasure is in Heaven, but that doesn’t stop it feeling like an empty experience. It’s funny, but even as I’m writing this, I’m feeling guilty about writing it! I know that He asks us to give Him all our cares, but we’re also told to bear one another’s burdens and sometimes that just needs to be a listening ear or telling each other thanks. For those of us who are constantly giving, the “thanks” isn’t the reason why we do what we do, but that “thanks” or telling us that we’re “appreciated” sure can act like an oasis in the desert. As many of you know, I’m really not a “touchy/feely” kind of person and there are many of us who don’t expect this kind of a response, but just think how blown away people would be if we surprised them with a thank-you!

If we are to be used in any way by God in this generation, it will only be as the world around us sees the way that we genuinely care for each other. Let’s show Christ through the compassion, concern and thanksgiving we have for each other and the lonely world will be irresistibly drawn to the Saviour.

It’s now 10:30 pm and still as sunny as when I began today’s blog and so is my spirit!

For many, one of the leading causes of the downfall of society today is the breakup of the traditional family unit. Where once grandparents, parents and children could often be found under one roof, now single parent families are much more prevalent. Children and parents seldom spend time together due to employment and other commitments. The vacant kitchen table that once served as the vehicle for daily communication and insight into the state of affairs of family members serves as a testament to the absence of these necessary values in the twenty-first century. Whether out of necessity or of an abdication of responsibility, society has suffered tremendously from the disintegration of the traditional family unit. With little or no reinforced instruction or encouragement in the home, sons and daughters are forced to look for answers elsewhere, finding personal worth in the convenient and popular. Often vital and real relationships of flesh and blood are exchanged for cold fantasies found in iPods, computers and video games. While this is society’s current condition, it doesn’t have to be its epitaph.

The Lord Jesus speaks of a different kind of life. In John 10:10 He states, “I came so they can have real and eternal life, more and better life than they ever dreamed of”. (Message) As Christians, we know this better life. The Lord has chosen His people to live this life as a testament to His goodness and care for humankind. This life is manifest through real and personal relationships with Him and those He brings into our lives. There is no greater evidence of this than in the intimacy of Christian marriages and families. Here the oracles of God should be taught and practised. Paul in 1 Timothy 3 makes this a requirement for leadership in the church, as an indication of its importance, and imagines the way in which society would be drawn to genuine examples of this kind of family in action.

God paints a picture for us of what this should look like in Proverbs 4. In verses one to nine, the Lord presents, in broad strokes, the story of a father conferring some instruction to his son, which he in turn had learned from his father concerning wisdom. It is in the fine strokes of detail that a complete understanding of the story is made apparent. The narrator is none other than King Solomon and the instruction that he is relating is that of King David, his father. This speaks volumes when we consider that in effect, it was David’s kernel of instruction to Solomon as a child that came to fruition after David was dead, when Solomon requested wisdom from the Lord in 1 Kings 3. 1 Kings 4:29-34 speaks to the fact that there were none in his day as wise as Solomon and now he can not only instruct his son to do likewise, but also back it up with experience.

In the first three and a half verses Solomon relates the importance of his message to his son and the safe and nurturing environment that was his as the message was taught to him. Indeed, how much easier it is to learn in such an environment. You may tell me that that’s all well and good in Bible times, but we live in the real world. Today this kind of a family life is rare if it still happens at all. It’s hard enough to try to have a meal together, let alone find time as a single parent for any quality time with my children. Life and families are too dysfunctional today to make it possible. While society today certainly makes this kind of quality family experience extremely difficult, it doesn’t excuse us from our responsibility to our children. In fact our neglect of providing this for our children has contributed to exactly the way society is today. Solomon in Proverbs 22:6 speaks specifically to our responsibility as parents to train our children. It really wasn’t much different in Bible times either. You must remember that Solomon’s parents were both adulterers and his father was a murderer. As a result, Solomon had a brother that he never knew and he knew much of a dysfunctional family during the rebellion of his brother Absalom in 2 Samuel 15. Yet David and Bathsheba could provide a family life that Solomon considered safe and nurturing. Just as God gave this family the ability to create such an environment for Solomon, He also gives us the same resources if we only ask.

In the next five and a half verses Solomon extols both the necessity and virtues of an important one of theses resources; wisdom. As is the often the case in the book of Proverbs, Solomon uses three pair of poetic couplets to convey his message; verses 4b and 5; verses 6 and 7; and verses 8 and 9.

The first pair speaks to the prominence that both Solomon and his father David put on wisdom. David contrasts the “holding fast” of his words in verse four with “not forgetting” them in verse five. Again, the command of “keeping” his words in verse four are contrasted with “not turning away” from them in verse five.

The second pair speaks of the process required for wisdom. It is not something that we are born with. It is something that must be acquired and we become wise even in the desire to search it out verse seven says. Proverbs 9:10 reminds us that the place to begin the search for wisdom is “the fear of the Lord”. All else is folly. Verse six speaks to the protection in the process. Wisdom will guard and watch over us.

The third pair speaks to the prize that is obtained through the pursuit of wisdom. Verses eight and nine paint a portrait of the character of the wise. They are exalted and given a place of honour. They carry an air of grace and beauty. Such people seem so rare today and society is the poorer for it.

In the end, our God is a God of second chances and the Christian life one of getting up when we’re down, brushing ourselves off and continuing to run the race before us. An important part of this is the pursuit of wisdom in creating safe and nurturing homes for our children to grow in grace and the knowledge of our Lord Jesus Christ. This is not an easy race to run and it is only with God’s help and wisdom from above that we and our children will see its successful completion.

For many, the church is identified by what it does. Feeding the poor, comforting the sick, or providing shelter for the homeless are be used to characterize the church. For others, thoughts of church bring pictures of old stained glass buildings, ministers, sermons, Sunday school. Only the “Sunday best” could be worn there. One had to be on their best behaviour to match the clothes and it was generally a quiet and solemn place. This, often, was in direct contradiction to the ride to church. The memories often recalled happened not in the hallowed halls, but the chaos that went on before reaching church; before one put their “Sunday faces” on.

Certainly, the church has changed over the last fifty years. It must continue this process if it is to remain contextual in today’s ever-changing culture. What must change is the way it relates to society. In other words, what it does. What cannot change is the essence of what the church is.

“Churches are not glistening cathedrals filled exclusively with beautiful Cinderellas. Churches are noisy, rollicking madhouses filled with yelping, dancing, barking pigs who follow the real Cinderella wherever he goes. Churches are not only awe inspiring; they are odd inspiring, attracting an earthy assortment of Jesus’ followers. The stained glass is extraordinary, but it is also covered with ordinary fingerprints.”