Without the Glory

Recently we drove the Hope-Princeton highway on our way to visit my brother and his wife. 

The aspen trees are all in their spectacular golden glory at this time of year. 

 It was a beautiful blue-sky day and the sun delighted in kissing each leaf until it shone like polished gold.
I love color with all its shades of glory.  How deprived our world would be without the glory, leaving us only shades of grey.

We too rarely stop to think that color is not in the object ... it is in the light.  We need little proof to be convinced.  Turn off the light in a  room full of color and all that is left is grey shadow. Go for a walk at night and try to find evidence of color.  To turn a color photo into a black and white photo all that is needed is to remove the effect of light.
When you go to the paint store to buy paint, there is no color in your can of paint - the mixture merely contains the pigment formulated to absorb a specific color ray of light IF light is shone upon it.
Without going into the complete science of it ...
pure blue pigments absorb yellow light, pure yellow pigments absorb blue light,
pure green pigments absorb magenta light, pure magenta pigments absorb green light,
pure red pigments absorb cyan light and pure cyan pigments absorb red light.
Bottom line -- without light there is no color for any physical object to absorb or project.

 I  find the spiritual implications of this so profound.
God says He is light !  Without Him there is no color, there is no glory.
Isn't it amazing the many intricate ways God has revealed Himself in nature?  
God states clearly that all glory is His - Isaiah 48:11 records His words that He "will not give His glory to another!"  And so nature itself recognizes the Source of all Glory  - Light.
 In John 8:12, Jesus says ..."I am the Light of the world." and I John 1:5 leaves no doubt in repeating, "God is Light and in  Him is no darkness at all !"

Darkness - Why is there an inherent fear of the dark born into every soul?  Because we are created in the image of God, do we desire the Light knowing it is where we belong?
Have you ever wondered why sinful and wicked deeds seek the 'dark' ? Is it because they believe that there they can hide from God?
Shudder at the judgment coming to those who reject God and choose wickedness .."for whom is reserved the blackness of darkness forever."  It is one thing to think about a world without color, but it is another to imagine the 'blackness of darkness forever'.  Fear lurks and rules and terrifies where there is no light.   Why? because God is not in the darkness - the one in the dark is alone.
Fear is the absence of love,
darkness is the absence of God ...
'shades of grey' is the absence of Glory...

How amazing that God reveals His glory in holding the spectacular paint brush of light so that we can understand what God means when He says He will share His glory with no other.  There is no glory but the Glory of the One True God made visible on the 'things' He shines upon.
And we, humble man, were created for His glory, to absorb and reflect His glory in us and through us.
Do we have the right 'pigment' to absorb His glory, revealing it to those who pass our way?

Want a God-Encounter? Call Revenue Canada!

It all began with a box of books.
The tracking info showed that they were to be delivered to my door last Friday before the end of the day.  No books arrived, and the tracking information changed to 'delivery status not available'.  I thought they would get it sorted out by Monday ... but no, Monday came, still no tracking info available and no books.  I finally called and was told the books were waiting customs clearance.  Okay... I guessed they'd get it sorted out!
Then later in the afternoon I got a call from the head office of the courier company my box of books had been shipped with.  I was told that to get my books I needed an import number.  Really?  I had never needed one before - but apparently I had got a 'letter-of-the-law' picky customs officer who looked at the box and thought, "Hmm... 60 books? no way is this lady buying them to put on her shelf ,.. smacks of retail to me!"  and he refused to clear them for delivery.
The courier agent was very nice and told me he would send me the forms I needed to fill out, would even highlight in yellow the parts I needed to address and the phone number to call for an import licence number from Revenue Canada.  He would send them out in five minutes - which, true to his word, he did.

I got the forms .. looked them over ... and decided that since I didn't really have a choice, I might as well call Revenue Canada and see what I needed to do.  So I dialed the number.  Wow... I listened to the automated messages, then got linked into the options list that went on and on, none of them addressing an import number ... finally! I was told to press a number to speak to a live agent.  I pressed the number quickly, before the next option was presented, but instead of 'exiting' to a live agent I was sent round the option loop again.
Somewhat frustrated by this time,  I interrupted the loop and just pressed the number I had been given to speak to a live agent...
This time a gentle voice responded, "Hello, how may I help you today?"
 I briefly explained that I was an author, was expecting a box of books that had been held up at customs and could not be released unless I had an import number.
 He questioned, "How many books?"
 I told him, sixty.  He laughed and said, "They held up a box of only 60 books? I'm an author too, I've never had a problem!"
I asked.. "I got a picky officer?"  
"Boy, did you ever!" he chuckled .. then said .. "But that's ok, I can give you an import number."
 I had at one time had a GST number so he said he could activate that and add the import number to it.
Then he asked, a little hesitantly, "What's your book about?"
 Thinking he wouldn't really care, I answered somewhat non-committal, "Oh, its a children's chapter book."
 "Oh," he replied.
 I could hear him talking to himself as he was filling out the necessary paperwork .. and I decide to ask in turn  ...  "What is YOUR book about?"
 He replied as non-committal as I had .. "Oh, its a religious book!"
I wasn't sure what 'religious' meant but I decide to jump !  "oh, so is mine! I have two , the first is an allegory on the fruit of the Spirit and the sequel is an allegory on the treasure of the kingdom."
 Well,  we soon found we were very much on the same page - fellow believers, fellow authors and we had a great conversation.
  I had also caught him at the end of his shift, so our conversation was on his own time ... Then he said it had been nice talking to me and I could tell he was going to end the call ... I quickly said .. "OHHH WAIT WAIT!!"
 He said, "yes?"  and I said, "You never gave me a number!"
 So we shared a chuckle and finished the 'unimportant' part of the call.
He told me that there were 250 agents that could have taken my call - and I suddenly understood why I took that extra loop around the options list -  God orchestrated the timing so that I got not only a Christian but a fellow author. The encounter was God-planned!   Of course we exchanged the names of our books.

His book is called Grow Up! by Robert Perreault.  I ordered it and read it - it is a very good book,  addressing the steps to maturity and a deeper relationship with the Lord.  The book came out of a vision that Lord gave him on the church parking lot ... and then God told him to go teach what He had given him.   The book is written in an easy to read style and its message is life changing for a new believer and also for those of us who have been Christians for many years.   The book is insightful and heart-hitting with the message of how important it is for believers to 'grow up' and not stay stuck playing church and doing the right 'religious' things ... God wants so much more !  I recommend it for anyone who wants an inspirational good read that has 'food' to grow on.

Water and Shimini Atzerat

Water -  there is nothing more important to life than water.
I love how God has put into His creations the physical 'pictures' by which we can understand the spiritual and eternal truths. As important as physical water is to our body, so is spiritual water for our soul.

Today is Shimini Atzerat, or the Eighth Day of the Sukkot festival.  In this Jewish feast described in Leviticus 23:33-35, 39-43, the Jews had three ceremonies that were carefully followed on each day of the first seven days of the feast.
The third, of these daily ceremonies, was called 'the rite of the water libation'.   At the beginning of Sukkot a procession of priests went down to the pool of Siloam to bring to the temple a golden container of water, enough for all the feast days.  The water was brought up with  great ceremony - the shofar was blown and the people waved their palm branches and the great Hallel - Psalms 113-118 was recited!
Each morning, the priest on duty filled a silver bowl with water from the pool of Silam, circled the altar and then poured it out as an act of prayer - asking that God would pour out His blessing of rain upon the earth.

Then on the 8th day, this water ceremony reached its climax. The priests circled the altar seven times, instead of once, and then poured out the water with great pomp and ceremony.  This was known as the great Hosanna,  translated "save now" !!

Why is this significant to us today?
It gives a depth of meaning to the passage in John 7:37-39.  The words "on the last day, that great day of the feast"  refer to the eighth day of Sukkot that I just discribed.
 So here we have Jesus standing up on this very holy day that had great meaning to every Jew there ... and Jesus 'cries out' --  in a loud voice so everyone can hear.  He shouts, "If anyone thirsts  let him come to Me and drink. He who believes in Me, as the Scripture has said, out of his heart will flow rivers of living water."  
These words were 'blasphemous' enough that there were those who wanted to kill him -verse 44.  Why?  Because Jesus was proclaiming that this feast - that climaxed with a prayer for water - had been answered !   Jesus, Himself, was the water of life - the water of blessing that God had poured out upon all who would believe on Him, whom God had sent.

Have you drunk deeply of this water of life?

"..Whoever drinks of the water that I shall give him will never thirst.. but the water that I shall give him will become in him a fountain of water springing up into everlasting life." ~John 4:14

The Story of Heart Longing

In the early eighties, I led a girl's club in my home church, and not being able to find the material I needed, I wrote my own. If you want to read more of the background story you can find it in one of my early posts.




My first book, Adventures of Heart Longing, was in print for a decade and then the publishers changed their venue and dropped all children's books, so my book went out of print.  It was continued to be used in several Christian schools as a resource and therefore was not forgotten.

Over the years, I received several e-mails asking if I could not republish the book, but one e-mail from a teacher last year spurned me to do some research and three days later, I signed a contract with WestBow publishers.   The book, Adventures of Heart Longing, came out early this year. It is written in story form, allegorically picturing the fruit of the Spirit as we find it listed in Galatians 5:22,23.

The second year of my girl's club, I wrote material in the same vein as the first book but this time on the treasure of the kingdom, as Jesus speaks about it in Matthew 6:19-21.  This book was never published, but I pulled out my notes earlier this year and rewrote it.  Heart Longing and the Treasure Keys,  has just been released and is available on-line, or you can order it from me, although, I do not yet have any books - online is much faster than snail mail! If you live in the Fraser Valley, I could deliver, or you could order it from a local bookstore.

The books, written as a story, have study guides included. I like to think that, while the books are targeted for children, that there is something there for all ages, making them the kind of books that are good in a family or class setting, generating interest and discussion.

One teacher sent me a folder of the pictures her kids had drawn after reading the book and my favorite one was from a young boy who said, "This book makes me want to know God."   His words touched my heart because, that above all else was my motivation in writing the books and is still my heart prayer -  that my readers would be drawn to the Lord - to know Him!