When the Menu is Manna

  Wait! I've got a plan! Have you ever said this? If I've said this once, I've said it a thousand times. I can't help it. I am a planner. Plan is my middle name. Being such has its good points, such as reaching goals, following through, and being counted as dependable. Yet even with these seemingly good qualities and a favourable outcome, my tendency to plan has sometimes taken me off the intended path through some unintended experiences before finding my way again. I recant at such times: "Why did I do that?" Clearly, there was a better way as well as the recounting of the "would have," "should have" afterthoughts - if only I had listened.  In the book of Samuel, God has unfolded his plan for Samuel to guide the Israelites. He never intended for them to have a king because He was their King. It was a perfect plan because God designed it. Yet, the Israelites turned their attention to the world around them. Other nations had kings, so why co...

  He replied, "The Lord, before whom I have walked faithfully, will send His angel with you and make your journey a success so that you can get a wife for my son from my own clan and from my father's family." Genesis 24:40 (NIV) The words of this scripture above seem to roll off Abraham's tongue as if he never questioned God's faithfulness. I wonder. Did he ever question it? Whether He did or did not, scripture recounts Abraham's continued faithfulness to believing God for the promise God made to him so many years ago. From Him would come a great nation that could not be measured. Yet, since Abraham continued to live somewhat nomadic, living in Canaan but still in a tent, it would only be human nature and maybe even a temptation to recall all the roadblocks he encountered to this promise.  From the call to uproot his family and move from his homeland, journeying to a place he had never been, to the escape by the skin of his teeth from Egypt under false pretens...

A s the new year begins, I realize that I am already behind. It sounds like I am being a pessimist only five days into the new year, but honestly, that is not my intent. Pulled in many directions, I can't engage in life in any reasonable order. I could go into details, but I am reasonably sure you, too, have the same struggles—finding order and balance in daily living tasks and figuring out how to manage life's spiritual and physical demands. My attempts seem to resemble the childhood experience we are all too familiar with of getting on the see-saw and never being able to get off the ground due to being the heavy load or with legs dangling in mid-air no matter how much swinging of the legs or bouncing on the seat; we remain suspended meeting eyes with the weight of our encumbrance that often took delight in our inability to move from our perch. I can attest I've been the one on the ground stopping the see-saw process and the one in mid-air incapable of changing my predicam...