Custom Plan One Of A Kind

…My thought here is not to give the wrong impression. I grew up in a loving home with two parents, and two sisters that I love dearly. I have many, many, fond memories of a great childhood. Most of my Christian life I have felt that, I'm not too sure of the correct word to use here, so I'm going to use a quote from Paul’s letters in Romans...Romans 7: 24-25. 24 I've tried everything and nothing helps. I'm at the end of my rope. Is there no one who can do anything for me? Isn't that the real question? 25 The answer, thank God, is that Jesus Christ can and does. He acted to set things right in this life of contradictions where I want to serve God with all my heart and mind, but am pulled by the influence of sin to do something totally different. (The Message)
We are called as Christians, as believers to put off those things that hold us back. That each one of us is important, that we have something to contribute. So many people get caught up looking for their gift, that I think they don’t realize that they are the gift. I don’t mean that in a puffed up kind of way. We are made unique, one of a kind. If you really want to get down to it we are made in God's image. Intimacy with God to me is such a strange concept, but this is becoming more and more real to me as I am still learning to hear His voice for myself. I know in my heart someone will read this, let me assure you God loves you, He cares for you. There is a will in your spirit, it's a battle, it's you telling you lies. Lies that you messed up again. Lies that you are not a very nice person. Lies to bring you down, to draw you away from the goodness of God's Holy Spirit that is in each one of us. You are not alone. Everyone who walks this earth will have battles, but you can have victory. Are you at the end of your rope, do you feel that you have reached bottom? My heart is sad because of your pain, but I think you know what you have to do.
As I stand back and look at the log house, a tear comes to my eye. I shake my head, I think that I have come so far. Things are starting to take shape. I’ve had to go back and redo some stuff. Some of my choices I’ve had to rethink, I’ve had to ask for help at different stages of construction, and advice when I wasn’t sure of a product. But I am happy with the overall look.
Romans 16: 16-18. Hardly. You know well enough from your own experience that there are some acts of so-called freedom that destroy freedom. Offer yourselves to sin, for instance, and it's your last free act. But offer yourselves to the ways of God and the freedom never quits. All your lives you've let sin tell you what to do. 17 But thank God you've started listening to a new master, 18 one whose commands set you free to live openly in his freedom! (The Message)
Are you happy with the house you are building? Log-On

Daughters Of Day

…There’s always going to be lots of choices pulling at you. Offers of trips overseas, which career path to take, who you will marry, or do you follow your dream? Decisions! Decisions we make, so many in a day that we don’t even realize it, but somehow we get through the day. Sometimes we go through dark days, lost jobs, unspoken bitterness, or unforgiveness, an elderly parent not remembering your name. It’s been said that time heals. As I look back on my own past, I recognized some of the healing that has taken place. Most importantly the hugs I get from my mom even if she doesn’t remember my name, forgiveness, old dreams reignited. In my thoughts I am reminded that love is the strength that binds us together. We don’t realize it, but love can be disguised as many things. It’s come in the encouragement I got from my wife when I lost my job, and supported me in my career choices. It’s come in times when I had to reach out and make things right. It’s come in the familiar voices of my sisters. And in hearing their voice, I am reminded that we are still family. Have you ever taken a romantic moonlight walk and looked at the stars? I got to do just that this past week with my wife, son, nephew and two nieces as we walked along the beach on the Sunshine Coast. There was a peace, almost a party atmosphere, as we walked in the darkness, knowing the night will pass because it has no other choice. You may be going through darkness, some of those things that life has a way of throwing at us. The Bible encourages us to seek council, to stand back to back, to worship, to wear armor, to do all this when the darkness comes. So that we would be still standing when the darkness passes.

1 Thessalonians 5 :4-8 4 But friends, you're not in the dark, so how could you be taken off guard by any of this? 5 You're sons of Light, daughters of Day. We live under wide open skies and know where we stand. 6 So let's not sleepwalk through life like those others. Let's keep our eyes open and be smart. 7 People sleep at night and get drunk at night. 8 But not us! Since we're creatures of Day, let's act like it. Walk out into the daylight sober, dressed up in faith, love, and the hope of salvation

Love Covers All

....One picture is worth a thousand words. Love what an awesome little word. Love covers a multitude. There’s that place where we would love to travel to, that special piece of clothing we love to wear. Some have a favorite color they love. Or they might say, "I love that color on you, it brings out the color in your eyes." I believe that the Lord speaks to us through scriptures, through nature, through song and especially through people, if we have the ears to listen. Spiritual ears. Have you ever been side swiped, not in a car, but by a question? I’ll get back to this thought later. Sunday night, my wife and myself attended a worship service. What a blessing that was. There were only a handful of young people in worship, no message, just closed eyes praising God. In Love with their creator. It’s not that often as an older generation worshiper I get an invitation to sit in on a junior youth worship service and reignite something in my own spirit. Let me encourage you when the invitation presents itself again, you accept it. So midway through the week our church junior youth service was open to all ages, and once again I saw a generation in worship, in love. There was a freedom that was present at both services. (Almost like a first love) Those of us that have been married for some time, I am sure you can remember your first date. How, when you had to walk up the pathway and knock on your sweethearts door. If you were like me your heart was racing and beating so loud that you would think the people around you could here it. You were probably really nervous. Right? When you were first in Love you were so full of ... let's call it faith. If you were like me, you had some pretty big decisions to make. I'm not sure why those decisions as big as they were came easy. So why do the little decisions so much later on in life take so long to decide? Do you ever just sit and shake your head and ask yourself what was I thinking? Every once in a while you will be given a gift, and if your heart and your ears are listening you will receive the gift. My gift came when an elderly couple from my church shared with me the love that I could see in them for each other. What a privilege, to be invited into their life, as they held hands. My sideswipe question came form my mom. She wanted to know if I still love my wife the way I used to? After 33 years together, my nerves have subsided a little, but my heart still beats loud. We’ve become more one, we’ve raised a family and lived a life together. Yes. Sometimes the older we get, the smaller our step. This could be a physical step or a spiritual step, either way you have to take it. Sometimes a little reminder of the goodness of God, the faithfulness of God, is just the reminder we need. We can get side swiped in more ways than one. Satan wants to take you out. He loves to attack families. His main goal is to confuse you, take you off track, and trip you up.
1 Peter 5:8 Be alert, be on watch! Your enemy, the Devil, roams around like a roaring lion, looking for someone to devour.
Proverbs 24:13-16 13 Eat honey, dear child - it's good for you - and delicacies that melt in your mouth. 14 Likewise knowledge, and wisdom for your soul - Get that and your future's secured, your hope is on solid rock. 15 Don't interfere with good people's lives; don't try to get the best of them. 16 No matter how many times you trip them up, God-loyal people don't stay down long; Soon they're up on their feet, while the wicked end up flat on their faces. Log-ON

Pivotal Moments

PIVOTAL MOMENTS … We all have them: our birth, our school years, our teen years… to finding that someone that completes us, learning together how to raise a family, to sitting with an aging parent. I’ve had to realize that I’m getting older; something that I don’t like to admit to, but have no control over. When did the roles change? I can remember as a young boy going for a Sunday drive with my family, and my Grandad, my dad’s father. My dad would drive, with his dad sitting in the front passenger seat beside him, and the rest of the family would be in the back. That would be my mom, two sisters, myself of course, and on special occasions my mom’s mom, my grandmother. Just so you get the picture, we owned mini cooper, a Mr. Bean type car only ours was a station wagon. My Grandad, was in my eyes, an old Irish gentleman. He was a small frame of a man. He always wore a suit and tie, and a rimmed hat. He smoked a pipe that he was forever lighting with long wooden matches. He was a widower from the time I knew him. It’s funny some of the things we remember. I also remember seeing him kneeling beside his bed praying. I think I know now what he must have been praying for. This past Sunday my pivotal moment came. I was the grandad in the front passenger seat beside my son, while the rest of my family sat in the back. For the first time, I realized the roles have changed, and I am getting older. Oddly enough we were going to visit my mom. Her role has changed, and she is now more dependent on me, at this stage in her life. Heritage or history, whatever we call it, we all have one. There are times in my own history that I’m not proud of. There are also times that amaze me. Being blessed with a good wife, raising 3 kids. Bringing the little ones home from the hospital, really we didn’t even know what to expect. Now these same little ones are seeking a career, flying to exotic places, and raising little ones of their own. History starts in your own home. I believe if we change a generation, we will change history. Legacy is connected through generations, and you can change your family’s history, and leave a lasting legacy. Whatever way you want to say it: season, time, road traveled, it all comes down to the same thing-a place in your life. You have a choice daily. You can change history, and in doing so, you will leave a legacy that will last forever. Inheritance-this is the big one. What do you inherit from past history? Or if you’re still alive, what are your actions doing to your history, and what outcome will they have on your legacy? Little things impact us more than the big stuff. My Grandad kneeling beside his bed praying, the importance of a Grandmother taking her grandaughter to church, my own mom as she hugs me goodbye, saying God Bless. Inheritances: it’s not about the material stuff, it’s about the love and care, it’s about the things of the spirit. This next part is taken from the Bible. Believers all over the world and throughout time have found peace and rest for their spirit in the words written in these pages. The time is a different time, the place is a different place, the names may not be yours but they could be. I believe our spirit longs for something more, I also believe through time, history and generations we are still connected.
2 Timothy 1, 2:7
2 It is written to Timothy, my dear son. May God our Father and Christ Jesus our Lord give you grace, mercy, and peace. 3 Timothy, I thank God for you. He is the God I serve with a clear conscience, just as my ancestors did. Night and day I constantly remember you in my prayers. 4 I long to see you again, for I remember your tears as we parted. And I will be filled with joy when we are together again. 5 I know that you sincerely trust the Lord, for you have the faith of your mother, Eunice, and your grandmother, Lois. 6 This is why I remind you to fan into flames the spiritual gift God gave you when I laid my hands on you. 7 For God has not given us a spirit of fear and timidity, but of power, love, and self-discipline.
Log- On

The Banana Story

...Planting bananas is a little like planting seeds; one never really knows what will grow. Let me explain. Several months ago I had to go the grocery store. Standing in the doorway was a beggar asking for spare change. I know better than to give money, so I told the person I would buy him some food. I wasn’t too sure what to buy; so I picked up chocolate milk, a cheese bun, and I figured some fruit, a banana. My intention was to hand my purchase over to the person on my way out, and I say, “ your welcome”. To my surprise when I went to find that person he was gone, nowhere in sight. I was a little ticked off. You see, I thought we had an agreement. I had wasted time and money on something I didn’t need to buy. Something else happened that day. We often pass by people in need, and I know we feel more compassion in us to help; why we don’t, is anybody’s guess. I grew up in a time when giving up your seat to an elderly person on the bus was just the way it was; or holding the door was the gentlemanly thing to do. Being polite, saying please and thank you was a sign of a good up bringing. That day I decided to buy food for someone in need has thought me a lesson in listening, in obedience. Sure the man was gone. It’s not so much in the giving, it’s more in the willingness to listen. At home I had some explaining to do. I don’t normally buy chocolate milk, so everyone who looked in the fridge asked, “Why do we have chocolate milk in our fridge?”
The other morning my wife tells me she has been buying something extra for that needy person standing in the doorway of our local grocery store. I was so surprised, and proud, when my son told me he gave some fruit from his lunch, to a homeless man in the park. Out of my obedience, I was the one who was blessed. Somehow my little act of kindness has moved other members in my family to listen to that voice. So you see when you plant seeds of kindness, of giving, of helps, of compassion; even if the seeds are disguised as bananas, who knows what will grow? Log-On

Stay Connected

So who you talk’n to? You. Who you talk’n to? You!... Simpler times. The good old days. I think one of the reasons I like log homes is the feeling I get of a simpler time. A time when people were more connected to each other, and the land. I enjoy technology as much as the next person, but really hasn’t it gone too far, and gotten out of control? Let me explain. One day while traveling on the ferry to the Sunshine Coast, as I was walking down the aisle looking for a place to sit, a lady was walking towards me. She was on her cell phone. As I was looking for a seat, all I could see were people on their I- pods, or playing small handheld video games. I started to think,“Don’t people interact with each other anymore?” Just as I was having this thought, a lady came around the corner. No lie, she was texting. I have also noticed walking down the street, two girls and a guy, and both the girls are texting someone. That old song comes to mind, ‘Love the one you’re with.’ I grew up in Ireland, and as a young boy I can remember being the first one on my street to have a T.V. Back then T.V. came on only in the evenings, with a choice of two stations. Now we have so many stations 24-7, that we can’t even make up our minds what to watch. My own mother, she’s a great grandmother, asked me, when did the cartoons on T.V. get so bad that she can’t sit down and watch them with her grandchildren. Some people have the idea that some cartoons are for adults and not children. How’s a child going to know the difference? Most of us will remember when Elvis’ hip moving was censored, and thought to be too sexy when he performed on the Ed Sullivan Show, so he was filmed from the waist up. What’s happened and how did we get this far off course? Back in the sixties and seventies when the music industry was exploding, and most of the popular bands of the day came out of England, the media called it The British Invasion. Songs like,‘I Want to Hold Your Hand’ by the Beatles, or In North America the Turtles sang, ‘Happy Together’, while the Beach Boys sang of ‘the Little Old Lady from Pasadena’, songs that made you feel happy. So when did the lyrics in song get so bad that now we need a rating system for content. One day while I was out for a walk, a car passes by with the windows down, you could feel the vibrations as the music came pumping out. Gangster rap, with lyrics that would embarrass a Gangster. Critics refer to the f word in entertainment as the f bomb. Kind of makes you think that we are in some kind of war, maybe even an invasion. I understand that we all want free choice, free to watch what we want, free to read what we want. I believe free choices come with a cost, and I think the cost we are paying for this freedom is too high. So what happened and how did we get so far off course? We’ve all heard sayings, or read something that makes you think. I had a poster once that read, ‘Earth this is God speaking. You have till the end of the month. I have a client who is interested in the property.’ Or you have read that bumper sticker, ‘Slow down the world, I want to get off.’ Have you ever felt that things were going too fast? We all have feel good memories, memories that you need to revisit every once in a while. My own Dad got so much pleasure making homemade apple pie, and his favorite, steak and kidney pie. When was the last time you peeled some apples, and made a pie? As my heart struggles for a simpler time, the good old days, I am reminded, for this generation, these are the good old days. As my spirit is feeling a little uneasy, my wife showed me a picture. She wanted to know what frame it looked better in. It was a picture of a little boy reading his Bible. In the background were newspaper headlines of war and the troubles all around him. To my surprise the picture was called ‘Peace amid the storm.’ All these thoughts of a simpler time, of reflecting, remembering my own Dad, has given me a hunger for some home made apple pie. My hope is that we all do something that will bring back some good memories, and give us a Spirit that is thankful. I think, maybe I have a pie to bake. Log-On
Psalm 106:1 NLT
Praise the LORD! Give thanks to the LORD, for he is good! His faithful love endures forever.

Each one off us want to feel that what we do has value, that we get some kind off recognition. It could be a pay cheque or it could be a hug or a simple word of encouragement. My sign of encouragement came one night when I found an apple pie on my kitchen table. Funny thing was the person who left the pie hadn’t read this Blog yet and unknowingly encouraged me. So I would like to say to that person VINAKA VAKA LEVU

Holding On Tight

…The Ideal place to build a log home would be in a country setting, possibly on a large parcel of land. Years ago, there was this movie called ‘The Wilderness Family’. It was about a young couple whose dream was to build their own log home, live off the land, and raise a family. One day, while sitting in traffic, the young couple looked at each other, smiled and said, “Let’s go and build that cabin.” So they rented a float plane, and got dropped off in a remote valley, ready to build their homestead. I’m not quite there yet. My ideal place to build a log home would be on the Sunshine Coast of British Columbia. One of my favorite things to do there, is stay at one of the many B&B’s. I love to meet the owners, and hear their life’s stories. I’ve often thought, if I owned a B&B, I would call it, ‘Open Door B&B.’
Your heart is your door, an entranceway of sorts. You could be very receptive to the things of God, or you could be so closed off that you miss even the simple things. It’s as though you have a lock on your door. I’ve come to realize that it’s our choice, how we react to situations. For some people their entrance way is a path full of flowers leading up to a welcome matt. For others it leads up to a moat with a draw bridge, and nothing is going to penetrate my castle, my space, my thinking, my bank account, my my, my. Lord forgive me. As I am sitting in my front room, I’m looking out a window with see through curtains, barely able to make out what’s outside. Wondering, do I need to add curtains to my log house or leave the windows plain? I want to be able to look outside, at all the things His hands have made, and not be afraid of the unknown. Shirley commented the other morning, maybe in a log home we don’t need curtains. Have you ever had that “aha!” moment? This was mine. Wouldn’t it be nice to be able to remove the curtains, to be transparent, to be who we are on the outside, is who we are on the inside. I am not saying we need to remove all of the curtains so that the world can walk by and see us exposed, but I think we need to let the world see our Faith. Working on this part of the house has made me realize I still have some work to do in this area, and I am thankful that I know this, and feel it’s a step in the right direction. I am not sure what lesson I will learn next, as I continue, but I’m excited to see where the Lord leads.
Job 8: 9-18 (Message Translation) For we're newcomers at this, with a lot to learn, and not too long to learn it. 10 So why not let the ancients teach you, tell you what's what, instruct you in what they knew from experience? 11 Can mighty pine trees grow tall without soil? Can luscious tomatoes flourish without water? 12 Blossoming flowers look great before they're cut or picked, but without soil or water they wither more quickly than grass. 13 That's what happens to all who forget God - all their hopes come to nothing. 14 They hang their life from one thin thread, they hitch their fate to a spider web. 15 One jiggle and the thread breaks, one jab and the web collapses.

Lord help me to hold on to all that is true, all that is noble, all that is from you. My prayer is that you hold on to His word with both hands. Log-On