God's Orchestra

By Pat

Do you find it easy to compare yourself with others regularly, allowing others to set the bar for what you think you should be? I sure have, but I have learned that it's a recipe for failure.

God made each of us unique, with our own distinct personalities, strengths, likes, dislikes, and yes...flaws. That's the way it's supposed to be. That's what God intended. We are each a musical instrument in God's orchestra, and God is our maestro. If we are all the same instrument, that would certainly make for a mighty boring band, wouldn't it?

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Hang In There

By Pat

Do you ever sit and wonder
As you're going through the day
"Are you listening to me, Jesus?
Do you hear a word I say?"

When Heaven seems unreachable,
A vast and distant place,

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Mountains And Valleys

By Chuck (Sharing Compassion)
 
It is interesting how whenever we have a mountaintop experience it is followed by a valley. Just as in nature mountains are often separated by valleys so seem to be our experiences. I find myself right now repeating a situation that happened to me in 2005. I was blessed to travel to the Dominican Republic in October of that year. It was indeed a mountaintop experience. God was fully in control from start to finish. Two separate teams were to go back to back to serve there. Due to some unforeseen circumstance the two teams were combined into one team/one trip. We had team built as two individual teams throughout the summer.

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Checking For Bombs

By Peter (Rediscovering the Church)

My father once worked in an office which shared a parking lot with an army recruitment office. This was in England, back in the 1980's and, back then, England was going through a rough period where we had frequent terrorist threats and attacks.

Every now and then there would be a credible threat against all military offices and bases and the army guys would come by my Dad's office and nicely tell him that he should check under his car for bombs before going home.

It was all very exciting, but no bombs were ever found. We lived in a far too insignificant town for terrorists to come around our way. The threat was still real though, and the checks were necessary.

As I was reminiscing about those 'good old days' recently I started to really think about how important it is for us to check for hidden bombs. I'm not talking about C4, high explosive devices that will make your car jump three feet in the air like in a movie but rather hidden bombs in that threaten to destroy your life and your relationships.

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