Many cultures have the tradition of making birthday wishes before blowing out candles on the cake. It is also not unusual to find coins of every currency at the bottom of water fountains, thrown in with the hope of better fortune. From wishing wells to genies in a lamp, tales of worldly wishes coming to pass are all too common in children’s stories.
Instant gratification has robbed everyone of patience and the advancement of technology has been a big culprit. Think about it, most innovations are developed to save us time, but we still seem to have less and less of it now than ever before. Why is that?
There is no escaping the culture of cause-driven protests that have been permeating in cities all over the world. Many of them involving young people that have often been mis-labelled as being apathetic or entitled. While there are differing opinions, often leading to heated debates, on the issues/cause, there is agreement that everyone has a VOICE and there are more platforms than ever before for these voices to bring about changes that would lead to a revolution.
Mother’s Day in 2020 will undoubtedly be celebrated a little differently than it has before given the precautions over social gatherings because of the COVID-19 pandemic. That being the case, the opportunity to honour mothers is still valid, perhaps more so now than ever before. From the working mom that now has to add homeschooling to the fold, to the grandmother in a care home deprived of family visits, the sense of isolation for each can be equally damaging.
In January 2015, 14-year-old John Smith fell through the frozen surface of a lake in St. Charles, Mo., and remained submerged for 15 minutes. He had no pulse when emergency workers pulled him from the freezing water, it was reportedly only after audible prayers by his mother, Joyce, that his heart finally started up again. And over the next several days
When the “teachers of the law” pressed Jesus to make his top picks among the commandments, he replied that the greatest act is to love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your mind and with all your strength, followed secondly by loving your neighbor as yourself. (Mark 12:30-31) This suggest that our priority is to love God first and then loving others and loving ourselves become by-products of our first choice to develop a relationship with God the Father.
“If it’s from God, it will only get stronger.” And with those words we ended our conversation in a coffee shop in the late Fall of 2007. Within a few weeks, I tendered my resignation from an engineering profession that I have enjoyed and excelled in for the past eight years to commit myself fully into ministerial vocation.
Jesus reminded the disciples, “But the Advocate, the Holy Spirit, whom the Father will send in my name, will teach you all things and will remind you of everything I have said to you.” (John 14:26 NIV) It is part of the Holy Spirit’s role to teach and, to bring into our remembrance, the Truth that Jesus has spoken.
Most of us have probably been taught at a young age to show respect to our parents. The late Aretha Franklin is well-remembered for a popular tuneasking for some R-E-S-P-E-C-T. I would suggest that more than giving respect, what we need more of in our culture today is HONOUR.
In the movie Bruce Almighty, Jim Carrey’s character was given almighty powers by a fictitious God (played by Morgan Freeman) to teach him how difficult it is to run the world. While the movie does not focus on providing sound theology, there are many spiritual aspects in the story that are worth contemplating.
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