I can’t say exactly how many times people praying for me have told me to read Psalm 91. It’s at least a half dozen.

So, I would go home, open my Bible, and give it a quick read. Then I’d go about my day.

Not good enough. But I changed my pattern around this past Christmas, when I picked up that “super flu” that’s been going around this year.

One of the prayer points for our January fast was for those who were oppressed to be set free. I didn’t know it would be me!

Both Cheryl and I were ill with the flu over Christmas. We had to miss our family Christmas and also our Christmas service at CTFO. I was sick for over two weeks. I was praying, however, for the Lord to bring something good out of this, and He did!

When I was feeling discouraged and even disqualified from being effective in God's Kingdom, the Lord encouraged me with the following words:

Draw close to Me and I will resurrect you
Awaken the dreams that you had at the start
The call on your life, I will re-awaken
You’ll know this is Me by the passion in your heart…

As a teenager I was a camp counsellor. At our camp, we had the evening tradition of Vespers--an evening prayer and devotional service. This week it was my responsibility to lead the service. To get to the chapel area where we held Vespers, it was a short hike up a hill. Our group of 40 or so kids and counsellors trekked up the hill with the usual clamour that kids bring: a beautiful cacophony of chatter, laughs and roughhousing.

When we arrived at the chapel area, I asked everyone to be completely quiet for several minutes. I then…

It was a day our whole class had anticipated for a year. We were in grade 5. It was our time. We were old enough to get our Bibles. In our school, every year the Gideons (now called ShareWord Global) came to the grade 5s and handed out New Testaments. I remember being in grade 4 hearing when the grade 5s received their Bibles, anticipating when we would be old enough to have this special privilege.

Have you ever been frustrated? Of course you have–we all have at one point in our lives. Let’s look at why we might get frustrated.

Frustration usually occurs when you have goals in your life and they are not being met. They are not being met by yourself or by those around you. For example, I was frustrated at a place where I worked. It was not that I couldn’t do the job, or that they were asking more of me than I could handle, it was that the way things were being done was changing and I felt the changes were making my job harder. I found that frustrating.

I was looking through a notebook the other day and came across a psalm I had written as an exercise we had done on Zoom one Sunday. I was reminded of things in the past, the Lord’s goodness and faithfulness as I read what I had written.

Have you ever thought of writing your own psalm? Like David we often go through difficult times or times of rejoicing. David poured out his heart to the Lord on many occasions.

In these cold grey days of November, it is good to remember that the Lord is with us no matter what we are going through. 

I encourage you to take time to write a psalm to the Lord. Pour out your heart of pain or whatever emotion you may be feeling but don’t stay in that emotion; turn to the Lord and remember His character is trustworthy. He is a Holy and Loving Father who cares for you. 

Pour out your heart of thanksgiving. Remind your soul of who God is and what He has done for you. 

It was so encouraging having Jerry Steingard with us last weekend. Jerry’s teaching on historic revivals brought us faith on what God can do and may do again. As well, Jerry told us about the current move of the Spirit that is happening worldwide, particularly amongst young people. 

Sunday, we heard the 1989 Bob Jones prophecy. Here it is.

If you’re like me, you have heard lots of teaching about the lost sheep, where the shepherd leaves the 99 sheep and goes after the one, and even more teaching about the father and the prodigal son who returns. How often do we hear teaching about the woman who lost a coin and found it? Do you realize that all three of these parables are in Luke 15? The parable of the woman with the coins is in between the one about the Good Shepherd and the Good Father (Luke 15:8-10).

And I heard every creature in heaven and on earth and under the earth and in the sea, and all that is in them, saying, “To him who sits on the throne and to the Lamb be blessing and honor and glory and might forever and ever! Rev 15:13

Have you considered that everything will one day worship God?

Think about the thousands of years of worship that has been directed towards YHVH (God), starting with Adam and Eve all the way to today’s believers. All that worship!

Have you ever been caught between a rock and a hard place? My mind goes to when one son was caught up with drugs and drinking while at the same time, our other son was so deep in anxiety and depression he could not go to school for an entire year. Yikes! It was tough! But oh! the sweetness of God’s presence! Time and time again, with disappointments, the death of my father, leaving loved ones behind, hurt feelings–God has been a sweet, fortifying Presence.

Have you found ‘honey in the rock’? Honey speaks of sweetness, nourishment, healing, and preservation.

From Gunilla Glover this past week at the Fatherheart B school, “1 Corinthians 13 and Galatians 5 are not to do lists, but descriptions of who God is.”

God is patient. God is kind. God does not envy. God does not boast. God is not proud…

For those of us who are parents or grandparents, do you have a clear memory of when you first met your son or daughter or your grandson or granddaughter? I remember when we were getting ready to meet our granddaughter from Japan for the first time. Our son and daughter-in-law were coming to Canada with their daughter and there was a lot of excitement on our part. There was one big dread though, her parents and sister were coming at the same time. They wanted to visit Canada and what better way to do that than with their daughter.  

This fall I will be preaching a series on revival and the ministry of the Holy Spirit. Our own Harry Anton had a visitation dream 3 weeks ago, where the Lord had a message for our church to ask for the latter rain. The latter rain in ancient Israel was a crucial spring rain that ripened crops before the harvest. The Lord is calling us to prepare for a greater outpouring of the spirit for a great harvest. The Lord wouldn’t give us this invitation, if it wasn’t his intention to send it!

One story of revival that builds my faith comes from the Hebrides revival from the middle of the last century.

As I sit here today, my heart is full of gratitude for the beauty of the country we call home and the goodness of God. My husband and I have had an interesting travel year. We have been to the west coast of Canada, driven from Ottawa to the center of Canada, and most recently driven from Ottawa to the east coast with a visit to Prince Edward Island. The scenery on each journey was unfailingly uplifting and inspiring.

Several years ago, I heard Ian McCormack tell his story. He was a hedonistic surfer, originally from New Zealand. One evening in Mauritius when night fishing for crayfish, he was stung by five box jellyfish. He was rushed to hospital, but it was too late. When he was dying, his life flashed before his eyes and he had a vision of his mother and he remembered his mother’s words to him when he was a boy, “Ian, no matter how far from God you are, no matter what you've done wrong, if you cry out to God from your heart, he will hear you and he will forgive you.” He then remembered the Lord’s prayer and began to pray it.

“If you want beauty, give me your ashes.”

I kept hearing this in my spirit. “Give me your ashes, and I will give you beauty.” 

It’s interesting to think about ashes with so many forest fires currently burning in Canada. Many people, especially in the north, are dealing with literal smoke and ashes in the air. Even we in Ottawa have experienced the smoke and ashes of distant fires turning our skies grey. What do ashes do? They limit our vision. They cover up treasures and hide things we love.

A whirlpool is a body of rotating water produced by opposing currents or a current running into an obstacle. [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Whirlpool#cite_note-]

Have you ever stared at a whirlpool swirling in a large body of water, such as a river? They are interesting to watch–especially when something gets caught in the whirlpool and keeps going ‘round and ‘round. 

The family in Nazareth sat around it every night, not knowing that it was a unique table. Handcrafted years earlier when Jesus was a carpenter, it was a centre piece of the home, where Shabbat was celebrated, hearts were open, lessons were taught, joy was shared. The family didn’t know its history, but heaven saw. Heaven smiled.

And those who were seen dancing were thought to be insane by those who could not hear the music.― Friedrich Nietzsche

In early February of 1994, the youth pastor of our church in Barrie had returned from the revival meetings in Toronto that had begun January 20th. I had heard from someone in our church that during the meeting he had become immobilized. Supposedly, he couldn’t move at all for a very long period of time. When I heard this, I was more than skeptical. I had seen people be “slain in the spirit” before, falling over under God’s power, and it had happened to me several times, but I had never heard of people being frozen, so I criticized it and dismissed it as not possible.