Ecclesiastes 12:10

  I n 1942, the providence of Manitoba raised over 60 million in the sale of Victory Bonds. The city of Winnipeg itself had 40 million of that alone. Not bad for a city of about 250,00 at the time. How did they get the people to give so much?   They let the Nazis take over.   No, there wasn’t a real invasion of Canada but a fake one, On February 19 th , the Canadian troops dressed as Nazi soldiers marched into town. Bombers flew overhead. Important officials and leaders were arrested.  Churches were barred from holding services. Armed soldiers searched buses. One of the principals of a local elementary was “arrested” and replaced by a Nazi propagandist. There was even a book burning in front of the city library. (The books used were scheduled to be destroyed anyway; they had fallen into disrepair.) For one day the city simulated what it would be like if the Nazis were able to take power.   Citizens of Winnipeg and those of neighboring tow...

  I often find myself stressing about things I don’t have much control over. National politics, the price of gas, church strains, decisions made by others far removed from my control. Sure, I can control how I respond to these things, yet that doesn’t always seem to help reduce the anxiety.  Henry Wadsworth Longfellow once said, “For after all, the best thing one can do when it is raining, is to let it rain.” Trying to control the uncontrollable is a fool’s errand. Things will come or they won’t. We can patch the roof or carry an umbrella but we can’t make the clouds stop leaking.   People make themselves (and others) miserable when they think they can control everything. We can’t now and we never could. I think Job understood this. When the storms of life were pounding him, He simply responded “ The LORD gave and the LORD has taken away. Blessed be the name of the LORD ” (Job 1:21).  Sometimes all we can do is wait for the rain to stop. Of sure we can compla...

  Josiah's reign is unusual as the King of Judah is as it interrupts Judah's slide to destruction with its all-time best king. Taking the throne at age eight, he began to seek the Lord from a young age (2 nd Chronicles 34:3). He clears the land of idols, restores the worship practices found in the Book of the Law, and sets the Temple in order. Where did this devotion to God come from?   Well, I’m pretty sure it wasn’t from his father Amon. He was an evil king that was deposed by his own servants. His grandfather Manasseh another boy-king broke as bad as one could get, the idolatry and child sacrifice that Josiah would eliminate in his reign were started by Manasseh.   If it wasn’t from his fathers, it might have been from His mother Jedidah. We know little about her but her name, it however might be a clue. Her name means “beloved of the Lord”. It is the feminine version of the name that God gave to Solomon in 2 nd Samuel 12:24-25. The name was to show he was love...