1 Samuel 16:3

‘SHOW ME THE WAY, GOD’

(December 20, 2023) Robert McQuillan shares a Christmas/2024-centred encouragement.

It seems no time at all when back in July people were half-jokingly saying, ‘Gosh, how time flies, it’ll soon be Christmas!’

Suddenly it was late October and some folk were exclaiming, ‘Golly gosh, soon be Christmas! Where has the year gone?’ Then it was November and, as Alan Higgins mentions in his article, extremely early Christmas sales adverts and a mad ‘charging-about-like-eejits’ time unknown to the real Christmas story of Joseph and Mary (Joseph the Dreamer).

Perspective
And right now Christmas is really just round the corner… merely a few days away! And some people are talking about 2024! In fact we’ve just received an Easter article… already!

Responding to some people who have asked me about 2024, I felt led to share the perspective that I sense – that it will be a ‘venturous year for those wanting to follow the Lord.’

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REJOICING: ‘SHOW ME THE WAY, GOD…’

(December 14, 2020) Robert and Maureen McQuillan share a Christmas-centred challenge:

Christmas in in the air and we just had to watch it yet again… It’s a Wonderful Life, that 1947 classic Jimmy Stewart movie, commended by Movieguide® as ‘arguably the most beloved movie of all time.’

A Christmas story about (as Jimmy Stewart put it in a recent Movieguide® report) ‘… an ordinary man who discovers that living each ordinary day honourably, with faith in God and a selfless concern for others, can make for a truly wonderful life.’

Recognising… God carries
After serving for four years during WWII flying B-24 bombers over Germany, having been appointed Chief of Staff of the 2nd Combat wing, 2nd Air Division of the 8th Air Force, the actor, now Major James Stewart, ended the war after 20 combat missions, receiving recognition and medals.

This splendid movie was his first after returning from England – but he was war effected, sickly-looking, couldn’t sleep or focus and depressed.  Jimmy Stewart has told how a little book that his dad gave him before he was shipped out brought him through those tense years of leading men into bombing raids. Called The Secret Place—A Key to the 91st Psalm, he would read it before every raid over Europe – and carry it with him. He has said, ‘And I was borne up. Dad had committed me to God, but I felt the presence of both throughout the war.’

Realising… God cares
Jimmy Stewart is known to have relied on his faith both during the war and in life in general. In It’s a Wonderful Life, the character he plays is George Bailey, a humble businessman who turns nastily ungrateful, worried sick due to an unexpected seemingly unsolvable crisis and wanting to end his life.

But faith in Jesus drives the man behind the character. Jimmy Stewart recalls his own feelings during that lowest point in George Bailey’s life when he is faced with unjust criminal charges and, not knowing where to turn, ends up slumped in despair in a little roadside restaurant, unaware that most of the township’s people are arduously praying for him because they care: (more…)