Mother Teresa

HARVEST TIME REFLECTIONS

(October 07, 2023) Brian Bell shares reflections on two harvests of God’s blessings…

As Moses approached the end of his earthly life, he reminded God’s people about the festival of harvest (Deuteronomy 16:10) which was one of the three festivals they were to celebrate each year.

These festivals were an opportunity for God’s people to reflect, remember and recognise the Lord’s blessing on them.

Here in Northern Ireland, Harvest Sunday is for the most part, still a fairly traditional celebration, usually in the colder, wetter, and darker months of September and October and held especially for folk in our farming/agricultural communities.

God’s handiwork
On Sunday, October 15, we will celebrate harvest in my home church and while we would not be described as being folk who live in a designated farming/agricultural community, some of our folk do come from such backgrounds.

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FULL STEAM AHEAD FOLLOWING THE FATHER!

(August 17, 2023) Robert McQuillan reflects on a lifestyle choice…

It’ll soon be Father’s Day and I’m reminded of my dad and my childhood. Let me share something personal here… since childhood I’ve had a thing about steam trains!

Many a Sunday afternoon my parents would take me for a walk in the country (few people had cars back then and walking was the in-thing). Sometimes we’d cross a railway line. If I heard train whistles from down the track, and realised a steam locomotive was coming, I would insist we stop and wait until little wide-eyed me would watch it come by!

Growing older I’d be off with mates to the Saturday afternoon flicks. John Wayne was soon my hero and the first movie I saw him in he jumped onto the rear carriage of a big steam loco.

Following one’s heart
But more than the Duke was on my heart. Locos were certainly were! Especially as dad was an engineer – the official title for locomotive drivers in those yesterdays of steam trains, and I was proud of him.

Came the day which I will never forget when Dad took me – just a ‘little fellow’ in short pants – down to the local, large city rail station and explained about the (to me) ‘huge monster’ that was technically called the engine. And then being lifted up onto the platform, his working domain. What a thrill, such excitement for a small boy… my heart was beating: this was like a dream come true.

The loco had been prestarted and Dad explained the controls, how the engine operated. It was a cold morning but the heat from the blazing firebox quickly warmed me physically – my heart was already on fire with curiosity. I had stared at the huge wheels, and now I gazed at the control levers that looked so heavy to little me, and then back at the tons of coal in the tender. I was elated to be on that platform, especially when Dad permitted me to pull the whistle!

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HARVEST – A TIME FOR REFLECTION

(October 21, 2021) Brian Bell reflects …

As Moses approached the end of his earthly life, he reminded God’s people about the festival of harvest (Deuteronomy 16:10) which was one of the three festivals they were to celebrate each year. These festivals were an opportunity for God’s people to reflect, remember and recognise the Lord’s blessing on them.

Here in Northern Ireland, ‘Harvest Sunday’ is for the most part, still a fairly traditional celebration, usually in the colder, wetter, and darker months of September and October and held especially for folk in our farming/agricultural communities.

God’s handiwork
Last Sunday, October 17, we celebrated harvest in my home church and while we would not be described as being folk who live in a designated farming/agricultural community, some of our folk do come from such backgrounds. The church sanctuary was therefore modestly yet tastefully decorated and as I looked at the various displays they reminded me not only of the harvest of creation – fruit, vegetables, and such, but also of the harvest of salvation.

For me, the harvest of creation can be seen in the words of David J Mansell’s song Jesus is Lord which say, ‘Jesus is Lord, creation’s voice proclaims it, for by his power, each tree and flower was planned and made.’

Creation is God’s handiwork – but he has given us a fairly significant role in managing it and we see this in the rewards as we reap what is sown.

The harvest of salvation is also God’s handiwork. As the good seed of God’s word is sown, the Holy Spirit can lead people into a saving experience and he reaps a harvest of those who respond in faith.

This theme of reflection is also found in Jeremiah chapter 8, from which I will share some brief thoughts…

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GOD’S PRESENCE MELTED HUSTLER’S HEART

(June 11, 2021) Ryan Zepeda, studying at the Lighthouse Christian Academy in Los Angeles, CA, brings an encouraging testimony about actor Mark Wahlberg’s brother…

Jim Wahlberg was the consummate hustler. In prison for hustling, he hustled the prison system –  leading a 12-step program under the pretense of being reformed – just to earn an early release for good behaviour.

‘I was always a hustler, was always manipulative, just to get what I wanted, and I did whatever I had to get it,’ Jim observes on a CBN video.

The older brother of Mark Wahlberg (see Mark’s testimony) actually had no intention of changing his substance-abusing, robbery-financed lifestyle once he was out.

Fear of not being good enough
The fifth of nine kids born to a delivery driver dad and a bank clerk mom, Jim was shaped by the mean streets of Boston’s Irish working-class neighborhood of Dorchester. When he realised that middle class kids had more things than he did, he began stealing to even the score.

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