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A Change Can Be As Good As Something New

Sometimes a change is as good as something new. I’ve heard that saying, or something like it, before.

It’s often true – if you change something, you’ll get the same reaction or feeling as if you got something new. 

The other day I put the Christmas lights up on our house. It was a perfect time to do it; it wasn’t raining and the temperature was a mild, 8 degrees Celsius. 

I had heard that the temperatures were going to drop the next day so it was the right time to get those lights up. 

We’ve lived in our house for over 22 years – that’s 22 Christmases. All that time, I’ve had basically the same pattern of lights on the house. 

It’s not fancy – I’m not trying to compete for the most decorated house on the street or the neighbourhood. I have no desire to have people driving by our house every night just to see the lights and display. 

… When we lived in Edmonton, there was a street they called Candy Cane Lane. I don’t know what it’s like now, but when we lived there the police would have to alter the traffic and make the street one way during the Christmas season.

Every house on the street had elaborate Christmas displays. There was one house that had wrapped Christmas presents hanging all over a big old tree in the front yard. All the presents were to Dad from Santa … lucky guy!

Charities collected gifts for the needy and sold hot chocolate to raise money. 

Let me tell you, it was a production! Home owners really went all out to make it a special occasion for the thousands who would do the slow drive down the street, or park and walk it. 

I’m sure people buying homes on that street had to sign a waiver that they would continue to promote the Christmas spirit by decorating the front of their houses each year.

Well, that’s not me. I have a standard lighting configuration. I string lights along our garage and up and down the peak of our roof. 

There was a short time when I put some lights along a fence, but that didn’t last. 

Oh, and I always put a couple of coloured spotlights pointed at the house, to light up some bushes, the front brick and living room window. 

It’s worked well for years. I can put those lights up in my sleep.

But this year I had an idea: Instead of lighting up the front of the house with the spotlights, why not light up the big tree in the middle of our front yard? 

Why didn’t I think of this years ago? 

It’s like a whole new display this year!  And all I did was buy a longer extension chord, and point a red spot directly on our big rock by the tree. I pointed the other red and green spots up at the tree, letting the colours blend together as they shone on the branches. 

It’s just a little change but it looks and feels like something new.

Here’s the thing: Maybe you’ve been spending time with God the same way for years, or you’ve been serving in the same ministry for a long time. Maybe you’ve had the same long time friend for years. You don’t have to quit what you are doing, or do something radically different to spruce things up. All you need is a little change and that time with God, that ministry you serve in, or that friendship will feel new and fresh again. Just a little change can make all the difference.

That’s Life!

Paul

Question: What could you change to make something new again? Leave your comments below.

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We’ve Reached Our Limit

I think we may have reached the limit of what we can put in our house.

Have you ever tried to stuff one more thing into a box but then couldn’t close the lid? You move the things around in the box to get a better fit but, in the end, there’s still one too many things in the box.

We do that every year when we fill our Samaritan’s Purse Christmas Shoe boxes. 

I know we’re not the only ones because I see lots of boxes coming back with elastic bands around them to keep the lids closed.

We all must have some urge in us to stuff those boxes beyond full. 

We know that water has a saturation point. You can put salt in water and it will dissolve, but if you add in too much salt, you will reach the saturation point and see salt at the bottom of the pot. 

I wonder if we can do that with a house?

Is it possible to put one too many things in a house so that it reaches its maximum capacity and there is no more room? 

We know hoarders do that. I once saw a show on TV where they took a camera crew through the house of a hoarder. There was stuff piled almost to the ceiling with only paths through the house from one room to another.

But long before we get to that stage, I think it’s possible to have one too many things that you just can’t fit into your house without it lying out in the open … with no real place for it to belong, with nowhere for you to tuck it away.

My fear is we have reached that place in our home. We were billeting a few teens this past week, and naturally we wanted to clean things up. 

We are also making some changes to our exercise room, which means we need to find some new places to put things. 

As I was surveying the collateral piles of stuff that needed to be put away somewhere, I thought, “I don’t think we have a place to put everything.” 

We have more than one thing too many for our house. When I think about it, we have a lot of stuff. 

I’ve thrown out the things I don’t want, and the paper that should have been disposed of years ago. But I don’t know where to put some things that I want to keep more for sentimental reasons than to be used. 

Among the things that I want to keep is a VCR. We don’t use it any more but I have some video tapes that I would like to convert to digital some day. So how can I get rid of it? 

The problem is we seem to have reached the saturation point in our house and we have no more closet space, crawl space, storage areas, or drawers to put things in.

One thing is for sure – we have to get a lid on all this stuff … today!

Here’s the thing: We try to keep a lid on emotions, our thoughts and, yes, our sins. We stuff them into places that we don’t really notice at first and refuse to look at later when they get more visible. Just like a box, or even a home, you can get to the place where you can’t put the lid on anymore. Your stuff is going to spill out. Way before you get to that place, do something about it: give it to God; seek a friend to help you; sort out your inner junk. Deal with it now rather than later.

That’s Life! 

Paul

Question: What is cluttering your inner self right now? Leave your comments below.

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It Was a Royal Day At My House

It was a royal day in our house today. I don’t mean we had a visit from someone from the royal family or anything. The day was just filled with hours of television tuned to the proceedings and the analysis of the royal wedding of Harry and Meghan.

I’m not much of a royal family follower. I have a hard time identifying anyone past the next in line to the throne. But my wife, Lily, can recognize pretty much anyone who has a remote chance of being the king or queen.

I wasn’t sure if she would be getting up at 4 am to start watching the festivities, but she discovered that we have a PVR so she decided to sleep in a bit and watch the pregame show later.

When I left for hockey at 6 am, all was quiet at our house, but by the time I got back at around 8 am, the TV was definitely on and tuned in. 

She kept channel surfing too, not to see what else was on but to check out the quality of coverage on the other networks.

I, however, had lots to do and didn’t really have time to watch a wedding. After all, I’ve performed many weddings; I didn’t need to watch one on TV.

But there it was; I couldn’t get around it. So I found myself watching some of the ceremony and that long, tedious drive around town in a buggy.

They could have gotten to the reception in about one minute, but they took a ride in a horse-drawn carriage down a road they called, “The Long Walk”.

I noticed the horses acting up a little, so maybe they found it to be a long walk as well.

This wedding captured Lily’s attention. She didn’t want me to make any comments about the hats and fascinators, or any of the people in attendance. 

She didn’t even like me singing along to “Stand By Me” when the choir sung. She just wanted to soak it all in without any distraction. 

I couldn’t help thinking that at hockey a few hours earlier no one in the dressing room had mentioned the wedding. And no one was in a hurry after hockey to get home to see it.

… That’s not to say that I didn’t have any comments to make about the wedding.

There were a few things I noticed: 

Oprah Winfrey seemed to be walking around aimlessly in a daze. Elton John didn’t seem to like the sermon from the Bishop. He had his nose turned up when the camera was on him.

The Queen must have forgotten her glasses, because she was all bent over when they sang the hymn. She could barely see the words.

The bride’s mother seemed to be more sad than happy with everything that was going on. 

The commentators yammered on way too much about nothing. 

And Prince Phillip was walking really well for a guy in his late 90’s who’d just gotten a new hip! 

Those are just some of the things I noticed.

Here’s the thing: When something impressive, something that is bigger than life comes along, it captures our attention. We take notice and pause to take it all in. God has given us His Word, which is filled with insight into Him and what He wants us to know. Don’t act like you don’t have access. Let it capture your attention every day.

That’s Life!

Paul

Question: What strikes you about God’s Word? Leave your comments below.

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My Front Lawn Looks Amazing

I was looking at my front lawn this morning as I left my house.

Lawn

The tree in the front yard is a beautiful, brilliant yellow. There are still lots of leaves on the tree … but it’s kind of like someone who’s had a good head of hair but is getting older – that hair is starting to thin out. It was so thick that most people didn’t notice for years that there were some bare spots on that melon.

Well, that’s the stage our tree is in. It’s thinning out and all that hair loss is showing on the grass below.

That’s right, the leaves that have come off the tree are strewn all over our lawn.

I have to tell you, it’s a great fall scene … at least it was this morning with the sun shining and air still. It was a beautiful sight to see.

As I looked at this awesome, live picture, I thought to myself, “You know, those leaves aren’t going to pick themselves up and put themselves in the collection bag. And though the grass isn’t really growing much any more, it’s still green and could probably use one more cut for the year.”

Today would be a great day to get this all done … but I don’t want to ruin the picture, the scene.

I also know that when the tree does go completely bald, I will be picking up leaves again. So if I work on the front yard today, I will still need to work on it another day or two.

And way back – I mean way back in my brain – I have this thought …

If I just wait the wind will come and blow some, many – maybe not all, but close to all – of those leaves somewhere else.

I know I shouldn’t think like that; I should be responsible. They are from my tree and, therefore, they are my leaves.

My only rebuttal to that is when the fall leaf collection is done, yes I will have picked up a lot of my leaves, but there will also be a lot of leaves bagged and taken to the curb that are from other trees.

You see, I know that my neighbours’ leaves are going to leak off their lawns and end up on mine.

That’s the part that doesn’t make me too eager to get at the task.

It’s such a nice day out that I could spend my time mountain biking … and I’m running out of good days to do that too!

Maybe I should be thinking more of my neighbours instead of just focussing on me and my desires. I should really be thinking of them first.

How can I wreck for them that amazing fall scene that they see when they look out their front windows or when they drive into our court?

That would be wrong, even selfish of me to take all that beauty away from them.

Well, I guess that settles it … I’m going biking.

Here’s the thing: It’s easy to talk ourselves into things we want to do. It’s dangerous when we do that with God, like convincing ourselves that God is behind the very thing we’ve talked ourselves into. Get a second opinion, check it with scripture, and don’t just take your own thoughts as the truth.

That’s Life!

Paul

Question: What kind of things do you try to talk yourself into? Leave your comments below.