your world

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Your World May Not Be As Colourful As Usual

My part of the world is not as clear as it normally is and there is nothing I can do about it.

your world may not be as colourful as usual

I’ve heard people talk about having cataracts. They say that everything looks a little cloudy or muted, that colours are not as vibrant. 

I find that to be true when I wear sunglasses. If I’ve worn them for a while while driving, sometimes I need to pull them down to see what things really look like, if conditions have changed since I put my sunglasses on. I may not have noticed that the sun is no longer as glaring as it had been.

In some ways you miss out when you are wearing sunglasses. You don’t see the world in all its explosive glory.

I get that we need to protect our eyes from the rays of the sun and, frankly, sometimes the sun is just too bright.

I remember when I worked for a delivery company years ago. There was one day a week that I began my day at 7:30 am, travelling east on the 401 to Oshawa. In the summer months, at that time the sun was rising above the horizon. 

Traveling on the highway was dangerous without sunglasses. 

First there was the intense, yellow ball of fire that was shining straight in your face like one giant high beam headlight. It was so intense you could barely look at it. 

It was blinding.

But then there was its glare on everything else – other vehicles, the road, any flat surface. 

It was hard to see the lines on the road. It was easy to mistake where the cars around you were. 

I had to be so careful during those trips. I remember that on those days, I couldn’t afford to forget my sunglasses. 

But that is not the case right now in my area.

For the last week or so, the world famous sunsets at Sauble Beach have been rather mediocre.

Usually you never go a day or two without seeing some kind of spectacular sunset over Lake Huron. 

When I scroll through the photos I’ve taken over the years, there are large portions with bright, rich, jaw-dropping sequences of colour that flash by as I scroll.

They are my sunset photos and I have a ton of them … because almost every night I can snap some pics of a sunset I’ve never seen before. 

Now, however, there have been some fires in Northern Ontario. Though we don’t notice much in the daytime, at night, around sunset, the sun is not as bright. 

It’s like the sky has cataracts and its colours are muted – like in the 80’s when pastels were in. 

The rich oranges, pinks, blues and purples have been replaced with softer versions that kind of fade as the sun goes down. 

They are not transforming the sky like they normally do.

Here’s the thing: Our world has been muted over the last year or so. It has not been the same. We all feel like it’s temporary, this muted world of ours. We don’t know when it will end, nor does it seem to be coming to a close really soon. There doesn’t seem to be much we can do. There is one thing, however, and that is to turn to the Bible. The Bible can clear away the particles in our world that keep it muted. God’s word can give you a clear picture of what is to come and how to prepare. 

That’s Life!

Paul

Question: What part of your life seems muted to you right now? Leave your comments and questions below.

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Your World May Be Shrinking And You Don’t Know It

Right about now we all need to do what we can to prevent our world from shrinking.

your world may be shrining and you don't know it

Do you remember when your mother would shrink you new blue jeans?

I remember going to the Levi store and putting down the outrageous amount of $13 for a pair of Levi 501’s – that was a lot of money for jeans! 

Some people could fit into their new jeans right off the rack, but I could never find a length that was right for me. I would have to take an inch or two off the length every time. 

It was tricky though because they didn’t come pre-shrunk. So if you hemmed them before you washed them, you ended up with floods … also known these days as the stylish length for young adults living in Toronto.

My mom was notorious for making my jeans into the 2020’s length back in the 1970’s.

So I wouldn’t hem my pants right away. I would wash them several times … and when I say “I” what I mean is I would allow my mother to wash my jeans a few times before they were hemmed.

Then I would do the hemming myself because I couldn’t trust my mother to keep my pants from showing my ankles to the world.

Just like we don’t want our clothing to shrink, we also need to make sure our world doesn’t shrink.

But these days it’s easy to let that happen. We have kept our bubbles small and closed and gradually, slowly we’ve gotten used to a smaller world. 

We’ve gone fewer places and done fewer things. Our circles of friendships are shrinking and we essentially are living in a smaller world. 

If we let this happen to ourselves, we will pay for it. We will become old before our time. 

I’ve watch seniors for years and this is the natural progression in life.

We start out small in life and then we start to grow. Everything about us expands – our bodies, contacts, influence, etc. But at some point, we stop getting larger … or maybe just our body size keeps expanding. 

At that point we’ve turned the corner and our lives begin to shrink. 

As seniors get older, their lives have a pattern of shrinking. Their days becomes filled with fewer activities. They travel less and less; they don’t venture out as far. The older they get, the smaller their world gets.

I’ve seen this as a pattern in most people. But it doesn’t really become all that noticeable until that senior reaches advanced ages. 

With what we are experiencing these days, I wonder if we will trigger a shrinking world pattern at younger and younger ages. 

It’s worth looking at your world right now and, if you’re not over eighty, maybe take some steps to keep your world from shrinking too quickly.

Here’s the thing: Your view of God or your relationship with God could be shrinking as well. Though our world might be shrinking, God is the same yesterday, today and forever. He is not shrinking. So as you consider what you can do to keep your world from closing in, consider expanding your understanding and your relationship with God. That’s one area of your life that never has to shrink. 

That’s Life!

Paul

Question: What in your life have you allowed to shrink and what are you going to do about it? Leave your comments and questions below.

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