Category: Uncategorized

  • Patience

    Herons can teach us something about waiting for the Lord

    Blue heron

    Wow, it’s October already. Where did September go? I had just  managed to start writing dates as September rather than August, and it’s gone. The month felt about two weeks long.

    I’ve been down with a nasty cold for the past week or so and have been largely stuck in the house. Yesterday, we took some time to drive to a local area park, where we could sit in the quiet and sun, while remaining a safe distance from others.

    We enjoyed watching the ducks and seeing a great blue heron work its way along the opposite bank from us. In this area, we are blessed to have a plethora of herons, mostly great blues, but also some greens, and bitterns.

    Herons are masterful and patient hunters. They can remain motionless for an extended period of time and then extend their necks and beaks forward at explosive speed to nab unwary prey. Every move is calculated and often in seemingly slow motion.

    Yesterday’s heron managed to spear a few small fish and some other unidentified prey as it worked its way down the shore. Now and then it seemed to miss, but it was successful more often than not.

    I confess that I’m nowhere near as patient as a heron. I keep praying for patience, and God answers by giving me things to be patient about. Still, I’m glad He is patient with me because I seem at times to be a very slow learner and prone to wandering.

    Like children in the days before a birthday party or Christmas, we impatiently long for His return. Almost every day, someone seems to claim to know when that will be, usually based on a tabloid theological interpretation of some world event combined with a misinterpreted passage of Scripture.

    There is no doubt that His return is coming; Scripture speaks of it often. The long-awaited Day of the Lord will arrive. But, When?

    It will happen when God deems the time to be right.  Second Peter 3 is entirely about that day and speaks of God’s patience.

    But do not overlook this one fact, beloved, that with the Lord one day is as a thousand years, and a thousand years as one day. The Lord is not slow to fulfill his promise as some count slowness, but is patient toward you, not wishing that any should perish, but that all should reach repentance. But the day of the Lord will come like a thief, and then the heavens will pass away with a roar, and the heavenly bodies will be burned up and dissolved, and the earth and the works that are done on it will be exposed. Since all these things are thus to be dissolved, what sort of people ought you to be in lives of holiness and godliness, waiting for and hastening the coming of the day of God, because of which the heavens will be set on fire and dissolved, and the heavenly bodies will melt as they burn! But according to his promise we are waiting for new heavens and a new earth in which righteousness dwells. 2 Peter 3:8-12 NIV

    It’s coming at the perfect moment, and Jesus has told us that no one will know the day or time. 

    How do we live in that tension? We stop worrying about when it will happen and live like it might be today. We love our neighbor, share the good news, and keep short accounts with God.

    That might not make us any less impatient, but it will sharpen our walk and enhance our witness as we wait.

    Trust His timing, live for Him, and He will be glorified.

    Kevin

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  • Childlike, not childish, faith.

    a stack of wooden cigar boxes

    Some years ago, my friend John gave me some old  wooden cigar boxes. Neither of us is a smoker, but he had managed to collect quite a few of the little boxes over the years. Like me, he enjoys storing his treasures in small wooden boxes or tins of various types. The treasures can be anything from pencils and pens to nuts and bolts. I have always enjoyed boxes and containers of “stuff.” 

    I have one tin filled with such treasures as pocket knives, a bear claw, some arrowheads, a penknife that belonged to my grandfather, and a couple of inexpensive pocket watches. Still another holds USB memory sticks. I like to think of them as childlike treasures not childish.

    I even have a few of those hollowed-out books that are really boxes sitting on my various bookshelves. They, too, hold “irreplaceable treasures.” Things like fossil shark’s teeth, shiny rocks, a compass that belonged to my grandfather, a letter opener made from a deer antler, and some of his World War II memorabilia. Nothing that would be of any value to anyone else but irreplaceable to me.

    If you have been reading for any length of time, you will know that I also enjoy thrift stores, garage sales, and old-style small-town hardware shops.

    I’ve panned for gold, scoured abandoned farmsteads for collectible “stuff,” and picked more than my share of interesting rocks and minerals in my travels. 

    I have never found anything that could be considered a great treasure or have substantial monetary value. It is the hunt for the unusual that I enjoy. I suppose that’s my childlike sense of wonder coming out. Some might say childish, but I prefer childlike. 

    Believers are called to be childlike. 

    “…calling to him a child, he put him in the midst of them and said, “Truly, I say to you, unless you turn and become like children, you will never enter the kingdom of heaven. Whoever humbles himself like this child is the greatest in the kingdom of heaven.” Matthew 18:2-4

    Like children, only in the sense that we learn to trust our Father, as a young child trusts their parents. We are not called to set aside our intellect or reason, but we are called to be humble and trust.  Childlike not childish.

    There is another reason Jesus called us to be little children. Children have little to bring to the table.

    In the days of Jesus, children were amongst the lowest class of citizens. They had no rights, no power, and no wealth. That is hard for us to believe when today, children seem to be a privileged class. We place great value on them. The pendulum has swung to the opposite extreme, from highly marginalized to being worshipped.

    Amongst other things, Jesus was making the point that the gospel was for marginalized people, not just the wealthy or middle class. It is for the sick, the poor, the addicted, the lonely, the undesirables, the unlovable, and in general, those we might feel uncomfortable sitting next to in a church service. 

    Christ had remarkable compassion for the misfits of the day. They had nothing to bring but faith.

    In reality, you and I are misfits as well. We bring nothing but faith, and that is a gift from God. We are broken sinners who offer nothing special to God. It is by His grace that we are saved, not by our merit.

    We have no right to have churches filled with one ethnic group or one social class. That distorts the gospel and sends the message that you don’t belong if you are not like us.

    Churches are not meant to be filled with smug, self-righteous, perfect, homogeneous people. They are designed to be filled with people who know that they are broken and bring nothing. We are to be like the children of Jesus’ day.

    We are saved by the mercy of Christ. I pray He gives us eyes to see others as He sees them and that we make time for the marginalized, the children, the misfits.

    Be blessed

    Hallelu Yah / Praise God 

    Kevin

    Gleanings From The Word – Experience an extraordinary God in ordinary life. 

    Childlike faith – not childish

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    All contents, “Gleanings From The Word” and “Experience an Extraordinary God in Ordinary Life,” are © 2001, 2025 K.F. “Kevin” Corbin, Gleanings From The Word.

    Unless otherwise noted, all Scripture is from the English Standard Version (ESV).

    From Gleanings From The Word (Kevin Corbin, 2001– ), a Scripture-based devotional work.

    # Right Belief Must Become Right Living