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The definition of patience

Patience. It’s a word we would never bother looking up in the dictionary because we already understand its meaning. But sometimes a well-known word can leap to life with new meaning and application when we read its formal definition. So consider what Dictionary.com has to say about patience.

Patience: putting up with annoyance, misfortune, delay, or hardship, with fortitude and calm and without complaint, loss of temper, irritation or the like. It is an ability or willingness to suppress restlessness or annoyance when confronted with delay.

Wow. Simply put, patience means not showing annoyance or anger with people or things that aren’t acting as we desire! From this definition we can deduce that we are very often…. not patient!

This definition leads me to believe that the practice of “patience” or “impatience” relies almost completely on the words that come out of our mouths and the body language that we exhibit (heavy sighs, eye-rolling, stomping, slamming doors) when we do not like what is being said or done. Is patience an attitude then, or an action?

Love is patient

It definitely starts with an attitude – we have to decide how we are going to react, and we do that by recognizing what is right and wrong and then making our choice.

In 1 Corinthians 13, Paul tells us that, “Love is patient.” That means that love puts up with "annoyance, misfortune, delay, and hardship with fortitude and calm and without complaint, loss of temper, or irritation." It means love is the "ability or willingness to suppress restlessness or annoyance."

In Romans 12:9-21 Paul tells us how to behave like Christians. Part of that includes verse 12, which states, “rejoice in hope, be patient in tribulations, be steadfast in prayer.” That means that when we have tribulation (which means trials, troubles, problems, aggravations) we are supposed to put up with them with fortitude and calm and without complaint, loss of temper, or irritation; we are to suppress restlessness and annoyance.

Excusing ourselves

But patience is not easy, and it has become difficult to recognize right from wrong because our culture not only excuses impatience, it exalts it as a right and a virtue. It is “only understandable” to be impatient in traffic or standing in line, when confronted with confused or ignorant people, or in obtaining whatever it is that we need or want. Television commercials suggest that we grab each other’s breakfast food, race to beat our spouse to the better car, and complain loudly whenever things displease us. Life is all about indulgence and not letting anyone or anything get in our way.

It is also very easy to excuse our behavior by blaming our impatience on our workload, our temperament, our upbringing, our heritage, our gender, or our age (whether young or old!).

Recognizing the sin of impatience

So let’s get the definition of patience correct first – let’s know right from wrong, because God tells us in several places that we are to be patient, including with family and church members.

How do we talk to and about our church family? 1 Thessalonians 5:14 tells us that as we “warn the unruly, comfort the faint-hearted, and uphold the weak,” we are to “be patient with all” of them. This is different than “tsk-tsking” as we look down our noses.

Paul tells us to express all the fruit of the Spirit spoken of in Galatians 5:22-23: love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness and self-control. This involves not demanding our own perceived “rights” or our own way. It involves loving others more than ourselves for “love overlooks a multitude of sins” as well as mistakes and small differences (1 Peter 4:8). And it involves trusting God to take care of the details when there are delays and difficulties. We must drop the hurry and the worry about what others might think of us.

Either we are acting patiently, or we are not. God’s written and preached Word can give us strength that helps us choose patient behavior. We exhibit this fruit of the Holy Spirit best when we are walking closest to Him.

The Apostle Paul said in Romans: “So I find this law at work: When I want to do good, evil is right there with me” (7:21). So true. But having a better definition of this sin will at least help us to identify our inclination towards it, and make it less excusable.

God tells us to be patient: to put up with daily trials without complaint or irritation. The best news is that He promises strength through the Holy Spirit, and forgives our confessed sins daily as well.

“Faithful is He who calls us, who also will do it” (1 Thess. 5:24).

This article was first published in January 2017.

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In Christ

The antidote to works righteousness and the anxiety, exhaustion, and resentment that comes with it. ***** I used to enjoy rock climbing. At least, I...

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That which bubbles up to the surface

The Reformed theologian R.C. Sproul, (1939-2017), is quoted as saying: “… laughter is precisely the kind of thing that will always confound scien...

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Busyness in the home

If you have a family, you know that your loved ones are greatly affected by your decisions around time management – and your children are watching a...

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Blessed are the busy?

Should we be trying to be less busy or be busy better? ***** It’s not really the worst problem to have: too many good things to do, and not enough...

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My journey with books

It has been a long journey of books for me. I grew up with books, and as a child read from The Book of Knowledge encyclopedia, the Bobbsey Twins series and Grace Livingston Hill’s books. It was my own love for books which had me keep my nursing and my Bible College textbooks. But it was not until I met my husband-to-be John that I really discovered what it was to have books in the house – here was a man who loved books! On our very first date, when I mentioned that I had Berkoff’s Systematic Theology, John asked if maybe he could borrow it some time. I thought to myself, “There is no way he is going to get that textbook - I’ll never see it again!” For our first 3 months of marriage we lived with John’s parents in Oshawa, Ontario before we went to Grand Rapids, Michigan, where John was to study at Calvin Seminary. During those 3 months, I decided to straighten out John’s bookcases. That meant I put the books all in neat rows according to height and size – I was tired of look at those messy shelves. John was not a happy camper when he came home and found out that his books were not in subject order. Oh well, live and learn, in those early marriage days. More and more books Throughout his ministry, the supply of books increased. John mostly bought books at garage sales, library sales, or people would kindly give him books from their collections – he would never say no to that. But then we would need more bookshelves and more space. In all our moves the books came with us. From Vernon, BC to Wellandport, ON they came by train in the deep of winter. None were lost. He took about 400 books with us to the Philippines – ones he needed for teaching at the seminary. It was a challenge to sort and choose. He took some Dutch books as well, only to find that the bok-bok worm liked the glue in his Dutch books (but they had no interest in his cheap paperbacks). In all our pastorates John has his study in the house, taking up a bedroom for his books. In Wellandport the church built a special addition on to the parsonage for his study. That was much needed – our family of six needed the room. And the quantity of books continued to grow. All sorts John was happiest when he had a book and pen in his hand to make his own personal notes and scribbles – he did not use a highlighter for his markings. And he was quite an eclectic reader, his reading ranging from The Communist Manifesto to Francis Schaeffer’s writings. One of his favorite books to read again and again was Augustine’s Confessions. Right up there among his favorites were C.S. Lewis, Chuck Colson, Martyn Lloyd-Jones, and A. Kuyper. There was no end of his favorite special writers. I could tell when John was tired – that’s when he would pull out a good Dutch novel. Though he was a serious reader, John enjoyed a good mystery, the likes of Agatha Christie or G.K. Chesterton. Tools in his toolbox John was often asked if he had read them all. Yes, he would say. Mind you, some of them were strictly reference material for his sermons or articles. Did he keep every book he got from day one when he started his ministry? Believe it or not, he gave away a good number to future seminarians and threw out others that were no longer relevant or falling apart. Did it make a dent on the shelf? Hardly. At one point I had to put my foot down and say I did not want bookshelves in our bedroom or kitchen. Looking after all these books was a challenge, especially when it came to dusting and straightening up the shelves. Books are real dust collectors so every year around Christmas or New Years I would take them down, shelf by shelf, and give them all a good dusting. I would find pieces of paper stuck in a book, along with clippings, articles, and any other kind of paper for his notes. Yes books were part and parcel of John’s ministry and our married life. Books were his tools, just like that of a carpenter or painter. They had to be accessible somewhere, even if that meant a pile on the floor by his chair and not in a box in the cupboard. Passing on the tools The time came in John’s last 2 months when he could not hold a pen or a book, let alone have the stamina to read. That was a blow to give up something he loved dearly all his life. One of my hardest times was to go into his study where I saw piles of books he had gathered for his articles, his pens his notes and the discarded scraps of paper in his wastebasket… all just where he left it to the point of no return. A year later I sorted out John’s Dutch books, computer filed each title and author, boxed 1,300 of them and took them to the Canadian Reformed Seminary in Hamilton. I did the same with his English books, computer filed each title, and author, boxed 3,600 books, and took them to Redeemer Christian College University in Ancaster, Ontario. A few books went to family and to several of John’s colleagues. That was John’s wish and prayer – that his books would be used for God’s glory and His Kingdom. So this is my journey with books – from a few boxes when we arrived in Vernon, BC in 1966 to our life in London, ON where I took out over 200 boxes of books. The journey has been long and good and I certainly have no regrets living surrounded by books! For 13 years Rev. Johan Tangelder (1936-2009) – John – wrote articles for Reformed Perspective. You can find many of those articles here, and many more on his website. This article first appeared in the July 2011 issue....

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Navigating failure

Fear of failure can paralyze you. There’s a lot to be said about how, in order to succeed, you need to be comfortable with failure – but that doesn’t erase the fact that failing feels painful and shameful. Who wants that? Better to avoid it. Suddenly success becomes less important than “not failing.” And the only sure way to avoid all the feelings that come with not being able to do something is to not try it at all. Not trying assures you of not failing. But in trying to avoid failure, you can hold yourself back from doing things in your path that God has given you to do. So what’s a good way to navigate failure? There are two different approaches I've taken at different times of my life to deal with this fear of failure. They both begin with a question. What would you do – or attempt – or explore... 1) …if you knew you couldn’t fail – that it was impossible? 2) … if you were free to fail?” 1. What if you could not fail? “What would you attempt to do if you knew you could not fail?” I first came across this question in a book called Launching a Leadership Revolution, but asking this kind of question is a pretty common approach to working with a fear of failure. Why? Because this question can be clarifying: stop thinking about what’s holding you back and start thinking about what you’d really want to do if you could. Once you know what you really want, then you can think about how to navigate the obstacles that might come up. If you never stop to think about what you really desire to accomplish, you could spend your whole life doing things that feel safe just because they feel safe, and miss what you might be uniquely suited to do. But this question can also be disheartening, and it certainly was for me back when I first read it. Because the answer was – a lot more than what I was doing at that moment. I can’t count how many times the fear of terrible things happening to me stopped me, all because I couldn’t count on these terrible things not happening. And I’m not alone in dreaming of a world of failure-free achievement, judging by the number of self-help books that use this quote. It is true that many successful people plowed on despite failure and in the face of more failure, but I couldn’t shake the nagging awareness of people who did plow on after failing and just kept on failing. I know failure isn’t necessarily a bad thing. But it can feel terrible. And there’s no guarantee that “keep trying” will lead to success. So I found it difficult to ignore the thought of failure, as this quote seemed to advise me to do. Or even to accept failure as part of the process. The quote did, however, inspire me to dream about what I’d like to achieve with my life. It helps cut to the chase of what you really want to do, even if you feel at the moment that it’s unachievable. Which brings me to the second approach. 2. What if you were free to fail? “When you’ve been found, you’re free to fail.” – James K.A. Smith, On the Road with St. Augustine When you’re young, life is more about trying to make choices about what you want to do, and that must’ve drawn me to the first question years ago. Maybe I’m drawn to this second quote more now as I’m older and navigating the result of my own and other people’s failures. Here’s the full quote in context: “Resting in the love of God doesn’t squelch ambition; it fuels it with a different fire. I don’t have to strive to get God to love me; rather, because God loves me unconditionally, I’m free to take risks and launch out into the deep. I’m released to aspire to use my gifts in gratitude, caught up in God’s mission for the sake of the world. When you’ve been found, you’re free to fail.” Rest, rather than striving. Release rather than control. And the peace of God’s love, rather than approval conditional on success. Humans judge on achievements. We compare each other, and we compare ourselves to each other, and in the age of social media it doesn’t take long to see how much we lack in comparison to everyone else. But if life is about what we produce, what we show, and whether we’ve made good on the promise or potential we showed at one point, how can we ever find peace? Good questions both I still like both questions though. What would you do if you knew you could not fail is for young people deciding what to do with their lives. They’re making decisions about paths to take. They’re trying to diagnose their passions. What if you’re free to fail is for when you get a little older. It’s for those days when you’re dealing with the knowledge you have failed at various things. You DID fail. What does that mean? How do you handle it? Failure hits us because we take it as a reflection of who we are and what we’re worth. But we’re urged to start from a place of acceptance – God’s acceptance. Sometimes failure weighs on us because we know our sin is involved. Our feelings of guilt add to the pain of failure. But the beauty of this quote is that it prevents us from relying on “fixing” ourselves – God makes us acceptable. God loved us even when we were dead in our sins, and He promises us no sin can come between us if we turn to Him. God doesn’t ask us to overcome our failures before He loves us. He makes us new, and we can rely on that. So this is not only about the type of failure you can learn from. It’s not just the kind of “failing so you know what to do better next time.” Not the kind of failing that life coaches advise you is good for you (“fail fast and fail hard!”). No, this applies to the kind of failing that seems completely futile, that seems to have no meaning and no lesson to learn. The kind of failure that can crush you and make you too paralyzed to do anything more. You need the promise you’re accepted no matter what. What we really need Because here’s the thing about failure: you won’t avoid it. In a broken world, you will crash and burn at some point. But maybe we face failure for a reason – to be reminded that we cannot go through life on our own. Failure forces us to face the reality we’re dependent on God. He has to take us through the next steps. Both of the above approaches to failure are quotes from human authors. But the Bible reminds us that God promises to be there in all our shortcomings. In 2 Cor. 12:9 we read how God reminded Paul that, “My power is made perfect in weakness,” and in Phil 1:6 Paul reminds us that God “who began a good work in you will bring it to completion at the day of Jesus Christ.” What God started, He will finish, and we can rest in that assurance. In the end, none of us will be failures. What we really need is not to reach certain milestones, to earn anything, or to look successful in the eyes of the world, but rather to learn that utter dependence on God. If you can let go and let God work out His plan for the world, you can trust He will bring everything to good. You can trust He knows the way even when you don’t....

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Taming busyness: practical tips

“If I’m caught up on my laundry, does that mean I’m not doing enough for the church?” “Am I allowed to fit in time for exercise, or only if it’s between 6 and 7 AM?” “Can I say ‘no’ to the women’s Bible study if it’s the only night this week that my husband and I are both home?” Even when our hearts and minds are in the right place, there are still to-do’s and deadlines, crises in our life, and decisions to be made (and, occasionally, goofy questions that cross our mind). Here are some of the tips women shared with me (quoted and paraphrased) to help tame the inevitable busyness of life. Be deliberate about the complications you add Be deliberate about the complications you add to your life… Our gadgets, our wardrobe, our extracurriculars, how we celebrate holidays – can we simplify? How busy are we with details that don’t really matter, or that add more stress than joy? Every commitment or complication you add to your life (joining a sports team, getting a pet, opening an Etsy shop, growing a garden) adds busyness – often more than we anticipate. Embrace these kinds of good opportunities, by all means, but choose the ones that will truly enrich your life and that fit in with your other priorities. Know your limits Don’t cheat your body – it really does need sleep, healthy food, and exercise (and maybe not quite that much caffeine). Recognize not just your limits of physical busyness, but also of being mentally/emotionally “used up.” “I used to ‘push through,’ but there’s always a payback time eventually.” “Develop healthy habits and trust God to care for you.” “When I cross the line to too busy, I start to take myself too seriously, I lose joy in my task, and the people that I presumably love the most in the world become burdensome to me. That is always my sign that I have to slow down.” “If I can’t help with something I can always pray for that person, activity, situation. I’m saying no but I trust that God is already there providing.” Know what’s important You will miss out on some good and worthwhile things – and so will your kids. If you know you’re saying “no” to something because you’re committed to what you’re saying “yes” to, it’s easier to let opportunities pass you by. “I decided that, at this stage of life, healthy meals are more important than a perfectly clean house. Maybe one day I’ll have time for both... or, maybe not.” “Sometimes ‘done’ is better than ‘perfect.’” “Accept a bit more chaos.” “There are times when I suddenly realize that all the kids are overdue for haircuts again, and the boys’ pants are showing a bit too much sock. But they’re all loved and fed so I try not to stress too much.” Know what “fills you up” Some things deplete us (and we can’t entirely avoid these things), while other things recharge us. Recognize the things that energize you, and find opportunities to do them: coaching a school team, baking cinnamon buns for a stressed-out friend, bringing flowers to shut-ins, writing an article? Start your day right What do you reach for first in the morning: your phone or your Bible? Treasure Sundays and breaks that refresh Sunday can bring its own busyness. If you’re not refreshed and refocused by your Sunday habits, does something need to change? Breaks are good, but sometimes they’re not truly rejuvenating. The last time you let yourself mindlessly scroll on your phone for a mental break, how did you actually feel afterwards? What if you took a short walk or picked up your devotional instead? Identify your biggest time-waster(s) Where or how do you get most distracted and waste the most time, without any significant benefit to yourself or others? Reclaim some of this “lost time”: set time limits for yourself, ask for accountability from a loved one, or remove the source of a temptation. Do the small thing when you can’t do the big one No time for that visit? You can send an encouraging note. Never seem to make it to the gym? Find a ten-minute online workout. Something is (almost) always better than nothing. “Do a little and trust that God will use it.” Spread the load If you’re a mom – kids and chores: how well acquainted are yours? Your investment of time in teaching your kids helpful skills will pay off for everyone, not least for your kids themselves. Do you have a friend or sibling with different strengths than you? Could you swap some tasks in a way that benefits you both? Get extra mileage out of your time “I listen to the Bible on audio while driving, or cooking.” “We use our dinner times to intentionally check in with our kids, try to have meaningful conversations and stay connected.” “Turn all those driving time (sports, appointments, etc.) into one-on-one ‘dates’ with your kids. Often great conversations happen when it’s just the two of you in the car.” “If you’re running an errand, always take one child along.” Kids and chores: are yours acquainted? Recognize there are different seasons in life Although balance is a good overall goal, there are seasons that will feel out of balance. There are also times when certain things we’d love to do just aren’t possible because of the pressing needs of the moment. One mom shared with me that she used to get frustrated because it was hard to find quiet time for devotions with her young kids around. So she started doing devotions with them instead – reading and praying out loud, and letting her kids “take notes” in their own little notebooks while she journaled. It’s been a good solution for this stage of her life. “Looking back, the time when my kids were small and were all at home was so short. Why was I so impatient to try to fit in all kinds of other things?” Count your blessings “Sometimes when I feel complain-y about all the things I have to do, I think about my immigrant grandmothers. I have choices and conveniences they never would’ve dreamed of. It’s a good reality check.” ...

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The evil of simplicity

If ever there was an idol thoroughly ripe and ready for a great heaving into eternal hell fire, it has to be the idol of simplicity. This leapt to my attention, not for the first time, this morning when I made the grave mistake of wandering from the “Holds” section of our depraved local library and into the cookbook aisle. My sight was immediately accosted with drivel — 5 Easy Ways to Feed People So That They Will Never Ask You to Do It Again, Eating with No Grain and Only a Fraction of a Grimace, and Whole 30 to Become Half a Human. I might be paraphrasing. A little. We are people captivated by convenience and ease, by a false simplicity. The only simplicity worth having is that simplicity we don’t want: simplicity of heart, childlike faith, accepting what our Father gives us without throwing a fit about it, because He is our dad and if He says we need it, then we do. Everything spelled out? No, we have no use for true simplicity. We want systems. We want all the ways to save time, money and calories. There is a paradox here – true simplicity gives rise to perfect complexity, the sort that can be in awe of fungus that is good to eat, and in awe of the mystery of breastfeeding, the sort that can know it is worthwhile to make a thing with your own hands, and that saving time can be the most deadly waste of all. But when simplicity is the goal in and of itself, all such glorious complexity is once and for all abandoned for the sake of efficiency, of economy, of a time-saving system or technique. Ironically, our quest for simplicity often goes hand in hand with a devotion to busyness, and thus the vicious cycle is born. You worry that if the only socialization your kids receive is at home (gah, what if they start talking like me??) and at church, such that they will grow up to be like that oddball who sings with a sign on the corners of intersections trying to get you to buy mattresses. So you sign them up for activities and sports and lessons (I wonder how many of the decisions we make as parents have their beginnings in fear...). This busyness drives you to seek out ways to “maximize your time.” You meal prep – perhaps you cook one day a month and freeze it, if you are an ambitious homemaker at heart, or maybe you just buy pre-packaged meals and snacks, things that can be heated up quickly or eaten on the run. You make a detailed plan for getting all the laundry done as you seek the simple life... but true simplicity just does the wash, and thanks God for having people to dirty the clothes He gave you. The quest for simplicity blinds us to the stunning complexity that is living. Simple shouldn’t drive Don’t get me wrong – the frozen pizza is not the problem. I love frozen pizza and canned food is a gift. It is always about the heart. Simplicity is a bad master. So is complexity, for that matter. Pride creeps in on both fields and makes a mess of our enjoyments and our work. All well and good, you might be saying, but the laundry actually does need doing and I think better with a system! Without a plan, my whole house reeks of stinky socks! Take a breath (well, unless you haven’t been doing your laundry). This is not an indictment of planning or of systems. It is not even necessarily a criticism of trying to find the easiest, fastest, cheapest way to do things. There are good reasons for pursuing all of these goals. The evil I find is when the means becomes the end. We are a forgetful people; we build idols out of anything and everything. So much to appreciate Let’s contemplate an example of what I am talking about, shall we? It is August as I write this and all the vegetables on the farm are ripe for the taking. There is tremendous abundance. I am delighted by everything about summer squash: the color of sunshine, the smooth, thin exterior, the butter-colored flesh, and a flavor mild enough to serve with anything. Our visit to the library was cut blissfully and providentially short by the knowledge that we needed to get back home in time to bake a Yukon gold potato and summer squash torte that I had prepared for lunch. This delicious dish was new to me and I think it demonstrates the principle I am fumbling around to express. There is nothing inherently difficult or fussy about this torte. It is thinly sliced potato and squash, layered with drizzles of olive oil and a cheese and salt and pepper mixture, with green onions sprinkled throughout, baked to a golden, crispy-edged perfection. Yet it was captivating – appreciation led me to take the time to slice, to stir, to grind, to arrange, to bake. It took time and attention to use the gifts of the ultimate Husbandman well, and the result was lovely, a feast for the senses. It was not the easiest way to use the vegetables, it was not the least expensive lunch, it was in no way time saving. But there is glory in gratitude. One of the interesting side effects of offering up your time and money and effort during the preparation of a thing is that it tends to encourage a similar offering up in the receiving of the thing. A torte that took two hours to prepare (not even considering the time and effort spent in the growing of the vegetables) could certainly be scarfed down in mere moments... but it felt so natural to eat it slowly, to lift layers and perceive what the heat of the oven had accomplished in the time it was given. Simple, right? His world is far from simple You are up to your eyeballs in the generous, way over-the-top gifts of God. And the only simple part of this gift-giving is meant to be the receiving – wide-eyed, hands clapping, laughter bubbling out of you because He did it again! He made wild things grow in the wood, He caused the carpet fibers to hold their form and be soft under your feet, He spoke flowers and hummingbirds and green lacewings into existence and taught them to dance. So sing while you work, drink your water from a pretty glass, be in awe that hair can be combed, live amazed. He has not given you the future; today’s gifts are more than enough to keep you occupied, to fill your arms and your thoughts and your affections. This story is way too big to waste on simplicity....

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C.S. Lewis on real happiness and real Christianity

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Learning

“It was good for me to be afflicted so that I might learn your decrees.” – Psalm 119:71 Is it possible that something bad can be good for you...

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Charlie Kirk in context

Many will condemn a man for an isolated sentence or two. Christians do it too. Instead, we should assess others just as we would like to be judged (Ma...

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Why Charlie Kirk’s death hit so hard

For a time, in September, my Facebook feed – I’m sure yours too – was full of tributes to Charlie Kirk. At this point, I don’t need to tell yo...

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Dominee’s friend

There is style and there is class. Dominee may not have had much style, as the world considers style, but he had class. Dominee had accepted a call to another church. At such a time we cover up the pain of separation with laughter. How could we be happy? This was the man whom God had sent to us to speak to us the Word of God every Sunday. We heard the voice of the Great Shepherd through His under-shepherd twice every Lord’s day. Because Dominee’s voice was so familiar, and his sermons somewhat predictable, we thought we knew him. We knew from the cadence of his heavily accented sentences when he was wrapping up the sermon — just the final song yet, and the benediction, and we’d soon be outside chatting, swapping stories, and laughing. Dominee was not what you would call an especially stylish man. During all the years he preached to us he wore a grey suit. He may have replaced it with a new one once in a while, but we never noticed because the new one was identical to the previous. Nothing stylish about Dominee. Even when he would drop by because of illness in the family or if someone needed encouragement, he’d wear a grey suit. We thought we knew him, until his farewell evening. As I said, when we are sad, we turn to laughter. To cover up our sadness. The farewell evening had begun and was evolving in a predictable way. There was only one unusual thing that immediately caught everyone’s attention. Near the front of the church sat an old Sikh gentleman and his wife. We could tell he was a Sikh because he was wearing a turban. The turban happened to be pink. Later I was told it was, in fact, lavender. The chairman of the men’s society, a serious man, ascended the pulpit. He read some Scripture, prayed, and invited us to sing a well-known Psalm. On behalf of the men’s society, he spoke some kind words of farewell to Dominee, his wife, and the children, and then presented them with a gift, a beautiful painting of local scenery: “We don’t want you to forget this beautiful part of the country!” This was followed by several presentations — women’s, young people’s, youth. And on it went, predictably and comfortably. The presentations alternated between funny, sad, and poignant. But mostly we laughed. When the elders and deacons performed a humorous skit about Dominee’s typical way of leading a meeting, we laughed heartily. When one of Dominee’s local colleagues told a story about Dominee at a classis meeting, we laughed so hard we thought our sides were going to burst. After several hours, when everyone was good and ready for coffee and cake, the chairman of the men’s society ascended the pulpit once again. With gravity, he thanked everyone for coming, bade Dominee farewell once more, and asked if there was anyone whom he had missed, or who had not been on the program but yet wanted to say something. The Sikh gentleman stood up. Well, this was interesting. Slowly, with age and dignity, he walked to the front of the church. He began to speak. This was very interesting. No one could remember a Sikh speaking in our church. He began to tell a story. It had been a hot summer afternoon when he and his wife were walking along the sidewalk. Suddenly overcome by heat, thirst, and exhaustion, he sat on a stone wall in front of a house. That house, as it turned out, was the Manse. Dominee was sitting in the shade reading a newspaper from the old country that had just come in the mail. He noticed the Sikh man sitting at the end of the driveway on the stone wall, and the man’s wife bending over him with a look of concern on her face. Dominee got up to see if he could help. “My husband is very thirsty,” said the lady. “Could he please have some water?” Dominee went to the house and came back with a pitcher of water and some glasses. He poured two glasses of water, and then he took a moment to speak about the other water, the living water that Jesus provides. On that day Dominee and the Sikh became friends. The Sikh gentleman and his wife would drop by more often to talk with Dominee. We never knew. We thought we knew our Dominee. We all listened intently to the Sikh as he told us the story about our kind Dominee. He considered it an honor to count him a friend and wanted to give him a parting gift. The Sikh explained that it was their custom to give the turban they are wearing to their departing friend. The turban would be a reminder of their friendship. With that the Sikh removed the turban from his head, reached forward, and placed it on Dominee’s head. Dominee was mostly bald and had a smaller head than his Sikh friend, and so the turban sank down over Dominee’s forehead. It was a sight to behold! Our Dominee clothed in his trademark grey suit, the only way we had ever seen him in all the years he had ministered to us, wearing a lavender-colored turban. No one laughed, snickered, or tittered. Instead, after a moment during which you could have heard a pin drop, the congregation slowly rose and began to clap. We did not know whether we were clapping for Dominee or the Sikh. Likely, we were clapping for the Lord. We had seen a remarkable thing. Our immigrant congregation may not have had much style, but on that evening we had class. Dominee wore the turban for the rest of the evening, during coffee and as we all came by his table to say farewell. He wore it with pride. Dominee did not have much style, but he had a lot of class. And we thought we knew him. There is style, and there is class. This is a true story, which I experienced as an adolescent boy at the departure of a neighboring minister. The references to style and class were inspired by Sietze Buning’s “Style and Class” collection of poems. This first appeared in the January 2015 issue....

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Veya’s story

The fight for her life in a broken and biased healthcare system – one that sees doctors perpetrating euthanasia and abortion and calling them both medical care. ***** “Our sweet Veya Hope ran into the arms of Jesus yesterday.” So shared Veya’s mother, Krystal Vanderbrugghen, on her Instagram page on August 2, 2025. Krystal continued: “Her name was her calling – Hope. She carried it with her every single day she spent inside those hospital rooms and gave it to all who knew her.” Veya was first introduced to the waiting world, and to the arms of her parents Krystal and Jeremy, just a year and a half earlier, on December 4, 2023. Although the LORD didn’t have many days allotted for Veya here on Earth, her life touched tens of thousands of hearts. And her experiences here also exposed just how difficult it can be to fight for care in a broken world and medical system. “We pray that Veya’s story continues to encourage other families who are given this same precious gift – the gift of loving and raising a child with Down Syndrome,” Krystal explained. Hope born Jeremy and Krystal, along with their other children Ivylee, Irelyn, and Lincoln, live in Caledonia, Ontario. In the fall of 2023, as they were eagerly awaiting the birth of another child, they learned that their baby had a congenital heart defect which would require surgery at some point after birth. “While this is a lot to process, we know without a doubt God truly has a perfect plan for this baby even though the road ahead is filled with uncertainties.” That’s what Krystal shared at that time on Instagram, not realizing just how true these words would be for her and her family. She would continue to share, with all who took an interest, the challenges of the road they were on. In an appearance on RP’s Real Talk podcast earlier this year, talking with Lucas Holtvluwer, Krystal explained that hospital stays brought their own problems. “She was born with Down Syndrome and a cardiac defect – pretty straightforward – but she has now encountered some medical complexities from living her life in a hospital this long and from delayed treatments.” One complication and delay led to another, and Veya was transferred from Hamilton’s McMaster Hospital to SickKids Hospital in Toronto, which is one of the leading children’s hospitals in the world. Crumbling care “Our journey started off really great, like we had teams that were really invested,” Krystal explained to Lucas. “But then we experienced her care declining January of this year, so that kind of set her on a totally different trajectory.” “Specifically with her last ICU admission, you could just tell through the conversations with the doctors that they were really just trying to wrap things up with her and kind of coerce us into letting her go rather than help her,” she shared on the podcast. “I feel like the team coach, trying to keep the spirits alive…. But they all just kind of vanished.” Krystal was particularly confused when Veya was denied a necessary liver transplant. She asked their Pediatric Advanced Care team if it was Veya’s Down Syndrome that was influencing their decision-making. “They can never say yes or no, but they said, ‘Mom, I think you know the answer to that deep down in your heart.’ And I said, ‘well, that is the confirmation.’” One particular incident really broke Krystal’s trust in Veya’s care. “Right after her liver surgery, she got RSV , and then a few days after that, she got overdosed with a lethal amount of potassium. It wasn't just a little bit, it was 10 times the regular amount that she normally gets, and it was during the evening when none of us were there.” Veya’s heart rate went to 350 beats per minute, and she had to be shocked three times to stabilize her. “I do have questions whether it actually was an accident or not, because these sorts of things happen when families step away. So, the timing of it, but also the amount. You know, it's one thing, if you gave a little extra, but 10 times the amount, like, an actual lethal dose?” Growing support Krystal shared the ups and downs of Veya’s journey on her Instagram account. Her photos, videos, and touching words lit a fire in many hearts around the world, and she ended up with close to 40,000 Instagram followers, many of whom were praying for Veya, and encouraging Krystal and her family. “For me, social media was like an open diary and a way for me to process but also a way for me to be able to connect with others that were raising children with Down Syndrome, because I knew nothing about it, and so it's been a really great place for resources and connecting.” But the care hasn’t only been virtual. Krystal and Jeremy are members of Trinity Canadian Reformed Church in Glanbrook, Ontario. And as she told Lucas back in July, “Our church community, they're phenomenal. I'll tell you this, we had a meal train set up for Veya when she was born, and we are 19 months into this and that same meal train is still going.” She added that the amount of support they have received allowed them to be fully present and to advocate for Veya, because everything else was being taken care of. The many prayers that were raised for their family carried them. “I don't think my husband and I really understood that till we lived this experience. Like you really feel carried by prayers. There's just this indescribable peace that comes with it.” Growing faith We read in James 1:3 how “the testing of your faith produces endurance” and Krystal attested to this when speaking about their journey prior to Veya’s death. “As much as we want to enter the next season of life and be off of this medical journey, there's a part of you that doesn't, because of the experience you have with God's nearness. Because it forces you to slow down and really lean into Him. “….The ways we've experienced God's goodness and care over these 19 months, we're forever thankful for that. Faith is not without pain. It's there to give you the courage to face it, right? And a lot of times this journey has really forced us to our knees.” She later added that, as hard as it has been, they have seen so much good come from this journey already, particularly with the many interactions with people in the hospital. Seeking justice After Veya’s promotion to glory, Krystal shared with Reformed Perspective that they hope to have further meetings with SickKids Hospital regarding the neglect that Veya experienced, which Krystal sees as a push to end Veya’s life rather than care for it. “What was happening was the team was trying to 'stealth euthanize' Veya through means of denying life-saving measures.” They are working with other families who experienced similar harms for their medically complex children at the same hospital, seeking to raise their concerns collectively. Her hope is to see a formal acknowledgement of harm, public reporting requirements, independent investigations, disability rights training, and whistleblower protection so that staff can report unsafe practices without fear of losing their jobs. Although she has devoted much of her past couple of years to being an advocate for Veya and others with disabilities, she also understands that she can only do so much. And that is OK. “Our God, The Creator of Life has the final say.” Advice for others When asked by RP what advice she would have for other families who may face similar situations, she urged them to document everything, including conversations and decisions, names, and copies of medical records. She also advised to never go into important meetings alone. Bring someone to witness and support you. Further, use clear and assertive language like “can you explain in writing why you are denying this treatment?” And if there are concerns, escalate them by asking to speak with a patient’s relations person or ombudsman, or even filing a complaint with the hospital leadership or licensing board. She encourages others to seek a second, or third opinion, and not be afraid to transfer care to another institution, even if it feels scary. And “trust your instincts – God gives them to us for a reason!” You know your child best so “if something feels wrong, it probably is.” Most soberly, she warns “know that Canada has become a death culture.” In an age where it has become legal to end the life of someone who requests it simply because they are suffering, it becomes all the more important to be on guard for the care of our loved ones, particularly those who are more vulnerable. “Instead of offering care, too many hospitals offer ‘comfort care only.’ Instead of fighting for life, they push families towards giving up and will blame you for your loved one’s suffering.” Her final advice is most encouraging. “You are not alone, God goes behind you and before you…. When you are battling the medical system for your child never forget to stop and ask God for guidance, strength, wisdom and peace. He sees, He knows, and He will lead you step by step.” A tribute for Veya In the weeks following Veya’s death, Krystal paid tribute to Veya with these words: “I didn’t have to look into your eyes to fall in love with you. I didn’t need to hear your soft, raspy cry to know you loved me too. I didn’t have to hold your hands to cherish you forever – because from the very beginning, within my womb, our hearts were already intertwined. “Veya, you changed me. Through you God gave me a deep perspective. You touched my soul and awakened a love so deep that can only be explained by His goodness. You gave me countless memories that I will hold close for the rest of my life. My heart aches in a way words can’t fully capture, and I know that ache won’t leave until we’re together again. …Though the longing never fades, each day moves me closer to the joy of holding you in Heaven.” Pictures used with permission of the Vanderbrugghens....

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A hill to die on

A couple of weeks ago, I attended a public lecture by Dr. Jordan Peterson at the University of Western Ontario. For those of you who don’t know, Dr. Peterson has found himself the target of transgender activists, some of whom actually claim that his refusal to use recently-invented “transgender pronouns” constituted violence. Labeling someone a perpetrator of violence for refusing to use the words you just made up, of course, also allows you to begin perpetrating real violence in response, and this has resulted in Peterson’s lectures being shut down by angry mobs. After the lecture, one student asked Peterson an interesting question. You’ve articulated at great length the dangers of post-modernism and political correctness, the student pointed out. But why this issue? Why choose transgender pronouns as the proverbial hill to die on? Peterson’s response was striking. “Why not?” he replied. When you’re fighting a war, there’s very rarely a compelling reason to die for the next yard of soil – but that’s how wars are won, and that is how the line is held – yard by yard. You have to pick something, and this is what I chose. His response reminded me of something I wrote about at length in my own book The Culture War: the tendency of Christians to count the cost and decide to opt out of fighting. Secular progressives are willing to fight a bloody war of attrition for every crimson inch of soil, from prayers at city council meetings to nativity scenes in public to launching cyber-lynch mobs on little old ladies who don’t want to bake cakes for gay weddings. Christians, on the other hand, often cave at the first sign of pressure. Douglas Wilson commented wryly on this habit on his blog in 2015: Whenever we get to that elusive and ever-receding “hill to die on,” we will discover, upon our arrival there, that it only looked like a hill to die on from a distance. Up close, when the possible dying is also up close, it kind of looks like every other hill. All of a sudden it looks like a hill to stay alive on, covered over with topsoil that looks suspiciously like common ground. So it turns out that surrendering hills is not the best way to train for defending the most important ones. Retreat is habit-forming. Now granted, as I’ve written before, Christians are often too busy raising their families and trying to live their lives to take a stand in the culture wars. For every baker or florist who gets targeted by gay rights activists, you can bet there are hundreds of others who quietly knuckled under to avoid becoming the center of a noisy lawsuit. But we need more men like Dr. Jordan Peterson. He may not be a Christian, but he is, as one writer so eloquently put it, “the frog that wouldn’t boil.” Each yard of ground we give up without a fight is another step closer to being backed into a corner. Dr. Peterson was willing to take a stand. He was willing to stop, look around, and say “Here. This is where I fight.” Each of us will have to make that decision sometime in the near future. And better now than later – it is easier to defend territory than it is to reclaim it. Jonathon Van Maren is the author of The Culture War and blogs at The theBridgehead.ca This article was first published in 2017....

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Why I don’t have a bucket list

Admittedly, to get guilt tripped into a camping trip exposes character weakness on my part. When someone bounds up to you, excited as a kitten encountering his first ball of yarn, and says they have the best idea for a geology fieldtrip, spanning 3 days (“ooh, ooh, no let’s turn it into 4!”), 400 miles, and something like 8 piles of rocks, any person with their wits about them would laugh and say, “Y’all have fun now, I’ll be over here, sleeping in my own bed.” People who camp on purpose, non-ironically, are an utter mystery to me. The more I learn about camping, the more outrageous and certifiable it seems! Did you know that KOA (one of the largest campground empires in the United States and yes, there is such a thing as a campground empire) stands for Kampgrounds of America?? How are we not promoting illiteracy and the overall degradation of our dignity by paying these people to borrow their dirt so we can sleep on it? Did you further know that after you have paid to sleep on dirt out in “nature,” you still are required to either buy or pack in your own wood for building campfires? In the (wait for it...) woods? Yet for the longest time during the diabolical planning of this trip, whose chief stated end was to go and stare at rocks, I could not bring myself to say “no, absolutely not, life is too short.” Which leads me to the character flaw, and my grandmother. ***** In the same week that this trip was scheduled to take place, I received word that my grandmother, my dad’s 94-year-old mother, had suffered a severe stroke. As I write this, I await further word on her condition; things didn’t look good last night. So I have been contemplating my grandmother, someone I have always found to be remarkable and not, perhaps, for the usual reasons. My grandmother was the quintessential farmwife. She raised four children, kept a lovely home, and was known for feeding people well. In many ways, I didn’t truly get to know her until I got married at age 20 and we both discovered that I shared her love of beautiful dishes, and of tables set to appeal to the senses. It was something she was teased about a bit over the years, her large collections of glassware, full sets of tableware, antique bowls and coffee service, but it has captivated me since childhood. She gave me my first everyday serving bowls when my oldest was a toddler – the same ones she used when her kids were little, and then proceeded to gift me antique glassware for my birthday for the next nearly 20 years. The year the glassware stopped was the same year she stopped calling on my birthday; that was, perhaps, the first time a birthday ever made me feel my age. I was blessed with 2 beautiful, intelligent farming grandmothers growing up; my mom’s mom went to the Lord a couple of years ago, and I like to think there are flavors of each of these women’s influences in my own farmwife homemaking. My maternal grandmother was known for ingenuity with the food at hand, with using her abundant garden to set visually peaceful tables, with the sort of minimalism that employs only that which is meaningful. My paternal grandmother was known for overflowing tables (why serve one kind of meat when you could serve three?), and for leftovers that could feed an army, created with simple recipes that everyone loved, served with what I find to be an uncommon blend of elegance and utility. She had no shame in making her mashed potatoes from a box, and paper napkins were a blessing. No one ever left her table hungry. I asked her once to teach me how she cooked various meats, how her meals always taste so good. She shrugged and said, “just a little salt and pepper?” As a person tempted by gourmet magazines, it was an important lesson for me. ***** And this, obviously, leads me to the ill-fated camping trip (not obvious, you say? We should spend more time together). The thing that guilted me into agreeing to this grand adventure of curiosity and literally leaving no stone unturned was the feeling that good mothers, or for that matter, that really interesting people, are the sort who long to travel the world, to always be experiencing new things. They are the ones who cannot simply read about a volcano, they have to climb it! At sunrise! And then go glissading down it, trying all the while to avoid hidden frozen lakes (you think I am making this up. Friend, I couldn’t make this stuff up. I refer you to your friendly neighborhood internet browser to prove the point)! How could I be worth anything at all if my bucket list was not perpetually on the verge of overflow? What does the truth – that I don’t even have a bucket list– say about me, about my value as a mother, as a wife, as a Christian? My grandmother has run well. She has lived an extraordinary life, and why? Because her life has been marked by extraordinary faithfulness to the task at hand. She has steadily built the portion of the kingdom wall God put in front of her. The pitfall I fell into was to believe that true faithfulness had to look different than embracing the life God has given me – it had to look both more “normal” and more exciting. I gave room to the lie that setting a gracious table was inferior to seeing something new, to having an adventure outside my own home. I am kicking myself as I write this... how could I have been so daft as to think that kicking rocks was more full of glory than grilling fresh corn on the cob, that sleeping on dirt had more inherent value than putting clean sheets on my family’s beds? Sitting here in the morning light, having removed myself from the geology fieldtrip, the truth of what it means to live well shines brightly before me. Only what’s done for Christ will last....

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Yea, all things

come not by chance but by His fatherly hand - Lord’s Day 10 ***** The lot is cast into the lap, but its every decision is from the Lord. – Pro...

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Am I lazy or just relaxing?

What does Proverbs say? ***** After a long and hard day at work or school, the last thing someone might want to do is more work. So, some don’t....

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Our forever home

Reflections on finding permanence from someone who has lived in 27 homes. ***** Home is Where the Heart Is. God Bless Our Home. Home Sweet Home....

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Sliver Mustard's journey

Perhaps as many as a million people lived in Noah's Grove. A thriving community, it had begun small but had grown over decades and centuries. Children...

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Fun is something you make

11 tips for family road trips ***** “Bored” is a curse word in our house. Say that word, and my mom is liable to wash your mouth out with soap. Because here’s the thing: boredom is just a socially acceptable word for ingratitude, for being discontent with the things God gives us. Your kids have plenty of toys and activities to occupy themselves, so why are they coming to you looking for something to do? Maybe it’s because we tend to think the toys are the ones doing all the work, the ones keeping kids from getting bored, when in reality, the child is the one bringing the fun. As with everything else, this is a heart issue. This is an attitude that needs changing. And that is all well and good if you are in your home, surrounded by possibilities during a normal day. But let’s say you’re in a situation where you literally have nothing to do, like waiting in the waiting room of the hospital, or driving six long hours to visit relatives, or standing in a long line at the grocery store. How do you teach them to occupy themselves? How do you ban boredom from your family? It is fair to say that my family and I have done a lot of driving. We have always been the one family that is farther away from relatives, from town, from church, and from practically everything, so we have had to learn how to pass the time well! It bears repeating, so I’ll say again that with the tips and suggestions I have for you the key to the success of all remains gratitude. Without gratitude, without recognizing that God has given you the exact moment you are in and equipped you to delight in it, you are waiting for the game to entertain you, which almost always end in boredom. But if you enter everything with gratitude, it’s like sitting with your hands outstretched, just waiting for God to bless you with that present you know you’re getting. And the gift is ten times better when received in thankfulness. With that said, here is a list of things that have helped my siblings and me numerous times. Would you rather? A simple game where one player makes up two scenarios, and each of you say aloud which you would rather do if given the choice. Questions can be as wild or as ridiculous as can be! Encourage the players to explain the pros and cons of each situation, and the hows and whys. I have played this very recently, and my brother gave the following scenario: “Would you rather be on the very top of a skyscraper, or below the earth approximately the same height as the skyscraper?” Personally, I’d choose the skyscraper, because there’s no oxygen the deeper into the dirt you go, but my brother was assuming there would be air. See how many digressions there can be within one topic? Rock, paper, scissors A classic that is highly underrated! Play multiple rounds high speed, and your kids will dissolve into giggles. (Maybe it’s only me...) We have learned a trick to the game from watching YouTuber Mark Rober: You have rock, paper and scissors in a row in your head. Let’s say you start with rock. If you win with rock, you move to right, which would be paper. If you win with paper, you continue with scissors. Now, if you lost with rock, you go to the left, which would mean you would play scissors. If you lose with scissors, you play paper. This is a tested strategy by Mark Rober that, if followed, will help you win a disproportionate percentage of time. But if you want to have plain fun without all the technical junk, just play the game as you normally would. It’s still fun either way. 20 questions Definitely a go-to for us, because each person comes up with the weirdest things to think about! Each person has 20 questions to ask the one who has the topic in their head. If I’m thinking about spiders, well, you have 20 questions to find that out. No cheating! No giving hints! And make your topic as clear as possible. I once picked oblivion as a topic, and my siblings were infuriated because they couldn’t figure it out. It’s literally nothingness! You can’t guess that! (Which is why I chose it.) Make everything a competition I cannot begin to relate how many things my siblings and I turned into a competition! Who can leave their bare hand on the icy car window the longest? Who can hold their water bottle at arm’s length the longest? Who can make the silliest face? Who can hold their breath the longest? And the list goes on! (All of those examples are real competitions that have been hosted in our van on long drives, and all too recently. I participated in them all. In fact, I came up with them. Mad skills, anyone?) Buggy Fingers What an odd name for such a simple game that can be played anywhere, because everybody I know possesses fingers! Many long hospital stays granted us ample opportunity to play Buggy Fingers. You stick your pointer finger out, and this becomes the head and face of “Buggy,” while the rest of the fingers on that hand act as the legs. Now, the original character, made by my father, was named Artie, and Artie would eat everything in sight, but finding it inedible, would spit it out and grunt, “Needs salt.” The future generations of Artie broadened their horizons, and tales were spun surrounding these little misbehaving fingers. Stuffed animal adventures Grab those stuffed animals, because you’ll be needing them here. My older sister and I would place our stuffed animals on the ledge of the windowsill of the car, and pretend they were on a motorcycle. The motorcycle would travel along the scenery that rushed past our windows. Was Kitty Cat about to collide with a barbed wire fence? Well, for pity’s sake, JUMP! Once you were over that obstacle, you might have to navigate through a field of smelly cows, and end up on the other side without getting caught by the farmer. So many stories and exciting adventures are at your fingertips here! Sing hymns My whole family loves to sing around the piano, and in fact our parents are trained musicians, so a love for singing runs deep in our veins. We enjoy bringing our church hymnal, the Cantus Christi, into the car, and singing in harmony to the various hymns selected, especially the 4-part melodies. It is much like caroling, but not in winter. And not to an audience. So feel free to warble your way through a song. We won’t laugh. Count cars Who hasn’t done this, seriously? My brother is an avid vehicle enthusiast, and he and my little sister began counting how many Teslas they would see on any given drive, because we live in the Seattle area, and Teslas seem to be popular there. There were so many Teslas, we soon got tired of counting them, so we have now moved on to cool and unusual cars, as well as vintage vehicles. Make landmarks We have driven across Washington State many, many times, and we have come to recognize familiar landmarks along the way. There’s the lonely tractor that’s always sitting at the base of a hill; there’s the bicycle that is parked by a street sign; there’s the company that Grandpa used to work for years ago, before we were born; there’s the blue bridge with the American flag mounted on it; there’s the train yard, where we count how many trains’ lights are on. I have such happy memories of those drives, and the excitement of searching for the “landmarks.” Make traditions As a child, my older sister and I were forever going to the children’s hospital in Seattle, and those doctor trips were depressing and no fun in and of themselves, but we made the time fun. There are a couple of tunnels you have to drive through on your way to that specific hospital, and my sister and I, as soon as we entered the tunnel, would suck in our breaths and hold them until the car emerged out the other side. Of course, Dad would slow down on purpose and see how purple he could make our faces by the time we finally could draw a breath. Another tradition we had was ducking under tunnels, overhead signs, and traffic signals. To signify this, we would shout “Duck!” To signal that it was clear, we would shout “Peacock!” The point is, make your own fun. With a bit of prodding, and a dreary situation to be placed in, you can come up with a lot of great games and memories that will be treasured for decades, and will hopefully help you survive those long relentless hours with nothing to do. Count it all joy I’ll say again, how much fun your kids have with these will depend largely on the gratitude they bring. They might not like you for reminding them of this, but they should take even boredom as an opportunity for joy, like the Apostle James says in James 1:2; “My brethren, count it all joy, when you fall into various trials, knowing that the testing of your faith produces patience.” God has given you so many gifts; you just have to use them....

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Our family’s trip to the Ark

Ken Ham’s creationist organization Answers in Genesis has built a life-size replica of Noah’s Ark in the State of Kentucky. These Christians are proudly leading with the Flood – one of the most ridiculed portions of Scripture – and attesting to the reliability of God’s Word in this big bold way. It is glorious! ***** It started in the airport. We were picking up a rental car and the friendly agent asked why we were in town. I had a moment’s hesitation, the mental blip I get when a stranger totally sets me up to talk about God and I’m wondering what the guy will think if I take him up on it. A fear-of-man moment. It helped that I was wearing my “Made in His Image” t-shirt so onward I plunged: “We’re here to see the Ark.” "It just kept getting bigger and bigger!" “Oh that’s great! I think half the people who rent a car from us are here to see it,” and then he went on about his uncle – or maybe it was a friend of his grandfather – who had donated a biblical manuscript featured in the Ark’s Bible Museum display. Not quite sure I got that all right, but what I do remember is the surprise of meeting a stranger who just started talking about things biblical. I come from a small town where there’s about 5 churches for every coffee shop, and I was still struck, in this spot somewhere in Kentucky, that this might be the most Christian place I’ve been. And the airport was just the beginning. Shucks, even our Airbnb rental was bedecked in a full shopping cart load of Christian crafts and signs. But what we came for was the Ark, and it is enormous. You can’t see it from the parking lot because it’s situated in the middle of 800 woodland acres – these folks are planning for all sorts of expansion possibilities (we could see the beginnings of their ancient Jerusalem walk-through exhibit). The Ark is set so far back you have to take a five-minute bus ride just to get there. Then you see it! It is wonderful and just a bit surreal. A replica of the Ark, to try and reach a lost world? But the world thinks the Ark is a fairy tale, and kids’ stuff! They’ll make fun of anyone who takes it seriously, won’t they? Yes, they will. And worse too. When the Ark opened they had to have pretty intense security – there are still guards everywhere – because they were getting all sorts of bomb threats. So, yes, the world will mock anyone who believes the Bible’s Flood account, and that’s what got me just a little verklempt as we walked up to the Ark. It kept getting bigger and bigger! I couldn’t miss just how many people had to have been involved to plan and build it. And to keep it running there are more than 1,200 part- and full-time staff employed by Answers in Genesis across their three enterprises – the Ark, their Creation Museum, and their publishing arm (it had me thinking of 1 Kings 19:18). These are Bible-believing folk who are happy to risk the ridicule of the world to proclaim the gospel of their God. If that doesn’t get you right in the gratitude, I don’t know what will. Favorites inside the Ark Our family went to the Ark one day by ourselves, and a second day with our neighbors so we got to share our favorite sights with them, and see what you might skip if you just had the one day. The first floor should be your last priority. It is still interesting – half the length of the floor is filled with bamboo cages showing how Noah and his family might have housed the smaller animals. How could just eight people feed and clean away the waste for thousands of critters? Well, the exhibit designers had some ideas: gravity-fed water and food dispensers that would only need to be filled every few days, and chutes that would also use gravity, this time to funnel the waste away from the cages to where it could be easily collected and carted away. This is all “Arktistic” license (as one display puts it), since the Bible doesn’t go into detail about the Ark’s inner workings. But these cages show how a small crew could have taken care of thousands of animals. So the first floor is worth seeing, but all our kids’ favorites were on the top two floors. As you move from one level to the next, challenge your kids to spot Noah and his family. All eight members can be found on each of the three floors, caring for the animals, and doing other chores. That’s 24 family members to spot in total. We all had our favorite spots and exhibits. One of mine was the bookstore below the Ark. It’s one thing to read online reviews of creationist books, but so much better to be able to page through a physical copy. Another of my favorites were the two ten-minute films being shown on the third floor. It was just nice to take a break from walking, but these were also clever stories. They take place 4,000 years apart, but cast the same actors in both films, and in similar roles. The first is set right before the Deluge, with a hostile secular reporter scoffing at Noah, asking why he built his boat. The second story takes place today, and once again we have a hostile reporter, this time asking the Ark Encounter president, Noah Zomarsh (a Ken Ham stand-in) why they built the Ark. Street evangelist Ray Comfort, who might be familiar to some readers, makes an appearance via holography to issue a call to repentance, and offer up a gospel presentation. The Gilgamesh ark was not the seaworthy vessel the ark was. My wife Janice loved how everything was a gospel presentation. She also enjoyed the science and engineering aspect, with Ark Encounter designers addressing the problems Noah’s family would have had with pumping waste out, and bringing fresh air in. We don’t know how they did do it, but the designers showcase some pretty ingenious ways they could have done it. Our neighbor Brian loved how he didn’t have to correct the information for his kids, like we get used to doing whenever we go to a secular museum. Everyone enjoyed the crew quarters. Again, a lot of imagination was involved, including names given to Noah’s wife, and his daughters-in-law (the Bible doesn’t list any). Since Noah’s three sons probably all bore a resemblance to each other, the Answers in Genesis folk wondered if the differences we see today among the world’s ethnicities came about via Noah’s sons’ wives. The three women are presented as the progenitors of the three “races” – one looked African-ish, another Caucasian-ish, and the third Asian-ish. It’s an intriguing idea, so long as your kids understand it is more “Arktistic license” and just a guess, not a fact. The third floor was tops among almost everyone, though for different reasons. My oldest was intrigued by the different Ark stories found in other cultures, and the mock-up models of their Arks. Bible skeptics will point to the Story of Gilgamesh and its flood account as the precursor for what we read in Genesis. They say Noah’s Flood is just a rip-off. But if you work out the dimensions of Gilgamesh’s “Ark” you get a square that would get rolled over and over by the waves. The dimensions of Noah’s Ark are the only realistic measurements among all these accounts. The top floor also featured a teaser exhibit for the Bible Museum in Washington, DC. My youngest liked the very last hall which features what was basically a comic book enlarged and thrown onto the walls. The plot revolves around a group of university friends who are wrestling with the purpose of life in very different ways. The story’s got a bit of grit to it, and, again, ends with a gospel presentation. Favorites outside with the animals What would an ark be without animals? The zoo here isn’t as large as you might find in some big cities – there’s no lions or elephants – but when was the last time you’ve pet a kangaroo? (They aren’t soft like a cat, but are maybe as soft as a Labrador.) For just a bit extra, our girls got a short camel ride, and for free they got to pet goats named Abraham, Sarah, and Hagar. We all got to see a Zorse – half horse, half zebra – and a Zonkey – half zebra and half donkey – which highlighted that these species might all be part of the same single horse “kind” that was taken on the Ark. Janice and our girls caught a “creature feature” – a zookeeper bringing out an owl to speak about it and show it around – and Janice was struck again by how this too was a gospel presentation. They didn’t want the audience to miss how amazing this owl was, and more importantly, how amazing its Creator was. 3 tips Depending on when you go there can be some pretty lengthy lines to enter the Ark. If you start with the crowds, it’ll be slow progress all the way up. One way to skip the lines is to enter through the gift shop on the bottom floor at the front prow of the boat (on the far left end as you approach). Then take the elevator up to the third floor and start there where it won’t be crowded yet. If you do go through the entrance at the back of the boat, they’ll try to take your picture, which you can purchase as a souvenir later. It only takes a minute, but you can save your time and money by politely but firmly expressing that no, you don’t want a picture. Food, even snacks, are quite expensive, and they don’t want you bringing in food. There are cheaper options nearby, but be sure to get a wristband before leaving so you can get back in. One caution Before our visit, a friend suggested we read Genesis 6-9 for family devotions, to act as a refresher for what the Bible actually says about the Flood. It was a great idea. And while you’re there you’ll want to encourage your kids not to take everything on display as fact. This is quite the counter to the Ark-as-a-children’s-bathtub-toy, or as a fable likened to the Greek myths, but there is still a lot of imagination going on here – possibilities and maybes and might have beens. And our kids need to know it. Conclusion An Ark selfie, with my wife Janice So who would enjoy the Ark Encounter experience, and how long should you go? I can’t really imagine a Christian adult not loving this. I could have stayed longer, even after sneaking in part of a third day while my family was resting back at the rental. Some of my appreciation comes from remembering my youthful wrestlings with evolution, back when it disturbed me. I’ve long since settled that issue in my head and heart, but I still appreciate the encouragement and insight on offer in such a concentrated form at the Ark Encounter. My kids and my wife loved going two days. That was, in part, because going two days meant we didn’t have to race through the whole thing. We could meander, linger, and stop wherever we liked because we knew we were coming back to see the rest. That also meant we didn’t have to make it a super long day. We didn’t even get to the third floor on our first day. Our neighbors went for just one day, and with a little help from us, were able to hit the highlights. If you skim through that first level, and focus on the last two, and the zoo, that’s do-able, and a good way to save some money – tickets are expensive! As to age, adults are going to be awed, and teens will find lots of little things here and there to pore over. It’s more of a question of how young is too young? All of our kids – both the neighbors and ours – are ten and over and I suspect that’s about how old you’d need to be to get a lot out of the experience. So if you have only littles, you might want to wait a few years yet before making it a family trip. And then what a trip it will be! After I marked 25 years as RP editor, the RP Board gave the whole Dykstra family a wonderful present, sending us to the Ark and to the Creation Museum (which I might have to write about too!). It was the trip of a lifetime and we are very grateful!...

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“It’s only a dollar!” – on bingos and raffles

Some churches hold bingos and sell raffle tickets, so can gambling really be wrong? ***** “I think we should have a bingo night to raise money for our community.” “All you spend is $1.00 on a ticket and you could win $1,000,000!” “Our organization is having a raffle to raise money for the handicapped; will you buy a ticket for only $1.00? You might win a 10 speed bicycle!” “I just won $2,000 in the lottery – isn’t that great?” Often we have friends and neighbors and perhaps even relatives who participate in the lottery, raffles, or other types of games of chance. And among secular and some professing Christian groups, games of chance are popular fundraisers because they are a fairly easy way to raise a large amount of money fast. I once came under quick attack in a neighbors’ meeting for refusing to participate in a raffle. “What do you mean it’s against your Christian principles? St. Whoever’s church at the corner has bingo every week, and raffles twice a year to raise money. How could it be wrong?” It was too difficult on a moment’s notice in a suddenly hostile group to formulate and express my reasons. I finally stated that I was not going to defend myself there in front of an entire group; however I would be willing to explain to them individually at another time just why I was against all forms of gambling. Happily, one Baptist neighbor spoke her agreement with me and the issue ended. It is sometimes difficult to give a quick answer because there are no specific Bible verses which state, “you shall not gamble.” Is it “only a dollar” and therefore unimportant whether we participate? Or are there principles from God’s Word which regulate even this small purchase? Does it become acceptable when the recipient is a worthwhile cause? Furthermore, how do we react to a friend or relative’s big winnings? Though the odds are ridiculously high, you might know a winner from time to time. Should someone feel so generous as to spread his/her newfound wealth in our direction, what should be our reply? (The questions only get harder, for instance: what if a relative won a large sum of money – what about accepting a Christmas gift of a new car?) I spoke with our minister, the Rev. Kenneth A. Kok, concerning how to express an answer to the basic question, “What’s wrong with gambling?” He provided three answers: 1. It encourages a “something for nothing” mentality Throughout the Bible, we clearly find that God expects us to work to provide for our material needs: “By the sweat of your face you shall eat bread…” (Gen. 3:19) “He who tills his land will have plenty of bread, but he who pursues vain things lacks sense. The wicked desire the booty of evil men, but the root of the righteous yields fruit.” (Prov. 12:11,12) “He who tends the fig tree will eat its fruit; and he who cares for his master will be honored.” (Prov. 27:18) “…give her the product of her hands, and let her works praise her in the gates.” (Prov. 31:13-31) Why would we want to get something for relatively nothing? Aren’t we thankful to God for all He has given us? Doesn’t He provide us with all that we need? And as LD 42, Q 111 of the Heidelberg Catechism states in regards to the commandment “You shall not steal,” here we also learn, “In addition God forbids all greed…” Perhaps we are tantalized with the thought of what we would do if we could only have $1,000, or maybe $5,000, or better make it $10,000, or what if we got a million? With the character Tevye, from “Fiddler On The Roof”, we inwardly pray: Lord, who made the lion and the lamb You decreed I should be what I am But would it spoil some vast, eternal plan If I were a wealthy man? Does this reflect the same sentiment expressed by Paul in Philippians 4:11-13: “Not that I speak from want; for I have learned to be content in whatever circumstances I am. I know how to get along with humble means, and I also know how to live in prosperity; in any and every circumstance I have learned the secret of being filled and going hungry, both of having abundance and suffering need. I can do all things through Him who strengthens me.” It is one thing to work hard and have God bless your endeavor. It is another to look for an easy break. 2. It encourages poor stewardship Gambling often encourages the people with the least amount of money to be irresponsible with what they have. Much money is wasted on chances and this money could be put to better use – saved, spent well, or given to a worthy cause. As Heidelberg Catechism question 111 goes on to say, “…God forbids all greed and all abuse or squandering of His gifts.” Numerous references are listed there. By participating in even a small way, we promote an activity which may be weakening the financial status and even the family life of others. Only one or a few win, at everyone else’s expense. Is this loving our brother as we love ourselves? As Question 112 further states, “I must promote my neighbor’s good wherever I can and may, deal with him as I would like others to deal with me, and work faithfully so that I may be able to give to those in need.” Even if the “chances” benefit a worthy cause, we still have the question from point 1 regarding our attitude. In this case, if we want to help, we should simply donate the money and not take the raffle ticket. 3. It encourages seeing money as one’s savior People begin, with the larger gambling items, to see money as their savior. Their hope is placed upon money, rather than God. This is evident in the long, long lines which form as the state lottery “pot” soars to $24 million or more. People call friends in other states requesting the purchase of these tickets for them, just for that chance – that possibility of being one of the ones to win. Conversations at the office turn to: “What will you do with it if you win?” Smiles and sighs. “Pay off all my debts.” “Buy a fabulous house.” “Quit working here.” “Take a trip to Hawaii.” Or perhaps even “Make a large donation to the school/church/hospital.” It seems, in those few moments of dreaming, as though our main problems in life, i.e., financial ones, would be solved. We do not believe the various accounts we’ve read or heard about money causing new problems. But the point here is this: “My God shall supply all your needs, according to His riches in glory” (Phil. 4:19). We must behave as children of God, children who present our needs and desires to Him, who work diligently for them as far as possible, who trust Him to provide, and who accept with thanksgiving, not as a young child asking after Christmas, “Is that ALL I get?” “But realize this, that in the last days difficult times will come. For men will be lovers of self, lovers of money, boastful, arrogant… ungrateful, unholy, unloving… without self-control… reckless, conceited, lovers of pleasure rather than lovers of God; holding to a form of godliness, although they have denied its power; and avoid such men as these” (II Tim. 3:1-5). The next time we are faced with the temptation to “get rich(er) quick,” to spend “only a dollar” with the mostly false promise that we might gain much more, let us ask ourselves, “Why am I doing this? Does this reflect a godly, thankful attitude? Am I looking for a different savior?” God’s Word answers the whole question the best: “Now there is great gain in godliness with contentment, for we brought nothing into the world, and we cannot take anything out of the world. But if we have food and clothing, with these we will be content. But those who desire to be rich fall into temptation, into a snare, into many senseless and harmful desires that plunge people into ruin and destruction. For the love of money is a root of all kinds of evils. It is through this craving that some have wandered away from the faith and pierced themselves with many pangs. But as for you, O man of God, flee these things. Pursue righteousness, godliness, faith, love, steadfastness, gentleness. Fight the good fight of the faith. Take hold of the eternal life to which you were called and about which you made the good confession in the presence of many witnesses.” (I Tim 6:6-12). This article was originally published in RP's March 2006 issue....

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If businesses tithed

Christians are familiar with the Biblical principle of tithing, and support many kingdom causes as a matter of course. They apply the principles of Galatians 6:10 with their talents, time and treasure: “So then, as we have opportunity, let us do good to everyone, and especially to those who are of the household of faith.” Followers of Jesus Christ are known for their enthusiastic support of their local church, Christian education, organizations helping the homeless and poor nearby and in other parts of the globe. We are giving, and we can see God blessing those gifts. So, what might the Lord do if Christians who own their own businesses or are shareholders in a venture with others, found ways to apply these same principles in their business operations? Retained earnings Often in the first years of establishing a company, funds can be tight, and any profits that are made need to be invested back in the business to pay down debt, or to purchase new equipment, or to hire more staff. (These profits that are not pulled out of the venture, but are used by the company are often called “retained earnings.”) Sometimes, a new firm can operate for years without paying out profits to its owners, but meanwhile, the company is growing, owns more assets than when it was starting up, and itself is now worth far more than it was when it was just an idea percolating in the minds of its founders. When Christian owners or shareholders are rewarded with a dividend payout from the business, it’s relatively easy for them to make an individual decision about giving back to the Lord from these earnings, just as they would decide when receiving a regular paycheque. All these good gifts that we receive are really the Lord’s, and for us to “give back” from our first fruits should be a given. In Proverbs 3:9-10, Solomon reminds us to: “Honor the Lord with your wealth, and with the first fruits of all your produce; then your barns will be filled with plenty, and your vats will be bursting with wine.” But what about the wealth that has been building up inside the venture, the “retained earnings” referenced above? In Luke 12:16-21, the Lord Jesus warns against covetousness and greed with the story of the rich fool: “The land of a rich man produced plentifully, and he thought to himself, ‘What shall I do, for I have nowhere to store my crops?’ And he said, ‘I will do this: I will tear down my barns and build larger ones, and there I will store all my grain and my goods. And I will say to my soul, “Soul, you have ample goods laid up for many years; relax, eat, drink, be merry.”’ But God said to him, ‘Fool! This night your soul is required of you, and the things that you have prepared, whose will they be?’ So is the one who lays up treasure for himself and is not rich toward God.” Stewards, not owners The rich man’s declaration of what he will do with “my grain and my goods” tells us how he thought of what he owned – it was all his, and not the Lord’s. That’s a point that the Lord Jesus makes again and again – not to think of the possessions God has entrusted to me as mine. All of it is the Lord’s, and all of it is only lent to us here on earth, to use wisely, and give back to Him (Luke 12:42-48, Matt. 25:14-30, etc.). And leading into this passage, He also warns us against thinking that one's life consists “in the abundance of the things he possesses” (Luke 12:15). Although it’s not an exact analogy, the retained earnings inside our companies can function like the grain and goods in the rich fool’s barn – our company’s growth can be a temptation to measure ourselves by what we have built – so we need to be very careful how we view them. So, how can we resist that pull? Firstly, we should consider all of it the Lord’s, to be used for His kingdom and His glory. This does not mean we can’t invest in new equipment, or purchase additional property for our companies, or keep a prudent amount of funds available for potential emergencies. All of these are good business practices. But we should have in the forefront the idea that all of this is the Lord’s: just like the servants entrusted with the master’s property in Matthew 25, we will also be asked to give an account by our Master for how we managed what He lent to us. Secondly, just as we financially support kingdom causes by giving from our paychecks and dividends, our companies could do the same with their retained earnings and with other resources they have built up. I was exposed to this idea of “corporate tithing” years ago by other Christian business owners. At their annual shareholders’ meeting, where they reviewed the past year’s performance, the shareholders were given an update on how much, and to whom the company had donated in the past twelve months, with the expectation that it would add up to a tenth of the retained earnings from the previous year. This built-in accountability helped the company’s management be intentional about their charitable giving, because there was a specific expectation around a measurable quantity – ten percent of last year’s retained earnings is a clear expectation, and one that can be easily communicated and measured. So how about it, business owners? Could a principle like this be adopted in your business? Can you encourage the company you work for to consider more than nominal support of causes that promote the Kingdom of God? May we be encouraged also by Paul who writes in 2 Cor. 9:6-7: “Whoever sows sparingly will also reap sparingly, and whoever sows generously will also reap generously. Each of you should give what you have decided in your heart to give, not reluctantly or under compulsion, for God loves a cheerful giver.” Just imagine Business tithing brings with it all sorts of opportunities and possibilities. Imagine a business tithed from their profit of $100,000: they could cover the cost of a part-time special needs assistant at their local Christian school. If they tithed from $1M, they could provide the means for a church or non-profit to hire a full-time employee, or do a renovation, or fund a medical clinic in the third world for a year. Imagine doing this consecutively over 10 or even 40 years? It really adds up. It could cover the cost of an entire orphanage etc. Another way businesses can tithe, beyond money, is by hiring people who are otherwise not likely to get a job, or a great job. It might be people with special needs, or who are in a place in life where they really need help/grace. Employment is so meaningful. But if we are only thinking about the bottom line, we won't be keen to take them on. While this editorial focused primarily on the financial portion of a company’s giving back, there are many other ways that businesses can contribute to their community with their employees’ and owners’ time and abilities. If you have suggestions for good practices that encourage good stewardship in these areas, we’d be delighted to learn more! Send us your thoughts. Marty VanDriel is the chief executive officer of two small businesses in Washington State, voluntary treasurer for three non-profit organizations, and assistant editor of Reformed Perspective....

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