The First Black Friday

So I was reading my Bible last night, and I came across something that is a propos to current events.

The passage is 2 Kings 7:17-20.

Context: the Syrians had lain seige to Samaria and there was a famine in the city. The prophet Elisha came to the king and told him that food would soon become common. Two lepers later decided to go to the Syrian camp and discovered it empty. This is where my exerpt starts up.

To paraphrase some more (If you want to know how the verses actually read, look it up), the officer whom the king had stationed at the gate that day had originally scoffed when Elisha had said that food would be abundant. When the people learnt that the Syrians had abandoned their camp with all the food, they rushed out to plunder all the food and trampled the officer to death.

Every year during black friday, store workers get trampled to death by shoppers rushing to get whatever goods it is they want. It's not funny, but at least we know it's not a new thing.

A Match

It's funny how you can know a simple truth yet not understand it.

If you spend time on the internet, then you're familiar with how supposedly "bad" 2016 has been, how the world is falling apart, and so on and so forth.

I don't want to comment on whether the world is coming to an end, I'm not here to analyze the U.S. election, and I won't wax poetic on the lives of all the celebrities who died this year. All I will say is that we've had a rough time and we're in for an interesting time over the next few years.

On a more personal side, my town is not exactly the  happiest place on earth. There is a lot of brokenness, drugs and alcohol are so often a problem, and suicide and murder seem to happen way too often for such a small town.

Sometimes it's hard to see the light. But we need to remember that a match shines brightest the darker the room. No amount of darkness can keep the match from shining, and even if it only lights up one small room, the room cannot be dark.

There will always be darkness, but when you look up at the night sky, the darkness of space cannot stop the stars from shining, the darkness has to disappear: It cannot fight, it can only get out of the way.

Are you a light? Am I a light?

To See His Handiwork

I got to have a bit of fun the other day.

I got called in for overtime, because someone had to come along in a flight to help a disabled passenger get on and off the plane.

I spent about two and a half hours in flight, though unfortunately I didn't get to take the controls. Fortunately, it was a beautiful sunny day here in northern Manitoba, so I did get to see the gorgeous views of the lakes and forest.

Then today I woke up to a dense fog covering town, and it's still here now as the sun sets! I went for a walk in it, and I found it beautiful and haunting.

I think that it is important to look around at the world we live in to see the marks of our creator. Both these little adventures I've written about today are very different. One day I was flying through clear blues skies, admiring the lakes and forests; in the other I was trudging through the mud, slipping on ice, unable to see far because of the fog and trees.

Yet in both, I could see God's creation.

We're blessed here because we are so close to nature, the forests stretch as far as the eye can see out my window, but it's easy for it all to become mundane and I appreciate the reminder that these experiences are to look and see God's handiwork.