by Marie | Oct 11, 2025 | Archives, Inspiration
A young couple moved into a new house. The next morning while they were eating breakfast, the young woman saw her neighbor hanging the washing outside. “That laundry is not very clean; she doesn’t know how to wash correctly. Perhaps she needs better detergent.” Her husband looked on, remaining silent. Every time her neighbor hung her washing out to dry, the young woman made the same comments. A month later, the young woman was surprised to see a nice clean wash on the line and said to her husband, “Look, she’s finally learned how to wash correctly. I wonder who taught her this?” The husband replied, “I got up early this morning and cleaned our windows.” And so it is with life … What we see when watching others depends on the clarity of the window through which we look. So don’t be too quick to judge others, especially if your perspective of life is clouded by anger, jealousy, negativity or unfulfilled desires. “Judging a person does not define who they are. It defines who you are.” Meditation: “Trust in the Lord with all your heart, and lean not on your own understanding; in all your ways acknowledge Him, and He shall direct your paths.” – Proverbs 3:5 Also Read: The Influence of Jesus Christ Understanding God: God of Delegation
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by Marie | Oct 10, 2025 | Archives, Inspiration
But what if your path leads through pain, pressure, and problems? John the Baptists did. He didn’t deserve imprisonment. After all, he was the forerunner of Christ and the voice of God in the community. Plus, he was Jesus’ cousin. So he sent Jesus a message asking, ‘Are you really the Messiah, or should we keep looking?’ Paraphrased: ‘Lord, if I’m in your will, how come I’m in this situation?’ It’s a question motivated by unfulfilled expectations. We think, ‘Lord, I’ve obeyed you, how come things aren’t working out for me?’ And it feels worse when you’ve faithfully served Him. Writing about her daughter’s death, Meg Woodson says, ‘I’ll never forget those shrill, piercing screams; that the God who could have helped, looked down on this young woman who was devoted to Him…and decided to sit on His hands and let her death top the horror charts.’ Talk about unmet expectations! Jesus could have saved John, but He didn’t. Instead He sent back word: ‘Don’t worry, everything’s on target, the kingdom is being built. You did your job well’ (Matthew 11:4-5 paraphrase). It probably wasn’t the answer John hoped for. He was looking for solutions to temporal problems while Jesus was busy establishing an eternal kingdom. So next time God doesn’t seem to meet your expectations, it’s not that He
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by Marie | Oct 9, 2025 | Archives, Inspiration
William Barclay said: ‘It’s more difficult to congratulate another on his success if it involves disappointment to us, than to sympathise with his sorrow…Only when self is dead can we take as much joy in the success of others as in our own.’ Karen Ehman’s home had been for sale for twenty months when a friend called to say hers had sold in twenty days. Ehman says: ‘Although I was thrilled…I was a tad jealous…that poor me mentality when God answers someone else’s prayer and my answer seems to be no, or not right now. As a child I envied kids from two-parent homes…in high school it was other girls’ looks and cute clothes…I was average looking, and although I was every guy’s pal, I was nobody’s gal. In college I envied girls whose prayers for a knight in shining armour were answered… Once married, I struggled with miscarriage and dashed dreams of motherhood…I slapped a smile on my face and attended yet another baby shower. The cure for envy isn’t easy…But when you call on God He will tell you…things…you could [never figure out on your own] (Jeremiah 33:3 NIV). Instead of begging Him to sell my house, take away my pain, and fix my kids, I need to ask what He’s trying to teach me that I won’t
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by Marie | Oct 8, 2025 | Archives, Inspiration
Optimists tend to believe that life is mostly good; pessimists, that it’s mostly bad. Life is both. And only those who embrace that truth are able to find fulfilment. Why? Because those who accept it but don’t embrace it become apathetic, meeting every difficulty with a shrug and a sigh. They may survive, but they won’t be successful. To succeed you must be proactive, in bad times as well as good. If you examine the lives of successful people you’ll discover they always do what’s right no matter how they feel, and by doing right—they end up feeling good. On the other hand, unsuccessful people tend to wait to feel good before they do what’s right. As a result, they neither do what’s right nor feel good. Often you won’t feel like doing the right thing, but you need to do it anyway. Nelson Mandela said: ‘I have discovered the secret that after climbing a great hill, one finds many more hills to climb. I have taken a moment here to rest, to steal a view of the glorious vista that surrounds me, to look back on the distance I have come. But I can rest only for a moment, for with freedom come responsibilities, and I dare not linger, for my long walk is not yet ended.’ If you
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by Marie | Oct 7, 2025 | Archives, Inspiration
In May 1996, ValuJet flight 592 crashed into the Florida Everglades, killing 110 passengers. Navy experts tried using special technology to detect the plane’s black box, without success. Holding a rope that kept them spaced three feet apart, searchers poked through every square foot of muck. After fourteen days they had found nothing. The physical conditions were unbearable. The sun beat down upon them and temperatures hovered in the nineties, floated in the water, forcing searchers to wear several layers of protective rubber. Fourteen days of that had left them dehydrated, but they had to find the black box. Sergeant Felix Jimenez of Metro-Dade Police was one of the searchers. For fourteen days he’d prayed for the bereaved families and the safety of his fellow workers. But on the fifteenth day as he took a break, suddenly he realised he’d failed to pray for one important thing: that God would help them find the black box. So he asked God for direction, resumed the search, and when he stuck his pole into the water he hit something metallic. He pulled the object out of the muck. It was the black box. Jimenez writes in Guideposts: ‘I thought of the many days we had spent searching for the recorder, how we must have tramped over it many times, and I wondered why
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by Marie | Oct 4, 2025 | Archives, Inspiration
Have you ever done something that just engulfs your body? You feel totally alive? Cycling is one of those for me. Some time ago I was asked: “Miles, why do you love cycling so much?” At the time I really didn’thave an answer, or the correct one. Shortly after, I realized that it was an event with my brother. I was six, perhaps seven, and had just learned to ride a bike. Weeks later, he [then fifteen or sixteen] said, “We are cycling to Grandma and Grandpa’s.” From Greystone Heights to Richmond Heights. Down busy College Drive, over a bridge and a river. Six miles each way. A Thursday night. My mind was racing. Heart pumping furiously. Fear. Excitement. Breathless. I still remember, to this day, thekaleidoscope of emotions. I remember thinking, “I must keep up to him and I can’t fall over.” My little legs turned those pedals. We made it home safely. Each and every time I get in the saddle, those emotions course through me.Excitement. Fear. Alive. Being in the moment, present, the timeless Now. A tour de force of the mind, body and soul. There are times that I ride to push my limits. Throwing my body into chaos.Tapping into the vast storehouse of unlimited, unmanifested human potential. How far can I push the body? This
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