Pastor's Devotions by Tim Harris

If you don’t know already, after 41 years of being involved in ministry and 34 years as a senior pastor, at the end of the summer I’m retiring from full-time pastoral ministry. My final Sunday here at Shrewsbury First Assembly is September 7 which is now just about two months away. I have to admit, this is a quite a bitter-sweet time as I know I’m going to miss many things about pastoring while at the same time I’m looking forward to the changes that retirement can bring, especially more time with my family.  In the meantime, I’m getting myself and the church ready for what is to come. I’ve been working with our church board and assistant pastor, Guilherme Medeiros, who has been elected to step into my position upon my retirement, on this transition for about a year. Especially over the past six months, I’ve worked with Pastor Gui, preparing him for the role he is about to step into, hoping to help him and the church be well-prepared for the future that is before them.  For my...

I think you would agree that we live in a culture in which working “’round the clock,” as we call it, is something of a badge of honor. Those who “burn the candle at both ends” and say, “I only need a few hours of sleep,” are looked up to as if they are some sort of super hero. But is that the way it is supposed to be? Is that what God intended for our lives? Is that how God designed our bodies to work?  The more I’ve dived into the fitness world, the more I’ve learned about the importance of a good night’s sleep—which is usually defined as seven to eight hours of good sleep. It’s during sleep that our bodies recover from not only that day’s run or workout, but most importantly from the stresses and strains of what has often been a busy day. During sleep, our bodies heal and build and get back to where they are supposed to be so that the next day we can function at our highest capacity. Just ask any sleep-deprived parent of a newborn what happens when one loses too much sleep! I be...

Yesterday, here in New Jersey, it was so hot and humid one would have thought we were in the middle of August. By the evening, the sky darkened and tremendous thunderstorms came roaring through pouring down rain and filled with gusts of wind that picked up patio umbrellas and took down tree branches. This morning, however, everything is different. The sky is a perfect blue. The humidity is gone. The air feels fresh and clean. And the temperature has moderated such that you are neither hot nor cold. It’s a beautiful day here in New Jersey. Yes, as they say, “What a difference a day makes!” You’ve probably experienced it many times in your own life; I know I have. One day feels dark and stormy; the next is bright and clear—and visa-versa. One day everything seems to be in order; the next is filled with chaos—and again, visa-versa.  The truth is, what we are experiencing on one day or, we might say, in one season of our lives, is not necessarily what will always be. Life has a way of ...

I’ll never forget the day I became a father for the first time. Having watched my wife Kim go through a long labor and then deliver our son, Jonathan, my love and respect for her skyrocketed. She had just gone through a physically and emotionally exhausting ordeal that had brought forth this incredible little baby boy. And what amazed me most about it all was that, upon having our son Jonathan placed on her chest and into her arms, Kim began to ooh and ahh over our new son, acting as if nothing had happened—as if the last 18 hours had been a walk in the park! For a moment, I didn’t know what to think.  Then I got to hold him. And as the little guy (all 9 lbs. 12 oz. of baby!) was placed into my arms, a new found love began to fill my heart. At that moment I realized the incredible capacity to love that God has placed within our hearts. After all, I had wondered beforehand whether or not I could ever love another person as much as I loved Kim. Or would it just be a lesser kind of lo...

Yesterday afternoon, I went for a run on the boardwalk and purposefully ran at a slow pace. The goal was to keep my heart rate relatively low. It’s a training strategy that supposed to help builds one’s aerobic capacity—and burn fat. It sounds easy, but I can tell you it is not, at least not for me. It takes discipline to keep the pace down so that the heart rate stays down. That meant, every time my heart rate would begin to go up past a certain point, I would have to slow down even more until it came back in line with my desired heart rate goal.    Yesterday’s run of four miles took me 53 minutes. That’s a long time for me to run that distance. (It turned out to be a pace of 13:14/mile).  To me it was more of a jog than a run—I might even call it a slog!  And it did require quite a bit of discipline on my part. But as I was running at that slow pace, I continued to tell myself it was worth it. And I began to realize that at the slower pace, I was in fact able to en...

Last week, when Kim and I were visiting our son Jonathan and his family, we took a walk/small hike with Jonathan (who had his 11 month year old son, Caleb on his back) to and into a nature preserve near their home. To get there, we had to walk through the townhouse complex in which they live and, for a short bit, along the road. Once we got into the preserve, we followed the trails that were throughout—trails that were for the most part well-maintained. It was a really nice hike through the woods, up and over some small hills, across a hanging bridge, and along a small lake.  To get back home, Jonathan suggested that we take a different route that would lead along a creek and right to his backyard. I’m not sure we made the best decision when we said yes to his suggestion!  All was fine at first, but once we got out of the preserve proper, and since the “trail” in that part of the woods is not really maintained, we found ourselves walking through high brush and grass. After all...