Pastor's Devotions by Tim Harris

As a tennis fan, I’ve been following closely the Australian Open which is coming to a close this weekend. The difficulty is, Australia is 16 hours ahead of our time here on the US East Coast. Thus, I’m constantly trying to calculate the times of the matches and/or what time it will be here when they are playing over there. After all, when their day is coming to a close, ours is just beginning. A match that begins in the early evening over there, ends up in the middle of the night over here. The end result is, I get to watch very few live matches.  And I’m constantly asking, “What time is it?”  Any of us who have traveled between time zones know we are constantly trying to figure out how our time in the place where we are relates to the time back home.  After all, you don’t want to try to call your wife or office when it is 3:00 a.m. their time. It reminds me of the old song by the group Chicago “Does anyone really know what time it is?” Of course, Einstein had his theory about time: th

During the winter, I love having a bird feeder set up and filled with bird seed to attract all the different kinds of birds that are around during our winter months—finches, sparrows, chickadees, juncos, woodpeckers, cardinals, etc. Thus I have a bird feeder in my backyard where I can see it while I’m drinking my coffee or having my breakfast in the morning. The only problem is, as one person told me when I first got my bird feeder, “Once you start feeding the birds, you’re under moral obligation to keep on feeding them.” That’s something that has kind of stuck with me. Thus, I’m constantly out making sure the bird feeder is well stocked.  To help with that, I recently replaced my bird feeder with one that is quite a bit larger. Rather than hold two scoops of bird seed (which is actually about 1 ½ cups per scoop), this newer and larger one holds over four scoops of bird seed. That means, less trips out to the bird feeder for stocking purposes. It also means, the birds get to eat much m

I don’t  know if you saw it or not, but the week before Christmas, the Jersey Shore experienced what some have considered to be historic waves. With wave heights reaching 20-22 feet (and some said there were even a few that reached 25 feet), surfers came from as far as Cape Cod and Southern California to take advantage of waves that were for the Jersey Shore, rare if not historic. One surfer described having to bail out on a wave that became too vertical and dropping two stories into the water below. I’m amazed he survived!   As I watched the videos of the surfers and the waves, I was awestruck by the size of the waves, their power, and the fact that this was taking place right here in New Jersey. After all, as one surfer from New Jersey said, “This should be something that happens in Hawaii or Portugal…but it was happening in our backyard.”  Another person described the waves as “angry—very, very powerful.” (cbsnews.com, Dec. 21, 2023) For sure, they did seem quite angry and quite pow

On New Year’s Eve, as the year was turning from 2023 to 2024, we had the television on so that we could watch the ball drop in Times Square. As it did, everyone there was cheering for the New Year. And one of the commentators (or someone with them) exclaimed, “This is going to be the best year ever!” My response was, how do they know that? How do they know what’s in store in 2024?  (To which my son responded, telling me not to be so grouchy and cynical!)  Without trying to be grouchy or cynical, however, the truth is, none of us knows what the next year will hold. We would all like to think that 2024 will be a year of great things, blessings, smooth sailing, etc. We would all love to have a year wherein all of our hopes and dreams come true. And for some that just may be the case. I hope it is for you. Yet for others, 2024 might not turn out to be all that they hoped and wished for—or even prayed for. For some, 2024 could turn out to be the year in which they lose their battle with ill