Pastor's Devotions by Tim Harris

The old pop song said: “Just the two of us, we can make it if we try…Just the two of us, building castles in the sky; Just the two of us, you and I.”  Well, that’s how it is for Kim and me these days: it’s just the two of us .  With the all three of our children away now (two in college and one working in Nicaragua), things have changed a bit here in our home.  We don’t have to think about getting home for anyone at the end of the day. The schedule is much less cluttered—we don’t have a host of school events on our calendars.  There’s less laundry, less picking up, less cooking, less dish washing, etc.  After all, it is just the two of us.  I guess on the surface all of that sounds great.  And, maybe at some point we will appreciate it. But although Kim and I love our time together as husband and wife, right now there is something strange for us as we look into two empty bedrooms, see the empty seats at the table, and experience s...

The day has come! That is, the day Kim and I had to take our youngest child and only daughter to college finally arrived!  After almost two years of college visits, SATs, college applications, acceptance letters, decisions, financial aid forms, and, last but not least, shopping for college stuff, it all came to the time up to which everything has been building.  So this morning with a van filled to the brim, we made the trek to Joanna’s new campus, unloaded the van (with the help of some great student volunteers), set up the room (after moving the furniture about ten times to make it all fit), did the new student-parent stuff that the school had planned, said our farewells—with of course, a few tears showing (and many more that we were hiding)—and left Joanna at her new school and temporary home. But, not only has the day come for Joanna to begin her college career, tomorrow the day comes for Kim and me to begin a new phase in our lives—to live as “empty...

I know I might get myself in trouble with these thoughts this morning, and some may miss my point, but I can’t help but notice how often people today use the argument of “rights” to justify just about anything they like.  In fact, most arguments today on both the right and left sides of the political spectrum have to do with rights.   People speak about their rights in discussions about abortion, gay marriage, personal privacy, smoking laws, pornography, and the carrying of semi-automatic weapons.  Here in the U.S. we take our “inalienable rights” and extend them far beyond “the pursuit of life, liberty, and happiness” - or at least to our own exaggerated interpretation of those words.  We tend to forget, as Oliver Wendell Holmes Jr. put it, “Your right to swing your fist ends where my nose begins.”  I believe, however, that we who call ourselves Christians need to set the example of what it means to move beyond one’s rights.  Our wa...

It’s a terrible feeling. You’re standing at the luggage carousel just after getting off your flight, watching the luggage come out of the shoot, waiting for your own suitcases to show up.  People are grabbing theirs’ off the moving belt. The number of bags is beginning to dwindle.  There’s just one more bag left circling, and it’s not yours.  You wait another couple of minutes thinking that yours is about to come out of the shoot any moment.  But, nothing happens.  And you realize, although you have gotten to your destination, your luggage has not.  That’s exactly what happened to me last week when I arrived in Managua, Nicaragua.  Both of my suitcases had been left behind in Miami.  Of course, I was just a little bit upset!  I will say, however, that considering the number of people traveling and the enormous amount of luggage an airline has to process in a day, I am somewhat amazed that not more luggage gets mixed up, left b...

It’s official.  We who live here in the Northeast (of the US) are in the middle of a heat wave! Last night at 9:00 pm, it was still in the low 90’s. By 7:00 this morning it was already 84 degrees. It’s been like this all week. And, it will be so for another day or two.  (No I’m not trying to play weatherman!) I’m not complaining since I don’t really have any great love for the winter. But, heat like this makes us all feel a bit drained—and, even a bit cranky.  Everyone is a little slower and a bit more on edge. I’ve noticed that even the traffic seems to slow down, probably due to more cars giving up as well as accidents caused by exhausted drivers.  After a few days of this kind of heat (and humidity), we are all craving a little bit of relief. So we find a spot sitting by the fan.  As quickly as possible we move from the out-of-doors back into our air-conditioned home or office (or even a mall).  And, we just naturally seek out ...