Pastor's Devotions by Tim Harris

Early yesterday morning, I had to travel out to Long Island for some meetings.  When I left my house it was still almost dark, but not soon afterwards the sun began to rise. That’s when the difficulties began. Soon I had to put my visor down, pull out my sunglasses, and adjust my line of sight so as not to be looking directly into the sun.  After traveling a bit further, I found myself having to deal with the morning’s sun glare slow downs.  If you have to travel east early in the morning, as I do many mornings throughout the week, you know what it’s like to be driving along, make a turn or take a curve and suddenly have the rising sun shining right into your line of vision. And, when this takes place on a road like the Cross Bronx Highway or the Cross Island Parkway, it can mean sudden stops, massive slow downs, and even a few fender-benders. The traffic might not be too heavy and even moving along at a pretty good clip, but, when the sun suddenly ...

This past week, traveling back from Nicaragua, I almost got stuck in the Miami airport for a night.  I was traveling with a standby ticket, which is normally not a problem, but I didn’t realize that I was flying home on Columbus Day and just after a carnival festival in the Caribbean.         The result was a very busy Miami airport and very full flights.  Twice my heart sunk as I heard the announcement, “The plane is full.  All standby passengers will be moved to the next flight.”  First I was told there was no room on my scheduled 7:05 pm flight to LaGuardia.   Then I got bumped off the 8:35 flight.  My only hope of getting back to New York City that evening was a 9:30 flight to JKF.  So I sat by that final gate hoping and praying.  Each time I saw another confirmed passenger come running to the gate to board the plane, my heart sunk a little lower as I thought, “There goes ano...

Yesterday morning my son Jonathan and I went with a team of people from here in Leon, Nicaragua to visit the children our church supports through our program, Promise Kids Foundation, in the small community called La Ceiba.  Although La Ceiba is not too far outside of the city limits of Leon, it is a very rural and extremely poor community.  It is also the community in which a little girl, Mayerling, lives.  She is the little girl my family supports.   Although I've met Mayerling a number of times now, I asked our team of workers if I could visit her home and maybe meet one or both of her parents. Knowing that there have been many difficulties in her home life, I wanted to catch a first-hand glimpse of her situation.  Thus, we ended up driving a little further down the dirt road we take to La Ceiba, driving further than we normally drive and going much deeper into the community than we usually do. We passed homes made of aluminum and plastic. The better on...

On the windowsill of my office, I have pictures of all three of my children (as well as of my wife, Kim).  I have their most recent graduation pictures, pictures of when they were babies and toddlers, and even one of our family when we were in Disneyworld about twelve years ago.  Now with none of my kids at home, I think I find myself glancing more often at their pictures, kind of wishing their pictures could talk to me.  But, pictures don’t talk.  (I know, I sound pathetic!) Don’t get me wrong, a couple of times a week we do talk by phone with each of them. We even Skype with our son, Jonathan, who is currently living and working in Nicaragua.  But, we all know that there is nothing like a face-to-face chat.  Neither a picture, nor a phone call, nor a Skype conversation can fully substitute for an up-close and personal conversation wherein you can see the expressions on each other’s face, reach out and touch the other person’s hand, ...