Pastor's Devotions by Tim Harris

This week I’ve been somewhat following the Australian Open tennis tournament.   Of course, due to the huge time difference between here and there, I haven’t really watched all that many matches—and those that I did were in replay!   Although I was very interested to see how some of the veterans like Federer, Nadal, and Djokavic would fare, what caught my attention was a young 21-year-old named Hyeon Chung from South Korea who made it all the way into the semi-finals—a first for a Korean! Watching him play was very exciting. He’s athletic, fast, has great form, and lots of drive.   Last night (i.e. very early in the morning our time) Chung had to play his semi-final’s match against Roger Federer.   Although I pretty much expected Federer to win, I was hoping for Chung’s sake it would be somewhat of a close match.   However, I soon found out such was not the case. By the time I checked on the match this morning, the match was over; Chung had lost the first se...

I finally got the bird feeder I always wanted, from our son Jonathan and his wife Danielle for Christmas.    A couple of days later I set it up where I can see it from our breakfast table, hanging from a pole in our backyard. Within a few days the birds began to come: finches, cardinals, sparrows, chickadees, a blue jay.   All kinds of birds began to gather around and eat at our (their) new feeder…until the squirrel showed up! Like all squirrels, this squirrel can climb, jump, swing, and do whatever he must do to get to the birdseed.   For my part, I feel like I have a new challenge on my hands. So, I’ve been doing my on-line research, reading how I might protect my bird feeder from this new enemy of mine!   (Today, I might try cayenne pepper, which I’m told the squirrel doesn’t like, but which doesn’t affect the birds—they can’t taste spicy! Who knew?) I’m sure that there are those who would say, I should have expected to have to deal with a squirrel o...