Pastor's Devotions by Tim Harris

This past Monday I had the privilege to take a missionary friend to The Ellis Island National Museum of Immigration. To get there, we parked on the New Jersey side at Liberty State Park and took the ferry to the island. (The only way to get there from either New Jersey or New York is by ferry). We spent the day in the museum and then, at the end of the day boarded a ferry to get back to where our car was parked. It was a beautiful, albeit chilly, ride. The sun was low on the horizon. The Statue of Liberty seemed to be glowing, as were the buildings of Manhattan, Brooklyn, and Jersey City that surrounded us. Yes, it was truly beautiful…until I noticed that we were riding right by Liberty State Park and heading towards Battery Park at the tip of Manhattan! Immediately I realized, we had gotten on the wrong ferry!  I soon found out that, since this was the last ferry of the day, we couldn’t ride back to either Ellis Island or Liberty State Park via this ferry. In a very quick minute, I ha

I’ve notice recently that many fast food places have longer lines at the drive-through than they do inside at the counter. Such is the case at the Dunkin’ Donuts I drive by every morning, with cars spilling out onto the road. I’ve seen the same at the local Chick-fil-a, Starbucks, and Wendy’s. It seems that many people either don’t want to make the effort to get out of their car or they are in such a hurry that they want to eat on the run. I for one, almost never go through a drive-through; I’d much rather go inside, see the counter-person face to face, and sit down to have my lunch or coffee. Even if I need to do take-out, I’d still rather go inside. I tend to think that the drive-through is somewhat a symbol of the kind of culture in which we live. People living in other places around the world would never consider eating while driving in their cars, no less pick up their food in a drive-through line. The pace of their lives is such that it allows them to actually sit and enjoy their

This past week I took our dog Sadie to the vet for her annual check-up and vaccines. I knew it wasn’t going to go well. And it didn’t. As soon as we began to walk through the first of two sets of doors, she knew where she was, turned around and began pulling to go back out. Once we got into the examining room, she sat with her body right up against my leg with that nervous look in her eyes. When the tech and then the vet came into the room she pushed even harder against me and even went under the chair I was sitting on. No amount of coaxing or bribing with treats was going to get her to allow for an examination, no less any vaccines. We decided I’m going to need to bring her back and allow them to completely sedate her if they are going to be able to get done for her what needs to be done. (And, please no advice…we’ve tried everything! She’s too smart to be tricked!)   Obviously, Sadie is afraid of the vet.  And I can’t completely blame her. After all, she doesn’t understand that what