Pastor's Devotions by Tim Harris

For the past few weeks now, I have been awaken by the sound of birds outside our bedroom window, especially a cardinal or two. It seems that they feel that 4:30 in the morning is the perfect time to start their calling. Soon after, all the other birds begin to join in. Before you know it, it’s a cacophony of birds calling, chirping, whistling, singing, and even crowing—all seemingly for the purpose of waking me up (which I do fight against!).  Out of curiosity to know what kinds of birds are in the trees around me, the other day as I was walking Sadie, I turned on the bird ID app that I have on my phone. (Yes, I have a bird ID app on my phone!) I set it on “Sound ID” and began to record the bird calls and songs around me. It quickly listed ten species of birds. There was the cardinal of course. But there was as well a Carolina wren, house sparrow, a woodpecker, mocking bird, and more. That’s a lot of birds in the trees, all trying to wake me up!  Did you know the Bible often r...

This past week Kim and I spent some time weeding the mulch beds around our home. As many of you probably know, the problem with pulling weeds is that, unless you can get to the root, just getting rid of the plant on the surface does not really solve your weed problem. Unless you get to the “root of the matter,” the weeds will come back. It seems to me, however, that weeds were designed so as to make it almost impossible to completely remove them by their roots. They will quickly break somewhere near the surface. Thus, unless you dig down deep (and sometimes really deep) into the ground,  you’ll never really get rid of the weeds. (Of course, another option is to use a chemical of some sort that goes down through the soil to kill the plant at its roots.)  If we’re honest, when we are facing the difficulties, conflicts, and challenges of life, we very often want a quick fix—like pulling a weed from the top. In reality, however, there’s often a lot more happening below the surface...

As you probably know a total eclipse of the sun is coming to North America next week (April 8, 2024).  For some parts of Mexico and the United States, the sun will be completely blocked by the moon entering into its path. In other regions the sun will be partially blocked. Here in NJ, we will experience an 80-90% blockage of the sun’s light.  It’s an awesome event that is extremely rare (the next one to cross through mainland US will be in 2045). That’s what makes it so special. After all, if an eclipse took place every year, it would be no big deal. But because it happens so infrequently it draws our attention.  We might also say that, an eclipse like this is not what we would consider to be “natural” or “normal.” Yes, it is nature doing its thing, but in our general experience, it’s not what we expect from the sun and moon. After all, we expect that during the day the sun will shine (and the moon will stay out of its way) and at night the moon will shine—at least accord...