Faith and Life Blog

  Every human has needs that must be satisfied in order for life to be meaningful and fulfilling. One such need is the need to belong. This came to mind recently as I did my customary early morning walk in my community. As I arrived at the playfield I saw familiar faces of persons I had come to know since moving into the community five years ago.  We greeted each other and chatted as we walked and that made the experience a more pleasant and memorable one. On the way home, I met other members of the community, with whom I stopped to have brief conversations. I returned home feeling revived, energized, and with a great sense of well-being. I noticed a marked difference between this particular morning and the other mornings when I walked alone and did not have much interaction with anyone. On those mornings that I walked alone, I felt good after my exercise, but the interaction with others on this particular morning had added the element of the human touch, making it all the more special

  New Living Translation For I am about to do something new. See, I have already begun! Do you not see it? I will make a pathway through the wilderness. I will create rivers in the dry wasteland. https://biblehub.com/isaiah 43-19.htm Good day, my friends.  Just stopping by for a brief word of encouragement which I hope will cause us to reflect on God and allow Him to have his way in our lives. The passage above speaks to God wanting to do a new thing in our lives. God's arms of love and mercy are always extended to us. The fact that we are alive and well is evidence that He continues to do new things in our lives on a daily basis. In Lamentations 3 it is stated that his mercies are never ceasing and are new every morning. Indeed He is faithful. He lavishes His love on us whether we deserve it or not. He sends rain on the just and on the unjust. There are times when God wants to do new things in our lives but those things will not be done until we partner with Him. In order for that

    I press on toward the goal…..Philippians 3:14   One evening on my way from work to church I decided to try a new route. The traffic was unusually heavy and I did not want to be late. With that in mind, I made my way hesitantly to this route on which I had never driven before. In fact, I had passed that way only once before and at that time I was a passenger, not the driver. In addition, I had come from the opposite direction, and even though I am not directionally challenged, I was not sure of the exact turns which I needed to make. I decided to feel my way along, hoping and praying that things would work out somehow and I would arrive at my destination – church. As I drove along I looked for landmarks that I could remember from my first trip through the area. Night had started to fall and I started to get that feeling that somehow the place looked a little different from what I remembered. Had I missed a turn? Now I wasn’t sure if I was on the right track. The road ahead

     God is our refuge and strength, an ever-present help in trouble. Psalm 46:1 (NIV))   The message from the bank was bad. It alerted me to a transaction on my account a few minutes prior. I immediately became concerned because I had no knowledge of the said transaction. How did this happen? Has my account been compromised? A million thoughts began to swirl through my mind. I sent an email to the bank to inform them that I had not done the transaction. The email bounced. I called the customer service lines, not one, not two, but three times. I was put on hold. There were no available customer service agents to address my concern. I started to get agitated. But then I remembered that I could pray and began to do so.. A second alert came from the bank. Another withdrawal from my account. No, this could not be happening! Then the Holy Spirit directed me to alert members of my Community WhatsApp group from my church and to ask them to agree with me in prayer that the situation

  A few days ago, I was editing a document at work. I came across an unfamiliar word and so I stopped to check for its meaning,m in order to be sure that it was being used correctly. When I returned to the document, I could not remember the section where I had come across the word.  I read several lines in the general area hoping to find the word and continue. That proved to be a difficult task. Look as I may, I could not locate the word. I thought it strange. My eyes were really playing tricks on me. A few minutes ago I was seeing the word for the first time, and in a few minutes, it seemed to have totally disappeared from the page. I then resorted to a word search of the document and eventually found the elusive word. It was right in front of me, yet hidden in plain sight. It boggles my mind how such a thing could ever happen, but as the saying goes, 'truth is stranger than fiction.' But it is certainly not farfetched that such a thing could happen. How many times have we mis

  He who watches the wind will not sow and he who looks at the clouds will not reap. Ecclesiastes 11:4 The forecast of rain caused me to change my plans. The Met Office had advised that a cold front would move across the island between Thursday and Saturday and would result in cooler temperatures and showers. True to the word of the Met Office, there was rain on Thursday and Friday, both day and night. Normally on a Friday night, I would load my laundry into the washing machine and allow the clothes to soak overnight. On Saturday morning I would get up early and do my washing. Not this Friday night, however. The steady rain drumming on the rooftop gave the impression that it would certainly be more of the same the next day. It was shaping up to be a wet Saturday…or so I thought! Saturday morning dawned overcast and very windy, but there was no rain in sight. I had an early morning assignment at church and so I left home by 7 am. As I sat in the church office and looked out I saw

   “Your word is a lamp for my feet and a light on my path.” (  Psalm 119:105 ) This morning I went to visit a friend. I had made the promise a long time ago and I didn't want to put it off any longer. I was not very familiar with the area where she lived; I had been there only once before and so I decided to use the highly touted Google Maps as my guide. I am not the most tech-savvy person but that needs to change and so I decided that I needed to get more hands-on where the technology is concerned.  I had originally planned to return the same way I came and so I reversed the information in the app and started out. On the way, however, I remembered that I needed to run an errand at a nearby location. It was a bit out of the way but it could be done, as I was already on the road and in the words of the popular Jamaican saying, I could 'kill two birds with one stone', working smarter, not harder, thus making life easier for myself. So I diverted from the original route and m