Marriage can often be overwhelming for many. That is why I so much appreciate the initiative being taken by Dr. Gil Stieglitz in bringing new hope to marriages. Through his years of study and practical interaction with many couples, Gil has discovered that there are only five problems in any marriage. This insight is helpful, especially for men. It helps us get a handle on the challenges that we face in developing intimacy, that there are only five problems in any marriage.
Dr. Gil summarizes the five problems of marriage as
1) Needs or Roles
2) SSSAAADDD Behaviours (when our needs are not being met)
3) Temperament Differences
4) Relational Drainage
5) Past Baggage
He has seen phenomenal breakthroughs when couples begin to address and work on these five key areas. To assist marriages, he has developed a six-part DVD series , with accompanying books, which walk couples through each of these five areas.
Dr. Gil, who pastored a congregation for many years, believes that churches can make a big difference in helping strengthen marriages. After all, God both invented and is deeply committed to the ‘institution’ of marriage. During the thirty-one years that I pastored on the North Shore, I have seen many outwardly successful people whose inner lives were crumbling because of relational challenges. Sometimes it takes a major crisis, like a marriage struggle, before we are willing to cry out to God and admit how much we need him. Many men that I have known are totally baffled when their wife finally packs up and leaves.
Dr. Gil believes in being very practical in the help that he offers to men and women. So he has developed two acrostics that assist us to build marriages of great joy. For men, he has developed the acrostic: H.U.S.B.A.N.D. which identifies the fourteen top needs of our wives. (Honour, Understanding, Security, Building Unity, Agreement, Nurture, Defender). Love, says Dr. Gil, is meeting needs. The first letter “H” (Honour) has been most helpful for me personally. Dr. Gil teaches that women do something every day that many men don’t. They give an informal ‘computer test’ to their spouse to see where they are in the structure of his priorities: “Are they above his work or below his work, above the children or below his children, above his hobbies or below his hobbies?” If the wife does not win that computer test, guess who loses. The husband does, because the wife cannot blossom and respond to him from the depth of her being. Every day, the husband needs to honour or add value to his wife in practical, specific ways.
Many men know how to be men, but not husbands. The word ‘Husband’ actually comes from the term ‘Husbandman’, which means ‘gardener’. We as husbands are called to ‘garden’ our wife, to nurture her, care for her, and put her first under God. You can find out more about the ‘H.U.S.B.A.N.D.’ acrostic by checking out Dr. Gil’s book ‘How to Be a Godly Husband’ .
For Wives, Dr. Gil and Dana Stieglitz have developed the acrostic ‘R.A.D.I.C.A.L.’ which identify the top fourteen needs of one’s husband (Respect, Adaptability, Domestic Leadership, Intimacy, Companionship, Attractiveness, and Listening). Along with the Marriage DVDs, Gil and Dana Stieglitz have co-written a book “Building a Marriage of Great Joy” which explains how to be a ‘RADICAL’ wife
Gil and Dana teach that respecting or acknowledging the strengths of one’s husband meets a deep need, but is not always easy for women to do. In the same way that wives want their husbands to give them unconditional love, husbands need their wives to give them unconditional respect. As the Good Book puts it in Ephesians 5:23, “Husbands, love your wives and, Wives, respect your husband.”
I am so pleased about Dr Gil’s book Marital Intelligence that brings together all of this material into one helpful book. My prayer is that those hearing about these resources will not just be hearers of the word but doers of the word who put this into practice in their own marriages.
The Rev. Dr. Ed Hird, BSW, MDiv, DMin
-previously published in the North Shore News/Deep Cove Crier
P. S. Click this Amazon link to view for free the first two chapters of our new novel Blue Sky.
“I’m afraid there’s been an accident…”
Sandy Brown and her family have just moved to Spokane, Washington where her husband, Scott, is pastoring a new church. With a fresh start, Sandy is determined to devote more time to her four children. But, within weeks of settling in their new life, the Brown family is plunged into turmoil.
Sandy receives shocking news that her children aren’t safe, which brings back haunting memories of the trauma she experienced as a girl. Then, the unthinkable happens…
A brutal attack puts Sandy on the brink of losing everything she’s loved. Her faith in God and the family she cherishes are pushed to the ultimate limit.
Is healing possible when so many loved ones are hurt? Are miracles really possible through the power of prayer? Can life return to the way it was before?
Blue Sky reveals how a mother’s most basic instinct isn’t for survival… but for family.
If you’re a fan of Karen Kingsbury, then you’ll love Blue Sky. Get your copy today on paperback or kindle.
-The sequel book Restoring Health: body, mind and spirit is available online with Amazon.com in both paperback and ebook form. Dr. JI Packer wrote the foreword, saying “I heartily commend what he has written.” The book focuses on strengthening a new generation of healthy leaders. Drawing on examples from Titus’ healthy leadership in the pirate island of Crete, it shows how we can embrace a holistically healthy life.
To receive a signed copy within North America, just etransfer at ed_hird@telus.net, giving your address. Cheques are also acceptable.
-Click to purchase the Companion Bible Study by Jan Cox (for the Battle of the Soul of Canada) in both paperback and Kindle on Amazon.com and Amazon.ca
-Click to purchase the Companion Bible Study by Jan Cox (for the Battle of the Soul of Canada) in both paperback and Kindle on Amazon.com and Amazon.ca
To purchase any of our six books in paperback or ebook on Amazon, just click on this link.
Fanny Crosby was blinded, while only six weeks old, by a quack unlicensed doctor. He permanently scarred her corneas by applying hot mustard poultices to her mildly infected eyes. When her father died while Fanny was only 12 months old, her mother had to become a maid to support little Fanny.
Despite these tragedies, Fanny never fell into self-pity. “Don’t waste any sympathy on me”, she said. “I’m the happiest person alive.” Fanny went on to become one of the best known women in North America. She taught for 23 years at the New York Institute for the Blind, becoming the personal friend and confidante of every sitting American President during her lifetime. As the first woman to ever address the U.S. Congress, Fanny left a lasting impact wherever she went.
One of the keys to her becoming so well-known was her partnering with the famous ‘DL Moody/Ira Sankey’ team. Sankey (who was also blind for his last five years) would often provide the tune, and Fanny Crosby would write the words. After the infamous Chicago fire that burned down Moody’s premises, Moody and Sankey went to England, speaking and singing their way into the hearts of the British people. Even Queen Victoria and the Princess of Wales came to hear Moody preach and Sankey sing Fanny Crosby’s songs. As one writer commented, Fanny Crosby ‘set more hearts and voices to praising God than any other women who ever lived. Fanny’s approach to life and music was “Live in the moment and make it so beautiful that it will be worth remembering.”
Fanny Crosby had a photographic memory, memorizing five chapters of the Bible every week. She knew by heart the first five books of the Old Testament, the four Gospels, Proverbs, Song of Solomon, and many of the Psalms. Some of her most well-known songs were “To God be the Glory, Great Things He hath Done”, “Draw Me Nearer, Precious Lord”, “Blessed Assurance”, and “Praise Him! Praise Him!”.
Fanny lived until age 95. When she was 83, she said: “I believe myself to still really be in the prime of my life.” When asked about her longevity, she said that her secret was that she guarded her taste, her temper, and her tongue.
Fanny actively supported the Water StreetMission in New York, the first Rescue Mission in North America. It had been founded by Jerry McAuley who himself had recovered from alcohol and prison. She did not focus on pointing out other people’s faults. “You can’t save a man by telling him of his sins. He knows them already. Tell him there is pardon and love waiting for him. Win his confidence and make him understand that you believe in him, and never give him up!” One of her best known songs “Pass Me Not, O Gentle Saviour” was written specifically for a prisoner who cried out at her meeting: “O Lord, Do not pass me by!”
Fanny was married for 44 years to Alexander Van Alistine, her former student and fellow instructor at the New York Institute for the Blind. With Alexander being a top organist and Fanny an accomplished harpist, they must have been quite a duo. Sadly their only child, Frances, died as a baby. It was this tragedy that inspired the writing of one of Fanny’s most famous songs: “Safe in the Arms of Jesus”.
Her song “Safe in the Arms of Jesus” even reached Uganda in 1885. The Anglican Bishop James Hannington was captured by King Mwanga and put for a week in a filthy rat-infested hut. Bishop Hannington’s last words in his diary were: “Go tell Mwanga that I have purchased the road to Uganda with my blood.” As they speared him to death, Hannington was joyfully singing “Safe in the Arms of Jesus”. His courageous death inspired 32 servants of King Mwanga to accept being burnt alive rather than renounce their faith and moral convictions. Such sacrifices have produced the second largest Anglican Church in the world, with over eight million Ugandan Anglicans attending church each Sunday.
I thank God for Fanny Crosby, the world’s most prolific songbird, who has shown tens of millions in every continent how to be ‘safe in the arms of Jesus’.
The Rev. Dr. Ed Hird, BSW, MDiv, DMin
-previously published in the North Shore News/Deep Cove Crier
P. S. Click this Amazon link to view for free the first two chapters of our new novel Blue Sky.
“I’m afraid there’s been an accident…”
Sandy Brown and her family have just moved to Spokane, Washington where her husband, Scott, is pastoring a new church. With a fresh start, Sandy is determined to devote more time to her four children. But, within weeks of settling in their new life, the Brown family is plunged into turmoil.
Sandy receives shocking news that her children aren’t safe, which brings back haunting memories of the trauma she experienced as a girl. Then, the unthinkable happens…
A brutal attack puts Sandy on the brink of losing everything she’s loved. Her faith in God and the family she cherishes are pushed to the ultimate limit.
Is healing possible when so many loved ones are hurt? Are miracles really possible through the power of prayer? Can life return to the way it was before?
Blue Sky reveals how a mother’s most basic instinct isn’t for survival… but for family.
If you’re a fan of Karen Kingsbury, then you’ll love Blue Sky. Get your copy today on paperback or kindle.
-The sequel book Restoring Health: body, mind and spirit is available online with Amazon.com in both paperback and ebook form. Dr. JI Packer wrote the foreword, saying “I heartily commend what he has written.” The book focuses on strengthening a new generation of healthy leaders. Drawing on examples from Titus’ healthy leadership in the pirate island of Crete, it shows how we can embrace a holistically healthy life.
To receive a signed copy within North America, just etransfer at ed_hird@telus.net, giving your address. Cheques are also acceptable.
-Click to purchase the Companion Bible Study by Jan Cox (for the Battle of the Soul of Canada) in both paperback and Kindle on Amazon.com and Amazon.ca
-Click to purchase the Companion Bible Study by Jan Cox (for the Battle of the Soul of Canada) in both paperback and Kindle on Amazon.com and Amazon.ca
To purchase any of our six books in paperback or ebook on Amazon, just click on this link.
Sir Samuel Leonard Tilley, a Father of Canadian Confederation and twice the Lt. Governor of New Brunswick, rose each morning to start his day with prayer and Scripture reading. As the 33 founding Fathers gathered in 1864 at Charlottetown, PEI, there were many suggestions on what to call this new nation. That morning, as Tilley read from Psalm 72:8, he became so convinced that Canada should be a nation under God, that when he came down to the Conference session, he presented the inspired name “Dominion of Canada”. Our National Motto on our Coat of Arms “A Mari Usque Ad Mare” (from sea to sea) was drawn once again straight from Psalm 72:8. “He shall have dominion from sea to sea.”
Tilley came to a personal knowledge of Jesus Christ in 1839 through his Anglican rector, the Reverend William Harrison. His life was so dramatically transformed that he even became an Anglican Sunday School teacher and a Church Warden (Elder). Tilley’s son Harrison became a well-known Anglican priest.
One day, an 11-year old girl ran to Tilley for help, after her drunken father brutally stabbed her mother to death. Because of this tragedy, Tilley went from being a quiet pharmacist to becoming the Premier of New Brunswick in his campaign for alcohol reform. When Tilley brought in actual alcohol legislation, he was burned in effigy, his house was attacked, and his family’s lives were threatened.
Tilley the ‘dry’ Anglican was good friends with Sir Charles Tupper the ‘drinking’ Baptist Premier of Nova Scotia. Both shared a passion for railways which they believed were the key to the Maritimes’ future. Sir Charles Tupper eventually became the Federal Minister of Railways, bringing the CPR railway line to Vancouver, and BC into Confederation. Before the arrival of the railway, traveling to Vancouver would take all summer by riverboat and stagecoach.
The 1864 Charlottetown meeting was originally intended to bring a Maritime Union of New Brunswick and Nova Scotia, to defend against the threat of American invasion. But Tupper and Tilley dreamed bigger, inviting Ontario and Quebec to join them in a new Confederation. Tupper believed in the greatness of Canada, saying: “The human mind naturally adapts itself to the position it occupies. The most gigantic intellect may be dwarfed by being cabin’d, cribbed and confined. It requires a great country and great circumstances to develop great men.”
Tupper read the Bible fully from cover to cover by the age of eight. His father Charles Tupper Senior, a prohibitionist, was one of the founding fathers of the fast-growing Maritime Baptist Churches. While training as a medical doctor in Edinburgh, Charles Jr discovered Scotch from which he never recovered. Tupper served as first president of the Canadian Medical Association.
In 1867 the Halifax Morning Chronicle had described Tupper as “the most despicable politician within the bounds of British North America.” Throughout his career Tupper was variously described as “the Boodle Knight,” the “Great Stretcher” (of the truth), “the old tramp,” the “Arch-Corruptionist,” and “the old wretch.”.
Tupper has the distinction of being the shortest-serving Prime Minister in Canadian history, even beating out Joe Clark and Kim Campbell (67 days!). His marriage, despite allegations of philandering, lasted longer than any other Prime Minister: 66 years!
Tupper, the longest-surviving Father of Confederation, served in six federal cabinet portfolios. If there was something that was really difficult to get done, somebody who needed to be won over, Macdonald often said: ‘Call Tupper.’ Tupper could make things happen.
In 1883 a British Columbia contractor close to Tupper was awarded a two million dollar job, even though rivals submitted lower bids. The opposition suspected a payoff. Tupper faced a legal challenge and demands for a full inquiry. He promptly left his retirement home in Vancouver and sailed for London, far from the cry of scandal, to take a diplomatic posting.
Sir Charles Tupper and Sir Leonard Tilley remind us that God can use the most unlikely people in building a nation.
P. S. Click this Amazon link to view for free the first two chapters of our new novel Blue Sky.
“I’m afraid there’s been an accident…”
Sandy Brown and her family have just moved to Spokane, Washington where her husband, Scott, is pastoring a new church. With a fresh start, Sandy is determined to devote more time to her four children. But, within weeks of settling in their new life, the Brown family is plunged into turmoil.
Sandy receives shocking news that her children aren’t safe, which brings back haunting memories of the trauma she experienced as a girl. Then, the unthinkable happens…
A brutal attack puts Sandy on the brink of losing everything she’s loved. Her faith in God and the family she cherishes are pushed to the ultimate limit.
Is healing possible when so many loved ones are hurt? Are miracles really possible through the power of prayer? Can life return to the way it was before?
Blue Sky reveals how a mother’s most basic instinct isn’t for survival… but for family.
If you’re a fan of Karen Kingsbury, then you’ll love Blue Sky. Get your copy today on paperback or kindle.
-The sequel book Restoring Health: body, mind and spirit is available online with Amazon.com in both paperback and ebook form. Dr. JI Packer wrote the foreword, saying “I heartily commend what he has written.” The book focuses on strengthening a new generation of healthy leaders. Drawing on examples from Titus’ healthy leadership in the pirate island of Crete, it shows how we can embrace a holistically healthy life.
To receive a signed copy within North America, just etransfer at ed_hird@telus.net, giving your address. Cheques are also acceptable.
-Click to purchase the Companion Bible Study by Jan Cox (for the Battle of the Soul of Canada) in both paperback and Kindle on Amazon.com and Amazon.ca
-Click to purchase the Companion Bible Study by Jan Cox (for the Battle of the Soul of Canada) in both paperback and Kindle on Amazon.com and Amazon.ca
To purchase any of our six books in paperback or ebook on Amazon, just click on this link.
There is a renewed attention these days to CS Lewis’ fascinating Aslan character. What is it about Aslan the Lion that even outdrew the mighty King Kong at the box office? Why is Aslan so effective in breaking through our adult pessimism and negativity?
One of the most interesting Narnia creatures is the Marshwiggle, a symbol of negativity, pessimism, and reliable gloom. In the Narnia Chronicles’ ‘Silver Chair’, the Green Witch says to the Narnians: “Put away these childish tricks. I have work for you in the real world. There is no Narnia, no overworld, no sky, no sun, no Aslan.” The Marshwiggle remarkably responds by affirming: “I ‘m on Aslan’s side even if there isn’t any Aslan to lead it. I’m going to live as like a Narnian as I can, even if there isn’t any Narnia.”
It is easy to be cynical and bitter. It took courage for the Marshwiggle to look past his natural negativity and cling to the promises of Aslan. The Narnia Chronicles have been teaching me once again that only the childlike can enter the Kingdom of Narnia. Even the Lion of Judah once said: “I tell you the truth, unless you change and become like little children, you will never enter the Kingdom of Heaven.” (Matthew 18:3)
There is a major difference between being childish and childlike. The Narnia Chronicles comments that “even in this world, of course, it is the stupidest children who are the most childish and the stupidest grownups who are the most grown-up.” The famous ‘love chapter’ of 1 Corinthians 13 encourages us ‘to put away childish things’ As the Pevensie children journeyed throughout their Narnia adventures, they became less childish and more mature both in outward appearance and inner character. Yet simultaneously they became more childlike in their willingness to trust and admit their need for others, especially their need for Aslan. In the Narnia blockbuster ‘The Lion, the Witch, and the Wardrobe’, the children cry out ‘Aslan, I need your help’, to which Aslan responds “I know, but the future of Narnia depends on your courage.” Only the truly childlike can be truly courageous. If we depend on our own strength alone, life tends to sap us of our inner fortitude.
It takes real courage to admit how tough and sad life can sometimes be. Only the truly childlike know how important it is to weep and grieve from time to time. At the death of the Narnian King Caspian, “all three stood and wept. Even (Aslan) the Lion wept: great lion tears, each tear more precious than the earth would be if it was a single diamond.” Childlike tears can be deeply healing. That is why Jesus said: “Blessed are those who mourn for they shall be comforted.” That is why the shortest sentence in the entire bible is ‘Jesus wept’. The Good Book poignantly says that Aslan puts every one of our tears in a bottle.
Perhaps most importantly, only the childlike can truly hear Aslan’s voice. Aslan said to Polly regarding Uncle Andrew in The Magician and His Nephew: “He has made himself unable to hear my voice. If I spoke to him, he would only hear growlings and roarings. Oh Adam’s sons, how cleverly you defend yourselves against all that might do you good.” Aslan says to each of us: “Come farther in. Come farther up. Come to the real land of Narnia, the land you have been looking for all your life.” Let Aslan give you ‘the wild kisses of a Lion’. Let Aslan bring you to life as you walk with childlike faith through the Wardrobe.
P. S. Click this Amazon link to view for free the first two chapters of our new novel Blue Sky.
“I’m afraid there’s been an accident…”
Sandy Brown and her family have just moved to Spokane, Washington where her husband, Scott, is pastoring a new church. With a fresh start, Sandy is determined to devote more time to her four children. But, within weeks of settling in their new life, the Brown family is plunged into turmoil.
Sandy receives shocking news that her children aren’t safe, which brings back haunting memories of the trauma she experienced as a girl. Then, the unthinkable happens…
A brutal attack puts Sandy on the brink of losing everything she’s loved. Her faith in God and the family she cherishes are pushed to the ultimate limit.
Is healing possible when so many loved ones are hurt? Are miracles really possible through the power of prayer? Can life return to the way it was before?
Blue Sky reveals how a mother’s most basic instinct isn’t for survival… but for family.
If you’re a fan of Karen Kingsbury, then you’ll love Blue Sky. Get your copy today on paperback or kindle.
-The sequel book Restoring Health: body, mind and spirit is available online with Amazon.com in both paperback and ebook form. Dr. JI Packer wrote the foreword, saying “I heartily commend what he has written.” The book focuses on strengthening a new generation of healthy leaders. Drawing on examples from Titus’ healthy leadership in the pirate island of Crete, it shows how we can embrace a holistically healthy life.
To receive a signed copy within North America, just etransfer at ed_hird@telus.net, giving your address. Cheques are also acceptable.
-Click to purchase the Companion Bible Study by Jan Cox (for the Battle of the Soul of Canada) in both paperback and Kindle on Amazon.com and Amazon.ca
-Click to purchase the Companion Bible Study by Jan Cox (for the Battle of the Soul of Canada) in both paperback and Kindle on Amazon.com and Amazon.ca
To purchase any of our six books in paperback or ebook on Amazon, just click on this link.
With CS Lewis’ Voyage of the Dawntreader having come out, Aslan Fever again swept the globe.
Who is Aslan anyways, and why are so many children of all ages so fascinated with him? Having thoroughly enjoyed watching Disney’s The Lion, the Witch, and the Wardrobe, I was motivated to go back and re-read the Narnia Chronicles series. My family, when they were younger, eagerly watched the cartoon version of The Narnia Chronicles, and gained much from it. But with the breakthrough in CGI technology, Aslan has taken on a new visual depth.
When the four Pevensie children in Narnia first hear Aslan’s name, they immediately feel powerful sensations that they cannot comprehend. Peter, Susan, and Lucy experience an unfathomable joy. Edmund the double-crosser was strangely dismayed. Either way Aslan evoked a strong response.
In the Narnia Chronicles: The Horse and His Boy, Aslan reveals himself as the one who keeps us from going over the edge, the one who stays with us day and night. The young prince Shasta looked back after entering Narnia: “I must have gone through the pass in the night. What luck that I hit it! At least it wasn’t luck at all really, it was Him (Aslan). And Now I’m in Narnia.” “Who are you?” asked Shasta. “Myself”, said the voice, very deep and low so that the earth shook; and again “Myself”, loud and clear and gay; and then the third time “Myself”, whispered so softly you could hardly hear it, and yet it seemed to come from all around you as if the leaves rustled with it.” Aslan was Himself, no more, no less.
In Narnia Chronicles: The Magician’s Nephew, we learn that Aslan sang creation into existence at the beginning of time: “The Voice rose and rose, till the air was shaking with it. And just as it swelled into the mightiest and most glorious sound it had yet produced, the sun arose…The Lion was pacing to and fro about that empty land and singing his new song…And as he walked and sang the valley grew green with grass. It spread out from the Lion like a pool…Soon there were other things besides grass…’Trees,’ Digory exclaimed.”
CS Lewis ‘created’ a world of endless snow in the Narnia Chronicles. Only when Aslan was slain for others by the White Witch did the snow start melting. CS Lewis described his own spiritual breakthrough the same way: “I felt as if I were a man of snow at long last beginning to melt. The melting was starting in my back – drip-drip and presently trickle-trickle. I rather disliked the feeling.”
Many people don’t realize that CS Lewis, a confirmed old bachelor, ended up becoming married because of Aslan. Joy Davidman, a self-declared atheistic communist of Jewish heritage, loved to read the Narnia Chronicles to her sons. In the process, she came to faith in Aslan, the Lion of the Tribe of Judah (Revelation 5:5). Looking back, Joy Davidman commented: “My first published poem was called “Resurrection” — a sort of private argument with Jesus, attempting to convince him (and myself) that he had never risen. I wrote it at Easter, of all possible seasons, and never guessed why.”
As Joy Davidman wrote in ‘The Longest Way Round’, God “had been stalking me for a very long time, waiting for his moment; he crept nearer so silently that I never knew he was there. Then, all at once, he sprang. For the first time in my life I felt helpless; for the first time my pride was forced to admit that I was not, after all, ‘the master of my fate’. All my defenses — the walls of arrogance and cocksureness and self-love behind which I had hid from God — went down momentarily. And God came in. Since childhood, I had been pouring half my energy into the task of keeping him out. When it was over I found myself on my knees, praying. I think I must have been the world’s most astonished atheist.”
After coming to faith in Aslan the Lion of Judah, Joy escaped to England from her alcoholic, adulterous, wife-beating husband. As told in the ‘Shadowlands’ movie, it was there that Joy met her Narnia hero, CS Lewis. As a favour to a good friend, CS Lewis married Joy Davidman to keep her from being thrown out of the country because of her former communist background. As Joy began to battle terminal cancer, CS Lewis then fell in love with Joy for real and married her a second time in a Church wedding,. Romantically CS Lewis adopted Joy Davidman’s children, one of whom, Douglas Gresham, is co-producer of the Narnia Chronicles movie blockbuster.
So who is this Aslan who transformed Joy Davidman’s life? CS Lewis wrote to some Maryland fifth
graders in 1954: “I did not say to myself ‘Let us represent Jesus as He really is in our world by a Lion in Narnia’; I said, ‘Let us suppose that there were a land like Narnia and that the Son of God, as he became a Man in our world, became a Lion there, and then imagine what would happen.'”. In the letter, sent to a child fan in 1961, Lewis writes: “The whole Narnian story is about Christ.” CS Lewis commented: “Since Narnia is a world of talking beasts, I thought he would become a talking beast there as he became a man here. I pictured him becoming a lion there because a) the lion is supposed to be the king of beasts; b) Christ is called ‘the lion of Judah’ in the Bible.”
My prayer for those reading this article is that each of us, like CS Lewis and Joy Davidman, may open our hearts to the mysterious Aslan.
The Rev. Dr. Ed Hird, BSW, MDiv, DMin
-previously published in the North Shore News/Deep Cove Crier
P. S. Click this Amazon link to view for free the first two chapters of our new novel Blue Sky.
“I’m afraid there’s been an accident…”
Sandy Brown and her family have just moved to Spokane, Washington where her husband, Scott, is pastoring a new church. With a fresh start, Sandy is determined to devote more time to her four children. But, within weeks of settling in their new life, the Brown family is plunged into turmoil.
Sandy receives shocking news that her children aren’t safe, which brings back haunting memories of the trauma she experienced as a girl. Then, the unthinkable happens…
A brutal attack puts Sandy on the brink of losing everything she’s loved. Her faith in God and the family she cherishes are pushed to the ultimate limit.
Is healing possible when so many loved ones are hurt? Are miracles really possible through the power of prayer? Can life return to the way it was before?
Blue Sky reveals how a mother’s most basic instinct isn’t for survival… but for family.
If you’re a fan of Karen Kingsbury, then you’ll love Blue Sky. Get your copy today on paperback or kindle.
-The sequel book Restoring Health: body, mind and spirit is available online with Amazon.com in both paperback and ebook form. Dr. JI Packer wrote the foreword, saying “I heartily commend what he has written.” The book focuses on strengthening a new generation of healthy leaders. Drawing on examples from Titus’ healthy leadership in the pirate island of Crete, it shows how we can embrace a holistically healthy life.
To receive a signed copy within North America, just etransfer at ed_hird@telus.net, giving your address. Cheques are also acceptable.
-Click to purchase the Companion Bible Study by Jan Cox (for the Battle of the Soul of Canada) in both paperback and Kindle on Amazon.com and Amazon.ca
-Click to purchase the Companion Bible Study by Jan Cox (for the Battle of the Soul of Canada) in both paperback and Kindle on Amazon.com and Amazon.ca
To purchase any of our six books in paperback or ebook on Amazon, just click on this link.
Who can forget the remarkable Vancouver 2010 Olympics? Dr. William Barclay comments that perhaps the world’s most famous Olympic race is the marathon. The original Battle of the Marathon in 490 B.C. was one of the decisive battles of the ancient world. The Plains of Marathon, where the Greeks met King Darius I’s Persian army, were just twenty-two miles from embattled Athens. Against fearful odds, the Greeks won the victory, and, after the battle, a Greek soldier ran all the way, day and night, to Athens with the news. Straightway to the magistrates, he ran. “Rejoice,” he reportedly gasped,” we have conquered” and even as he delivered his message, he fell dead. He had completed his course and done his work, and there is no finer way for any man to die.”
When Michel Bréal and Pierre de Coubertin suggested the idea of the marathon race to the first 1896 Athens Olympic Organizing Committee, the Greeks embraced the plan with eagerness. Here, after all, was a race that emerged from Greek history and celebrated the achievement of a Greek runner. Against great odds, the first 1896 Olympic Marathon was won by a Greek, Spiridon Louis. The nation of Greece exploded with joy! Since there were no gold medals for the 1896 Olympics, Spiridon Louis was awarded with an olive branch, a silver medal and cup, as well as an antique Olympic vase. The same Pierre de Coubertin, inspired by a sermon at St. Paul’s Cathedral in London, wrote the following ‘creed’ for the Olympics: “The most important thing in the Olympic Games is not to win but to take part, just as the most important thing in life is not the triumph but the struggle. The essential thing is not to have conquered but to have fought well.”
Each one of us in our own way is running an Olympic marathon every day of our life. The Good Book tells us to ‘run with patience the race set before us.’ (Hebrews 12:1) Dr. William Barclay commented that “It is easy to begin the race of life but hard to finish. The one thing necessary for life is staying-power, and that is what so many people lack. It was suggested to a certain very famous man that his biography should be written while he was still alive. He absolutely refused to give permission, and his reason was: ‘I have seen so many men fall out at the last lap.’ It is easy to wreck a noble life or a fine record by some closing foolishness.”
Probably one of the most famous ‘Olympic runners’ is the apostle Paul, a former Rabbi who was knocked off his horse while racing to Damascus, Syria. Paul spent the next thirty years ‘running’ throughout the Roman Empire telling people the good news. Paul, the prolific writer, wrote more chapters of the New Testament than any other individual (74 chapters singlehanded!) He often used Olympic Marathon language to communicate his heart: “Do you not know that in a race all the runners run but only one gets the prize? Run in such a way as to get the prize. Everyone who competes in the games goes into strict training. They do it to get a crown of laurel that will not last; but we do it to get a crown that will last forever. Therefore I do not run like a man running aimlessly…” (1st Corinthians 9:24-26). Paul had been in and out of jail many times, escaping death again and again. He was always on the run! By the end of Paul’s life, the crazed Emperor Nero was on the warpath, and Paul knew that the only way out of jail was by beheading.
Even though Paul was designated for the ‘chopping block’, he didn’t panic, but stayed focused on his spiritual ‘Olympic Marathon’. Ironically Paul told his young protégé ‘runner’ Timothy to ‘keep his head in all circumstances’ (2 Timothy 4:5).
Paul knew that he was about to die. “Now”, said Paul, “is the time for my departure”. The Greek word for departure is analusus –like our word ‘analysis’ which means ‘a separating of items from each other’. It was used for loosening the ropes of a ship when weighing anchor. It was also used of a camper packing up his tent, and for a farmer unyoking an animal from its plough. Paul was saying that death was not the end; rather it was a moving on to the next adventure.
Paul’s dying words were profoundly Olympian: “I have fought the good fight, I have finished the race, I have kept the faith.” As Bishop Michael Baughen depicts it, “The relay runner is pounding round the track, using every ounce of energy, heading for the hand-over point. Ahead of him is the next runner in the relay, feet beginning to move in anticipation, eyes on the runner coming towards him, his hand now outstretched to take the baton at the appropriate moment and then to run and run, while the man he took the baton from collapses breathless on to the grass. Paul is pounding towards the end. His ‘time of departure has come’ and Paul is urging Timothy to take the baton from him and to run with commitment and determination.”
As the Vancouver Olympics has faded into pleasant memories, how is your daily marathon doing? Are you stretching each day towards the finish line? Are you preparing another young Timothy that you can pass the baton to, when you finish the race of life? Are you running the race of life in such a way as to get the prize?
The Rev. Dr. Ed Hird, BSW, MDiv, DMin
-previously published in the North Shore News/Deep Cove Crier
P. S. Click this Amazon link to view for free the first two chapters of our new novel Blue Sky.
“I’m afraid there’s been an accident…”
Sandy Brown and her family have just moved to Spokane, Washington where her husband, Scott, is pastoring a new church. With a fresh start, Sandy is determined to devote more time to her four children. But, within weeks of settling in their new life, the Brown family is plunged into turmoil.
Sandy receives shocking news that her children aren’t safe, which brings back haunting memories of the trauma she experienced as a girl. Then, the unthinkable happens…
A brutal attack puts Sandy on the brink of losing everything she’s loved. Her faith in God and the family she cherishes are pushed to the ultimate limit.
Is healing possible when so many loved ones are hurt? Are miracles really possible through the power of prayer? Can life return to the way it was before?
Blue Sky reveals how a mother’s most basic instinct isn’t for survival… but for family.
If you’re a fan of Karen Kingsbury, then you’ll love Blue Sky. Get your copy today on paperback or kindle.
-The sequel book Restoring Health: body, mind and spirit is available online with Amazon.com in both paperback and ebook form. Dr. JI Packer wrote the foreword, saying “I heartily commend what he has written.” The book focuses on strengthening a new generation of healthy leaders. Drawing on examples from Titus’ healthy leadership in the pirate island of Crete, it shows how we can embrace a holistically healthy life.
To receive a signed copy within North America, just etransfer at ed_hird@telus.net, giving your address. Cheques are also acceptable.
-Click to purchase the Companion Bible Study by Jan Cox (for the Battle of the Soul of Canada) in both paperback and Kindle on Amazon.com and Amazon.ca
-Click to purchase the Companion Bible Study by Jan Cox (for the Battle of the Soul of Canada) in both paperback and Kindle on Amazon.com and Amazon.ca
To purchase any of our six books in paperback or ebook on Amazon, just click on this link.
Lt General Romeo Dallaire led the 1994 UN Mission to Rwanda where he saw 800,000 men, women and children slaughtered by extremists. Before the genocide, Rwanda had been the largest recipient of Canadian aid proportionally in all of sub-Saharan Africa.
Abandoned during the 1994 crisis by the world community, Rwanda’s greatest advocate was one lonely Canadian, Romeo Dallaire, who forced the tragedy of the Rwandan genocide onto the world stage. “The people of Rwanda”, said Dallaire in his book/DVD Shake Hands with the Devil, “were not an insignificant black mass living in abject poverty in a place of no consequence. They were individuals like myself, like my family, with every right and expectation of any human who is a member of our tortured race.”
“Too little and too late” summarized the response of the UN bureaucrats and the international power-brokers. Dallaire wrote in his book: “There was a void of leadership in New York (UN). We sent a deluge of paper and received nothing in return; no supplies; no reinforcements, no decisions.” The UN did produce numerous resolutions about Rwanda, but as Dallaire noted, “The resolution’s phrases were pure UN-ese: ‘having considered…express regret…shocked…appalled….deeply concerned…stressing…expressing deep concern…condemns…strongly condemns…demands…decides…reiterates…reaffirms…calls upon…invites…decides to remain actively seized of the matter.’”
Dallaire sadly described the UN as “an organization swamped and sinking under the dead weight of useless political sinecures, indifference, and procrastination.”
In the midst of this betrayal, Dallaire stood strong and made a powerful difference in saving thousands of Rwandans. As a man of deep Christian faith, Dallaire faced the reality of cold-blooded evil, but was not defeated by it. In his acclaimed book “Shake Hands with the Devil”, Dallaire commented: “After one of my many presentations following my return from Rwanda, a Canadian Forces padre asked me how, after all I had seen and experienced, I could still believe in God. I answered that I know there is a God because in Rwanda I shook hands with the devil. I have seen him, I have smelled him and I have touched him. I know the devil exists, and therefore I know there is a God.”
One of Dallaire’s chief way of saving Rwandan lives was in his intentional cultivation of the media. “The media”, said Dallaire, “can be an ally and a weapon equal to battalions on the ground.” The CBC Radio show ‘As It Happens’, with Michael Enright, played a key role in waking up a very sleepy, apathetic Canadian population. Dallaire commented: “The media was the weapon that I used to strike the conscience of the world and try to prod the international community into action.”
Dallaire shows the gift of remarkable vulnerability in talking about his feeling and core beliefs: “My Christian beliefs had been the moral framework that had guided me throughout my adult life. Where was God in all this horror? Where was God in the world’s response?” He suffered deeply from Post-Traumatic Stress Syndrome upon returning to Canada, and has taken many years of counseling to recover. Dallaire wrote: “I wanted to scream, to vomit, to hit something, to break free of my body, to end this terrible scene. Instead I struggled to compose myself…”
Near the end of the Rwandan UN Mission, Dallaire was so exhausted by the trauma that he started to collapse internally: “…my manners and my sense of humour, two essentials of leadership, were fading fast…” His own staff noticed that ‘The General was losing it’ and rightly concluded ‘…if I (Dallaire) wasn’t replaced, I would be dead in less than two weeks’ Dallaire vulnerably shared (in his book) “…how guilty I felt abandoning my troops before the mission was over, how guilty I felt that I had failed so many people and that Rwandans were still dying because of it.” Dallaire’s self-recriminations and ‘what ifs’ nearly ate him up inside: “After nearly a decade of reliving every detail of those days, I am still certain that I could have stopped the madness had I been given the means.”
“Why”, asked Dallaire, “were we so feeble, fearful and self-centered in the face of atrocities committed against the innocent?” Dallaire concluded that “We are in desperate need of a transfusion of humanity.”
May God give us that needed transfusion of humanity to which General Dallaire points.
The Rev. Dr. Ed Hird, BSW, MDiv, DMin
-previously published in the North Shore News/Deep Cove Crier
P. S. Click this Amazon link to view for free the first two chapters of our new novel Blue Sky.
“I’m afraid there’s been an accident…”
Sandy Brown and her family have just moved to Spokane, Washington where her husband, Scott, is pastoring a new church. With a fresh start, Sandy is determined to devote more time to her four children. But, within weeks of settling in their new life, the Brown family is plunged into turmoil.
Sandy receives shocking news that her children aren’t safe, which brings back haunting memories of the trauma she experienced as a girl. Then, the unthinkable happens…
A brutal attack puts Sandy on the brink of losing everything she’s loved. Her faith in God and the family she cherishes are pushed to the ultimate limit.
Is healing possible when so many loved ones are hurt? Are miracles really possible through the power of prayer? Can life return to the way it was before?
Blue Sky reveals how a mother’s most basic instinct isn’t for survival… but for family.
If you’re a fan of Karen Kingsbury, then you’ll love Blue Sky. Get your copy today on paperback or kindle.
-The sequel book Restoring Health: body, mind and spirit is available online with Amazon.com in both paperback and ebook form. Dr. JI Packer wrote the foreword, saying “I heartily commend what he has written.” The book focuses on strengthening a new generation of healthy leaders. Drawing on examples from Titus’ healthy leadership in the pirate island of Crete, it shows how we can embrace a holistically healthy life.
To receive a signed copy within North America, just etransfer at ed_hird@telus.net, giving your address. Cheques are also acceptable.
-Click to purchase the Companion Bible Study by Jan Cox (for the Battle of the Soul of Canada) in both paperback and Kindle on Amazon.com and Amazon.ca
-Click to purchase the Companion Bible Study by Jan Cox (for the Battle of the Soul of Canada) in both paperback and Kindle on Amazon.com and Amazon.ca
To purchase any of our six books in paperback or ebook on Amazon, just click on this link.
The teenaged Roman Emperor Nero started off in AD 57 as a idealistic reformer, banning capital punishment. He forbade killing in circus contests, emphasizing instead athletics, poetry, and theater. He reduced taxes and permitted slaves to file complaints against unjust masters. But absolute power absolutely corrupted him.
Nero was born at Antium (Anzio), Italy, on December 15th 37 A.D. His father, who died when Nero was age 3, was a great-grandson of Caesar Augustus – the Roman emperor at the time of the birth of Jesus Christ (Luke 2:1).
Nero’s mother Agrippina rescued her son Nero from poverty by marrying her uncle, the emperor Claudius. Agrippina managed to get Nero adopted not only as a son of Claudius, but the heir to the throne before Claudius’ actual sons. To show her gratitude, she poisoned her husband/uncle with tainted mushrooms. Nero became the emperor of the mighty Roman empire at the age of 17.
One year after Nero became Emperor, he got tired of his mother’s interfering, and had her removed from the palace. Four years later she still kept meddling, so Nero rigged her boat to collapse on her. Being a strong swimmer, Agrippina refused to drown, so Nero had to send soldiers in to finish the job. There is a famous painting by John William Waterhouse where Nero is lying on his bed feeling remorseful for taking his mother out but any remorse did not slow him down for long. As murder can be rather addictive, Nero proceeded to present the gift of an ex-wife’s severed head to a future wife, and then kick another wife to death while she was pregnant.
Nero’s most memorable accomplishment was burning much of Rome to the ground to make room for a new palace. After six days of Rome burning, Nero discovered the value of blaming a small Jewish group called Christians. Their ringleader, the Apostle Paul, was thrown into a Roman dungeon, to prepare for his imminent beheading. If these early Christians refused to renounce their faith, Nero had them thrown to the lions, crucified, or set on fire and used as garden-party lighting.
Christianity looked as if it would be obliterated from the face of the earth. But Paul from prison wrote a second letter to his chosen successor Timothy, ‘rallying the troops’. He said to Timothy: “Don’t be ashamed to bear witness for the Lord or Paul his prisoner”. He encouraged the naturally timid Timothy not to be ashamed of Paul’s chains. Paul, though about to be exterminated, said to Timothy: “I am not ashamed, for I know whom I believe”.
Breaking the power of shame is absolutely vital to living a free and healthy life. All of us have at least one Nero in our life who would like to enslave us, entrap us, and fill us with shame. It may be our relatives, our boss, our ex-spouse, our own personal addictions to fear, guilt, anger. By breaking the power of shame and self-hatred, we can live fully without regret. The key, said Paul, to breaking the power of shame, is in ‘knowing whom we believe’.
I would challenge each one reading this article to no longer let our personal Neros cover our faces with shame. Live free. Live forgiven. Live in the healing embrace of the One who gave everything so that you might really live.
The Rev. Dr. Ed Hird, BSW, MDiv, DMin
-previously published in the North Shore News/Deep Cove Crier
P. S. Click this Amazon link to view for free the first two chapters of our new novel Blue Sky.
“I’m afraid there’s been an accident…”
Sandy Brown and her family have just moved to Spokane, Washington where her husband, Scott, is pastoring a new church. With a fresh start, Sandy is determined to devote more time to her four children. But, within weeks of settling in their new life, the Brown family is plunged into turmoil.
Sandy receives shocking news that her children aren’t safe, which brings back haunting memories of the trauma she experienced as a girl. Then, the unthinkable happens…
A brutal attack puts Sandy on the brink of losing everything she’s loved. Her faith in God and the family she cherishes are pushed to the ultimate limit.
Is healing possible when so many loved ones are hurt? Are miracles really possible through the power of prayer? Can life return to the way it was before?
Blue Sky reveals how a mother’s most basic instinct isn’t for survival… but for family.
If you’re a fan of Karen Kingsbury, then you’ll love Blue Sky. Get your copy today on paperback or kindle.
-The sequel book Restoring Health: body, mind and spirit is available online with Amazon.com in both paperback and ebook form. Dr. JI Packer wrote the foreword, saying “I heartily commend what he has written.” The book focuses on strengthening a new generation of healthy leaders. Drawing on examples from Titus’ healthy leadership in the pirate island of Crete, it shows how we can embrace a holistically healthy life.
To receive a signed copy within North America, just etransfer at ed_hird@telus.net, giving your address. Cheques are also acceptable.
-Click to purchase the Companion Bible Study by Jan Cox (for the Battle of the Soul of Canada) in both paperback and Kindle on Amazon.com and Amazon.ca
-Click to purchase the Companion Bible Study by Jan Cox (for the Battle of the Soul of Canada) in both paperback and Kindle on Amazon.com and Amazon.ca
To purchase any of our six books in paperback or ebook on Amazon, just click on this link.
If you had just a few months to live, what would you most want to say to friends? What would have priority and what would become secondary? The famous Apostle Paul knew that he was about to have his head chopped off by the crazed Roman Emperor Nero. So he wrote his final letter, known as Second Timothy, to his key assistant, Timothy. Second Timothy was really Paul’s last will and testament.
Paul had been in jail many times for the faith. It was his favorite place to write letters like his unforgettable letters to the Ephesians, Colossians, Philippians, and Philemon. If Paul had not been sent to jail so often, half the New Testament would likely never have been written. In the past Paul had always been let out of prison. But this time he knew that the only escape was death.
Have you ever lost a key leader and mentor who has helped you reach heights that you never thought you would reach? To lose such a person can bring deep feelings of loneliness and abandonment. Bishop Handley Moule of Durham, England, commented that “Timothy stood awfully lonely, yet awfully exposed, in face of a world of thronging sorrows. Well might he have been shaken to the root of his faith.”
Young Timothy was by nature an insecure, sickly and timid person, but Paul saw potential in Timothy far beyond his outward appearance. Paul had been closely associated with Timothy ever since he ‘discovered’ him in Lystra, Turkey, some fifteen years before.
Paul knew that it was time for the changing of the guard, the passing on of the baton of leadership. Paul was determined that Timothy not drop that baton in the midst of Emperor Nero’s onslaught.
You’ve probably heard the expression: “Rome burned while Nero fiddled”. Nero set Rome on fire in AD 64 as an urban renovation project, and blamed the early Christians as convenient scapegoats. The historian Tacitus commented that the early Christians “were killed by dogs by having the hides of beasts attached to them, or they were nailed to crosses or set aflame, and, when the daylight passed away, they were used as nighttime lamps. Nero gave his own gardens for this spectacle…”
Christianity was on the verge of extinction, and the dying Paul saw Timothy as the key to its very survival. The famous Dr. John Stott comments, “Greatness was being thrust upon Timothy, and like Moses and Jeremiah and a host of others before and after him, Timothy was exceedingly reluctant to accept it.”
Paul strengthened Timothy by reminding him how much he meant to him, and how often he prayed for him day and night. He also strengthened Timothy by reminding him of the faithful examples set by his grandma, Lois and his mother, Eunice. As Dr. John Stott put it, “good biographies never begin with their subject, but with his parents, and probably his grandparents as well.” Paul was saying to Timothy: “don’t lose touch with your roots”.
What do you know for sure if you see a turtle on a fencepost? The answer is that it didn’t get there itself. We are who we are, in large part because of people who have believed in us and invested in us. Many of us as Canadians have forgotten the remarkable spiritual heritage we have been given by our ancestors, our Loises and Eunices. I think of our Judeo-Christian heritage in Canada as like crabs hidden under the rocks at the seashore. Only when one uncovers the rocks does one discover the greatest riches of life just below the surface.
The dying Paul knew that Timothy had so much going for him. So he told him to fan into flame the wonderful God-given gift that had been given to him. It is so easy to let our gifts and abilities lie dormant, when we need to rekindle and stir up the smouldering flame.
Fear can cripple our future. So Paul said to Timothy: “God has not given you a spirit of timidity but of power and love and a sound mind.” Timidity, says Douglas Milne, is a chronic fear of people, suffering or responsibilities that paralyzes the will from giving effective leadership.
Paul is saying to Timothy, and to each of us: “Say no to fear. Don’t let anxiety crush your life. Live life free and unfettered.” At the heart of every addiction is the bondage to fear. My prayer for those reading this article is that the Great Physician will set each of us, like Timothy, free from fear, and fill us instead with the Spirit of power and love and a sound mind.
The Rev. Dr. Ed Hird, BSW, MDiv, DMin
-previously published in the North Shore News/Deep Cove Crier
P. S. Click this Amazon link to view for free the first two chapters of our new novel Blue Sky.
“I’m afraid there’s been an accident…”
Sandy Brown and her family have just moved to Spokane, Washington where her husband, Scott, is pastoring a new church. With a fresh start, Sandy is determined to devote more time to her four children. But, within weeks of settling in their new life, the Brown family is plunged into turmoil.
Sandy receives shocking news that her children aren’t safe, which brings back haunting memories of the trauma she experienced as a girl. Then, the unthinkable happens…
A brutal attack puts Sandy on the brink of losing everything she’s loved. Her faith in God and the family she cherishes are pushed to the ultimate limit.
Is healing possible when so many loved ones are hurt? Are miracles really possible through the power of prayer? Can life return to the way it was before?
Blue Sky reveals how a mother’s most basic instinct isn’t for survival… but for family.
If you’re a fan of Karen Kingsbury, then you’ll love Blue Sky. Get your copy today on paperback or kindle.
-The sequel book Restoring Health: body, mind and spirit is available online with Amazon.com in both paperback and ebook form. Dr. JI Packer wrote the foreword, saying “I heartily commend what he has written.” The book focuses on strengthening a new generation of healthy leaders. Drawing on examples from Titus’ healthy leadership in the pirate island of Crete, it shows how we can embrace a holistically healthy life.
To receive a signed copy within North America, just etransfer at ed_hird@telus.net, giving your address. Cheques are also acceptable.
-Click to purchase the Companion Bible Study by Jan Cox (for the Battle of the Soul of Canada) in both paperback and Kindle on Amazon.com and Amazon.ca
-Click to purchase the Companion Bible Study by Jan Cox (for the Battle of the Soul of Canada) in both paperback and Kindle on Amazon.com and Amazon.ca
To purchase any of our six books in paperback or ebook on Amazon, just click on this link.
One of the most amazing ‘rags to riches’ stories is the life of RG LeTourneau, as told in his biography “Mover of Mountains and Men”. LeTourneau began his career in obscurity in Stockton, California, where his first job was transporting earth to level out farmland. His frustrations with moving dirt drove him to find a better, more efficient way. In 1922 he constructed the first all-welded scraper that was lighter, stronger and less expensive than any other machines.
R.G. LeTourneau became the greatest obstacle-mover in history, building huge earth-moving machines. During World War II he produced 70% of all the army’s earth-moving machinery. He spoke of God as the Chairman of his Board.
As a multi-millionaire, LeTourneau gave 90% of his profit to God’s work and kept only 10% for himself. A special friend of Billy Graham, in his early days, LeTourneau designed a portable dome building intended for Graham crusades. He also founded a university that is thriving to this day.
LeTourneau said that the money came in faster than he could give it away. LeTourneau was convinced that he could not out-give God. “I shovel it out,” he would say, “and God shovels it back, but God has a bigger shovel.”
Many people see Letourneau as one of the most influential people of the past hundred years. As the father of the modern earthmoving industry, he was responsible for 299 inventions. These inventions included the bulldozer, scrapers of all sorts, dredgers, portable cranes, rollers, dump wagons, bridge spans, logging equipment, mobile sea platforms for oil exploration, the electric wheel and many others. He introduced into the earthmoving and material handling industry the rubber tire, which today is almost universally accepted. He invented and developed the Electric Wheel. His life’s verse was Matthew 6:33: “Seek ye first the kingdom of God and His righteousness and all these things shall be added unto you.”
LeTourneau’s example reminds me that we too can be Mountain Movers. As the Great Physician said in Matthew 17:20, “I tell you the truth, if you have faith as small as a mustard seed, you can say to this mountain, ‘Move from here to there’ and it will move. Nothing will be impossible for you.” RG LeTourneau once said: “You will never know what you can accomplish until you say a great big yes to the Lord.”
My prayer for those reading this article is that God may raise up many creative leaders who, like LeTourneau, will be movers of mountains and people.
p.s. To hear LeTourneau share his heart, click on the following link.
P. S. Click this Amazon link to view for free the first two chapters of our new novel Blue Sky.
“I’m afraid there’s been an accident…”
Sandy Brown and her family have just moved to Spokane, Washington where her husband, Scott, is pastoring a new church. With a fresh start, Sandy is determined to devote more time to her four children. But, within weeks of settling in their new life, the Brown family is plunged into turmoil.
Sandy receives shocking news that her children aren’t safe, which brings back haunting memories of the trauma she experienced as a girl. Then, the unthinkable happens…
A brutal attack puts Sandy on the brink of losing everything she’s loved. Her faith in God and the family she cherishes are pushed to the ultimate limit.
Is healing possible when so many loved ones are hurt? Are miracles really possible through the power of prayer? Can life return to the way it was before?
Blue Sky reveals how a mother’s most basic instinct isn’t for survival… but for family.
If you’re a fan of Karen Kingsbury, then you’ll love Blue Sky. Get your copy today on paperback or kindle.
-The sequel book Restoring Health: body, mind and spirit is available online with Amazon.com in both paperback and ebook form. Dr. JI Packer wrote the foreword, saying “I heartily commend what he has written.” The book focuses on strengthening a new generation of healthy leaders. Drawing on examples from Titus’ healthy leadership in the pirate island of Crete, it shows how we can embrace a holistically healthy life.
To receive a signed copy within North America, just etransfer at ed_hird@telus.net, giving your address. Cheques are also acceptable.
-Click to purchase the Companion Bible Study by Jan Cox (for the Battle of the Soul of Canada) in both paperback and Kindle on Amazon.com and Amazon.ca
-Click to purchase the Companion Bible Study by Jan Cox (for the Battle of the Soul of Canada) in both paperback and Kindle on Amazon.com and Amazon.ca
To purchase any of our six books in paperback or ebook on Amazon, just click on this link.
He has seen phenomenal breakthroughs when couples begin to address and work on these five key areas. To assist marriages, he has developed a six-part DVD series , with accompanying books, which walk couples through each of these five areas.
add value to his wife in practical, specific ways.
wives want their husbands to give them unconditional love, husbands need their wives to give them unconditional respect. As the Good Book puts it in Ephesians 5:23, “Husbands, love your wives and, Wives, respect your husband.”
Sandy Brown and her family have just moved to Spokane, Washington where her husband, Scott, is pastoring a new church. With a fresh start, Sandy is determined to devote more time to her four children. But, within weeks of settling in their new life, the Brown family is plunged into turmoil.
Edhird's Blog 