Saturday, July 21, 2012

The Dark Knight







So it has happened again! Another bloodbath, another mass shooting. Horror, carnage and human devastation.
In the Denver Cineplex on Friday Night, James Holmes, a failing PHD student, took tear-gas, pistols and automatic weapons and sprayed an unarmed, undefended and totally unsuspecting audience until his bullets ran out.

Now the all the familiar questions are being asked and the equally familiar "no answers" are being given.

Allow me to give the Biblical explanation.

In April 1999  Eric Harris and Dylan Klebold went on a shooting rampage in Littleton High School not more than 30 minutes away from where James  Holmes lived, in the suburb of Aurora.
Both these young men saved their last bullets for themselves in a final suicide.

The evil spirits that had possessed their minds and bodies hung around the area until they could find a new and willing host, named
James Holmes, whom they infiltrated in order to continue their malign purposes.

If you can furnish a better explanation please let us know.


Keep your trust in God.

Ian

Wednesday, July 18, 2012

The Olympics: The Marathon.






For the average man the challenge of running three miles without stopping would be daunting. About ten years ago the Canadian Military reduced  the 6 kilometer run to a 6 kilometer walk. Too many troops were fainting, vomiting and falling out.

No further comment necessary.

But think of doing the Marathon race of 26.3 miles  in just over two hours.

The original runner who brought news of the battle of Marathon to the city of Athens dropped dead and many others have collapsed since.

One runner in London did a sharp left by Tower Bridge and ran straight to his hotel room. Later he said the thought of a cool shower overpowered him and he quit.

The winner of the New York Marathon reported as he was running through Central Park somebody suggested he sit down on the bench and have a cold beer. For one moment the temptation almost was too much. He blocked his ears and ran on.






The Christian life is like that. Its not a sprint it's a long distance haul.If at times you have felt like quitting or choosing an easier route block your ears to the siren voice and run on. Heaven is ahead and everyone, including the slowest, will be on the medal podium.

Jubilate.

Ian

Tuesday, July 17, 2012

An Olympic Legend












Jesse Owens was the great star of the 1936 Munich Olympics. He broke three world records and carried off four gold medals.
In doing so he helped undermine the Nazi myth of Aryan Supremacy.
He went to Germany with the same faith in his heart as Eric Lidell had demonstrated in Paris 12 years earlier. Listen, however, to what Owens later wrote in his biography.

"When I was about to receive my gold medal for the long jump, I had an overwhelming urge to kneel down and thank God for His grace and help. Whether it was my fear of fellow athletes or what I don't know, but I resisted the urge."

Later, Owens returned to the States to fame and celebrity status and he no longer followed Christ. Indeed he took up smoking, smoked a pack a day for 35 years and finished bankrupt in his business.

Towards the end of his life he recovered his faith and said before his death these words:

"I had married, fathered a child, run faster and jumped further than any man in the world. I had gone to university and learned marvellous truths But I had not learned the one great truth that God never leaves us. We leave Him."

Well said Jesse.

Ian

Monday, July 16, 2012

The Olympics: Chariots of Fire.






Eric Lidell was a long hidden treasure revealed to the world in the 1981 movie, "Chariots of Fire".
The fastest man of his generation, he refused to run in the final of the hundred metres in the Paris olympics because the event was held on a Sunday.

Here is part of the recorded dialogue in which Lord Birkenhead and  H.R.H. Prince of Wales attempted to change his mind.

Lidell: :"I do not intend to run on the Sabbath Day."

Birkenhead: " You must do as your future King demands and not be impertinent."

Lidell: "The impertinence lies, Sir, with those who would seek to influence a man to deny his beliefs."

H.R.H. Prince of Wales: "There are times when we are asked to make sacrifices in the name of loyalty to one's country."

Lidell: "Sir, God knows that I love my country, but I cannot make that sacrifice.'

The day following the 100 metre race, Lidell took Gold in the 200 metre event!

Enough said!

Ian

Sunday, July 15, 2012

This week. The Olympic Games





Pikes Peak, Colorado, is a long way from Athens, Greece.
One June day I arrived at the summit with my friend, Brent Tremblay from Ontario.
Up there in the rare 14,000 feet air was  a simple, unadorned plaque which read:

"The most important thing in the Olympic Games is not winning but taking part: the essential thing in life is not conquering but fighting well"

I was impressed enough by these words to write them down and later check out the author Pierre de Coubertin.

He was the man primarily responsible for the revival of the games in 1896.

Olympia 350 B.C. to London August 2012. We have come a long way since then, baby, but if we have left behind the spirit defined in Coubertin's words we have gone in the wrong direction.

"I have fought the fight, I have run the race, I have finished the course"  (St Paul)

No man can do more than that!.

Let the games begin


Ian