Author Archives: adventfm

Today, I read in the paper about a mother and daughter who spotted a baby tortoise in their back garden.  Being ardent animal lovers, the pair rushed off to the shops to buy lettuce and tomatoes for the creature to eat, in an attempt to coax it to a safer place, assuming that it had been brought into their garden by a neighbour’s cat.
They rang a volunteer from the local  animal protection service since the tortoise wouldn’t move an inch. When the volunteer arrived, she picked up the tortoise only to find ‘Made in China’ printed at the bottom. It was ceramic!
The pair admitted feeling more than a little embarrassed at this revelation, had they only touched it for themselves they would have realised what is really was. Although I found this quite amusing,  it made me think; at times we have our own idea about who God is, what He’s capable of and what He will or won’t do. The Bible says,

“O taste and see that the Lord is good: blessed is the man that trusteth in him.” (Psalms 34:8)

People can tell you how good something is, but how can you truly decipher the flavours unless you’ve experienced it for yourself?  Building a true, lasting relationship with God involves experiencing Him, studying  what He has to say in His word and living it for yourself.

“If your enemy is hungry, give him food to eat; if he is thirsty, give him water to drink. In doing this, you will heap burning coals on his head, and the LORD will reward you.”

 Proverbs 25:21,22

The story is told of a young boy who used to be bullied mercilessly everyday. He went home every day with a heavy heart and used to cry in his room. One day he went to his mother and told her of his situation, he explained that he did not know what to do about the group of boys who would torment him. His mother was deeply saddened by what was going on but assured the young boy she knew just the recipe to stop the bullies.

The next afternoon mother went to school to speak with the young bullies, she invited them to her house the following week for tea. 

The next week rolled around quickly and the time for the boys to come to the house arrived. During the evening the mother treated the bullies kindly, offering them lots of food and and drinks and finding out about their families and situations. The boys were so overwhelmed by the love shared by the mother that they decided to apologise, they felt guilty that despite the fact they bullied her son she still treated them with kindness and love. 

The bible is right when it says a soft answer turns away wrath, by doing good to those who are evil to you it is like heaping coals of fire upon them. The fruit of gentleness and goodness go a long way.

Olecia Addo

Messages From Above

Once there were three trees on a hill in the woods. They were discussing their hopes and dreams when the first tree said, “Someday I hope to be a treasure chest. I could be filled with gold, silver and precious gems. I could be decorated with intricate carving and everyone would see the beauty.”

Then the second tree said, “Someday I will be a mighty ship. I will take kings and queens across the waters and sail to the corners of the world. Everyone will feel safe in me because of the strength of my hull.” Finally the third tree said, “I want to grow to be the tallest and straightest tree in the forest. People will see me on top of the hill and look up to my branches, and think of the heavens and God and how close to them I am reaching. I will be the greatest tree of all time and people will always remember me.”

After a few years of praying that their dreams would come true, a group of woodsmen came upon the trees. When one came to the first tree he said, This looks like a strong tree, I think I should be
able to sell the wood to a carpenter,” and he began cutting it down. The tree was happy, because he knew that the carpenter would
make him into a treasure chest.

At the second tree the woodsman said, “This looks like a strong tree, I should be able to sell it to the shipyard.” The second tree was happy because he knew he was on his way to becoming a mighty ship. When the woodsmen came upon the third tree, the tree was frightened because he knew that if they cut him down his dreams would not come true. One of the woodsmen said, “I don’t need anything special from my tree, I’ll take this one,” and he cut it down.

When the first tree arrived at the carpenters, he was made into a feed box for animals. He was then placed in a barn and filled with hay. This was not at all what he had prayed for. The second tree was cut and made into a small fishing boat. His dreams of being a mighty ship and carrying kings had come to an end.

The third tree was cut into large pieces and left alone in the dark.

The years went by, and the trees forgot about their dreams. Then one day, a man and woman came to the barn. She gave birth and they placed the baby in the hay in the feed box that was made from the first tree. The man wished that he could have made a crib for the baby, but this manger would have to do. The tree could feel the importance of this event and knew that it had held the greatest treasure of all time.
Years later, a group of men got in the fishing boat made from the second tree. One of them was tired and went to sleep. While they were out on the water, a great storm arose and the tree didn’t think it was strong enough to keep the men safe. The men woke the sleeping man, and He stood and said Peace” and the storm stopped. At this
time, the tree knew that it had carried the King of Kings in its boat.

Finally, someone came and got the third tree. It was carried through the streets as the people mocked the man who was carrying it. When they came to a stop, the man was nailed to the tree and raised in the air to die at the top of a hill. When Sunday came, the tree came to realize that it was strong enough to stand at the top of the hill and be as close to God as was possible, because Jesus had been crucified on it.

The moral of this story is that when things don’t seem to be going your way, always know that God has a plan for you. If you place your trust in Him, He will give you great gifts. Each of the trees got what they wanted, just not in the way they had imagined. We don’t always know what God’s plans are for us. We just know that His ways are not our ways, but His ways are always best.

There was once a man who didn’t believe in God, and he didn’t hesitate to let others know how he felt about religion and religious holidays. His wife, however, did believe, and she raised their children to also have faith in God and Jesus, despite his disparaging comments.

One snowy Eve, his wife was taking their children to service in the farm community in which they lived. They were to talk about Jesus’ birth. She asked him to come, but he refused.

“That story is nonsense!” he said. “Why would God lower Himself to come to Earth as a man? That’s ridiculous!”

So she and the children left, and he stayed home.

A while later, the winds grew stronger and the snow turned into a blizzard. As the man looked out the window, all he saw was a blinding snowstorm. He sat down to relax before the fire for the evening. Then he heard a loud thump. Something had hit the window. He looked out, but couldn’t see more than a few feet. When the snow let up a little, he ventured outside to see what could have been beating on his window.

In the field near his house he saw a flock of wild geese. Apparently they had been flying south for the winter when they got caught in the snowstorm and couldn’t go on. They were lost and stranded on his farm, with no food or shelter. They just flapped their wings and flew around the field in low circles, blindly and aimlessly. A couple of them had flown into his window, it seemed. The man felt sorry for the geese and wanted to help them.

?The barn would be a great place for them to stay?, he thought. ?It’s warm and safe; surely they could spend the night and wait out the storm.?

So he walked over to the barn and opened the doors wide, then watched and waited, hoping they would notice the open barn and go inside. But the geese just fluttered around aimlessly and didn’t seem to notice the barn or realize what it could mean for them. The man tried to get their attention, but that just seemed to scare them, and they moved further away. He went into the house and came with some bread, broke it up, and made a bread crumb trail leading to the barn. They still didn’t catch on. Now he was getting frustrated. He got behind them and tried to shoo them toward the barn, but they only got more scared and scattered in every direction except toward the barn. Nothing he did could get them to go into the barn where they would be warm and safe.

“Why don’t they follow me?!” he exclaimed.”Can’t they see this is the only place where they can survive the storm?”

He thought for a moment and realized that they just wouldn’t follow a human.

“If only I were a goose, then I could save them,” he said out loud.

Then he had an idea. He went into barn, got one of his own geese, and carried it in his arms as he circled around behind the flock of wild geese.He then released it. His goose flew through the flock and straight into the barn — and one-by-one, the other geese followed it to safety.

He stood silently for a moment as the words he had spoken a few minutes earlier replayed in his mind: “If only I were a goose, then I could save them!”

Then he thought about what he had said to his wife earlier. “Why would God want to be like us? That’s ridiculous!”Suddenly it all made sense. That is what God had done. We were like the geese–blind, lost, perishing. God had His Son become like us so He could show us the way and save us.As the winds and blinding snow died down, his soul became quiet and pondered this wonderful thought. Suddenly he understood why Christ had come.Years of doubt and disbelief vanished with the passing storm. He felt to his knees in the snow, and prayed his first prayer:

“Thank You, God, for coming in human form to get me

There is a story of a cliffhanger, determined to reach the summit of a high mountain. After years of preparation, he began his adventure. Only he journeyed alone, because he wanted all the glory. He began his ascent, and as daylight faded he decided to continue climbing. Night fell. The Night fell heavy as he was overcome by total darkness. The Moonlight and Starlight were hidden within the clouds. There was zero visibility.

He was only a few meters away from the summit when he slipped climbing a ridge and fell off, falling at frightening speed. While falling he could only see shadow like figures in the darkness and felt the tug of gravity sucking him down. In those anguishing moments he saw his life pass before his eyes.
He thought death was near when suddenly he felt the tighting of the rope around his waist that tied him to a nail embedded in the rock wall of the mountain.
In desperation, suspended in mid-air he screams God, please help me!
Then unexpectedly a deep voice from heaven responds:
What would you have me do? – Save me!
Do you really think I can save you? Of course my Lord!
Well then, cut the rope.
There was a moment of silence, then the man tighten the rope around his waist.

The mountain rescue team tells a story of a man they found frozen to death, his hands wrapped firmly around a rope tied to his waist, hanging only two feet from the ground.