Category Archives: Minister’s Minute

“Game Over.” Those were the words I heard at the end of the third quarter on a Sunday afternoon when my dad and I went to a Tampa Bay Bucs game. My dad would often get free tickets through his work and would alternate taking one of us four kids.

This particular day was my turn. The Bucs had failed to score a single point in three quarters while the opposing team seemed to score every time it had the ball. As a teen, this game was rather dull.

We had entered with high hopes only to have them crushed, and when the fans began to make a mass exodus to beat the traffic home, I became excited this game was finally over.

However, there was still a fourth quarter and perhaps it was my dad teaching me a lesson, but he decided to stay. What happened next was incredible, it was a miracle and the Bucs in the last quarter made an amazing comeback and actually won the game!

Easter was recently upon us and as a pastor, it is always an exciting time. We enter Palm Sunday with great expectations, but then Good Friday happens and Jesus the Christ dies upon a cross. Everyone was thinking the same thing, “Game Over, we lost.”

But on Easter Sunday, Jesus rises from the dead and announces that He had won our salvation and forgiveness of sins. “Game Over. Amen.”

Published in Delta Optimist April  22 2012

I recently had the opportunity to visit our Delta Hospital, not as a visitor, as clergy often do, but as a patient.

While being cared for by the wonderful hospital staff, I began talking to myself as one does while waiting for tests.

What I said went something like this, “You did good. You saw the symptoms, you came in and I can be treated, nothing to worry about. Yep, I did good.”

Thankfully all the tests came back in my favour. What I found interesting was how I was giving myself credit for my health because I simply saw signs and brought myself to the hospital.

This made me think about how we often look at sin as a disease and how we can fix ourselves.

In Ephesians 2 it talks about us being dead in our sin. Unfortunately, when I am dead I cannot fix myself; I cannot will myself back to life or change my diet or exercise more.

But later in the chapter it talks of us being made alive in Christ. We cannot do it but Christ can make us alive once more.

That is a huge source of comfort knowing that I am forgiven not by the things I do or should do, but by the works that Christ did on the cross for me.

And it only took me going to the hospital to figure that out.

Published in Delta Optimist March 23 2012