Category: That’s Faith

One of the burdens we often cart around with us for years, is an inability to forgive someone for a hurt they have done us in the past.

The situation is generally quite clear and there is usually no argument about the seriousness of what happened, or that we were severely wronged.

It seems, because we are human, the difficulty we have is to easily forgive and forget at will, and of course we can’t demand others forgiveness.  In reality, all we can do is to humbly come before our God and ask to be given the ability to forgive those who have wronged us.

Before Jesus died, He forgave His persecutors. While it might be extremely difficult in some situations, we must try and learn to do the same.  In our prayers we need to ask the Holy Spirit for the gift to enable us to genuinely forgive our individual enemies.

Forgiving others allows us to enjoy the elation and freedom of the mind and soul that comes as the chains that have bound us in the past fall away. 

When we are able to rid ourselves of this burden, it becomes evident that a great weight has been taken from our heart. A peace fills that void and it allows us to feel a sense of freedom we have not known for a long time.

I’m Peter Mack and that’s faith.

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We are members of a society where many just live for today and worry about tomorrow. If it feels good, do it – and if you want it – take it. These comments are all too often heard from those around us, whose only concern seems to be for their own self-interests and well-being.

If something happens in our life that is not to our liking, many winge and blame the government, for they have grown up in an era where discipline and self-control has not been strong points in their life education.

Maybe we need to experience some form of self-discipline to realise the value of denying ourselves something we enjoy.  Fasting can be a gentle way of enabling us to understand what it is like not to get everything we want, when we want it.

Fasting can be a form of prayer which many Christians practice, particularly during Lent, the period prior to Easter.  It is a tangible way to seek the Lord’s forgiveness for past indiscretions and to acknowledge the suffering Jesus underwent for each one of us. Its origins go way back in time and in Scripture we often see the words ‘prayer and fasting’ linked together.

Fasting does not have to be an enormous personal sacrifice to be effective.  It is an opportunity for us to realise and be thankful for past blessings. As a prayer it can assist us in looking forward with hope to the future and realise the globe won’t stop spinning if for once we don’t get everything we want.

I’m Peter Mack and that’s faith.

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The old FJ ute still sits in the paddock where it decided long ago it was tired of being misused and would go into voluntary retirement.

The family of 5 kids had learnt to drive in it and many stories of adventurous youthful exploits around the farm are still told when the family all come together.

The old FJ still maintains a special place in their memory. Its operational life may well be over and what is left of the genuine leather on the seats, dry and torn.  However, every dent has a memory and every scratch a story.

It is their nostalgic monument to the happy days of their childhood and they will not let their father move it, so he just ploughs around it. Who knows what creatures have completed their life cycle amid its rusting steel carcass.

Just like the sight of the old FJ brings memories flooding back for the family, so the cross outside a church allows Christians to remember the man who died for everyone on the hill of Calvary.

The old FJ will eventually rust away, but the cross will always be a part of our life.

I’m Peter Mack and that’s faith.

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We all have to face up to death during our lifetime!

Dealing with death is never easy, particularly when it involves someone very close to us.  The experience can sometimes be shattering and often affect us for years after the event.

However, many of us seem to think we are bullet proof and immune from serious accident or instant death. We tend to think it can never happen to us – only to someone else.

The mere mention of death labels us as being morbid, yet our movie and television screens constantly serve us up programs where people seem to delight in destroying each other.  It would appear our brains have been conditioned to accept it is OK, as long as it’s the baddies who get the chop.

During the world pandemic our nightly TV news gave us numbers of those who had died the previous day and in which country the deaths had occurred.

When Jesus was around, He told us we will not know the day or the hour when we will meet Him face to face. Maybe we should take the time to think about how prepared we really are for such a meeting.

I’m Peter Mack and that’s faith.

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They certainly don’t feature in the entertainment section of the newspapers and they are not a subject for a reviewer’s pen.  Yet, all across the land each sleeping hour some of the greatest theatre is being enacted.

Our dreams are a way for our sub-conscious self to relate to us about our life and our actions.

Harry kemp was known as the hero of American adolescents and wrote down-to-earth prose. He once said, “The poor man is not he who is without a cent, but he who is without a dream”.

Our dreams can enrich our understanding of life. However, we should not expect other people to interpret our dreams, because only we know how we relate to our own unique symbolism and mind pictures that are the format of our dreams.

One thing we need to do with our dreams is to ensure we ‘honour’ them by taking action that will address the issue in a positive way.

I believe God takes the opportunity to talk to us through our dreams.  This is probably because we tend to keep ourselves busy and rarely seem to give Him a chance to get through to us in our awake hours. We should not cast His message aside as ‘just a dream’.

We need not be afraid of a God who loves us, and we should not be afraid to honour our dreams.

I’m Peter Mack and that’s faith.

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Jesus – what did you see when you looked down on the world from your cross?

Did you see beyond the sins of those who had persecuted you to a struggling humanity trying to live out our lives according to your Commandments?

Through your pain, could you really see each one of us? Were you able to see our struggles and our attempts at being the people you created us to be?

You forgave the good thief while on your cross and you asked your Father to forgive us also. As we lift up our hearts in prayer will you promise us that we too will, someday, be in Paradise with you?

As darkness surrounded your earth and you gave up your spirit, you did so, knowing you would return in three days as you had promised. For we know that had you not risen, your suffering and death would have been futile.

Help us Lord to see beyond your cross to the wonder and glory of your Resurrection.

Help us also to understand that in looking at each one of us from your cross, even though you were suffering and close to death, you did so with a great love in your heart.

I’m Peter Mack and that’s faith.

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On that first Palm Sunday when Jesus returned to Jerusalem, the city in which He would die before the week was over, He was riding a donkey.

Thirty-three years earlier, His pregnant mother had also ridden a donkey into Bethlehem, the town in which He was to be born.

Donkeys have always been seen as beasts of burden. They are too big for an average family pet and not fast enough to race. They tend to work at their own pace and can be very stubborn.

They seem to spend a lot of time just standing around in the one place daydreaming. Maybe they think of their ancestors who carried the Saviour both to the cities of His birth and His death.

Maybe when they throw back their heads and treat us to their distinctive “Hee Haw” sound, they are laughing at us humans who find it difficult to stop our busy lives for a while and daydream about the events of history that have helped shape our lives.

I’m Peter Mack and that’s faith.

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Sometimes, when we find we have so many problems surrounding us, we feel that God has somehow deserted us.

This is the same God who, supposedly, has promised to be always with us. We hurt, we cry, and in frustration, we often scream and shout – but it seems all to no avail.  We can see no sign of a helpful loving God.

In the rough times it can be hard to recognise our God, but He is always there.  We will find Him in the tears of the friend who cries with us, or the neighbour who just sits and listens.  He is also there in the warmth of a mate’s hand on your shoulder or the hurriedly picked flower proffered by a loving child.

He is the distant pin prick of light that is often our only hope in the darkness of our desolation.

We should not expect earth shattering miracles to solve our problems.  When the going gets tough we can always look for our God in the love He gives us through others.

I’m Peter Mack and that’s faith.

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The workmen looked at him and laughed, then they moved on to choose others around him.

He was able to handle the sneers and crude remarks about his ability and his looks, but it was embarrassing seeing all his friends leave, heading for what was obviously exciting futures.

When they had gone he found it quite lonely on his own. His grotesque knotted limbs, the result of a childhood lightning strike, reached out in awkward silence in search of some form of recognition.

And then it happened!  He was chosen at last. “A coupla planks is about the best you’ll get outa that one mate”, one of the workers was heard to say.

At last he was to be used. But he questioned in his own mind what good he could do ‘as a couple of planks’.

He stood on top of Calvary on that first Good Friday. His strength was the only support the crucified Jesus was allowed.

He could not help but think he was the tree rejected by many, that had been chosen to be closest to his Lord on that fateful day.  This was truly his communion.

He held the body of Christ. The blood of the lamb seeped into the pores of his wooden flesh. He was one with his God. He was the tree that had become the cross of the ultimate sacrifice.

I’m Peter Mack and that’s faith.

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It is not coincidence that the sun rises and sets each day, or that the stars become visible at night.  And it is not coincidence that we live and breathe and survive from day to day.

We accept these situations, like many others in our lives, because they are real.

There can also be times when our God reaches out and touches us in some inexplicable, yet special way and we find it We tend to shrug our shoulders and see our special little miracle as a coincidence and generally don’t even bother to think any more of the event.

If we call all the interesting happenings in our life coincidences, then let’s pray that they keep happening for us.  But more importantly, let’s believe there is a God out there who loves us and makes our coincidences happen.

So, when next we have something special occur in our lives, we should try and see it as the hand of God touching us, rather than just another coincidence.

I’m Peter Mack and that’s faith.

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