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Chapter 37

Good Monday Morning to this new week 36 of 2020

“And when you pray, do not be like the hypocrites, for they love to pray standing in the synagogues and on the street corners to be seen by others. Truly I tell you, they have received their reward in full. But when you pray, go into your room, close the door and pray to your Father, who is unseen. Then your Father, who sees what is done in secret, will reward you.” Matthew 5:5-6

There are many winter survival strategies in the animal world, and one of the most fascinating is hibernation. Some animals enter a state of “suspended animation.” Their breathing and heart rates slow and they allow their body temperature to drop, in some cases even below freezing. They stop eating and in many cases stop excreting. All of these things happen so the animal can use less energy.

Hibernation is more varied than you might think. Many animals hibernate in a den all winter, but some animals hibernate in the summer. Some fish can hibernate in a waterproof mucus envelope if their lake dries up. Certain birds and bats enter a sort of daily hibernation called torpor.

God meets us in the secret place. It’s there we hibernate⏤where we are not seen, just as God is not seen. The King James Version refers to this place as a closet.

The word Jesus uses in Matthew 5 to describe the room or closet is derived from the word tamion,  it describes the inner rooms of ancient Hebrew homes that were used as a storehouse or a place of protection, a chamber, especially ‘an inner chamber’; a secret room. When we hibernate in prayer, we come to a place of abundance, not scarcity.

God is our storehouse. We step foot into a inner chamber and find He is already there. 

Estivation is like hibernation in hot weather. Animals that live in deserts or tropical climates practice estivation. It may not occur solely because of food supply issues, as with hibernation, but because the conditions become too hot and dry for the animal to survive. The process typically involves burrowing into the ground, where the temperature stays cool, and reducing metabolic activity in a similar manner to hibernation.

King David once tended sheep. As he was surrounded by them, did he know he was going to be king? Did he know what awaited him? Not at first. At first the fields were all he knew. The sheep were his lone responsibility. Yet as he was amongst them, he was listening; He was yielding; He was learning.

David knew and trusted God despite anything, and it was natural for him to run to God because of the time he spent in hibernation with Him, some of this concept is shown very well in the following verse

“You, God, are my God, earnestly I seek You; I thirst for You, my whole being longs for You, in a dry and parched land where there is no water. I have seen You in the sanctuary and beheld Your power and Your glory. Because Your love is better than life, my lips will glorify You. I will praise You as long as I live, and in Your name I will lift up my hands. I will be fully satisfied as with the richest of foods; with singing lips my mouth will praise You.” Psalm 63:1-5 

Wishing you a blessed week
Philemon

Chapter 36

Good Monday Morning to this new week 35 of 2020

This week I read the obituary of Rick Love, impressed and remember him after especially one of his talks at a Vineyard Missions meetings:   He loved Muslims because he loved Jesus. The Bible showed him how. Remembering the pilgrimage and legacy of Rick Love, who founded Peace Catalyst after years as international director of Frontiers.

“I want to be part of creating a new heaven and a new earth with God,” said Rick, quoted in his obituary. “A peaceable kingdom.”

What if Jesus had an obituary?

Jesus Christ, 33, of Nazareth, died Friday on Mount Calvary, also known as Golgotha, the place of the skull. Betrayed by the Apostle Judas, Jesus was crucified by the Romans, by order of the Ruler Pontius Pilate. The causes of death were crucifixion, extreme exhaustion, severe torture, and loss of blood.

Jesus Christ, a descendant of Abraham, was a member of the house of David. He was the Son of the late Joseph, a carpenter of Nazareth, and Mary, His devoted Mother. Jesus was born in a stable in the city of Bethlehem, Judea. He is survived by His mother Mary, His faithful Apostles, numerous disciples, and many other followers.

Jesus was self-educated and spent most of his adult life working as a Carpenter and a Teacher. Jesus also occasionally worked as a Medical Doctor and it is reported that he healed many patients. Up until the time of His death, Jesus was teaching and sharing the Good News, healing the sick, touching the lonely, feeding the hungry, and helping the poor.

Jesus was most noted for telling parables about His Father`s Kingdom and performing miracles, such as feeding over 5,000 people with only five loaves of bread and two fish, and healing a man who was born blind. On the day before His death, He held a Last Supper celebrating the Passover Feast, at which He foretold His death.

The body was quickly buried in a stone grave, which was donated by Joseph of Arimathea, a loyal friend of the family.
By order of Pontius Pilate, a boulder was rolled in front of the tomb. Roman soldiers were put on guard.

In lieu of flowers, the family has requested that everyone try to live as Jesus did. Donations may be sent to anyone in need.

The Author is Unknown

Following in Acts 1 we read:

After his suffering, he presented himself to them and gave many convincing proofs that he was alive. He appeared to them over a period of forty days and spoke about the kingdom of God. Then they gathered around him and asked him, “Lord, are you at this time going to restore the kingdom to Israel?” 7 He said to them: “It is not for you to know the times or dates the Father has set by his own authority. 8 But you will receive power when the Holy Spirit comes on you; and you will be my witnesses in Jerusalem, and in all Judea and Samaria, and to the ends of the earth.”

And to this day many still follow this amazing man Jesus the Son of God.

Wishing you a great week!
Philemon

Chapter 35

Good Monday Morning to this week 34 of 2020

Have you also been reading about the movement that goes out to the street, because evidently in some countries people are not allowed to sing in church. Well yes, there are very many questions to this whole issue, if for example the government is giving preference to other groups to meet and demonstrate and at the same time putting heavy restrictions on the church and it’s liturgy.

Coming to the singing well, true our modern singing and worship is often wonderful, well , to be honest – mostly I hope! On the other hand we have started singing some very strange lyrics with questionable content with strange theology. I quote one example from the song:
One thing remains (Your Love never fails)

“It overwhelms and satisfies my soul
And I never ever have to be afraid”

Really? We never have to be afraid? What world does this author live in?

How about:
When anxiety was great within me, your consolation brought me joy. Psalm 94.19

Humble yourselves, therefore, under God’s mighty hand, that he may lift you up in due time. Cast all your anxiety on him because He cares for you. 1. Peter 5: 6-7

Blessed are those who fear the LORD, who find great delight in his commands. Psalm 112.1

Fear is a vital response for human beings. If we didn’t feel fear, we couldn’t protect ourselves from threats. Our bodies and brains are wired to treat threats as life-threatening. This triggers an extreme fight-flight-or-freeze response.

Our fears are not solely dependent on instinctive responses. They are also shaped by our societies and cultures, which teach people when to fear and how much to fear.

Sometimes, our fear is unnecessary and we avoid doing things that could be beneficial to us. Sometimes, facing danger can result in lingering  responses that trigger us to act in a certain way, even when the risk is gone.

Yes, fear does or can cause heavy and strong reactions in our bodies, something we all know and are very well acquainted with. An accelerated breathing rate or increased heart rate, increased muscle tension, sweating … and so on. Actually, fear is rational it is a reasonable response to danger. On the contrary, the phobias are irrational. 

I don’t like walking alone, at night without light, in a dark forest or jungle. The fear of dangerous animals attacking me is very strong. I have a few options if I do get put into that situation.
Fight is often my worst option, maybe not with a snake or spider – but everything else!
Flight is usually my best option; get out as quickly as possible!
Freeze – yes this my approach when it comes to big dogs staring at me while in the forest.

The Bible also knows and encourages all these responses in many different ways.

Fight: So do not fear, for I am with you; do not be dismayed, for I am your God. I will strengthen you and help you; I will uphold you with my righteous right hand. Isaiah 41.10

Fight: Be strong and courageous. Do not be afraid or terrified because of them, for the LORD your God goes with you; he will never leave you nor forsake you. Deut. 31.6

Flight: I am the Lord, your God, who takes hold of your right hand and says to you, Do not fear, I will help you. Isaiah 41.13

Freeze: Or meditate! Be on your guard; stand firm in the faith; be courageous; be strong. 1 Corinthians 16.3

Take courage!

Wishing you a very good start to this new week!
Philemon

Chapter 34

Good Monday Morning to this week 33 of 2020

In the last weeks, I’ve been getting tired or even annoyed by hearing all the loud voices. So many people get online or elsewhere and act like they knew it all, had all the answers and set up all kinds of theories on all kinds of things.

1. Kings 19.12
A hurricane wind ripped through the mountains and shattered the rocks before God, but God wasn’t to be found in the wind; after the wind an earthquake, but God wasn’t in the earthquake, and after the earthquake fire, but God wasn’t in the fire and after the fire a gentle and quiet whisper.

There is only one place in Scripture where God is said to speak in a “still small voice,” and it was to Elijah after his dramatic victory over the prophets of Baal. Elijah ran into the wilderness and collapsed in exhaustion. God sent an angel with food and water to strengthen him, told him to rest, and then sent him to Horeb. In a cave there, Elijah voices his complaint that all of God’s prophets had been killed by Jezebel and he alone had survived. God instructed him to stand on the mountain in His presence. Then the Lord sent a mighty wind which broke the rocks in pieces; then He sent an earthquake and a fire, but His voice was in none of them. After all that, the Lord spoke to Elijah in the still small voice, or “gentle whisper.”

A few thoughts to the still voice of God.

a. God showed Elijah that the work of God need not always be accompanied by dramatic revelation or manifestations.
b. Divine silence does not necessarily mean divine inactivity.
c. God’s work is “not by might nor by power, but by My Spirit,” meaning that overt displays of power are not necessary for God to work.
d. God is not confined to a single manner of communicating with His people. Elsewhere in Scripture, He is said to communicate through a whirlwind to announce His presence by an earthquake, and to speak in a voice that sounds like thunder. In Psalm 77:18 His voice is compared to both thunder and a whirlwind. And in Revelation 4:5, we’re told that lightning and thunder proceed from the throne in heaven.

A possible interpretation:

The difference between God speaking through the thunder and the whirlwind, then through the still, small voice, can be also considered as showing the difference between the two dispensations of law and grace. The law is a voice of terrible words and was given amidst a tempest of wind, thunder, and lightning, attended by an earthquake, but the gospel is a gentle voice of love, grace, and mercy, of peace, pardon, righteousness, and the free gift of salvation through Christ. The law breaks the rocky hearts of men in pieces, shakes their consciences, and fills their minds with a sense of God’s fiery wrath and the punishment they deserve, and then the gospel speaks gently to them of the peace and pardon available in Christ.

Wishing that you hear His still small voice speaking to you this week!

Wishing you a great start today!

Philemon

Chapter 33

Good Monday Morning to this week 32 of 2020

On this day August 3rd, 1667 Jeremy Taylor came down with Fever.
Jeremy Taylor (1613–1667) was a cleric in the Church of England. He is sometimes known as the “Shakespeare of Divines” for his poetic style of expression. By 1655 he had written his enduring works. His devotional handbooks of spiritual insight were very popular with all denominations, however, and their influence extended to the 18th-century Methodist John Wesley.

And all of us, with unveiled faces, seeing the glory of the Lord as though reflected in a mirror, are being transformed into the same image from one degree of glory to another; for this comes from the Lord, the Spirit. 2 Cor.3.16

He looked at Jesus’s life, from narrative, to discursive, to affective.

Bishop Jeremy Taylor writes:
“Jesus would need be baptized by his servant John, and though he was of purity sufficient to do it, and did actually by his baptism purify the purifier, and sanctify that and all other streams to an holy ministery and effect, yet he went in, bowing his head like a sinner, unclothing himself like an imperfect person, and craving to be washed, as if he had been crusted with an impure leprousie, thereby teaching us to submit ourselves to all those rites which he would institute.”

Jesus’s baptism is not an obvious type for our baptisms, because he was sinless –  nor was it then a common analogy as it is now.  So Taylor marks Jesus’s perfection as a reason for our obedience, and allows us into the experience of baptism. A change happens, an act of recognition –  once we’ve made it we cannot stop there.

The interaction points to a theological truth at the heart of the Bible: that part of what it means to be human is to be made for relationship with God. We humans are those creatures whose fulfillment consists in being recognized by God. In the absence of this recognition, in the absence of the affirmation of our self-understanding in God’s address, we are destined to be incomplete.

At the heart Jesus lies the this promised concord between divine identification and human self-understanding. The Gospel narrative is framed by God’s identification of Jesus, and Jesus’s acceptance of this identity. At two prominent moments – Jesus’s baptism and on the mountain of transfiguration – we are told that God speaks, identifying Jesus: “You are my Son, whom I love”; “This is my Son, whom I love” (Mark 1:11; 9:7).

Just as God’s naming of Israel was also an invitation to accept this identity, so God’s naming of Jesus is an invitation to him to embrace His identity. This is why it is tested. When the devil tempts Jesus, we are told, he does so by casting doubt on his identity: “If you are the Son of God …” (Luke 4:3). Then, throughout the ministry of Jesus, and climactically at his trial, the question of his identity is front and centre. “If you are the Messiah, tell us!

This, however, is not a simple matter; because there remains, even for Christian believers, a deep disconnect between our sense of ourselves and the way we have been newly identified. Were this not so, then there would be no need for the urging of the apostles to see and to embrace the new name that has been given. In fact, however, we struggle to believe that this is really true.

Our lives are lived as a contest of identifications. We are named by others, and we struggle to name ourselves. Some names seem to fit; others do not, and others still we aspire and yearn to fit. It is therefore a great gift to name each other rightly because it is a way of giving one another a glimpse of this peace.

For the voice we truly need to hear is the voice of God, and the identification we long to hear is nothing less than the one given to Jesus: “You are my son, my daughter whom I love, with you I am well pleased.” That is an address we may one day hear just as we long to. For now, however, we may hear it only as a promise and must continue to live our lives amidst the contest of names, seeking to believe that we are, truly, who we have been told we are in Christ.

Wishing you a blessed week, called by the right name!

Philemon

Chapter 32

Good Monday Morning to this week 31 of 2020

Psalms 27:7
Hear my voice when I call, LORD; be merciful to me and answer me.

Wherever he is, he can find a way to the throne of grace by prayer.
He humbly bespeaks, because he firmly believes he shall have, a gracious audience: “Hear, O Lord, when I cry, not only with my heart but, as one in earnest, with my voice too.’’ He bespeaks also an answer of peace, which he expects, not from his own merit, but God’s goodness: Have mercy upon me, and answer me,

David takes hold of the kind invitation God had given him to this duty,
It is a presumption for us to come into the presence of the King of kings uncalled.

My heart said unto thee (so it begins in the original) or of thee, Seek you my face; he first revolved that and preached that over again to himself.

Thou saidst (so it may be supplied), Seek you my face; and then he returns what he had so meditated upon, in this pious resolution, Thy face, Lord, will I seek.

The true nature of religious worship; it is seeking the face of God. This it is in God’s precept: Seek you my face; he would have us seek him for himself, and make his favour our chief good; and this it is in the saint’s purpose and desire: “Thy face, Lord, will I seek, and nothing less will I take up with.’’

The opening of his hand will satisfy the desire of other living things, but it is only the shining of his face that will satisfy the desire of a living soul.

The kind of invitation of a gracious God to this duty: Thou saidst, Seek you my face; it is not only permission but a precept, and his commanding us to seek implies a promise of finding.

He calls us, by the whispers of his Spirit to and with our spirits, to seek his face; he calls us by his word, by the stated returns of opportunities for his worship, and by special providences, merciful and afflictive.

The call is immediately returned: My heart answered, Thy face, Lord, will I seek. The call was general; “Seek you my face;’’ but, like David, we must apply it to ourselves, “I will seek it.’’

The call was, Seek you my face; the answer is express, Thy face, Lord, will I seek.

A gracious heart readily echoes to the call of a gracious God, being made willing in the day of his power.

He is very particular in his requests. For the favor of God, that he might not be shut out from that “Thy face, Lord, will I seek, in obedience to thy command; therefore hide not thy face from me; let me never want the reviving sense of the favor; love me, and let me know that thou lovest me.

Psalm 27.7 in various translations:

Hear me as I pray, O LORD. Be merciful and answer me!
Hear, O Jehovah, when I cry with my voice: Have mercy also upon me, and answer me.
Listen, ADONAI, to my voice when I cry; show favor to me; and answer me.

Hear, Jehovah; with my voice do I call; be gracious unto me, and answer me.

Wishing you a week of God’s favor!

Philemon

Chapter 31

Good Monday Morning to this week 30 of 2020

Ecclesiastes 4:10
If either of them falls down, one can help the other up.
But pity anyone who falls and has no one to help them up.

A real friend is one who walks in when the rest of the world walks out!
Walter Winchell

Friendship is born at that moment when one person says to another, ‘What! You too?
I thought I was the only one.” C.S. Lewis

He who has a why to live can bear almost anyhow.
Friedrich Nietzsche

To live is to suffer, to survive is to find some meaning in the suffering.
Friedrich Nietzsche

Don’t make friends who are comfortable to be with.
Make friends who will force you to lever yourself up.
Thomas J. Watson

We all know Nietzsche the philosopher. Little do we know of the great
influence the theologian Franz Overbeck had through this friendship with Nietzsche.

A few months after Nietzsche had settled in Basel, Franz Overbeck arrived from Jena to take up the chair of ‘critical theology’. Overbeck, who was born in 1837 and was thus seven years Nietzsche’s senior, became the one permanent friend Nietzsche had whose friendship was founded on a purely personal, instinctive basis. Although he became for a while a keen Wagnerian under Nietzsche’s influence, he was for most of his life quite at variance with Nietzsche in his opinions…But his closest friend for most of his life was Nietzsche. His account of his friendship is an unqualified expression of thanks for the experience. ‘Our friendship was without any shadows,’ he writes. At the same time, he is not sparing in his criticism, which he had certainly voiced while Nietzsche was still able to understand it; but in this instance, criticism did not constitute a ‘shadow’. As the years passed, Overbeck moved away from Nietzsche philosophically, and with Nietzsche’s last works he was quite unable to agree; at the same time, however, he moved closer as a friend, so that in the last years he and his wife were, apart from Gast, Nietzsche’s only real intimates.” (Hollingdale, page 53)

Franz Overbeck was the perfect complement to Fritz’s personality. He was an intellectual of high regard, appreciative of the arts – particularly music, broad-minded, honest, caring, reliable, genteel, and reserved yet steadfast in his opinions. Of him Nietzsche wrote: ‘Overbeck is the most serious, candid, personally lovable, and least complicated person and researcher one could have wished for in a friend. At the same time, he has this radicality I need to have in all people with whom I associate.’ Many years later he would confess to Overbeck that Overbeck’s loyalty and friendship had, in fact, saved his life: ‘In the midst of life I was ‘surrounded’ by my good Overbeck.

One can easily imagine the two discussing their respective works in progress over evening meals. It is not too conjectural to assume their mutual interest in the “zeitgeist” and the way their respective works were viewed by their shared friends was a fundamental basis for the solidification of their closeness.

Their relationship was often mundane and entirely ordinary. Therefore, surprisingly little evidence of the course of their daily associations exists. But Overbeck’s friendship affected Nietzsche as evidenced when Nietzsche surveyed the first ten years of their friendship in a letter to Overbeck in 1880: “You will be deep in your work, dear friend, but a few words from me will not disturb you. It always does me good to think of you at your work; it is as if a healthy natural force were blindly working through you, and yet it is a force of reason which operates in the subtlest and most tricky material, and which we have to tolerate whenever it behaves impatiently and doubtfully for letting me watch the spectacle of your life from so close at hand – indeed.

In everyone’s life, at some time, our inner fire goes out. It is then burst into flame by an encounter with another human being. We should all be thankful for those people who rekindle the inner spirit. Albert Schweitzer

Wishing you good friendships even to people you wouldn’t expect to be friends with as
we learned from this extraordinary example of a theologian and philosopher.

Philemon

Chapter 30

Good Monday Morning to this week 29 of 2020

I’m still reading the book “When bad things happen to good people”  Here a few quotes:

“To believe in God is not to affirm His existence. To believe in God means to trust God, to rely on God to be there for you when you are afflicted by despair, to light your path when you are uncertain as to what to do.” Harold S. Kushner

I find God, not in the tests that life imposes on us, but in the ability of ordinary people to rise to the challenge, to find within themselves qualities of soul, qualities of courage they did not know they had until the day they needed them. God does not send the problem, the illness, the accident, the hurricane, and God does not take them away when we find the right words and rituals with which to beseech Him. Rather, God sends us strength and determination of which we did not believe ourselves capable so that we can deal with, or live with, problems that no one can make go away.

It isn’t God’s job to make sick people healthy. That’s the doctors’ job? God’s job is to make sick people brave, and in my experience, that’s something God does really well. Prayer, as I understand it, is not a matter of begging or bargaining. It is the act of inviting God into our lives so that, with God’s help, we will be strong enough to resist temptation and resilient enough not to be destroyed by life’s unfairness.”

The idea that God gives people what they deserve, that our misdeeds cause our misfortune, is a neat and attractive solution to the problem of evil at several levels, but it has a number of serious limitations. As we have seen, it teaches people to blame themselves. It creates guilt even where there is no basis for guilt. It makes people hate God, even as it makes them hate themselves. And most disturbing of all, it does not even fit the facts.

God is the light shining in the midst of darkness, not to deny that there is darkness in the world but to reassure us that we do not have to be afraid of the darkness because darkness will always yield to light. As theologian David Griffin puts in, God is all-powerful, His power enables people to deal with events beyond their control and He gives us the strength to do those things because He is with us

Or to Psalm 23 he writes:

The central theme is that the experience of going through the valley of the shadow teaches the psalmist what God is really about, and he wants to share that with us. He changes from an almost paternalistic understanding of God, almost a parent-child relationship, to a genuine relationship with God.

I never appreciated the last line of the psalm until I had to write a chapter about it. “I will dwell in the house of the Lord forever.” God is inviting him into a permanent relationship–it’s much deeper and richly textured than just shepherd and sheep. In Judaism, the mitzvoth [commandments] are a way of retaining a relationship with God, so that everything you do–the way you eat, the way you use words, and the way you treat other people–is a way of spelling out your relationship with God. The sense that you are living every moment of your day in God’s presence–that’s what it means to dwell in the house of the Lord forever.

The Lord is my shepherd; I shall not want.
He causes me to lie down in green pastures; He leads me beside still waters.
He restores my soul; He leads me in paths of righteousness for His name’s sake.
Even as I walk in the valley of the shadow of death, I will fear no evil for You are with me; Your rod and Your staff, they comfort me.
You set a table before me in the presence of my adversaries; You anointed my head with oil; my cup overflows.
May only goodness and kindness pursue me all the days of my life, and I will dwell in the house of the Lord forever.

Wishing you a good start to this week.
Philemon

Chapter 29

Good Monday Morning to this week 28 of 2020

May you be strengthened with all power, according to his glorious might for all endurance and patience with joy. Colossians 1.11

It’s already mid-year and all this Corona trouble that started earlier this year just doesn’t
seem to pass or go away, so it’s a bit without hesitation that I think of endurance this morning.

Endurance:
More then toleration or just bearing, or patient suffering, more than the acceptance after resignation, a large portion of resoluteness and tenacity, accompanied by perseverance and filled with determination. We also develop resilience, continuity, longevity with the strength, force, and muscle to continue. In all, you will find the bouncebackability but often not just due to motivation, but to the backbone of life, a faith to carry, hold on and press forward.

Abundant the verses,  as many Biblical authors knew the concept, spoke of all the trials and the rewards.

Rejoice in hope, be patient in tribulation, be constant in prayer. Romans 12.12

Blessed is the man who remains steadfast under trial, for when he has stood the test he will receive the crown of life, which God has promised to those who love him. James 1.12

Therefore, since we are surrounded by so great a cloud of witnesses, let us also lay aside every weight, which clings so closely, and let us run with endurance the race that is set before us, looking to Jesus, the founder and perfecter of our faith, who for the joy that was set before him endured the cross, despising the shame, and is seated at the right hand of the throne of God. Consider him who endured from sinners such hostility against himself, so that you may not grow weary or fainthearted. Hebrews 12. 1-3

I have said these things to you, that in me you may have peace. In the world you will have tribulation. But take heart; I have overcome the world. John 16.33

Another favorite that has accompanied me since the very early days of my life:
But they who wait for the Lord shall renew their strength; they shall mount up with wings like eagles; they shall run and not be weary; they shall walk and not faint. Isiah 40.31

Endurance, a willingness to stick with things. J. Peterson

Paul takes another angle at endurance and calls it the fruit of trial and the works of faith, therefore resulting in steadfastness and patience.

According to Colossians, God tells us, that since He has chosen us to be His children that He loves, we have a responsibility to clothe ourselves in tenderhearted mercy and kindness.

So we do not lose heart. Though our outer self is wasting away, our inner self is being renewed day by day.  For the things that are seen are transient, but the things that are unseen are eternal.

I summarize to the following statement:

Endurance of faith is what carries us through!

Wishing you a blessed week.
Philemon

Chapter 28

Good Monday Morning to this week 27 of 2020 

The Nile River, the longest river in the world, called the father of African rivers. It rises south of the Equator and flows northward through northeastern Africa to drain into the Mediterranean Sea. It has a length of about 6,650km.  Its most distant source is the Kagera River in Burundi. The fact that the Nile, unlike other great rivers known to them flowed from the south northward and was in flood at the warmest time of the year was an unsolved mystery to the ancient Egyptians and Greeks.

Now comes an immensely bold but also problematic project to change history.
The Grand Ethiopian Renaissance Dam is a gravity dam on the Blue Nile River in Ethiopia that has been under construction since 2011, about 15 km east of the border with Sudan. The dam will be the largest hydroelectric power plant in Africa when completed. The filling of the reservoir is scheduled to begin in July 2020. Once completed, the reservoir could take anywhere between 5 and 15 years to fill with water. A decade of arduous talks involving the two downstream countries, Egypt and Sudan, and upstream Ethiopia have reached a deadlock with Egypt,  which is almost entirely dependent on the Nile for its freshwater supplies. So now each country have built their own dam trying to control the river, be it the Assuan of Egypt, the Merowe dam of Sudan, and now the GERD of Ethiopia.

Speaking of the Nile:

The life of Moses had a very moving start in connection with the Nile:
Now the daughter of Pharaoh came down to bathe at the river, while her young women walked beside the river she saw the basket among the reeds and sent her servant woman, and she took it.

or later:
Moses and Aaron did as the Lord commanded. In the sight of Pharaoh and in the sight of his servants he lifted up the staff and struck the water in the Nile, and all the water in the Nile turned into blood.

or even later
And all the Egyptians dug along the Nile for water to drink, for they could not drink the water of the Nile.

then came the lamentations from Isaiah 19.5-8
And the waters of the sea will be dried up, and the river will be dry and parched, and its canals will become foul, and the branches of Egypt’s Nile will diminish and dry up, reeds and rushes will rot away. There will be bare places by the Nile, on the brink of the Nile, and all that is sown by the Nile will be parched, will be driven away, and will be no more. The fishermen will mourn and lament, all who cast a hook in the Nile; and they will languish who spread nets on the water.

or Jeremiah 46.7
Who is this, rising like the Nile, like rivers whose waters surge?

Of course all over the region, there is endless history to the Nile!
The Nile begins in minuteness but ends in magnificence. C.C. Colton

Egypt! from whose tombs arose forgotten Pharaohs While the dark shades of forty ages stood like startled giants by Nile’s famous flood. L Byron

Back to the famous vers of Jeremiah used as a promise over so many lives  might just have the same relevance then as today:

He is like a tree planted by water, that sends out its roots by the stream, and does not fear when heat comes, for its leaves remain green, and is not anxious in the year of drought, for it does not cease to bear fruit.

Taken for this week, this “water-mass” or “river of light”,  “river that will shine”,  speaks of a creator that is here to stay in the long run. He planned and created something unbelievable and incredibly enduring and outlasting wars, famines, kings, rulers, and even all the attempts to control the waters.

This creator is in control over your life, your situation.

Wishing you a blessed week!
Philemon