REMEMBERING WHAT’S MOST IMPORTANT

[OCCASION: 24th Annual Blyth Memory Garden Dedication Service - Sun. June 14, 2026]

MEMORY GARDEN: A PROMPT TO A PRECIOUS FACULTY

Memory is a precious human faculty – it sort of brings the past forward alongside the present, it makes life multidimensional in terms of time. This “memory garden” is an aid helping us to remember dear ones who have gone before us.

1. REMEMBERING A MEANS OF HONOURING

To remember someone is in a way a means of honouring them. If as a child our parents tell us not to play in the road, yet we go and join our friends in the street for a game of road hockey – that’s not honouring our parents! Remembering our elders is valuable for our own well-being.

The Ten Commandments are very ancient guidelines God gave His people to remember and live by when Israel was but a disorganized ragtag bunch of escaped slaves. Exodus 20(12) commands us, “Honour your father and your mother, that your days may be long in the land that the Lord your God is giving you.” The Apostle Paul underscores this when urging children in the New Testament church in Ephesians 6(2f), “Honour your father and mother...that it may go well with you and that you may live long in the land.”

The beautiful Memory Garden flowerbeds are a way of honouring our loved ones. Honouring our elders and those who have gone before us helps us be other-focused and not so selfish. Prov 10:7(a) says, “The memory of the righteous will be a blessing…” Psalm 112(6) adds, “For the righteous will never be moved; he will be remembered forever.”

As we walk amongst the flowerbeds, we are prompted to pause and reflect on the good qualities of those whose names are here; and to thank God for their lives and all they meant to us. As the Apostle Paul wrote to the Philippians (1:3), "I thank my God in all my remembrance of you."

2. REMEMBERING GOD GIVES PERSPECTIVE AS WE AGE

So we are nudged to remember not only the people who have gone before us, but also to remember God our Creator, without whom we wouldn’t even have life in the first place. The author of Ecclesiastes urges us to remember God when we’re young, before the aging process begins to take a toll on our health… Eccles.12(1-3,7) (Note the allusions to our stature, our teeth, and our eyesight!) “Remember the One who created you. Remember him while you are still young. Think about him before your times of trouble come… Remember your Creator before those who guard the house tremble with old age. That’s when strong men will be bent over. The women who grind grain will stop because there are so few of them left. Those who look through the windows won’t be able to see very well… Remember your Creator before you return to the dust you came from. That’s when your spirit will go back to God who gave it.”

The beauty of the flowers contrasts with the decay we see in our own frames. Scripture reminds us it’s all a gift from God, and this life – being subject to disease, wear-and-tear – isn’t forever, isn’t to be taken for granted.

3. REMEMBERING GOD GIVES ENCOURAGEMENT WHEN WE FEEL FORGOTTEN

Life isn’t always sunshine and roses! Life can be tough. The people remembered here had their own struggles. Sometimes we admire their character because it was forged through incredible hardships. Those tough times can make us question if maybe we’ve been forgotten by God. Even Biblical writers cried out to God, asking Him to remember them in their hard circumstances.

One of the hardest times was when Babylon laid siege to Jerusalem for years before it fell in 586 BC. Around that time the prophet Jeremiah described horrible conditions of starvation and death. Yet he could also write in Lamendations 3(21-23), "But this I call to mind, and therefore I have hope: The steadfast love of the Lord never ceases; his mercies never come to an end." He said, “I call to mind” – that’s active remembering, being very intentional, looking beyond present pain and hardship to recall God’s goodness in the past. 

Similarly the author of Psalm 77 asked, “Has God forgotten to be gracious? Has he in anger shut up his compassion?’” (but then changed gears and said) “I will remember the deeds of the Lord; yes, I will remember your wonders of old. I will ponder all your work, and meditate on your mighty deeds.” Remembering changed his focus positively.

When times are tough now in the present, memory helps us be encouraged as it brings forward past times when we experienced God’s overall goodness and faithfulness.

4. REMEMBERING GOD’S GRACE: HE FORGETS OUR GAFFS

The persons honoured here in the Memory Garden were dear and precious, but not perfect – and neither are we. We all have committed sins and mistakes, whether actively by commission or neglectfully by omission. The Bible-writers implored God to be deliberately “forgetful” about (to not remember) these flaws. Psalm 25(4-8), “Lord, remember your great mercy and love… Don’t remember the sins I committed when I was young. Don’t remember how often I refused to obey you. Remember me because you love me.” 

We will treat others better – and build positive memories and associations for them – when we remember God and put His ways into practice.

5. REMEMBERING JESUS DIED FOR US AND IS COMING BACK FOR US

Finally, remembering is important with regard to Jesus because He wants us to know He died so our sins could be “forgotten” and so, by His rising to life again, we could look forward to everlasting life when we trust in Him. To help us remember this, He gave us another prompt: not a garden but a meal. The bread and wine of communion serve as pointers to His grace and promise of being reunited with all who love Him – including those who died before us. At the Last Supper (Luke 22:14-19): “He took a cup, and when he had given thanks he said, “Take this, and divide it among yourselves. For I tell you that from now on I will not drink of the fruit of the vine until the kingdom of God comes.’ And he took bread, and when he had given thanks, he broke it and gave it to them, saying, ‘This is my body, which is given for you. Do this in remembrance of me.’”

In this key act of faith we are not just looking back (remembering) but also looking forward!

LIVING IN THE MEMORIES OF GOD

John Swinton is a Scottish theologian and former mental health nurse who has written about health, spirituality, and disability. He counters the modern belief that the cerebral cortex is the seat of personhood, which might lead some to view those with intellectual disabilities as lesser humans. One prize-winning book is titled “Dementia: Living in the Memories of God”. One thing I took from it was the realization that, as a person becomes less cognitively able to function on their own, those in their circle of care take on more of the “memory” function for them – such as when to take their meds, what day it is, when their appointments are, maybe who a certain person is. I experienced this to some degree as my own wife coped many years with a brain tumour. We caregivers start to function to some degree as their “memory” for them.

I’m not saying this applies perfectly to our Memory Garden situation. We’re not somehow magically keeping alive the people named here. Yet they are “alive to God” as Jesus was perhaps alluding in a controversy with the religious leaders of His day in Matthew 22(31f) – He challenged them: “But about the resurrection of the dead — have you not read what God said to you, ‘I am the God of Abraham, the God of Isaac, and the God of Jacob’? He is not the God of the dead but of the living.’”

As we treasure the memory of them, we bring them actively before their Creator and ours, their Redeemer and ours – Who holds us precious in His memory, and by Christ’s grace forgets our flaws.

Spared through Great Mercy

Overview of Temple Mount / Dome of the Rock, Jerusalem

Column for North Huron Citizen, "From the Minister's Study" - May 8 2026 edition

The temple mount in Jerusalem is a key location for three major world religions - Judaism, Christianity, and Islam. These days it can tend to become a flashpoint when religious tensions erupt. But did you know it used to be a plain threshing floor? And that it ought to epitomize, not human conflict, but God’s mercy? The story of how it came to be a key religious site reflects the mercy of the Lord revealed most keenly in the cross of Jesus, by which we sinners can be spared.

The Bible (2 Samuel 24; 1Chronicles 21) tells how King David was tempted to take a census of Israel, perhaps motivated by pride in the size of his empire and/or by reliance for his security on the amount of armed force he could muster in an emergency. Afterwards, David was conscience-stricken and admitted he had sinned greatly. A prophet gave him three options for consequences: famine, fleeing from enemies, or plague. David responded, “Let us fall into the hands of the Lord, for his mercy is great…” Consequently the Lord sent a plague which killed tens of thousands, but God became grieved because of the calamity and halted the destroying angel, who was then at the threshing floor of Araunah the Jebusite. (Threshing floors were typically at elevated locations that would catch the breeze to help blow the chaff away from the kernels.) The prophet instructed David to build an altar at the threshing floor, so David purchased the land, built an altar, and sacrificed offerings – and the plague was stopped. David then pronounced that was the site where the house of the Lord was to be built, along with the altar for burnt offering. His son Solomon subsequently carried out the building of the first Jewish Temple (replacing the movable tabernacle from Exodus times), which was destroyed by the Babylonians in 586 B.C., rebuilt in the times of Ezra and Nehemiah, enhanced by King Herod, then again finally destroyed by the Romans in 70 A.D. Today the “Western Wall” (Wailing Wall) is all that remains of these temple structures, while the later Muslim “Dome of the Rock” perches at the top of the mount.

So the very location of the Temple was a reminder that God spared His people punishment for sin. By his great mercy, He was grieved at our (deserved) calamity and intervened to spare more lives being lost.

What are some instances of being “spared” in everyday life? At school or university we enjoyed a “spare” in our class timetable, we didn’t have to attend lectures or necessarily do any work. Our vehicles are equipped with a “spare” tire which normally sits unused in the trunk while the other four tires do the work. We eagerly treasure “spare” time in which we have freedom and discretion to pursue a favourite pastime or hobby. In one vehicle I kept a “spare” key secreted in a magnetic holder attached to the inside of the wheelwell in case I unwittingly locked myself out! So a ‘spare’ is associated with a surplus, a benefit or welcome bonus.

In a test of faith and obedience, Abraham was instructed by God to sacrifice his son Isaac at a place God would show him, but when Abraham was about to plunge the knife, God intervened and provided a substitute (a ram caught by its horns in a thicket), and Isaac’s life was spared. At Jerusalem centuries later, Jesus God’s only Son went through with the sacrifice of Himself at the hands of sinners (both Jew and Gentile) in order that we might be spared the consequences of our own sins, and be blessed with new birth, the gift of the Holy Spirit, and eternal life in the Lord’s company forever! 

As the Apostle Paul put it, “Since we have now been justified by his blood, how much more shall we be saved from God’s wrath through him!” and, “...Jesus, who rescues us from the coming wrath.” (Romans 5:9; 1Thess. 1:10) What a blessing it is to be spared from the consequences of our sin through God’s great mercy, intervening lest we be destroyed, loving us so much as to offer His own beloved Son as our substitute – then raising us to new life along with Him.

When we look at the Temple mount; when we look at the cross – these are visual reminders a loving yet just God has spared us in great mercy. Such wonderful grace that spares us is celebrated in a hymn by Georg Klee (aka Georg Thymus; 1520-1561), a student of the German Lutheran reformer Philipp Melanchthon, who was the closest collaborator with Martin Luther.

“Turn, Lord, Thy wrath away, in mercy spare us! / Lay down Thy rod and let Thy love upbear us!

Hear us poor sinners, lo, sin hath undone us, Have mercy on us! …

Therefore, O Father, through Thy dear Son's merit, Spare us and let us grace through Him inherit,

That we in heaven with Thee, of life the giver, May live forever.”

Spring Ahead in Making Your Time Count

For column "From the Minister's Study" in the North Huron Citizen, March 27 2026 issue

Well, we’ve made it through to SPRING! Despite winter’s stormy blasts, snow dumps, road closures, and power outages… Is anyone ready to breathe a sigh of relief?

Another season, another quarter of the year… Where does the time go? The older we get, the faster the months seem to fly by; they give up putting candles on our birthday cake and just put numbers instead.

There is a classic song by The Byrds released 60 years ago that still gets airplay, because we resonate with its enduring message.  “To everything, turn, turn, turn / There is a season, turn, turn, turn / And a time to every purpose under heaven…” The hands on the clock keep on turning, spinning ‘round.

That song quotes a passage in the Bible, Ecclesiastes 3, which goes on to observe: “[God] has made everything beautiful in its time. He has also set eternity in the hearts of men; yet they cannot fathom what God has done from beginning to end.” (Eccles. 3:11) There is a time for every purpose, yet somehow we sense there is more than just this time: we are beset by an inescapable hunch that eternity exists outside our time-space continuum. The clock’s mundane ticking, the seasons’ relentless quarterly turning, nonetheless are somehow encased in a greater envelope that is beyond our grasping. How will our management of this time measure up in the grand scheme of things? “A time to every purpose” – are the purposes to which we devote our time truly worthwhile?

If you want some sobering statistics, consider how modern folk use their time, and the toll this takes over the course of a lifetime. “Global social media usage grew from 95 minutes in 2013 to a peak of 151 minutes in 2023.” (source: Statista) Think about that for a moment. Each day, people were spending two-and-a-half hours on social networking - or over 1/10 of the hours in a day. Over a lifetime, say 70 years, would we really want to have devoted seven whole years of it to Facebook / Instagram and the like?

Unfortunately for some people, ‘doom-scrolling’ also comes at the expense of quality sleeping hours, negatively impacting their health. Then there’s the psychological cost of always unconsciously comparing ourselves to others’ best carefully curated (sometimes photoshopped) images. Not to mention the toll of cyber-bullying amongst young people who may be resorting to gauge their value based on their peers’ reactions to their posts.

It’s been said, if you really want to know what’s important to a person, look at how they spend their money (their monthly budget). The same thing applies to time. Significantly, moreover, money can’t buy time. It’s a limited commodity for all of us. At the end, even people who still have money left over all run out of time.

Scripture alludes to God’s suggestion that we measure our time carefully. At creation – “And God said, "Let there be lights in the expanse of the sky to separate the day from the night, and let them serve as signs to mark seasons and days and years…” (Genesis 1:14) Mark time. “He made the moon to mark the seasons; the sun knows its time for setting.” (Psalm 104:19) Long before there were smartwatches or digital clocks or Big Bens or hourglasses or measured candles or sundials, God provided us with heavenly timepieces that daily continue their determined unrelenting march across the sky.

The Lord, in setting forth guidance for the fledgling people of Israel, embedded in their most important commandments direction to set aside a day each week to cease from their normal activities and focus on eternal matters. “Remember the Sabbath day by keeping it holy. Six days you shall labour and do all your work, but the seventh day is a Sabbath to the Lord your God. On it you shall not do any work....” (Exodus 20:8-10) We are to follow God’s example who made time to rest even on the week of creation.

Even the powerful miracle-working Son of God, who could heal the sick, raise the dead, tame the wind and waves, and multiply loaves and fishes, took time to rest and worship. Luke records that on the Sabbath day Jesus “went into the synagogue, as was his custom.” The Son of Man had a direct personal uplink to His Heavenly Father, yet He made time to gather with other worshippers once a week to hear the Scriptures read and interpreted and refresh His awareness of realities beyond His immediate scope.

Mark’s account states that, “Very early in the morning, while it was still dark, Jesus got up, left the house and went off to a solitary place, where he prayed.” (Mark 1:35) He took time in His day to gain eternal perspective.

Daniel was one of three administrators put in charge of the territories of the Babylonian empire, and distinguished himself so much the king planned to put him in charge overall. Others jealously plotted against him and lied in their accusations to Daniel’s boss. The Bible tells us Daniel’s response upon finding out he’d been ‘framed’ and forbidden to pray to anyone except the king. “Now when Daniel learned that the decree had been published, he went home to his upstairs room where the windows opened toward Jerusalem. Three times a day he got down on his knees and prayed, giving thanks to his God, just as he had done before.” (Daniel 6:10) God subsequently spared Daniel from execution and punished his accusers; but could part of Daniel’s stellar career performance, distinguishing himself, perhaps be related to his daily spiritual routine?

Could this be a tonic to alleviate our chronically busy frenetic lives driven by FOMO (Fear Of Missing Out)? An alternative to getting depressed by endless scrolling craving another tiny jolt of dopamine? What a tragedy it would be to arrive breathless and exhausted at the end of a life filled with endless coming and going (yes, and browsing) only to find we had missed out on the most important things, the reason life was to be lived in the first place. God has set eternity in our hearts; it’s worth ‘making’ time to discern how to see our days, our priorities, in the light of His perspective.

“White as Snow

For the North Huron Citizen "From the Minister's Study" - Jan. 30 2026 Edition

It’s the bleak mid-winter. Are you tired of snow yet? We have sure been getting a lot of it! We shovel it, we blow it, we drive through white-outs… It’s good at such times to recall the good things about snow.

It helps raise the water table when it melts. It insulates the plants and, like a blanket, helps protect them from winter’s harshest temperatures. We can have fun in it – skiing, sledding, snowmobiling, snowshoeing, going for sleigh rides, making snow forts…

A co-worker was mentioning someone that had gone on vacation in sunny warm Cuba. One night the protective mosquito netting didn’t lay where it was supposed to, and in the morning their lower legs were covered with many mosquito bites. Parts of Cuba are subject to mosquito-borne Dengue Fever… “Symptoms include high fever, severe headache, rash, and muscle/joint pain, typically lasting 2–7 days, with recovery in 1–2 weeks. No specific cure exists…”

I am thankful the cold temperatures associated with winter and snow in Canada protect us from all sorts of tropical pests and diseases!

Snow can be very pretty in the way it lays atop bush and tree branches like some sort of icing. It brightens a sunny winter day into brilliance. It can sparkle in the sunlight with a million tiny pinpoints of light. Skiers, snowboarders, and those in Arctic regions actually wear ‘snow goggles’ to shade them from its overwhelming brilliance.

Something that impresses us about freshly fallen snow is its sheer whiteness, its purity. Snow is even mentioned in the Bible, associated with whiteness and cleanness. Isaiah prophesied to his erring countrymen, "Though your sins be as scarlet, they shall be as white as snow; though they be red like crimson, they shall become like wool." (Isaiah 1:18) The Psalmist, aware of his shortcomings, cried out: "Purge me with hyssop, and I shall be clean; wash me, and I shall be whiter than snow.” (Psalm 51:7)

We have all fallen short in life – made mistakes, forgotten or reneged on promises and commitments, hurt others either intentionally or unintentionally, become bitter and jaded or resentful about life not turning out the way we’d hoped. Our consciences keep score. Guilt becomes a heavy burden nagging at the back of our mind. We can try to shove past wrongs under the carpet but they’re always there to trip over. The Accuser seizes upon such fodder and keeps reminding us we’re less than perfect. As is written, “Who can say, I have made my heart clean, I am pure from my sin?” (Proverbs 20:9)

Part of us longs for the purity, the innocence of a young child, to be forgiven and freed from our moral blunders and mistakes, our malice toward those who’ve offended us. We want to be “white as snow”. But how can we find such purity and freedom?

We feel disqualified from ever being worthy to come before a holy God. The Psalmist spelled out the high standards of any who might qualify to do so: “Who shall ascend the hill of the LORD?  And who shall stand in his holy place? He who has clean hands and a pure heart, who does not lift up his soul to what is false and does not swear deceitfully.” (Psalm 24:3f) 

We acknowledge we don’t have this “pure heart”. Jesus too emphasized the value of such purity when He said, “Blessed are the pure in heart: for they shall see God.” Must we forever be prevented from having communion with the Divine on account of our faults?

Thankfully, Scripture holds out hope that our sin-problem can be addressed. As mentioned earlier through the prophet Isaiah, God pledges that though our sins be ‘as scarlet’, they can be made ‘as white as snow’. With the Lord’s help we can be made ‘clean’, ‘washed’, ‘whiter than snow’ as the Psalmist prayed.

The New Testament describes how Jesus’ sacrifice at the cross in our stead makes this purging possible. “For if the blood of goats and bulls… sanctify for the purification of the flesh, how much more will the blood of Christ, who through the eternal Spirit offered himself without blemish to God, purify our conscience from dead works to serve the living God.” (Hebrews 9:13f) It is the blemish-less Christ’s blood that has purifying power!

One way to think of purity is as the absence of any corruption or element that pollutes. That is correct. However, perhaps a more positive way to conceive of purity is as freedom – free from spot, blemish, encumbrance, guilt, or hindering weight. Purity is liberating.

Sin can be a type of bondage or entrapment. A modern example would be pornography: after viewing smut, one may feel dirty, cheapened, preoccupied – and yet the temptation often leads into darker forms of visual lust. This objectifies women and can destroy relationships. In this context, “purity” through seeking God’s deliverance can result in a very real freedom, being empowered not to be taken captive by such darkness.

The deficit or hankering or ‘hole’ we were trying to satisfy through sin (e.g. porn) can better be filled through knowing God, an awareness that through faith in Jesus we have now been born anew as God’s dearly-loved child. This motivates us to guard and preserve purity. The Apostle John noted, “Beloved, we are God’s children now… we know that when he appears we shall be like him, because we shall see him as he is. And everyone who thus hopes in him purifies himself as he is pure.”

Pursuing purity involves conscious effort and saying ‘no’ to temptations that attract us, because we have something better in view. Paul advises the younger leader he was mentoring, “So flee youthful passions and pursue righteousness, faith, love, and peace, along with those who call on the Lord from a pure heart.” (2Timothy 2:22) He notes it’s such a “pure heart” that frees us, empowers us to love God and love others genuinely: “The aim of our charge is love that issues from a pure heart and a good conscience and a sincere faith.” (1Timothy 1:5)

Or as his fellow-apostle Peter put it, “Having purified your souls by your obedience to the truth for a sincere brotherly love, love one another earnestly from a pure heart.”

So, next time you’re out in the snow… How might its pure whiteness draw your soul into an appeal to the Lord for such freedom and unencumbered loving empowerment in your inner life?