Dr Margaret's Treasure Chest

    Almost 20 years ago, I read an article about a boarder that I have never forgotten. I have not been able to source it, but the Lord knows the faithful woman who put together the original story. We shall give all credit to her. I hope that this edited version will touch you as much as the original one did me: Bill and Jane have a boarder in their home. He’s been with them for many years now. In fact, he joined their family soon after they were married. I could never understand why a young married couple would want to take a third party into their home, but Jane assured me that he was no trouble at all. It seemed to me that they quite enjoyed having him in their home. He was usually very quiet, speaking only when asked to do so, and yet full of the most interesting stories that you could imagine. It was easy to spend a whole evening listening to him. He was very imaginative and certainly knew how to keep his audience spellbound. As time passed, however, I couldn’t help won...

Sometimes only hindsight can provide insight. Christina is returning home from a funeral and has no eyes for the beauty outside her window. The brilliant sunshine above and shimmering sea of clouds below are lost on her as she retraces the years that have passed. Susan firmly believed that people should have a reverent attitude when sitting in church. So when her daughter Christina kept whispering and laughing right through her own wedding ceremony, Susan was visibly shaken. She knew her daughter had a rebellious streak and didn’t care much about God, but this behaviour was outrageous. She decided that she would pray for the new pair to take God seriously. Two years later, Christina and her husband David decided to move to America, and Susan felt very upset by this decision. Not only for herself, but also for her daughter. Christina would lose the influence of her family and with it her last vestige of Christianity. Susan feared that America was even less godly than Englan...

What picture does the word desert evoke in your mind? I see a wide expanse of barrenness, and if I were lost in it without food and water, I would surely perish. But if I lived among green pastures, there would be plenty of food and water to sustain me. Have you ever wondered how God sees this world? When I asked this question in Scripture classes, the children usually answered, ‘He sees good people and bad people.’ While the words good and bad might need some defining, God indeed sees what people do. But more importantly, He sees what they are and to whom they belong. God also sees two types of people, but what He sees may surprise you: God sees those who are born physically but are dead spiritually and reside in Satan’s domain, and those who are born again spiritually by the Spirit of God and are alive and in God’s kingdom forevermore. Let’s imagine we are watching a world divided into two kingdoms: Satan’s kingdom to the left – a huge expanse of desert – and God’s k...