Valentines Day: Love or . . .

A serious decline in the meaning of love is making Valentine’s a day to be forgotten rather than remembered. In concert with the decline in the Christmas message, love has become a hollow shell that cannot withstand the stresses laid upon it. Just as many lonely people wish they could sleep from December the first until the New Year, too may women would gladly skip Valentine’s Day and the memories it evokes.

Time magazine reports that to celebrate Valentine’s Day, a San Francisco zoo is letting people adopt a cockroach or scorpion in the name of their ex. My guess is more women than men will try it. My experience is that, as a general rule, women give more to a marriage than men—thanks to a compelling nurturing nature. Someone has said that there are no frigid women, only inattentive men.

As long as love and marriage is seen as a place to be served instead of a place to serve, where men need to give their lives daily for their wives, true love will be replaced with a veneer that, husbands hope, gives sufficient incentive to get what they want. Valentine’s Day, like Mother’s Day, easily becomes a substitute for three hundred other days of neglect.

Well, now I’ve let the dogs out, how do I really feel about my Valentine? Inadequate is the first word that surfaces. Why did I take so long to understand what a husband’s love really is? That’s as much an upward learning curve for Christians as its decline is for an unbelieving culture. 

For me, even sixty years of marriage is insufficient. Although I sense it, I doubt I’ll ever show my full appreciation for her years of selfless service. Not a lack of desire, but lack of ability and the distraction of other things, however necessary. That has something to do with my fallen nature—not an excuse, any more than a fallen nature is an excuse for sin. 

But I hope recognition of my inadequacy will at least explain my failure. All parents in later years regret those ways they failed their children. Can I ever shake off a similar regret of failing my wife? That leads me to seek forgiveness from my Valentine—a broken expression of my love. 

Come to think of it, perhaps that—forgiveness—is the real meaning of Valentine’s Day.

THANKFULNESS by Bryan Norford

Thankfulness is at least joy and gratitude for what we have. We are thankful for this life and its abundance, and supremely for the greatest gift of all, new life in Jesus Christ.

But Scripture also declares that thankfulness is the bulwark against a declining humanity. “For although they knew God, they neither glorified him as God nor gave thanks to him, but their thinking became futile and their foolish hearts were darkened,” Romans 1:21.

My first reaction? How can being thankful guard our lives? Paul asserts here that all our thoughts, ideas, or philosophies, become futile—ineffective, misdirected—without thankfulness to God. Of course, thankfulness flows from belief in, and worship of, God.

If, as we believe, God exists and is relevant to life, then any opposing belief is a poor foundation for life. If we begin buttoning a shirt or blouse with the wrong button, every button is out of place. So it is with life. If we build on a false assumption, all our thinking is disordered and life is senseless.

Thankfulness to God recognizes He is our source and supply. That mindset directs our thinking aright through all the events of earthly life. But of greater consequence, it will direct us through death, the gateway to eternal life. “For what is seen is temporary, but what is unseen is eternal,” 2 Corinthians 4:18.

Any idea that falls short of this cosmic scheme is paltry and eventually powerless. It may founder somewhere in life, but will certainly fail in death. For death is where the rubber meets the road and our beliefs stand or fall.

We are finally thankful that God is beyond life. We are thankful for His power over the unseen, outside of earthly space and time. Thankfulness places us on a secure path for life and eternity.

  









Bryan Norford

CANADA STRONG AND FREE by Bryan Norford

It has been the mantra of civilised conversation that we should never discuss religion or politics. Strange! When these two subjects have the greatest influences on our lives. And religion and politics have been intertwined since history began, and contrary to common wisdom, is true in Canada today.

Like Glynis Belec’s blog, we left England for Canada in 1965, and forty seven years later, this is definitely our home. When we left England, we left a Christian culture. Of course, not everyone was a Christian, but Christian values were generally accepted. It was true of Canada when we arrived here.

How things have changed! The western world is now largely pagan, with Christianity a poorly tolerated sideshow on the fringes of an ever wilder circus. This is true of Canada, which has been a leader in this transformation; particularly on abortion and gay marriage.

The retreat from Christianity has been accompanied by the loss of the sanctity of life. Abortion is accepted and legal up to birth, and assisted suicide and euthanasia are front and centre in the courts. Sex is now a recreational pastime, while marriage has lost its meaning and has been abandoned by a growing segment of society.

This decline can also be measured by ballooning debt, increasing violence and an increasing self-serving population, yet is labelled “progressive” by its proponents who consider these changes freedom from the oppression of religious restrictions.

Even the Christian population is frequently flaccid and seduced by secular rhetoric. While a surprising number of Members of Parliament in all parties are Christians, they are hamstrung by weak support from Christians, who are frequently ignorant of the changes in our country’s culture.

It is the writers of history who have had the greatest influence for good or evil. Where are the Christian writers in Canada who can intelligently explain the dangers of our race to godless paganism? Christianity has gained prominence in the past because of the eventual bondage of today’s ungodly pursuits and the real freedom to be found in Christ.

 “God, keep our land, glorious and free,” should be the prayer of every Canadian Christian. But it should also be the intent of every Christian writer. Someone, somewhere, will one day catch the popular imagination, revealing the madness of secular western attitudes. That could be one of us!