Daily Photo Parable

Photo and Commentary ©2024 by Darren Milam
Friday and Sabbath, November 22 – 23, 2024

(Note from Pastor Maylan: This has been a tempestuous week, weather-wise, with loss of power and internet due to an unusually destructive local windstorm. Darren Milam had sent me an earlier blog to be used while he was unavailable, and I’m letting it serve as our Friday and Sabbath blogs this weekend. Thanks, Darren. And thanks to our other faithful bloggers, whose steady schedule will resume.)

DARREN WRITES: Given the recent time change, darkness comes a little bit sooner in the evening. Last week, I was taking the garbage and recycling bins to the end of our driveway, and it was already dark outside. It allowed me the opportunity to see the moon. The image is the best of those I captured on my phone camera. It’s interesting how earth shadows a portion of it, allowing the “slice” to reflect the sun. When I was staring up at it, it made me think of God, watching all of us. It gave me a good feeling of being cared for.

I think David says it best, when he recounts the time he had to flee from his enemies and how God protected him

Psalms 3:1-5 (NLT)

O Lord, I have so many enemies;
so many are against me.
So many are saying,
“God will never rescue him!”
But you, O Lord, are a shield around me;
you are my glory, the one who holds my head high.
I cried out to the Lord,
and he answered me from his holy mountain.
I lay down and slept,
yet I woke up in safety,
for the Lord was watching over me.

Maybe you aren’t being chased by an enemy, but we all can use more protection. So, the next time you are taking out the trash (or for any other reason), and find yourself outside at night, look up and know you are safe because God is watching over you!

Photo and Commentary ©2024 by Robert Howson
Tuesday, November 19, 2024

The United States has few endemic bird species, in part due to the fact that birds have wings and can relatively easily cross borders. But the Brown-headed Nuthatch is one that has elected to stay within this single country. It and the Pygmy Nuthatch, with which it shares a close resemblance, are the smallest members of the nuthatch family in the world. They move among the Southeastern pine forests in small groups, calling back and forth in their soft, squeaky voices. John James Audubon, who was always desirous of collecting new specimens, described their behavior as moving “…with a quickness of motion so much greater than that of most other birds as to render it extremely difficult to shoot at.”

Conservationists are concerned because over the past 35 years their population has declined by two percent per year. However, the endangered Red-cockaded Woodpecker lives in the same habitat and much effort has been put forth to protect this environment, so the nuthatches may benefit from this effort as well.

Paul recognized that we humans can also benefit from shared efforts. He writes about this in Romans 1:11-12. “I long to see you so that I may impart to you some spiritual gift to make you strong—that is, that you and I may be mutually encouraged by each other’s faith.” (NIV) And that’s why Christians are encouraged to meet together, rather than isolate themselves on the tops of lofty mountain peaks for extended periods of time.

Photo and Commentary ©2024 by Cheryl Boardman
Monday, November 18, 2024

I went to the Columbia Gorge with some friends a few years ago. This photo was taken at Multnomah Falls. If you buy any calendar of Oregon, this waterfall is most likely included in the photos.

Water is such a necessity for life on this planet but sometimes we just take it for granted. We sometimes don’t truly appreciate it or the variety of forms it comes in.

You placed the world on its foundation
so it would never be moved.
You clothed the earth with floods of water,
water that covered even the mountains.
At your command, the water fled;
at the sound of your thunder, it hurried away.
Mountains rose and valleys sank
to the levels you decreed.
Then you set a firm boundary for the seas,
so they would never again cover the earth.
You make springs pour water into the ravines,
so streams gush down from the mountains.
Psalm 104:5-10 (NLT)

Photo and Commentary ©2024 by Shelley Schurch
Sunday, November 17, 2024

“Look! Flames!” I paused in delight as we approached a neighbor’s front yard on our morning walk. “It’s a burning bush!”

We’d walked by this yard twice a day for many days, and I’d never noticed this knee-high bush. But on this day its slender grass seemed to shoot upward in flame, and I was a fan.

It makes me uncommonly happy to notice something that reminds me of God, and His friends. It also makes me smile to think how these unsuspecting neighbors might react if they knew I saw a scene from the Bible in their garden.

Now Moses was tending the flock of Jethro his father-in-law, the priest of Midian, and he led the flock to the far side of the wilderness and came to Horeb, the mountain of God. There the angel of the Lord appeared to him in flames of fire from within a bush. Moses saw that though the bush was on fire it did not burn up. So Moses thought, “I will go over and see this strange sight—why the bush does not burn up.”

When the Lord saw that he had gone over to look, God called to him from within the bush, “Moses! Moses!”

And Moses said, “Here I am.” (Exodus 3:1-4 NIV)

God cautions him not to come any closer, and to take off his sandals, because he is standing on holy ground. He introduces Himself as “the God of your father, the God of Abraham, the God of Isaac, and the God of Jacob.”

Moses is afraid to look at Him, and his emotions are further roiled as God explains that He has seen the misery of His people in Egyptian slavery and is coming to rescue them and to bring them into “a good and spacious land, a land flowing with milk and honey.” The kicker is that God is now sending Moses to appear before mighty Pharaoh to accomplish this rescue.

(Gulp.) Moses is no doubt regretting he ever noticed the burning bush. He pushes back in an amazing exchange with the almighty God of heaven. He is full of questions and protestations. (See Exodus 3 and beyond to follow the story, because we have to get back to the burning bush.)

This week I’ve continued to ponder burning bushes. I asked myself what have been the burning bushes in my life, and I immediately thought of one, but it wasn’t mine. It was my husband’s. With his permission, I tell a brief account of it here.

We had been married about a year, when I woke up in the middle of the night to find my husband sobbing beside me. I was frightened. He was the most mellow of men, always upbeat, looking on the bright side – so what was this?

I didn’t know and he didn’t know. It looked like darkness to us, but it turned out to be a burning bush. As a result, within the year he made the transition from college English teacher to seminary student, on the firm path to pastoral ministry.

I see at least four characteristics of Moses’ burning bush. It was unexpected, it caught his attention, it was from God, and it was a call.

My husband’s burning bush shared all four characteristics. However, there were some differences. The most important one was that God called Moses to take clearly-described immediate action as He changed his life. In my husband’s case it took prayer and time and counsel with wise and trusted people to discern God’s call, away from a life in which he had been well content — first into the wilderness of uncertainty and confusion, and then into a life richer than we could ever have planned and imagined.

And me and my burning bushes? I think of one that blazed brightly during my college years, when late one Friday night I read the Gethsemane chapter in The Desire of Ages by Ellen G. White. At my roommate’s request I had started reading aloud to her, and even though she dozed off after the first few paragraphs, I continued reading aloud. (Apparently this was not her burning bush.)

When I finished the chapter, I closed the book, laid my head down on it, and cried as if my heart was broken, because it was. Hearing how Jesus struggled alone in agonized, blood-sweating prayer; how he was betrayed and denied by the closest of friends; and how he chose to go to the cross for people like me – for me – was a burning bush. It was unexpected, it caught my attention, it was from God, and it was a call.

Not a call to leave college and strike out on another path, but a clear, compelling call to respond to His love, and to choose to stay close to Him always.

Our young people’s Pathfinders club planned and presented our worship service this Sabbath. I grinned wide when I saw the prop in the middle of the platform – a burning bush.

It’s a mild version of what must have been an incredible, wild sight that caught Moses’ attention centuries ago. Maybe not all of our burning bush experiences are as dramatic as the three I’ve mentioned. Maybe anytime God does something to catch our attention is a small burning bush flickering in our face.

I just thought of a fifth characteristic of a burning bush – it’s fueled by love. God kindles these flames because He loves us. I’ve heard that love means paying attention. So this week, I’ll be on the lookout. You, too?

Photo and Commentary ©2024 by Maylan Schurch
Sabbath, November 16, 2024

This past August, in a small tourist-oriented town Shelley and I visited, we checked out a used-book store. Just inside the front door, I spotted this wonderfully-titled shelf, with the unabashedly mixed-message sign.

I mean, the first half touches my heart, because I too feel a pang when I think of all the written-and-forgotten books I see in stores like this. My hope for these shabby volumes would be that their potential readers would buy them (at $3 a book) to take them home and read them.

However, let’s get real. Most of these books look as though they are between 80 and 100 years old, and the reason they’re huddling shoulder-to-shoulder in a used-book store is that people who had no further use for them brought them here.

But the second half of the sign was written by a clear-eyed marketer. The bottom line is to move these tomes out, at three bucks a throw, to make room for other books. Not for reader edification, but for “home décor, staging, and upcycling.” What they meant by upcycling I had no clue, until I Googled the definition. Oxford Languages says it’s to “reuse (discarded objects or material) in such a way as to create a product of higher quality or value than the original.” In other words, bringing home and shelving scads of these books would create the illusion that their owner is a book-lover, and therefore presumably very smart.

Once upon a time — in another used-book store – I saw a Bible which was the perfect example of that. Its leather-like cover was worn, faded in the exact spots where a human hand would grip it. I almost bought it, purely because it seemed to have been lovingly read by a true devotee.

However, as I flipped through its gold-edged pages, I discovered that many were stuck together, even in sections you’d think a Christian would study, or at least refer to during a sermon, places like the Gospels, the 23rd Psalm, the writings of Paul. Obviously, this Bible’s owner had indeed gripped this Bible in hand during many a pious saunter across the church foyer and into the sanctuary, but had barely opened it.

You know where I’m going with this parable, right? God’s 66 Bible books aren’t for external display, but for internal deployment. Are you reading yours?

Check out some Bible benefits by clicking this link:
https://www.bibleinfo.com/en/topics/bible

Photo and Commentary ©2024 by Maylan Schurch
Friday, November 15, 2024

This past Tuesday Shelley and I wandered through a HalfPrice Book store. This bookstore chain always makes sure that its categories are clearly labeled, as you see above. I paused when I got to this section, and mused on its title: “Aliens/Unexplained.”

Since my main focus was on the category title, I didn’t spend any time looking at the book titles. But from what you make out, you can probably get the general drift of what the category contains.

It will come as no surprise to you that a lot of people these days seem to put God into the “unexplained alien” class. Who is He? Why is He? Does He feel emotion? What does He think of people who use His name to express anger or surprise (OMG!) or some other emphatic emotion?

The good news, and by good news I mean gospel news, is that God is not an alien, and that He has made it possible for us to understand Him—at least as much as our limited human minds are able to. Jesus’ classic comment shows just how much we can know: “He who has seen Me has seen the Father.” (John 14:9) Want to know what God is like? Watch Jesus in action!

Would you like to review some of what the Bible says as it tries to explain God? Click the link just below:

https://www.bibleinfo.com/en/topics/god

Photo ©2024 by Lorlyn May Jurgensen
Commentary ©2024 by Russell Jurgensen
Thursday, November 21, 2024

My granddaughter is pausing for a needed break from apple picking. It is hard work to harvest apples when it is tough to reach the branches. It took a little help from her mom and great-grandparents.

When pondering a scene like this I wonder what things we value as a society. Do we focus enough on the value of accuracy in big and little things? Do we value education that builds on the knowledge of those before us and tries to avoid the mistakes of the past? Do we value integrity and honesty in working relationships. Do we value looking out for the little guy?

I think we do value these things since they are products of love for God and love for our neighbor. Let’s ponder our real values as we move into the upcoming holiday season.