God’s Love – The Faith Cafe

Posted on April 8, 2024March 16, 2024 by Lori Cartmell

Why Is The Universe So Big?

Have you ever wondered why the universe is so immensely big?

Astronomers at NASA suggest that the most distant objects in the universe are about 47 billion light years away from Earth. This would make the size of the observable universe about 94 billion light years across. (A light year is the distance light travels in one year, about 6 million million miles.)

But that just describes the extent of our observable limits. The universe is vastly larger than that, because it is expanding at a rapid rate.

If there is an “edge” to the universe, it’s expanding away from us faster than we could ever catch up. No matter how swift our spaceship, we would never hit a boundary of some kind.

So for all practical purposes, you could say that the universe is infinitely big.

But why did God create it this way?

Posted on March 18, 2024February 29, 2024 by Lori Cartmell

What Love Looks Like

The Taj Mahal, in Agra, India, is considered to be one of the world’s most beautiful buildings, and rightly so.

Built from white marble, it was commissioned in 1631 by Shah Jahan as a memorial to his favourite wife, Mumtaz Mahal, who died that year giving birth to their fourteenth child.

For many in India and around the world, the Taj Mahal is an iconic symbol of love. Every stone and jewel used in its construction speaks of the tremendous affection the Shah had for his wife, and his grief at her passing. To many people, the Taj Mahal is the embodiment of love.

What does love look like to you?

Posted on February 13, 2023January 18, 2023 by Lori Cartmell

The Ultimate Love Story

Valentine’s Day is just around the corner!

On this beloved day of the calendar, we celebrate our love for that special someone in our lives. Many of us will be giving (or receiving) boxes of chocolates and bouquets of roses as an expression of that love.

But sometimes those roses have thorns, don’t they?

The truth is, love sometimes hurts. It can cost us something.

We think of Valentine’s Day as simply about romantic love, but the history behind this day shows us that true love is often about sacrifice.

This was certainly the case for Saint Valentine of Rome, for whom Valentine’s Day is named.

This third-century priest was known for his evangelistic work and for aiding persecuted Christians. He was martyred for his faith on February 14 in AD 269, executed by order of Emperor Claudius for refusing to deny Christ.

Saint Valentine patterned for us a life focussed on loving others; he refused to deny the Source of that love, even if it cost him his life.

Christ modelled that sort of sacrificial love, too.

He would let nothing stop His purpose of showing love to others by securing for them a way to spend eternity with Him, even if it cost Him His life.

And it did.

Posted on September 12, 2022August 27, 2022 by Lori Cartmell

Don’t Get Used To It

Image by Tumisu, please consider ☕ Thank you! 🤗 from Pixabay

How would you feel if you won the lottery?

Pretty amazing, I’d imagine!

And the feelings of joy and gratitude at your good fortune would last for a long time, wouldn’t they?

Um, maybe not.

Researchers have discovered that positive feelings following a stroke of good luck soon subside and return to baseline. By the same token, people eventually adjust back to their baseline after some misfortune has befallen them.

This phenomenon is called “hedonic adaptation.” Whether your situation is good or bad, you get used to it.

I wonder if something like this happened to the children of Israel after being freed from slavery in Egypt.

Posted on November 29, 2021November 28, 2021 by Lori Cartmell

When You Can’t See God’s Face

I don’t know about you, but I still have trouble recognizing acquaintances when they’re wearing a mask.

One of the unusual things this pandemic has taught us is just how much we rely on a person’s whole face to clue us in to who they are.

When someone wears a mask, we’re missing half the visual information we normally get from their features. It takes us longer to cotton on to who it is.

We waltz past someone, glance at the top half of their face above their mask, and think they look vaguely familiar.

“That’s not so-and-so, is it?” we wonder, as we keep walking.

Too late, we realize it was so-and-so. We can only hope they weren’t offended that we sped past them without a hello.

This pandemic has been unnerving in many ways. Mask-wearing has robbed us of some of the crucial information we need to identify people quickly. Not only that, masks also deprive us of the ability to see people smile.

Do you ever feel like you’re only seeing half of God’s “face,” as it were?

Has hardship obscured His features from your sight? Do you long to see Him smile upon you again?

Posted on November 25, 2021November 24, 2021 by Lori Cartmell

Want To Feel God’s Love?

It seems like marriage proposals these days are a competitive sport.

It used to be that a man would propose to his beloved over a romantic dinner, with flowers on the table and perhaps some violins playing. He would get down on bended knee, present a ring, and ask for her hand in marriage.

Apparently, that just doesn’t cut it anymore.

Now, proposals have to be over-the-top. They might feature anything from fireworks to skywriting. A will-you-marry-me moment nowadays might involve a scavenger hunt, a fake movie trailer, a full orchestra and choir, or a ride in a hot-air balloon.

More adventurous grooms might enlist a celebrity in the proceedings, hire a flash mob at Times Square, or arrange to appear on the Jumbotron at a sports game.

And then there’s the man whose proposal took an entire year to create. Unbeknownst to his girlfriend Jennifer, each day for 365 days Dean Smith videotaped himself proposing to her, every time with a unique message. On the 366th day, he showed her the completed video and finally proposed in person (she said yes).

Why do people go to so much trouble?

Because they want to show their intended how much they’re loved.

Did you know that God has done the same for you?

He loves you deeply and He wants you to know it!

Let’s see how God stacks up when it comes to showing love.

Posted on August 9, 2021August 2, 2021 by Lori Cartmell

Love In Disguise

Image of elephant by laurent marx from Pixabay

Have you ever been shocked to find out that things which look nothing alike are actually closely related?

I know two men who are brothers, but who don’t resemble one another at all. One takes after his father with his dark, curly hair; the other has his mother’s straight blond hair. You would never take them for siblings by just looking at them.

It’s the same in the natural world, too. There are some plants which surprisingly belong to the same family, despite looking totally different. Broccoli and cabbages, for instance, which are both Brassicas. It’s hard to believe from their appearance that they have common roots, so to speak.

This disparity is even more evident in the animal world.

Surprisingly, jellyfish and corals are related, even though one swims like a fish and the other is fixed in place like a plant. They’re both members of the Cnidarian family.

Horseshoe crabs are actually more closely related to spiders than to other crabs, despite there seeming to be no family resemblance at all.

Image of manatee by PublicDomainImages from Pixabay

Elephants and manatees are kin, even though one lives on land and the other underwater.

I think the love of God follows this same pattern at times.

Sometimes His love looks nothing like what we would expect, so we don’t recognize certain circumstances as reflecting God working in our lives for our good.

Posted on July 12, 2021June 30, 2021 by Lori Cartmell

Nose Down, Full Throttle

If you’re a pilot, there are a lot of things to worry about up in the skies.

Stalling your aircraft is one of them.

If your plane no longer has enough lift to keep you flying, it will falter and enter an aerodynamic stall. You need to take corrective action, and fast.

So how does a pilot get out of a stall?

Nose down, full throttle.

This means the pilot must push the nose of the plane downward and give the engines full power.

To a layperson, this course of action seems scary and counter-intuitive. Surely the last thing a pilot should be doing when they’re in trouble is aiming the plane toward the ground at full speed?

It may seem nerve-wracking, but it’s the only way to get out of a stall. Going nose down, full throttle will give the plane the needed airspeed to regain lift and get out of the stall. Then, the pilot can resume level flight and continue on the desired flight path.

In life, too, sometimes we need to do something that scares us a little in order to get out of trouble.

Like when we sin or make a mistake that we know would displease God.

Posted on June 28, 2021June 9, 2021 by Lori Cartmell · 2 Comments

Marinate Yourself in God’s Word

When you marinate food before cooking it, more is going on than meets the eye (or the taste buds).

You’re doing more than simply soaking the food in a seasoned liquid to add extra flavour to it.

You’re actually changing its structure and making it yield.

Marinating tenderizes meat, breaking down tough connective tissues to make it more palatable. It also helps meat retain moisture, ensuring that the cooked meat will be juicy and not dry.

Marinades usually have a sharp, acidic ingredient, like wine, vinegar or lemon juice, or an enzymatic one, like yogurt of papaya. Herbs, spices and oils are added as well.

Whether you use a red-wine-based marinade for beef dishes, or a tangy yogurt-lemon one for chicken, your meat is guaranteed to turn out tender and better-tasting.

Likewise, when we meditate on God’s Word, or “marinate” in it, we’re doing more than simply adding Biblical quotations to our knowledge base.

As we absorb and internalize Scripture, it changes us and leaves us better off than before.

Posted on May 17, 2021April 29, 2021 by Lori Cartmell

The God of Ice Cream

Image by ❤️A life without animals is not worth living❤️ from Pixabay

I truly think that God is in favour of ice cream.

Don’t believe me? Let me try to convince you.

In the Old Testament, the children of Israel were told that God would be bringing them into the Promised Land, a land “flowing with milk and honey.”

Well, milk is a dairy product, right? And honey is a sweetener. If you’ve got a dairy product and a sweetener, you’re halfway to ice cream right there. (To get all the way, see the recipe for homemade strawberry ice cream below.)

Too bad the ancient Israelites hadn’t invented freezers, or they could have enjoyed ice cream on the shores of the Mediterranean. Nothing tops eating refreshing ice cream on a sunny day at the beach, does it?

I’m being a bit tongue-in-cheek with this, of course, but I do believe there’s a lesson that we need to learn from God’s promise to the Israelites about a land flowing with milk and honey.

It shows us that God delights in giving His children good things.

But sometimes we may find this hard to believe.