Posted on by Lori Cartmell

Your New Favourite Number

What’s your favourite number?

There’s a good chance you’ll pick the number 7.

In global polls, seven consistently ranks as the most popular favourite number.

With good reason, too.

There are seven days in the week, seven colours in the rainbow, seven continents, and seven seas. The number seven has significance in several major religions. It’s considered a “lucky” number.

But may I suggest you consider making the number 8 a favourite, too?

The number eight has a lot going for it. It’s especially rich in Biblical symbolism.

In the Scriptures, eight often represents a new beginning:

Circumcision occurs on the eighth day, marking entrance into covenant: a new life of belonging to God.

In the process of consecrating priests in the Old Testament, the eighth day heralded a new phase of ministry and access to God.

Eight people were saved in Noah’s ark, a picture of rebirth through water.

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Posted on by Lori Cartmell

Turning Minuses into Plusses

Image by Tumisu from Pixabay

In math, as in sports, mistakes count as permanent marks against your score.

These setbacks are always a lag on your performance, and you struggle to overcome them.

But in God’s marking system, our mistakes and failures are viewed differently: minuses aren’t permanent, and can even be turned into plusses.

First of all, God provides forgiveness for our sins through the atonement bought by His Son on the Cross. Our sins are wiped off the record, and we’re given a fresh start.

Secondly, God can even use our mistakes to further His purposes. He can bring good out of the messy parts of our lives.

Examples from the Old and New Testaments show us how:

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Posted on by Lori Cartmell

You CAN Get There From Here!

Image by sdmacdonaldmiller from Pixabay

Have you ever heard the phrase, “You can’t get there from here?”

Said to have originated in the US state of Maine, it’s used humorously when describing a distant location that can’t be accessed without extensive, complicated directions.

The place might be difficult to get to from your current location, and the route may be very hard to describe. People simply throw up their hands rather than try.

This phrase is now used more generally to describe a problem that can’t be solved:

You simply can’t get there from here.

…or can you?

There may be things in your life that you think are impossible to solve.

But with God in the driver’s seat, you’d be surprised at where you may end up.

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Posted on by Lori Cartmell

Chocolate: Everybody’s Friend

Photo by Jean Beaufort, PublicDomainPictures.net

One of the wonderful things about chocolate (and there are many), is how well it pairs with other foods.

Chocolate seems to go well with just about everything. It marries happily with fruits like strawberries, raspberries, pears, cherries and bananas. It perfectly complements the flavours of nuts, such as peanuts, cashews, hazelnuts, almonds and macadamia nuts.

Chocolate cheerfully coexists with citrus, coconut, ginger, caramel, coffee, dairy or mint. It has even been known to blend with the flavours of chili and meat in some Mexican dishes.

Some adventurous people claim that chocolate goes well with broccoli (well, perhaps…if you held the broccoli).

You’ve got to hand it to a food that is uncompromising about its own flavour yet harmonizes with such a wide variety of other substances.

Did you know that the Bible implies that we should be a bit like chocolate? Not in so many words, of course, but the concept is still there.

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