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I remember a time when I was about 8 years old and was having a lot of problems with my teeth. It was at that time in my life that I developed my first great fear, the fear of sitting in a dentists chair and watching him approach me with a needle as big as a matadors? sword. There was one time when I had to make my way to the dentists? office all on my own, to sit in the waiting room and then present myself as a willing participant in the removal of decayed enamel.

Have you ever had to choose to move towards something that you knew was going to be painful and yet you also knew it would ultimately lead to that which was very good? How do you resolve the problem of pain while trying to hold onto that which is essential to right relationship? Do I hate the dentist, do I distrust and pull away from my parents who sent me there, or do I resolve to see purpose beyond pain. It's a simple question to answer when we think of cavities cleaned and filled to rot no more, but it's more difficult to answer when we consider the pages of the Old Testament.

In Deuteronomy 7:1 all the people of Israel were told that they would take over the land of Caanan from seven nations that were greater and stronger than themselves. Verse 2 says, ? ?you shall defeat them, then you shall utterly destroy them. You shall make no covenant with . . .

I'd like you to imagine for a minute a great chalk board or blackboard. On one corner is written the equation, 1+1= blue. In another corner appears the equation, 1+1=3, down at the bottom appears 1+1= k, then 1+1= loud, and faster and faster other equations like 1=1= dark, 1+1= touch, 1+1= *, 1+1=%, 1+1=? 

Then a great hand appears and with a piece of chalk writes in the very center of the board, 1+1=2.

Have you ever wondered why God would swear to Abraham, Isaac and Jacob that He would give them a particular piece of land? Why was God so passionate about the physical land of Israel , and not just then some 4000 years ago, but even today? Deuteronomy 11:21 quoted God as saying this about the people of Israel being obedient to Him in order to stay upon the land, listen to the intensity that God feels for this land? ?'that your days and the days of your sons may be multiplied on the land which the Lord swore to your fathers to give them, as long as the heavens remain above the earth.? Why is God so passionate about the land of Israel , the place where the people of Israel are to be? Is it possible that it is here, on the center of the chalkboard, that God has written for all to see, the truth about who He is, about what is and we are? To Him it is a foundational, even elementary concept upon which all other truth is built. The land of Israel was the chalk board where . . .

Water. We drink it, we generate electricity with it, we soak our crops in it, and we crack it to produce hydrogen and oxygen. Its uses are almost uncountable. The history of Mankind begins with water, and could not continue without it. In our comparatively wealthy Western world, we think nothing of turning taps on, while in other countries a day's journey to a well brings back one small container of the precious liquid.

But what is water? The encyclopedia tells us that it is an oxide of hydrogen, and that it has no colour, no taste, and no smell. It is a combination of two gasses. It makes up 60-70% of our body. Roughly half of this amount is in our cells, a quarter elsewhere, and the remainder in tissues and blood. If we lose just 3 or 4 litres we start to have hallucinations, and a loss of about 10 litres means death. In a hot environment most humans without water last only 2-3 days.

About 70% of the Earth's surface is water, most of which is undrinkable, but a cycle of evaporation and condensation ensures a steady supply of fresh, clean water to much of the world's land. What does not fall as rain, comes down as snow and compacts as a storage supply of ice, which slowly melts and feeds streams and rivers through dry seasons.

As a liquid, water is almost impossible to . . .

In a small Jewish town in Russia, there is a rabbi who disappears each Friday morning for several hours. His devoted disciples boast that during those hours their rabbi goes up to heaven and talks to God.

A stranger moves into town, and he's skeptical about all this, so he decides to check things out. He hides and watches. The rabbi gets up in the morning, says his prayers, and then dresses in peasant clothes. He grabs an axe, goes off into the woods, and cuts some firewood, which he then hauls to a shack on the outskirts of the village. There an old woman and her sick son live. He leaves them the wood, enough for a week, and then sneaks back home.

Having observed the rabbi's actions, the newcomer stays on in the village and becomes his disciple. And whenever he hears one of the villagers say, "On Friday morning our rabbi ascends all the way to heaven," the newcomer quietly adds, "If not higher."1

One of the most persistent forms of humor of our time is built around someone arriving at the pearly gate of heaven only to be met by St. Peter who poses some test or challenge to the person as to why he or she should enter. Most are quite amusing. One of my favorites is a man who is told that his life will be examined and he gets so many points for each good deed he has done and . . .