Balloon Poodles

TITLE: Balloon Poodles
DATE: November 14, 2019
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Christ is risen. He is risen, indeed.

TEXT: Ps 139:7-10  7 Where shall I go from your Spirit?   Or where shall I flee from your presence? 8 If I ascend to heaven, you are there!   If I make my bed in Sheol, you are there! 9 If I take the wings of the morning  and dwell in the uttermost parts of the sea, 10 even there your hand shall lead me,  and your right hand shall hold me.

Not so long ago Pam and I had a Garage Sale.

You know... a garage sale is when you clean your house and divest yourselves of that which is: UNNEEDED, UGLY, UNNECESSARY BULKY, UNUSED, UNWANTED AND WORN.

It is also when other people investigate what you’re selling and return to their homes overjoyed that they have, at long last managed to find their heart’s desire and acquire, at bargain-basement prices, all manner of beautiful treasures and nearly new ‘stuff.’

That’s what you do when you’ve got too much stuff. But what does a company do when they find they’ve got too many employees. Well, at least in New Zealand they have a redundancy meeting. Now they don’t always tell the employee that he has been invited to a redundancy meeting where he is going to get sacked.

No, they just tell him he is needed at a meeting at a certain time and date.

Well, that’s what happened to Joshua Jack. His superiors invited him to a “MEETING. They also said that he could bring a support person. Well not knowing what was going to go down, Jack did bring a support person: a $200 Support Clown.

Jack figured if he got good news, a clown would fit in, and if the information forthcoming was bad, a clown might be entirely appropriate.

Well, the news was bad. Jack was fired. When the bosses said that, the clown mimed that he was crying.  Then he built a balloon unicorn and poodle to brighten the mood.

At the end of the day Jack felt he had gotten his money worth from the clown and except for times when they had to tell he clown to be quiet, found he had “spiced up the meeting” and “helped us see the humorous side.”

Now I’m not going to knock what Jack did here. The clown might have been most helpful.

But I can imagine a whole host of situations where balloon animals, squeaky horns, red noses, floppy shoes and baggy pants can offer no help, no solace, no comfort, no inspiration.

It is precisely at such moments and situations that Christians find the loving Trinity is indispensible.

With wonderfully beautiful words the Psalmist reminds us, “If I take the wings of the morning  and dwell in the uttermost parts of the sea, 10 even there your hand shall lead me,  and your right hand shall hold me.” We expect nothing else from the Lord Who sent His only Son into this world to be a sacrifice.

We rejoice that we  have a Savior Who has promised to be with us always.

THE PRAYER: Dear Lord, there are many philosophies and individuals who say they can help us deal with our problems. Some of them can be quite good. But none of them, O Lord can do what You have done for us in the past and what You promise to do in the future .For this we give thanks in Jesus’ Name. Amen.

The devotion for today was inspired by various recent news articles. For further reading you may wish to go to this address https://nypost.com/2019/09/13/man-being-fired-brings-emotional-support-clown-to-meeting/amp/?fbclid=IwAR2MEoiQCa02gqe3akdNa9CpPXBbBbZRkK1F3pxoaLgK_YP5tDTgxNc5diI:    and the article written by Emily Bowden .

The music which introduces and concludes our devotions was written by Guy Baumann. He along with three of his brothers perform on the album: The Baumann Brothers which may be ordered here: http://thebaumannbrothers.com/index.html