May 10, 2026

“A voice is heard in Ramah,
lamentation and bitter weeping.
Rachel is weeping for her children;
she refuses to be comforted for her children,
because they are no more.”

Rachel weeps for the people of Israel taken into captivity. God was punishing Israel for it’s sin in allowing Babylon to take them captive. People continue to be captive not to a foreign nation but to sin. Its damage continues to ravage children and bring sorrow to mothers.

Historically, the abuses of sexuality have taken the greatest tole on women and children. Men too suffer, but we will hold off on that briefly. The consequences of unrestrained sexuality is perhaps best and most poignantly captured by a poem called conversation with an Archeologist by Hollie McNish. The poem describes an archeologist explaining that they had found a brothel on the dig that day. The person hearing the news asked how a brothel was identified, the archeologist explained that near the ruins of the building there would be a “pit of babies bones, a pit of newborn babies bones was how to spot a brothel.” Even writing this it’s hard not to cry for the mothers used only for sexual gratification. It’s hard to think of them weeping as their children are snatched away. It’s hard to think of the cruelty of the species that would so violate nature as to desecrate the bond between mother and child. 

The desecration has not stopped. It’s estimated that 591000 babies were killed in just the first six months of 2025, it’s further estimated that 73 million babies are killed worldwide. I know that some reading this may be quick to protest that a fetus or embryo is not a baby. To those people I would ask; what is it then? Is it not alive? Is it some other species than the one dictated by it’s DNA? These are obvious questions, no honest person can conclude anything except that we are killing humans to maintain the delusion of consequence free sex. 

Sadly these millions of souls who’s blood cries out for justice are not the only victims. A quick google search reveals that more than 27 million people are subjected to forced labour each year around the globe and that about 23% of those are in the sex trade. Eight hundred thousand mostly women and girls are transported across international borders for the sex trade each year.

It’s Mother’s Day but not all mothers are happy. We pray for good mothers who are loved and appreciated by a good society. 

Kevin Cleary

May 3, 2026

Two simple things can help us with the danger of getting in over our heads. First take responsibility for your time. Second find ways of recovering. We are called to use our resources to the glory of God but we can’t do that if we are always reacting and never planning. 

Time is our greatest asset; we need to take responsibility for it. If others started telling us what to do with other resources say our house or savings account, we would quickly put a stop to it. Time is just as important if not more. Many of us act as if we are victims of our schedule rather than creators of them. Our time belongs to us (and more importantly God) and it’s dangerous to let others control it for us. This may mean we say no sometimes or at the very least help others understand that there are other things taking priority. The point is to be proactive instead of reactive and make conscious choices about what we spend our time on.

Recovery is how we repair the wear and tear that work and responsibilities place on our minds and bodies. It should not be viewed as wasted time or leisure time but rather productive rebuilding time. Various approaches work and you will need to find the things that work for you. Maybe it’s exercise, maybe a walk in the woods, listening to music, sleeping, reading, or something else. The point is we want to be at our best and to do that we need some time to recover so that we can come back stronger than before. There is a reason that God gave the people of Israel a day of rest. While we are not required to keep the Sabbath the principle that we need rest and recovery remains legitimate. 

No one wants to find themselves overwhelmed and stressed to the point of failure. Let’s take practical steps to avoid adding that straw that breaks the camels back by knowing how many straws we can manage and by strengthening the camel. 

God knows us and wants us to be successful in his service. Paul describes how he was able to do so much as an evangelist saying “I can do all things through him who strengthens me”

Do not be anxious about anything, but in everything by prayer and supplication with thanksgiving let your requests be made known to God. And the peace of God, which surpasses all understanding, will guard your hearts and your minds in Christ Jesus.

Manage time, if you are going to be taking on more than you can chew then take small bites. Break things down and fit them into your schedule in a way that is realistic for you. Have a schedule and label it so that you can tell how much time is spent in various areas, this way you can easily see what is needed to balance your work, rest, play, and family time. 

We all want to be as effective as possible, we also know that we have limits. If we are to be responsible before God and others we need to take care how we use our time (Eph 5:16). 

~ Kevin Cleary

April 26, 2026

We all have commitments and responsibilities, jobs, hobbies, family, friends, service clubs, and other community involvement. These things enrich our lives, provide us with a social framework and allow us to feel meaningful. Under normal circumstances we are quite capable of dealing with the different things that demand our time and attention. Sometimes however we find that the demands we are asked to meet become more than we are able to manage. There are a number of reasons for this including illness, uncontrollable circumstances, unreasonable demands, difficult people, and many others.

If you are familiar with the story of Milo of Croton you know in the story Milo trained by carrying a bull a certain distance every day. As the bull grows Milo gains strength and is eventually able to carry a fully grown bull. Sounds reasonable right but when people train to get stronger they discover that it doesn’t exactly work this way. The human body doesn’t have the capacity to progressively do more and more like in the story. In reality you have to use different strategies, maybe work up to a peak and then come back down and work up again. We need to provide the opportunity to rest, recover and rebuild stronger than before. If rest is that critical to your physical health and development, what do you think about your mental health? As life circumstances change we may find more and more to deal with managing takes a certain amount of mental resilience. In the progression toward mental resilience it’s not a workable strategy to just add more and more every day. So what can we do?

Be realistic about your ability: people have different capacities for stress. Not all people have the genetics to be an Olympic Athlete, in the same way we all handle stress and mental fatigue differently. Some are almost unflappable while others are more reactive. We all want to get better at keeping our heads above water and we can. We may not all become Michael Phelps but we can all become better swimmers. Based on this we need to know ourselves and know the signs that we are getting to a place that is less than ideal.

The Bible offers some encouragement:

• Do not be anxious about anything, but in everything by prayer and supplication with thanksgiving let your requests be made known to God
• Cast your burden on the Lord, and he will sustain you; he will never permit the righteous to be moved
• Come to me, all who labor and are heavy laden, and I will give you rest. Take my yoke upon you, and learn from me, for I am gentle and lowly in heart, and you will find rest for your souls. For my yoke is easy, and my burden is light

We owe it to God, ourselves and our families to stay physically and mentally healthy because we want to continue to be effective in life and in service. Start small, I recall a physiotherapist commenting that he was seeing a lot of extra stress (physical stress) injuries during the quarantine. Everyone had decided to take up running and people would go from little or no activity to trying to run 5K. Instead, they should have started slow with manageable distances. The same is true for our stress level. You or I may have the capacity to work as an air traffic controller (one of the highest prolonged stress occupations) but we need to start slow and build up to it.

~ Kevin Cleary

April 19, 2026

When we are faced with a dangerous situation our brains and bodies do a few specific things.

Physiological Reactions: Auditory exclusion, Perceptual narrowing, Time distortion, Awareness lapse, Loss of fine motor skills, Hyper‐vigilance persisting after event

Cognitive Reactions: Memory loss, weakened concentration and  judgement, Confusion, Racing thoughts, Sense of being overwhelmed, Problem solving skills decrease, 

Understanding what your body will do is very helpful when facing stress or fear. We sometimes forget that there are more kinds of fear than just the fear of immediate danger. We also experience fear of a situation or potential problem. Maybe you have experienced fear of taking a test or fear of being in a certain situation. Just as facing immediate danger causes mental and physical responses that limit our ability to perform long term anticipatory fear does a similar thing. 

Fear is an important emotion that can make us aware of danger. The problem comes if we let fear dominate our decision making. We can get ourselves in a lot of trouble if we are not able to find ways of taking time to clear our heads and think calmly and carefully about the things we are afraid of before making a decision.

Here are some strategies that may help:

1. Know yourself and you limits, learn to say I am not thinking clearly now and walk away from a situation or problem. James warns us we should be slow to speak and slow to anger (Jms 1:19-20)
2. Get some help, talk with someone you trust to be a good listener and to be objective. Often just the act of talking out what is in our heads will do the trick. The wise man said Though one may be overpowered, two can defend themselves. A cord of three strands is not quickly broken. (Eccl 4:12)
3. Know the facts, human imagination is notoriously unreliable and will often inflate a situation that is not such a big deal when examined in light of accurate data. Test all things hold fast to that which is good (I Thess 5:22)
4. Prayer and scripture reading Ps 1:2
5. Relaxation techniques like tactical breathing or progressive muscle relaxation will be useful to many people (check the links for full descriptions of these techniques).
6. Writing down what is bothering you, this allows you to state it clearly and ties into two of the points above getting facts and talking things out. Remember all truth is God’s truth and must be the driving force behind our believes and behaviours. (Jn 17:17)
7. Planning to deal with the things that is bothering you helps you to feel some sense of control and can give you the confidence that you can handle whatever it is your worried about.

~ Kevin Cleary

April 12, 2026

   I have a younger cousin who works as an engineer. While in school he learned lots of physics. One of the things he learned a lot about is the mechanics of air flow. When he got into the working world he didn’t take a job which directly dealt with air flow mechanics instead he works designing pumps. I once asked him “How did you end up doing that?” He pointed out that although he had little training in fluid dynamics but water moves in almost the exact same way that air does. He later took this same knowledge of the way water moves and combined it with his love of fishing to create a lure. All of this makes a great illustration of wisdom verses knowledge. 

     Knowledge you can get out of a book. Wisdom however is the ability to take what you have found in the book and apply it in new and different ways. Everyone who’s been in school knows how to study for a test verses how to study and learn the material. 

     When we study the Bible this discussion become paramount; The Bible contains everything we need for “life and godliness” such that we can be fully equipped for living the Christian life (2Pet 1:3; 2Tim 3:17). Some have considered these statements and thought: but wait the Bible does not mention telephone fraud, or road rage. The right response to this is the Bible gives us all the knowledge we need to deal with any situation but God expects us to have the wisdom to apply it (Heb 5:14). 

     When we study the Bible then, it is not to memorize material for a test. It is to learn and embrace knowledge that can be applied to real life. It’s to become so familiar with that subject of scripture “the Christ” that we become like him. This is wisdom, to take what we read in scripture and let it change us into his image.

~ Kevin Cleary