Beyond the Horizon

      Daily Devotions for Seniors

      Copyright © 2016 Gordon H. Renfree. All rights reserved. Except for brief quotations in critical publications or reviews, no part of this book may be reproduced in any manner without prior written permission from the publisher. Write: Permissions, Wipf and Stock Publishers, 199 W. 8th Ave., Suite 3, Eugene, OR 97401.

      Resource Publications

      An Imprint of Wipf and Stock Publishers

      199 W. 8th Ave., Suite 3

      Eugene, OR 97401

      www.wipfandstock.com

      paperback isbn: 978-1-4982-3225-8

      hardcover isbn: 978-1-4982-3227-2

      eisbn: 978-1-4982-3226-5

      Manufactured in the U.S.A.

      Scripture taken from the Holy Bible, New International Version®, NIV®

      Copyright© 1973, 1978, 1984, 2011 by Biblica, Inc.™

      Used by permission of Zondervan. All rights reserved worldwide.

      WWW.ZONDERVAN.COM

      To my father, whose spiritual legacy carries on

      through the lives of his family

      and through the pages of this book.

      Preface

      I come from a family of teachers. I had uncles who were teachers, my grandmother was a teacher, my only two siblings were teachers, my mother was a teacher, my wife was a teacher, and I was a teacher. My father “failed to see the light” and became a minister. Just joking, of course.

      Ministers are multi-skilled people, and one of their primary skills is teaching. My father was no exception. There’s a joke that says, “Old ministers never die; they just get put out to pastor.” This was actually quite true in my father’s case. For much of his ministerial life, he worked in leadership positions with his denomination, but when he retired, he made good use of his pastoral skills. In his early retirement years, he led Bible studies and filled in as interim pastor at various churches. In his later retirement years, he presented a series of devotions to a group of seniors at a seniors’ complex in White Rock, BC. Those devotions form the basis of this book.

      After my father went to his eternal reward, my mother moved to a seniors’ complex in Edmonton, Alberta. After one of my visits with her, I went to get my coat from her closet and noticed a lone, small box on the closet floor. Curiosity getting the better of me, I lifted it up to see what it was. Papers written in my father’s handwriting filled the box, and I soon became aware that the papers were devotions. I asked and received permission from my mother to take them home so that I could examine them closer.

      An adventure was about to begin.

      How these devotions made the journey from their initial oral presentation to the publication of this book has indeed been an adventure for me. When I taught school, one of my students’ favorite series of books was the “Choose Your Own Adventure” series. Each book is arranged so that the reader is faced with two or three choices, each of which leads to more choices and then to one of many endings. This adventure has been somewhat like that for me. When I first looked at the devotions, I thought I would just read them with the dual goals of filling some spare time and reconnecting with my father. As I read further, I began to realize that the devotions could prove to be a blessing to others besides myself and the people who had been the original recipients of the devotions at the seniors’ complex. How could this be accomplished?

      I could hire a writer and have him/her put something together, perhaps in a booklet—even a book—but that could have proved costly.

      I, myself, could possibly put something together in the way of a coil bound booklet that might be of interest to family, friends, and acquaintances.

      I could select some devotions and send them to publishers who put out monthly or quarterly devotion booklets.

      I could send some to a religious organization that puts devotions online.

      I could do nothing and just enjoy the devotions for what they were.

      Or I could try to use my limited writing skills and my even more limited typing skills to put together a book.

      I decided to take the more “adventurous” route and attempt to put a book together myself. Who knew where that would end up? I could imagine a lot of different endings—most of them not that positive—but I decided that if the Lord wanted it done, He would open the doors, so I prayed about it and the compiling of a book began.

      I found it interesting that the first eight devotions were written in point form, as my father outlined his sermons, but from the ninth on, the devotions were written word for word. To me, it indicated that perhaps my father intended for them to be used later on in some other manner, or perhaps it was just his advancing years that presented memory problems. I like to think it was the former.

      I began to type out the devotions. You need to understand that my typing is a very spiritual exercise since I use the biblical method of typing—“seek and ye shall find.” I do a lot of seeking before finding the correct keys. The original manuscript turned out to be around 127, 000 words. That was a lot of typing, and for me, that translated into many years. It took additional time to track down and verify some of the stories and to obtain permissions where required. I had to contact people scattered in many different places to accomplish this task. Communicating with those involved in the various stories turned out to be quite rewarding in its own right. The process of contacting publishers, facing rejection, and finally finding the right publisher took quite a while as well. Now here we are with the finished product. I hope that this book proves to be a blessing to you— the reader.

      Acknowledgments

      I have some special people to thank. Thank you to Rena Fish for her great talents and spiritual insight in the tremendous job she did with the copyediting. I would like to thank those in my family who have directly supported this project: my two brothers, John and Paul, for their encouragement and financial support and a special kudos to Paul for designing the website. And my deepest gratitude to my wife Darlene for her continual support right from the get go. She helped keep me focused when there were times of discouragement. She helped me with the many “computer challenges.” She was a great sounding board and supplier of creative ideas. It was through her initiative that I was able to finally find the right publisher after many rejections.

      Finally and foremost, to my father who is the author of the book. The book is being published after you, Dad, have passed on to your eternal reward. God does indeed work in mysterious ways. This book underlines the spiritual legacy that each one of us can leave to succeeding generations. Our legacy may not come out in book form, but it will come out in what our children and others learn about our character and the way we live our lives.

      Note: Profits from the sale of this book will be given to a scholarship fund established by my parents for students at a seminary in Cochabamba, Bolivia. More information about this fund and other information concerning the book can be found at the book website, beyond–the–horizon.info.

      Gordon Renfree

      Compiler/Editor

      Fear or Hope?

      January 01

      John Greenleaf Whittier (1807–1892) was an American poet and staunch advocate of the abolition of slavery in the United States. One of his poems, called “Child