Time is speeding up again! In Canada where I live, COVID - 19 restrictions are lessening as our numbers are going down. Praise God! I am so very thankful for our leaders who have made some very wise decisions to protect our provinces, territories and our country from further COVID - 19 contaminations. They didn’t do it perfectly, but I am thankful for them nonetheless.
 
As our world begins to speed up again, my world is speeding up again. Our stores and restaurants are reopening, people can now meet up to 10 in number and we are revelling in the very real joy of seeing each other again, of being able to go out and DO something. It’s all so wonderful ...and I can feel the pace of my world pick up. But before I know it, my days and thoughts are getting busier and busier, almost like an unconscious entity. My days are filling up without me even asking them to. My task list is triple of what it was a month ago. And I am losing a sense of peace and space that I had during the COVID restrictions, which I realize I had wanted to keep.
 
Understand I love seeing people and it is universally acknowledged that I am an extrovert, who loves to cook and entertain!
 
But,
 
I love my Father more. I love our relationship more.  Spending time with Him on a heart level, hearing His heart for me, His plans and soaking in who He is, gives everything else in my life a perspective, richness and space that only comes from doing life with Him.
 
So I am forming new goals that were formed in my COVID social distancing journey. Goals to create more space around my day, for those in my inner circle. To protect that space, for exclusive time with my Father, but also to just enjoy my day, people, a walk in a park. To enjoy life and savour it. And to be reminded of what Isaiah said:
 
“For you shall go out in joy and be led forth in peace; the mountains and the hills before you shall break forth into singing, and all the trees of the field shall clap their hands.” Isaiah 55:12
 
And to protect this space, these experiences, that I had in COVID I am once again setting boundaries, life boundaries. To protect the direction I want to walk in and how I want to get there, I have to be deliberate. It is so easy to get caught up in the pace of life that leaves me little time for Him. So learning to follow Him and His plans for us involves saying No to what is not in His plans for us.
 
What can keep us from saying NO? Are we afraid of disappointing others? Do we feel a God-like need to keep everything running? Have we wrapped up success into our busyness, our accomplishments? Whatever our reasons, now is as good a time as ever to do a self-check. Because boundaries are not just to protect relationships, but also to protect where we are going and how we are getting there.
 
I encourage you to ask the Father, “What do you want me to be pouring my energy and time into right now?”I regularly give God my imaginary timetable and ask Him to show me what I need to take off of it. And sometimes what I need to put in my days instead. I then practise saying a polite and loving NO to anything that is not that.
 
Transparency moment, I am one of those people who usually has way too much going on.
 
We ask God for direction all the time, but how often do we protect the direction and destination that He has given us to walk?
 
 Be blessed today!

Christine Olding, Bayith Director

​‘Bayith’ is the Hebrew word for ‘House’ or better defined as a family of those belonging to the same House. I love this concept of family, or those of us belonging to the same house.
 
One of our basic human needs is a need to belong to a group of people you could call your ‘tribe’. Your ‘tribe’ is like-minded individuals who you can and want to share life with.
 
For centuries God gave us our families and in our early years we very much needed for them for formation, love and sustenance. Then comes our teenage years where we individuate and we find another tribe that is our peers. Our peers give us a sense of identity through reflection and belonging.
 
As we mature and come into our adult years, we find our tribe in our church, baseball club, golfing or fishing buddies, or girlfriends. All that to say, we are happy to share life with these individuals, and they are our people or in the Hebrew context our ’Bayith’.
 
God has in many ways, become our Bayith, our Strong Tower, our Refuge, our Dwelling Place, and in Him we find fullness of everything lacking in our lives.
 
He has given us a people we call Church, better defined Ecclesia, or called out ones, of a group of like-minded individuals that love the Lord and extol His virtues.
 
No matter where you travel in the world, if you meet up with the Church, you have found family, and you are home again. To me this is the real meaning of Bayith.
 
Our founders, Christine Olding and Merrill Davies have a vision for a stronger community, a Bayiith, where we can grow together and make a difference in the world around us.

• Steve Ongo, Catch the Fire Barrie - Associate Pastor