I am a widow

I am a widow and I am going to do the best I can to be the best me I can be. My husband contracted Covid19. He got sick on Christmas day of 2020 and early on the morning of 8 January 2021 he passed away. He was 63 years old but he wasn’t sickly, in fact he had never had a life threatening disease in his entire life. He ran a business full time and still found the time to play golf twice a week. He was not a candidate for death. Or was he? Do we have any say in the matter of our own death? I’m speaking from a Christian point of view. Does God determine when we are to leave this earth or do circumstances? One day I will know all the answers, but for now I know what I believe.

God made the earth and everything on it was perfect. Then Adam and Eve disobeyed Him and everything changed. People had to start toiling for their daily bread and they would have to face death. But then Jesus came and changed everything when He was crucified and rose from the dead. He said if we believe in Him we would receive eternal life.

“For God so loved the world, that he gave his only Son, that whoever believes in him should not perish but have eternal life.” John 3:16 ESV

Therefore death isn’t the end, but the beginning of a glorious new life that we cannot even start to imagine. The Bible gives us glimpses into this life but doesn’t tell all.

Revelation 21:4 ESV

He will wipe away every tear from their eyes, and death shall be no more, neither shall there be mourning, nor crying, nor pain anymore, for the former things have passed away.”

John 14:2 ESV

In my Father’s house are many rooms. If it were not so, would I have told you that I go to prepare a place for you?

1 Corinthians 2:9 ESV  

But, as it is written, “What no eye has seen, nor ear heard, nor the heart of man imagined, what God has prepared for those who love him”

Revelation 22:1-5 ESV

Then the angel showed me the river of the water of life, bright as crystal, flowing from the throne of God and of the Lamb through the middle of the street of the city; also, on either side of the river, the tree of life with its twelve kinds of fruit, yielding its fruit each month. The leaves of the tree were for the healing of the nations. No longer will there be anything accursed, but the throne of God and of the Lamb will be in it, and his servants will worship him. They will see his face, and his name will be on their foreheads. And night will be no more. They will need no light of lamp or sun, for the Lord God will be their light, and they will reign forever and ever.

This last verse is enough to make me believe that I have absolutely no idea how wonderful Heaven is going to be. I don’t know where Heaven is or is going to be, and frankly, it doesn’t matter to me. All I know is that it is going to be so much better than anything here on earth.

I believe emphatically that my husband is in Heaven experiencing the glory of God. I miss him and my heart aches, but I wouldn’t want to deny him the peace that he now has. I have read articles about the process of grieving and come to the conclusion that there are no hard and fast rules. I have found that there are well-meaning people who expect me to fall apart and think there is something wrong, or that I am not being honest when I say that I am fine. Obviously I am not as fine as I was before my other half was torn from me but I am coping. I have to guard my heart constantly against good people who say insensitive things. They don’t realize what they are saying hurts and at this point I have no desire to get into any discussions about it. I have to guard my thoughts against the doubts and fears which invariably sneak in. I have to literally take every thought captive and decide whether I can entertain it or not. I have days when the air is so thick I struggle to breath and moments when a memory is triggered and I cry buckets, but I get up, dress up and show up. Every day. I am not suffering from depression and I still engage in the hobbies and interests I did before his death. Yet, everything has changed. Every single thing I do is new and I have to reinvent the way I do things. At work I have to be the boss. I don’t particularly like being the boss, but for now I have to do it. At home I cook for one. I sleep alone on a big bed. I have to make all the decisions alone. I don’t have the luxury of bouncing it off someone as close to me as I am to myself. On a lighter side I can’t go back to a bad decision and say, “That was your decision!”

Because of the lockdown things are not normal and we are only having a service on Sunday. Not a memorial or mourning service but a celebration of life. Of his life, of the lives each one of us has, of life after death.

This is how I feel today. I am a widow and I am going to do my best to be the best me I can be.

Revival

So churches are allowed to open tomorrow. But, there are such stringent protocols involved. Sanitizing, scanning, masks, no singing, no testimonies…. Sitting in a building wearing mask, 2 meters away from anyone, listening to a sermon. Then going home without any interaction doesn’t sound like what church was meant to be. A gathering of the saints, worship, sharing, breaking bread… That’s church. If this is an attempt to destroy the essence of Christianity, it won’t succeed. The more persecution is placed on Christianity the quicker it spreads and grows. These are the perfect conditions for a revival. The last big revival by the looks of it.

Lockdown

Because we were forced to close our business I anticipated that the five weeks of level 5 lockdown would be traumatic. But instead it was a comfort zone. A bubble which enveloped us like a warm blanket and protected us from any reality which could threaten our safety. It showed us new ways of doing things, opened our eyes to new possibilities. The possibility of being calm while the storm was raging became a reality. God’s love and care was more evident that ever before. We were able to retreat and get new perspective. Going back to work was difficult because it tore at the bubble. But now we can look ant the world from a different angle and see problems as challenges. We can remember the bubble and get back into it when the world threatens to overwhelm us. We can meet God in the secret place of that bubble and know that He is in charge and that He cares for us and loves us enough to have showed us a new way to live

Corona

In Daniel Chapter 3 Daniel’s friends are in peril of dying as they had been sentenced to be thrown into the fiery furnace for not bowing down to the golden statue.

Daniel 3:16-18, Shadrach, Meshach, and Abed-Nego answered and said to the king, “O Nebuchadnezzar, we have no need to answer you in this matter. If that is the case, our God whom we serve is able to deliver us from the burning fiery furnace, and He will deliver us from your hand, O king. But if not, let it be known to you, O king, that we do not serve your gods, nor will we worship the gold image which you have set up.”

 

This made me think about the Corona Virus. I’m sure I don’t have to go into any explanations about it. The world has done a pretty good job of sowing fear.  Now, obviously we aren’t going to find the term “Corona Virus” in the Bible. I have seen some very involved discussions about meanings of the words and Biblical references. This is what I believe.

 

Daniel’s friends could have succumbed to fear when their death sentence was proclaimed. They could have decided to go and bow to the stupid statue. They could have renounced their faith. They could have been a blubbering heap of terror and begged the king for mercy. But they didn’t. They decided to trust their God. They put all their faith in Him and never wavered. They were not afraid. Now just imagine that. There was this huge fire and they were about to be thrown into it. Not walking over hot coals or something mild like that. They were on the brink of being cremated alive!! They don’t flinch. They tell the king that God will save them. And even if He doesn’t save them from the furnace, He will save them from the king. In other words, if they die the king won’t be able to persecute them anymore, and they will be in heaven.
Just so it ought to be with us. God will deliver believers from the Corona Virus. And if He doesn’t and we get infected He will heal us, but even if He doesn’t and we die, we will go to Heaven.  Therefore there is no reason whatsoever to fear. Are you afraid of going to Heaven? I know that I’m not. I am not going to allow a virus to keep me in fear and bondage and hold me hostage when I have a God who is stronger than all the viruses put together. Just like those Jewish boys said they will not serve the foreign Gods, I have no intentions whatsoever of serving fear.  I am going to carry on as  normal and I will praise God regardless.

The Table

Psalm 78:19, Yes, they spoke against God:

They said, “Can God prepare a table in the wilderness?

This is what the Israelites said after they escaped the Egyptian army by walking through the Red Sea on dry land. Definitely one of the greatest miracles of all time.

Of course Psalm 23:5 says, You prepare a table before me in the presence of my enemies;

Obviously God can prepare a table in the wilderness. Why wouldn’t He be able to.

This verse is so profound. I realize that we do it all the time! We don’t believe that God can rescue us from the situations we are in. We live through miracles but the next time something comes against us we want to give up and start questioning whether God even knows of our existence. We doubt His provision and His favour. We doubt that He has a plan for our situation. But He does because He always does.

Our unbelief is what stops Him from doing the miracles we want to see. We all want to see miracles bur we aren’t always prepared to believe that the miracle will happen. There are so many reasons that we tell ourselves why God isn’t going to come through for us. And by ‘us’ I’m referring to believers. Children of God. Sinners who have been washed by the blood of the Lamb. Forgiven, redeemed and made righteous. But we tell ourselves all kinds of lies, plus we believe the lies that the enemy tells us.

I’m going through difficulties because God is punishing me;

God really wants to teach me a lesson by letting me suffer so I just have to suffer;

I don’t deserve good things because I have done some bad things in my life;

I’m not sure that God has forgiven me for my sins;

Numbers 23:19, God is not a man, that He should lie,

Nor a son of man, that He should repent.

Has He said, and will He not do? Or has He spoken, and will He not make it good?

Psalm 103:12, As far as the east is from the west, So far has He removed our transgressions from us.

If God says our sins are forgiven and removed from us, they are! No questions asked, no correspondence will be entered into and we aren’t allowed to think about them again. Gone forever!

We are righteous because we have been bought with the blood of Jesus. We are forgiven. All we need to do is ask God and He forgives us. I’m not totally sure of the Grace message that says we’re forgiven anyway and we don’t need to ask. I now that if I have done something wrong it makes me feel a whole lot better if I confess my transgression to God and ask Him to forgive me. But I have to do it with the absolute belief that I have been forgiven and I have to put it behind me and go forward in the knowledge that I am righteous. We mustn’t do any of this, “I can’t really know if I’m going to heaven, nobody knows for sure.” That is another lie from Satan. If we believe in our hearts and confess with our mouths that Jesus died for us and that He is the only Son of God, then we are saved. End of story.

As people who are righteous we have a right to stand before God and to put our prayers and petitions to Him. We can ask with as much confidence as the next person because God doesn’t have favourites. No matter what we might think, He loves all of us equally. If we don’t believe that we have to go back to basics and remind ourselves of the truth. Maybe we are believing the lies the enemy is telling us.

Isaiah 40:4, Every valley shall be exalted

And every mountain and hill brought low;

The crooked places shall be made straight

And the rough places smooth;

Isaiah 50:7,  For the Lord God will help Me;

Therefore I will not be disgraced;

Therefore I have set My face like a flint,

And I know that I will not be ashamed.

If this is what God is saying to us we can believe with confidence that He can prepare a table in the wilderness. Take a seat at that table and receive the blessings He is giving you.

Half-way parked

I went to the bank and when I came out I noticed a bakkie (in American that’s a truck) parked on the halfway in the last parking spot. The car parked in that spot was way up in the front so there was some space behind it, but not enough for a second vehicle. It seemed to me that the driver of this bakkie thought if he was half way inside the parking at least he wasn’t parked totally illegally. Obviously, if a traffic officer had been there, it would have been considered to be illegal. You can’t be halfway in to be parking properly, you have to be all the way in. Just like they always say that you can’t be almost pregnant. You either are, or you aren’t!

We tend to think that we can be a Christian but still do all the things that people who aren’t Christians do. I know it’s really difficult to say no to all the things your friends are doing.

Romans 12:2, And do not be conformed to this world, but be transformed by the renewing of your mind, that you may prove what is that good and acceptable and perfect will of God.

One gentleman who says he is a Christian said that he drinks on Saturdays, and he gets intoxicated, but that God understands because he isn’t harming anyone and he’s always in church on a Sunday.

I can’t judge whether people are going to heaven or not. That is way outside of my jurisdiction. I just know that God does expect certain things from us. Not things to qualify our salvation, but things that have been put in place to protect us. Things that are going to make better people of us and grow us spiritually. In his book, The Institutes of the Christian Religion, John Calvin wrote that “our nature inclines toward idolatry” and that each person’s heart is like “a perpetual factory of idols.”

Often Christian values and ways of behaviour are dismissed being as tedious, old fashioned, and legalistic.

1 Timothy 2:9 – 10, in like manner also, that the women adorn themselves in modest apparel, with propriety and moderation, not with braided hair or gold or pearls or costly clothing, but, which is proper for women professing godliness, with good works.

I interpret this verse to mean that we shouldn’t be dressing to attract undue attention. Things like dressing modestly are not fashionable. If you decide not to expose your body when your friends are wearing skimpy clothes, which more that often have designer labels and are the thing to be wearing, and you don’t dress to fit in, chances are that you will be ridiculed. Same thing if all your friends drink and smoke. What about the television programs you watch and the music you listen to? The literature you read? But everyone is reading this book…I need to know what everyone is talking about.

I realize that a lot of the things I mentioned seem to apply to young people more than older people as young people are normally considered to be more likely to succumb to peer pressure. Don’t  be mistaken, if you don’t overcome peer pressure you are going to be subject to it as long as you live. It doesn’t suddenly go away as you age. People are always going to be putting pressure on you. Like when people want to borrow money from you. Are you obliged to do it because you are a Christian?

Luke 6:34-36, And if you lend to those from whom you hope to receive back, what credit is that to you? For even sinners lend to sinners to receive as much back. But love your enemies, do good, and lend, hoping for nothing in return; and your reward will be great, and you will be sons of the Most High. For He is kind to the unthankful and evil. Therefore be merciful, just as your Father also is merciful.

I’m going to leave that up to you to decide for yourself. My personal opinion is that if I am willing to lend to someone I must be willing to give it and not expect anything back. If I can’t do that than I shouldn’t lend.

Now don’t get me wrong, I am not going to run around telling people what they need to read and wear and watch. God must convict them of that. I am saying that we need to be inspecting our own lives to check that we aren’t parked halfway in the parking spot.

Manure

Why do we think that God wants to bless others but have a hard time believing that He wants to bless us? Do we forget all the promises He made? Do we forget that the only blessings aren’t material blessings? I was speaking to a friend yesterday and she reminded me of the eternal blessings. She reminded me that God loves us and that we grow in the valleys and not on the mountain tops. Let’s look at a seed. Before we plant a seed we prepare the soil by digging it over and putting fertilizer or manure into it. Now if you know anything about fertilizer, it’s a chemical and chemicals can burn you. And manure is animal waste, it is stinky and unpleasant to be around. But that’s what the seed needs. First it needs to be watered, so it gets good and soggy, and it needs to be warm. Once that has happened it starts escaping from the seed pod and grows stems and roots. The seed doesn’t exist anymore and it starts to feed on the yucky stuff that’s been added to the soil. Soil is dirty as it is so here the seed is in an unpleasant environment and it is growing. It is growing and it is on its way to becoming a strong healthy plant, maybe the biggest tree in the forest. It is going to bear good fruit that can be eaten by birds and animals, and provide shade in the heat of the day. It will be a place where birds can build their nests and nurture their young. Among its strong roots insects will find a habitat. Small rodents and reptiles can also burrow among the roots to be safe.

John 12:24, Most assuredly, I say to you, unless a grain of wheat falls into the ground and dies, it remains alone; but if it dies, it produces much grain

What happens when we start to get wet and soggy and warm? We start complaining. And when we are put into the fertilizer or manure? We shout out against injustice and unfairness. We believe that we are being punished. Why? Because it doesn’t feel good. It feels uncomfortable and it scares us. We have this ungrounded belief that if we believe in God then He is always just going to give us good things and we are going to be showered with nice things. But what about our characters? Does God want spoiled children who are going to be whining about all the stuff they want all the time? Why doesn’t God give me a big house and a fancy car like my neighbour? Why are things easy for other people and I always have to struggle? Why can’t my children get a bursary and others can? Etc, etc, etc. Sound familiar? Except that we are speaking bad things over ourselves,

Proverbs 18:21,   Death and life are in the power of the tongue,

And those who love it will eat its fruit.   

we are denying God the power to change our lives into things of strength and beauty. We are stopping the growing process. We are not hiding our lights under a bushel, we aren’t ever going to shine brightly enough to make a difference.

Romans 5:3-5, And not only that, but we also glory in tribulations, knowing that tribulation produces perseverance; and perseverance, character; and character, hope. Now hope does not disappoint, because the love of God has been poured out in our hearts by the Holy Spirit who was given to us.

We have to be willing to go through the process of being formed into the people God wants us to be. We have to go through this process to grow, else we will stay in the seed stage and we are going to become more and more miserable and disheartened until we give up.

We have to start looking at God, and life from a different perspective. We have to so that we can become the tree that is planted by the waters and bears fruit in season and always has green leaves.

All the time

When Christians speak their code called Christianese one of the most repeated phrases is: “God is good’, which, especially if spoken from a pulpit, will most probably get the response, “All the time.”

Does “God is good actually come from the Bible?”

Mark 10:18, So Jesus said to him, “Why do you call Me good? No one is good but One, that is, God

Matthew 19:17, So He said to him, “Why do you call Me good? No one is good but One, that is, God. But if you want to enter into life, keep the commandments.”

Psalm 34:8, Oh, taste and see that the Lord is good;

Blessed is the man who trusts in Him!

Psalm 107:1, Oh, give thanks to the Lord, for He is good!

For His mercy endures forever.

Psalm 145:9, The Lord is good to all,

And His tender mercies are over all His works.

Exodus 33:19, Then He said, “I will make all My goodness pass before you, and I will proclaim the name of the Lord before you. I will be gracious to whom I will be gracious, and I will have compassion on whom I will have compassion.”

The Bible clearly states that God is good. Do we really believe it though, or do we have a secret fear that the plans God has for us might include a few things which aren’t going to be good or easy for us? Of course, being good Christians we can’t say anything like that out loud. We are expected to say that we know that everything will work out for the best, and we have come to expect ourselves to believe that too. There are certain things a good Christian just doesn’t say out loud! There are times when everything is going 100% wrong and we feel like that if we weren’t held together with sinews and ligaments we would surely physically fall apart. Isn’t that so? I think I’ve lived long enough to know that everyone at some time, or at various times, feels exactly that way. Life isn’t easy and the longer you live the more that becomes abundantly clear. So if God is good, why doesn’t life feel like the bed of roses the movies make it out to be? Why don’t we have continuous happy endings and live happily ever after and all the things fairy tales are made of?

Because…God is good. That’s why. If God was a wizard with a magic wand or whatever they use in fairy tales, then we would be able to eat all the chocolate we want and not get fat. But, because God is infinitely good, we are able to rely on concrete truths that He has included in His Word. There isn’t one single word in the Bible that isn’t true. We don’t have to doubt anything we read in it. We don’t have to worry about inconsistency. We don’t have to be stressed that He won’t have enough time for us when we want to speak to Him. We know for a fact that if we’ve done something wrong we can ask Him to forgive us, and He will. We can fix our hope on the promise that if we accept Jesus as our Savior, we are going to have everlasting life. We can sleep peacefully at night because He gives us peace. We can ask Him for provision because He has promised us that He will provide. We know that He will give us good things, they might not be the things we think we need but they will be the things God knows we need. We don’t have to be anxious about reprisals for our misdeeds because God is love and as such He is patient with us.

Yes, there are consequences. If we do stupid things we reap the rewards, but that is good because if there weren’t consequences we would be in terrible shape. We would all be like spoiled children. You know the kind. The kids who throw tantrums and their parents give them anything they want, and they grow up to be obnoxious pests. That kind. That’s what we would be like.

God is good because he is a responsible parent who cares enough for His children, He teaches them accountability and makes sure that they develop strong characters and are responsible human beings. That’s why we say God is good.

Love yourself

Children are often taught that God will not be pleased with them if they are naughty. God becomes the weapon that parents use to force their children into obeying them and then the children build an unrealistic image of a God who is just waiting for them to put a foot wrong so that he can punish them. Unfortunately many people also feel this way because of the manner their earthly father’s treated them. If we are brought up with condemnation it is easy to believe that God is also going to condemn us when we do something that is not pleasing to Him. And if everything about our upbringing was performance based, we will believe that we have to perform correctly in order to win God’s love. Unfortunately some people never believe that God loves them regardless of what they do.

 

If we keep believing that we have to do things a certain way in order to please people, we are soon convinced that it is impossible. Instead of making peace with it, we try harder and harder and very soon are in a state of fear and fear because nothing we do is ever good enough. You see, there’s a difference between US and what we DO. Our DOING is not US. We can think things like, “I don’t deserve nice things because I’m too fat’, or, ‘I don’t deserve to go on holiday because I don’t work hard enough.

Everything that happens can then be put into two categories:

Things are going well therefore God is pleased with me.

Or

Things are really bad therefore God is punishing me.

But God doesn’t operate like that. He is the only one who accepts us 100% the way we are. Where my husband might say that I need to wash the dishes more often, God doesn’t use things that we do as a measuring stick for His love. He loves us regardless of what we do.

The next step is self-hatred because instead of realizing the problem is not ours, we believe that it is us that are not good enough and not our actions. I know that self-hatred sounds really, really bad and if you were to hold it up against yourself you will say, who me? Never!

But think about it like this:

If you work for a boss who is really demanding and whatever you do he is never satisfied. He always complains and finds fault and never, never, ever compliments or acknowledges that you have done a good job. Sound familiar? This could also be a spouse, parent or child! Once you fall into the trap of trying to do better and win favour you start to believe you are not good enough. Believing you are not good enough is essentially self-hatred. It is said that 87% of all diseases are caused by our thought life, and many auto immune diseases are caused by self-hate! While I’m on the topic of disease, people blame God for their diseases or they claim that God put a disease on them to teach them some kind of a lesson. Forget it. It is simply not true!

 

So if hating ourselves is so bad, what should we do about it? We have to learn to love ourselves.

Let me establish that by loving yourself I am not implying selfishness, arrogance, being conceited, self-seeking, self-centred or vain. Those are never attributes of love anyway.

1 Corinthians 13 is known as the love chapter.

Let’s look at what love looks like.

Verse 4 -8:

Love suffers long

and is kind;

love does not envy;

love does not parade itself,

is not puffed up;

does not behave rudely,

does not seek its own,

is not provoked,

thinks no evil;

does not rejoice in iniquity,

but rejoices in the truth;

bears all things,

believes all things,

hopes all things,

endures all things.

Love never fails.

 

We normally look at these verses in the light of how we show love to others. But what about looking at them and measuring ourselves against them?

Are we long suffering (patient) with ourselves, or do we beat ourselves up because we don’t get things right the first time. How many people haven’t reached their potential because they aren’t patient with themselves?

And kind. Are we kind to ourselves? Do we give ourselves any grace?

And what about ‘love keeps no record of wrongs, (NKJV thinks no evil), We forgive others for what they have done but to we forgive ourselves and forget the bad decisions we made? Do we lie awake at night and beat ourselves up about stupid things we did, and wish we could change the past. When we do something wrong the procedure is as follows: Ask God to forgive you, and immediately move on and learn from what you did. And drop it! Fill that void with love.

We can go down the list and I would encourage you to measure your self-love against this list.

Mark 12:31 as well as Matthew 22:39 both say that we have to love our neighbour as we love ourself. So Jesus said that we have to love ourselves.

If we don’t love ourselves we are going to be miserable and sick most of the time. We aren’t going to be pleasant to be around.

 

 

The first step towards loving ourselves is to accept ourselves. Nobody is perfect. That has been used over and over as a self-defence phrase. “”nobody’s perfect!!!!!”” But seriously, not one person is perfect or is ever going to be and the sooner we accept that the better. We need to start seeing ourselves the way God sees us.

We need to start accepting ourselves the way we are.

Now I know there are a lot of Christians who will condemn me for this statement because how can I be telling homosexuals to accept themselves the way they are. But think about this: If I accept myself and all my hang-ups, whether it is sexual orientation, alcoholism, anxiety, depression or whatever, I have a better chance of giving God the freedom to start working in my life than when I am struggling with whatever state I am in, trying to hide it, flaunt it, or fix it myself.

If I am trying to fix myself, God can’t do it, and that is what He does!

What happens when we become a believer.

Ephesians 4:24,

and that you put on the new man which was created according to God, in true righteousness and holiness.

The new man includes your new victorious attitude. The new man has been created to be like God. If we have been renewed to be like God, How is God?

Genesis 1:26-27,

Then God said, “Let Us make man in Our image, according to Our likeness; let them have dominion over the fish of the sea, over the birds of the air, and over the cattle, over all the earth and over every creeping thing that creeps on the earth.” So God created man in His own image; in the image of God He created him; male and female He created them.

And what’s more, God uses weak instruments to accomplish great things:

Exodus 4:2, He used the staff in Moses’s hand to do great signs.

Judges 15:15, Sampson killed a thousand men with the jawbone of a donkey.

1 Samuel 17:40, David selected 5 smooth stones and killed a giant.

1 Kings 17:12, A widow showed compassion on Elijah and as a result her oil and flour lasted throughout the famine.

1 Kings 18:44, there was a cloud the size of a man’s hand that ended the drought.

Matthew 13:31-32,  Jesus talks about faith the size of a mustard seed.

John 6:9, five barley loaves and two small fish feed 5000 people

And then one that we sometimes have a hard time coming to grips with:

Zechariah 4:10, For who has despised the day of small things?…

We don’t want small beginnings and insignificant things. We want loud thunder and torrents of rain. We want thousands of souls being won for the Kingdom. We want the big and the great and the significant. We don’t think that little things mean anything. We want to be able to measure our success and our victories. We don’t want to do something if it isn’t going to bring us a big profit.

But here it says we shouldn’t despise the day of small things.

That day we gave the cashier at the supermarket a smile. That day we helped change a tyre. You know that day? That day might have been the start of something bigger than you would ever know but what if you ignored it?

Because we are weak instruments God can use us greatly.

Romans 8:11, But if the Spirit of Him who raised Jesus from the dead dwells in you, He who raised Christ from the dead will also give life to your mortal bodies through His Spirit who dwells in you.

Colossians 3:1, If then you were raised with Christ, seek those things which are above, where Christ is, sitting at the right hand of God.

Because I have been raised with Christ, I set my heart on things above, where Christ is seated at the right hand of God.

 

A Jesuit, Bernard Bush wrote:

It takes a profound conversion to accept the belief that God is tender and loves us just as we are, not in spite of our sins and faults, but with them. God does not condone or sanction evil, but He does not withhold His love because there is evil in us. The key to this understanding is the way we feel about ourselves. We cannot even stand or accept love from another human being when we do not love ourselves, much less believe or accept that God possibly could.

 

God is not the father who comes home drunk and beats up his wife and terrorises his children. God is not the father who expects you to be seen and not heard and is the tyrant who has to be obeyed without question. God is not the father who measures your performance and always finds you lacking. God is also not the absent father who doesn’t care what you do.

This is who God is:

John 3:17, For God did not send His Son into the world to condemn the world, but that the world through Him might be saved.

Zephaniah 3:17, The Lord your God in your midst,

The Mighty One, will save;

He will rejoice over you with gladness,

He will quiet you with His love,

He will rejoice over you with singing.

 

Who else feels about you the way God feels about you? Nobody! But you have to start feeling that way about yourself so that you can reflect God’s glory into the dark world.

 

If you are having feelings of guilt, anxiety or fear, those feeling are not a reflection of what God feels about you. The only time our feelings line up with God’s feelings is when we love ourselves intensely and freely. We should also not be measuring our virtue because in our own strength it is impossible to be good. People who are perfectionists are always measuring themselves, and others, to the ideal. There’s a huge canyon between the real and the ideal. Ideal is in their imaginations. Ideal and perfect does not exist!

The next thing to do is to turn the focus away from ourselves towards others. Focusing on our own problems and failures is not going to help. Neither is focusing on our own abilities and achievements. Achievements are like money. We will never have enough if that is our focus. Just like we will never be good enough if pleasing people is our focus.

We need to get rid of our baggage. The more baggage we drop the better we start loving ourselves. I

think that love fills the space that the emotional baggage was occupying. If we have to forgive, then we have to go and do it, we can’t cling to the past. Look at it this way: A balloon represents the past, we all have a varied past. Now if you pop the balloon it becomes useless. It loses its function. If you are going to keep dragging this balloon with you, you are going to get some strange looks. If fact you are going to look really stupid. That is like yesterday. Yesterday is gone, its usefulness has been spent. There’s only one good place for it and that is in the trash can. It has the ability to cause harm if it isn’t disposed of properly, just like the hurts from our past that will harm us if we don’t deal with them. Good memories are great. They’re like an inflated balloon bobbing on the breeze, but they’re just memories and good or bad, we can’t dwell on the past. We need to live in today and today this popped balloon has outstayed its welcome. So we get rid of it.

 

Just remember that God loves you and that Jesus died for you. If you are good enough for Jesus to die for you are good enough for people and you are certainly good enough for yourself!

 

 

 

Endurance

I’m reading a book which is set during the 100 years or so before the birth of Christ. It is set in Egypt and Rome and during the period when Cleopatra ruled Egypt. It is historical fiction but very well written and I can visualise a lot of what is happening. Chava is a Jewish girl who grows up spending most of her time with young Cleopatra as a companion. After Caesar invades Alexandria and Cleopatra has his child, Chava falls out of favour and Cleopatra has her and her father (who used to be tutor to the royal children) imprisoned and eventually sold as slaves. Chava had refused to worship the Greek Gods in the temples in Alexandria and ends up in Rome working on a farm. (This is how far I’ve read and it’s about half way through the book.

Now I know that circumstances can change very quickly and nobody is guaranteed the lifestyle they have at present but can you imagine being relatively wealthy and then the next thing you are in a stinky prison and a year later you are being paraded before slave traders?

We are so quick to look at people who seem to have everything and say. “What about me, Lord? Why do I have to struggle and turn over each cent? What did that guy do right and what did I do wrong? How come my life is always a struggle?”

Now to give a little perspective, Chava believed that God had told her when she was quite young that she would be a blessing to Cleopatra when she was queen and that she would be with her on her happiest day as well as her last day. This made Chava believe that she would always be close to Cleopatra. When she is in prison and eventually sold as a slave she starts to question God’s words to her. She couldn’t fathom how that would happen in her present state and she began to doubt God’s words to her.

We do that too. We look at the promises in the Bible, we hold onto a prophetic word, we remember what God has told us personally, but it seems like it’s never going to happen. Our circumstances just get worse instead of better and we want to give up instead of persevere.

Isaiah 40:31, But those who wait on the Lord

Shall renew their strength;

They shall mount up with wings like eagles,

They shall run and not be weary,

They shall walk and not faint.

Romans 12:12, rejoicing in hope, patient in tribulation, continuing steadfastly in prayer;

Galatians 6:9, And let us not grow weary while doing good, for in due season we shall reap if we do not lose heart.

James 1:12, Blessed is the man who endures temptation; for when he has been approved, he will receive the crown of life which the Lord has promised to those who love Him.

There is always the temptation to stop believing the promises of God. Just because things aren’t happening the way we want them to and in our time frame does not mean they aren’t going to happen. And even if they don’t happen, should we turn our backs on God? Should we decide that we know better and we can do things on our own? Some people might, but I know that God loves me and that He has a plan. The plan might not follow the route I thought it would and it might not even be the plan I thought it would be, but He definitely has a plan that is way better that any plan I could ever make.

If the things you had planned for your life aren’t exactly going as you thought they would, I have this advice for you: Get happy, and start praising God because He has something so awesome waiting for you that you can’t even start to imagine it, and if you stop trusting now, you aren’t ever going to know what it is.