Don't give up...

In my kitchen...

So, I got home yesterday afternoon after a big day out with my little boy... we had been to Girls Church in the morning and then straight to Gymbaroo for some playtime fun for Jad...

I went to the pantry for something to eat because all I had eaten all day was a piece of chocolate cake and an apple (not good... I know!) and I discovered an opened packet of

 lovely, fresh, green rocket and thought

'What THE??!!!'

it is definately not something one expects to find sitting next to the Glad Wrap!

I'm guessing that in my seemingly perpetual state of absentminded tiredness, I must have put it in there instead of the refrigerator as I was cleaning up the night before!

It has been a very busy couple of weeks and we are entitled to make a few little mistakes aren't we??  I did need to have a bit of a laugh... that was one way to achieve that I suppose.

Anyway... along with the tiredness, I have been a little bit emotional and this week feeling quite not myself and I was thinking as I was running out the door to Girls Church that I feel like I have lost myself... all my independence and confidence seems to have dissapated into thin air... this faith journey we are on at the moment was again starting to take it's toll and I again felt like giving up.  I was saying to my husband only the day before that it's not meant to be like this... this is not what our life is about... going back to the same old, same old... back into the rat race... I want to make a difference in this world!!

Well...God must have been listening because a very lovely lady at Girls Church said that she felt someone was feeling 'fragmented' and 'crumbly'... I quietly said to God in my mind that if no one else responds to that then it must be me... and of course no one else responded... so I did. 

Isn't it just so amazing that when we are feeling at the end of ourselves, God steps in and picks us up and points us back in the right direction... the way that He wants us to go.

Then this morning... still feeling my perpetual tired self... He spoke to me again...

Hebrews 10:35-39

'So don't throw it all away now.  You were sure of yourselves then.

It's still a sure thing! 

But you need to stick it out, staying with God's plan so you'll be there

for the promised completion. 

It won't be long now, He's on the way; He'll show up most any minute.

But anyone who is right with me thrives on loyal trust;  

if he cuts and runs, I won't be very happy.

But we're not quitters who lose out. 

Oh, no!  We'll stay with it and survive, trusting all the way.'

I'm guessing that means 'don't give up' :)

Quiet times...

Early this week I heard a message from a well-known International preacher. One of the points he was making during his message was that we as Christians shouldn’t feel condemned or worried if we have only 4.5 ‘quiet times’ per week because that actually meant that we were like everyone else and we were ‘normal’.

I must admit that I was quite shocked that he was actually saying that it was ok not to spend time with God everyday! What happened to what the Bible says about ‘praying continuously’ and having a relationship with God? The soul purpose we were created for was to have fellowship with God and to have relationship with Him… how can you build a relationship with someone on only 4.5 ‘quiet times’ per week… and how long are those quiet times?

Imagine if your husband or wife came home and said ‘Sorry honey, I have too many other things going on in my life at the moment, I’m going to have to restrict the time I see you this week to only 4.5 times and only 15 minutes at the most. I won’t be able to phone you just to say that I love you or to ask you for help with any problems that I might be going through and I won’t be able to stop and think about you at all and wonder what you might think about my ideas… I’m just too busy’.

If that is what being a normal Christian is about then I don’t want anything to do with normal… I want to be totally abnormal! I want to be one hundred percent sold out for Jesus and focussed on Him all of the time. God should be part of our lives and thoughts all throughout every single day… we need to get rid of the spirit of humanism that is slowing creeping its way into the lives of Christians and the church and become like Jesus. I want the Holy Ghost to speak to me continuously and if that is going to happen, I have to be the one who takes the first step.


James 4:8 ‘Come near to God and he will come near to you’.

Still Small Voice

I was putting on my make-up for work the other morning and was contemplating how God seems to speak to me at what seems to me to be the most inopportune times, like at 4.30am in the morning when I am trying to go back to sleep, or while I am putting on my make-up when I am running late for work, or at midnight after a very long day and I want to go to bed.

But you know, He can and will speak to us at any time of the day and it doesn’t matter what we are doing. He’s not limited to the times when we are quietly reading the Bible or listening to worship music waiting for Him to talk to us and tell us something profound.

The Holy Spirit is living and breathing inside of us constantly ‘waiting’ to speak to us. When we are so focussed on the matter at hand sometimes we don’t even realise what He is saying or even that He is trying to tell us something. We need to learn to ‘hear’ the Holy Spirit when He talks to us, especially if He is interrupting us in the middle of something. He’s that still small voice that tells you to do something or write something down or don’t forget that but we usually choose to ignore it and keep on with our busy lives. God wants us to make Him our central focus so that He can speak to us at anytime… even at 4.30 in the morning.

A few years ago when I was on a skiing holiday with Craig in New Zealand, I really felt that I should phone my Nana who was living in New Zealand… although not even anywhere remotely close to where we were. I didn’t end up phoning her and my reasoning was that it would cost just as much to phone her from where I was as it would from at home, therefore it didn’t make much sense or difference anyway. So we just went on our merry way and the next afternoon we arrived back to our apartment and there was a message left for me to phone my mum or my uncle…it was in that very instant that I knew. My Nana hadn’t at all been sick and was very active and fit for someone of her age but she had unexpectedly passed away that very morning. You can guess that it was like a huge kick in my stomach when obviously God was so clearly speaking to me the day before.

Even still today I greatly regret not listening to that still small voice but I admit that I learnt an extremely valuable lesson and now more than ever try to listen when I get that niggling feeling.

"And behold, the Lord passed by, and a great and strong wind tore into the mountains and broke the rocks in pieces before the Lord, but the Lord was not in the wind; and after the wind an earthquake, but the Lord was not in the earthquake; and after the earthquake a fire, but the Lord was not in the fire; and after the fire a still small voice." 
1 Kings 19:11-12