Comfort

P 2421 The saga of the queue.

/ DVH

“For even the Son of Man did not come expecting to be served by everyone, but to serve everyone, and to give His life as the ransom price for the salvation of many.”” Mark 10:45 TPT. BTW, we would be wise to remember that just because lightning doesn’t strike us from heaven – that does not mean that the Lord approves of what we are doing!! It’s not called MERCY for nothing.

It’s verses like this one that convict my heart. You see, I was caught in our car recently, waiting for a half an hour, in 33 degree heat. It happened twice. There were very complicated road works and we were waiting to be given a green light so we could move on. Sadly my response was best not repeated here! I got my crank on. I was hot, hungry and not feeling well … I totally forgot I was not my own, and it was Jesus’ time that was being wasted not mine. 🙄

Let’s just think about the above verse for a minute as it applies to me in that situation. In reflection I realised I was expecting to be treated differently by a bunch of hard-working roadwork guys  … just because I wasn’t well etc. Yeah, I totally lost any kind of realism in those thoughts eh?!? Like they would know what was happening to me while they were digging ditches! 

The thing is – if I want to follow Jesus I’m probably going to go down a whole lot of difficult uncomfortable roads … that may have endless troubles — plus road-works!  However, instead of getting cranky I actually had plenty of time to pray for the poor boiling hot road workers digging away in 33 degree heat!  Rats! I definitely missed that opportunity. 😶 So today I wanted to include something in my blog that cut me to the heart – because it needed to. I urge you to read this like Jesus is speaking to you personally, I did!

I Hear His Whisper … hold nothing back from Me…

“I want to be Lord over every part of your life—over your joys and sorrows, hopes and fears, goals and disappointments. I don’t want you to hold anything back. Beloved, come face-to-face with Me. Stand in My Presence and ask for my Spirit to reveal the areas that you haven’t fully surrendered to Me. It’s time for you to release control of those parts of your life that you’ve held on to.

Let the searching gaze of My Spirit into the secret caverns of your heart. There are situations and people that I will gently bring to your remembrance. It’s important that you don’t push such a thought back down but acknowledge it and bring it to me. 

Any pain, fear, trust issues, bad habits, wrong attitudes, or areas that you’re still holding tightly to must be given to Me. They are not yours to control. I love you, and I will lovingly correct you and draw you into the place of safety, where you can lay these things at My feet, once and for all. It’s time for you to rise to a new level of freedom.” Written by Brian Simmons and Gretchen Rodreguiz

Sometimes stuff simply ‘gets’ at us. And before we know it, we are reacting – without asking for any help, or Grace. And then we end up wondering where our peace went! That’s a good time to remember Jesus’ OCEAN OF GRACE and His MERCY FOUNTAIN.  We get there by way of repentance but we don’t have to go either place via the road of shame! I can’t apologise to those particular road workers, who had no clue I was cranky at them. But I can repent and ask for the Lord’s help to change. After praying I found a whole lot of stuff inside that I had no idea existed. Including pride and resentment, plus entitlement … because I’m often ill… poor me! I was reminded again, that my time is His time and He can spend it how He likes. 

Secondly my comfort – or not, is now in His hands. I repented and spoke a blessing over the men working so hard to make the roads safer for everyone, and revised my attitudes. Being ill and tired is no excuse. Actually I’m doing my best to give up excusing myself, it’s a waste of time. I want to go straight to: “What’s the problem here Lord please?” 

The thing I’ve noticed is that if I am being truly honest, I also must leave behind that sickly sweet little voice – that comes from inside ME. It’s definitely not the Lord! That voice is soooo sympathetic and it says things like: “That’s OK, you can’t help it, you have a lot to deal with.” You know, not every voice we hear is the devil. Sometimes it’s just OUR FLESH! Yikes! 

Like I’ve said before, deception comes from careless choices, and there is no other place for that junk but the cross! I want to close by saying it is worth reflecting on the fact that Jesus came to serve, and to give His life as a ransom for many and He always had time for everybody – even when He was dying! So it’s no big deal if I’m asked to give a half an hour of my time, for a few hardworking road makers. 👋🏻

P 2420 A living faith!

/ DVH

Safety and Comfort can be weapons used by the enemy to prevent Christians from moving into their God-given destiny. This is not a thought any of us want to have… but … these two things may well be the biggest deterrent to Christians being totally sold-out to Jesus. Hey, I like having a house to sleep in, and a doctor I can go to when I am sick. I also like knowing my kids live right around the corner and the supermarket is five kms away.

But .. these things that look ‘normal’ are actually a trap. The truth is the best thing for our relationship with the Lord isn’t safety and comfort, because that’s when we kick off our shoes and coast along – and become careless about His plans. Have you noticed that ‘there ain’t nothin’ like trouble’ to improve your prayer life?!  And yes, I am speaking from personal experience. The problem in the Western World is that distraction and busyness are a way of life.

Whenever we read the Old Testament we can see that peace and ease sent the Israelites down the plug-hole very quickly. That is a warning to us! We are told in the bible that our lives are not our own, yet most times, for the past 50+ years or so, Christians in the Western World live happily settled lives in their own communities and very few take the Lord’s command to “Go and preach the gospel to all creatures …” seriously.  Actually, I’d like to paraphrase the way modern Christianity, it seems to me, has responded to the Lord’s command …. “Let’s send somebody else out into the world to preach the gospel …not me …I already have a life!” 

Yeah! I know, that statement is not going to make me popular. But the truth is — we are all missionaries … sent ones. I can’t find an exemption clause in anything Jesus said. Yet it seems — apparently — you don’t have to go if you have a family. Peter had a family. BUT … you don’t have to go if you have a job. Paul had a job. BUT… you don’t have to go if you are rich, giving is OK instead. And why don’t we want to go? Safety and comfort! That’s why. Hey, I have no rocks in my hands, I’ve just slept in 15 different hard and uncomfortable beds recently, I’m totally delighted to kick off my shoes and sleep in my own bed again!! 

Speaking personally, I wouldn’t care if I didn’t go outside the door at all, this world is pretty rough on the elderly and disabled. But then I remember… I have courageous brothers and sisters in other parts of the world. They are in places that are not safe or comfortable … Places where people point machine guns or send missiles, or they wave nasty cleavers and machetes at you with the intention of removing body parts. Those people definitely don’t appear to be gospel friendly! Yes, we can send money  to help others go… and we should. But “GO” still applies to me, uncomfortable and unsafe, or not.

Here’s a question for you … is Australia an atheist country? “According to NORC … 20.6% of Australians don’t believe in God and never have, while 9.7% are “strong atheists”. Of those aged under 28, 26.8% have never believed in God and just 14.7% are certain God exists.”  39% of people in this country have no religion at all!  Well, those figures don’t bode well do they? Even more disturbingly …48,000 people call themselves Jedi and worship the Force!  😱 The very least we could do is to tell these dear souls that ‘the force’ has a NAME and He’s the Holy Spirit Who is a gift from Jesus! Paul once used a god with no name on it, to preach Jesus.

The truth is, we all actually like our comfortable lives. We don’t want to be out in the middle of nowhere, where crows or magpies have to bring us food! Or maybe travel miles to talk to strangers. It doesn’t feel safe or comfortable. But, here’s a thought:  those people-who-don’t -know-Jesus-yet are walking about in our local supermarket. They are at the school gate, they work in the next cubicle at our office. 

And the good news is – we don’t have to convert them. We just need to ask the Holy Spirit to help us LOVE them. We  act like the good Samaritan, and make everyone our neighbour. Reaching out to others, is and will always be, paramount to maintaining a living faith. 👋🏻

P 2367 Our experiences with trouble are a cue to revise the way we live.

/ DVH

“We are like common clay jars that carry this glorious treasure within, so that this immeasurable power will be seen as God’s, not ours. Though we experience every kind of pressure, we’re not crushed. At times we don’t know what to do, but quitting is not an option. We are persecuted by others, but God has not forsaken us. We may be knocked down, but not out. We continually share in the death of Jesus in our own bodies so that the resurrection life of Jesus will be revealed through our humanity.”

Boy, these verses seem like my life story neatly expressed and typed out! Sometimes it seems like we lurch from one problem to the next. It’s like someone has been following me around and writing down what goes on. Can I be honest with you? Expecting this life to be like a Disney classic movie is more than optimistic, it is down-right idiotic. Life is full of sinful people, (I are one!), who seem to be getting more selfish by the minute. 

Meanwhile did you notice what it said in the above part of the scripture in 2 Corinthians 4? I bolded it to make it stand out. This life is destined to kill us …UM …Christians! … OFF, bit by bit. One heartache and/or pain after another. The Lord allows it so that people can see Jesus Christ through us. Trouble doesn’t mean we are out of God’s will, trouble means He is giving us an opportunity to let Him shine through us. The deader to self we are, the more He can shine. Now there’s an AIM! Let’s read on …

“We consider living to mean that we are constantly being handed over to death for Jesus’ sake so that the life of Jesus will be revealed through our humanity. So, then, death is at work in us but it releases life in you. We have the same Spirit of faith that is described in the Scriptures when it says, “First I believed, then I spoke in faith.” So we also first believe then speak in faith. We do this because we are convinced that He who raised Jesus will raise us up with Him, and together we will all be brought into His Presence.”

Did you get the bit that says living in Christ is actually MEANT to look like this? This suffering, this sorrow, this tide of disappointment and grief has a point. It is not random or just bad luck! Instead it is a gift to us to disentangle ourselves from striving and straining to make this life work! This means that now we have embraced Christ so thoroughly that His agenda is ours, and what He wants isn’t tacked onto a list of things we already have to do, or things we are supposed to do – in order to maintain our happy little lives. Instead it is the REASON we are all still here.

Have we forgotten that we are the people who have a HOPE? Our job is to spread that hope around. Our greatest sin just might be our SILENCE. We are not still here to have a happy little Disney-fied life and go off happily singing into the sunset. We are here to be His hands and feet in a world that doesn’t know Him yet. We have been given the privilege of showing forth His marvellous light in the midst of this world’s darkness. Ask Him to help you to talk to others about the hope within you, and then SPEAK. Find somebody to help and comfort. Our troubles don’t disqualify us, our trust in Christ qualifies us..

As an example of well carried-out-all-to-common selfishness, I recently watched a person in their 15 minutes of fame, telling a TV crew that they were fine after a 6.8 earthquake devastated Morocco all around them. They had not had one thought that maybe they could go and help those still trapped, because they are there on the spot! Heaven forbid that a catastrophe should spoil their holiday! What about the two thousand people who can’t say the same thing … because they died! Can it possibly be true that the Western world thinks these people in other countries exist for our holiday experiences and amusement? Boy at that moment I sure needed changing – my smacking hand got itchy! We watch disasters on TV,  feel sad, and then go about our own lives like we are not all living on the same planet. We are here to serve others, the bible makes it clear that we are to live this life with eternity in mind.

“….We view our slight, short-lived troubles in the light of eternity. We see our difficulties as the substance that produces for us an eternal, weighty glory far beyond all comparison, because we don’t focus our attention on what is seen but on what is unseen. For what is seen is temporary, but the unseen realm is eternal.” 2 Corinthians 4:7-18 TPT. Focussing on the unseen does not mean we just pray and walk away – that’s when we ask Him: “What would you like me to do about this?”

Where are the mighty ones of God Who see those who are suffering as a personal responsibility? If we are still breathing, then there is still time to change the way we think. It is a choice to let His glory shine through your little life, even if it means sharing someone else’s suffering. 👋🏻

P 2346 Be a conduit of comfort for someone else.

/ DVH

“All praises belong to the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ. For He is the Father of tender mercy and the God of endless comfort. He always comes alongside us to comfort us in every suffering so that we can come alongside those who are in any painful trial. We can bring them this same comfort that God has poured out upon us.” 2 Corinthians 1:3-4 TPT

What comforts you? Seriously. 😶 Do yourself a favour, don’t pretend – be truthful. In your little list of comforting things you could find family, potato chips, hugging your pet/kids, having a proper job, or enough to eat, perhaps somewhere warm to sleep, yummy chocolate, or maybe just a hot drink on a cold. 🤗 First of all I want to say that none of those things I’ve mentioned are inappropriate or wrong but … if you want to be truly comforted inside, where you feel so broken, or even give away true comfort to others – you will need a whole other source. God Himself.

Yeah … I know, Almighty God is kind of hard to get on the phone in a crisis. 😳 Yet it is astonishing how quickly human beings call out for Him when life presses in on us hard. People who say they don’t believe in Him start crying out: ‘God help me!’  We’ve been designed with a need to have God Himself as our primary source of comfort. And, as the scripture says, we will have nothing lasting to give others, that will still their spirits and bring them fresh hope -except God Himself. Whether we believe it, or even feel it, or not – the reality is – we are God’s chosen method to reach out to other people.  Please note the Lord does not push His way into anything – He loves volunteers. 

True comfort is very lacking in our modern world. Instead, the people around us stuff all sorts of things, like excesses of gambling, drugs and alcohol, other religions, even strange relationships, into the deep parts of their hearts hoping to alleviate their pain and ongoing suffering. I’m not going to comment about whether that actually works or not – because today I am talking about US passing on something we have already received from God Himself on to someone else in need. 

It almost goes without saying that the reality is, we have nothing lasting to give if we do not trust our Jehovah Jireh our Provider, as our Source to be there and help us. So how do we do this? We begin by renewing our minds as a priority, so any rumour or innuendo or inaccuracy will start to kind of slide off us, because our first response to something that is a bit ‘off’ is this: ‘I don’t remember reading that stuff in my bible!” And then we go away and check out whatever it is, in the book. And THEN we believe what the book says, above what we think or feel. 

I have seen God comfort someone else with the dumbest, weirdest scriptures. Things that appear to have absolutely no relevance to this person’s situation AT ALL and yet, comfort entered into them immediately. I literally watched it happen. I didn’t even give them the scriptures that the Holy Spirit had used to comfort me in the past. I just did and said what He said and watched Him move.  At that moment, I became a conduit for the Father’s loving comfort to flow through me. 

This is our destiny – yours and mine – to give away what God gives us. Not just good advice or even scriptures we know off by heart – unless the Holy Spirit highlights something in particular to us. Our response comes directly from the One Who used His word to comfort us. These times are also opportunities for us to experience ‘God’s love for me,’ personally. People can get caught up in seeking after experiences, but at times like this a scripture can jump out at us – almost with flashing lights. Just as clearly as a sign flashing in our heads, it dawns on us that God Himself just spoke to us. And that’s comforting. Not only does Almighty God know … He cares and we have proof.  These things become our own personal memorial stones.

Maybe a phone call comes unexpectedly, and a loved one, or a brother or sister in the Lord, has been moved by Him enough to call to see how we are doing. To comfort someone else with that kind of supernatural comfort, all we need to do is pray, listen, and OBEY.  That’s all it takes to make us a Godly conduit of comfort for someone else. 👋🏻

P 2318 Keep His sap flowing!

/ DVH

… We are the love of His!

The fruit of the Spirit is love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness etc. Another way to say that  is this — the visible fruit of OUR connection with the Holy Spirit is patience, kindness, goodness etc. IF you don’t got the fruit then guess what? YOU’VE LOST YOUR CONNECTION! 

Jesus taught about abiding in and staying in the vine;  which means that the sap of the vine is constantly available to grow fruit. Love joy peace etc. all these things come from that connection.  The connection produces the fruit – it is not who we are, but Who He is! Staying connected to Him, means I will die daily. It’s automatic. Disconnection means I’ve chosen my own comfort, my way, my control … over what Jesus wants!

How do we stay connected to the vine? At the very moment that we want to give in to suffering or despair or anger or retaliation, we ask for His help and choose Jesus and connection with Him, over self expression. Then we shut-up and wait to see what He will do. When we choose His ways we are choosing to let the sap of the Holy Spirit keep flowing into us and through us in an ongoing fashion. His sap does us good. Fruit comes as a result of that connection to the vine. Self-control is one of His fruit – this means we choose to do things His way, asking for His help — which means we are controlling ourselves.

Ordinary FRUIT like apples, need work. It needs tending, Every time you give in to your feelings, your anger, your need to be vindicated, you’re short-circuiting the fruit cycle, you are stopping the fruit from ‘setting.’ Good fruit needs that constant supply of sap. This is why sometimes the fruit in the supermarket can be bad in the middle or taste terrible, — it hasn’t been connected to the tree for a VERY long time and it is starting to rot from the inside out. No sap = no fresh fruit.

We also know this from our own experience if we’ve ever tried to grow tomatoes and we have compared them to the ones in the supermarket, the ones in the supermarket have little to no flavour. This by the way, is why they are now selling tomatoes there for more money as ‘on the vine,’ so any residue of sap in the stalk will help to keep the tomato fresh. 

Sap needs to flow. Any obstruction to the passage of sap simply needs to be cleared away. Spiritually speaking, here’s what I do: I acknowledge my fault to the Lord, and whoever else is involved, then I repent, and because I have no confidence than I’m not going to do the same the dumb thing again 10 minutes later, I ask for help. 

Asking for help does not mean that God will take over. We are not glove puppets with someone else’s hand controlling us. We are real life, wilful, opinionated human beings, who like control more than submission and yielding. Humility is needed.Tell the other person/s that you are having a hard time holding your tongue and ask the other person to pray for you. That’ll fix it immediately! 

We ask for His help and then step out in the right direction. The right direction = what Jesus said, what the bible says. And then act USING YOUR FAITH. It is way too easy to ask for help and then go on to blame God when you are still the same nasty grump 10 minutes later. Intentions matter, but they are not everything. Our intentions need to be turned into actions.  Keep looking at Jesus, keep on walking – keep doing what He would do.

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Expecting the other person to make the difference is just plain stupid. It is way better to ask the Lord, “What do I do now?” I can’t tell you how many times He’s told me, “Shut up and listen.” By the way, listen doesn’t just mean understanding the words, it means hearing the other person’s heart, and their anguish. 

Please note you will hardly EVER feel like letting go of your comments and opinions – especially if the other person is still going on at you … OR even WORSE, GLOATING over you.  Other people’s actions and reactions are on them. That single fact has taught me heaps about CHOICE. We are the Lord’s great love … everything else fades away when we look at that …our fruit makes His heart glad 👋🏻

“May my Beloved come into His garden And eat its choice fruits!” Song of Songs 4:16b

P 2260 Kingdom farming!

/ DVH

Matthew 13:31-32 “He (Jesus) told them another parable: “The kingdom of heaven is like a mustard seed, which a man took and planted in his field. Though it is the smallest of all seeds, yet when it grows, it is the largest of garden plants and becomes a tree, so that the birds come and perch in its branches.”

The kingdom of God it is described by the Lord, as being like many things: a treasure, a pearl, many seeds, family treasure, leaven, sprouting seeds, a net, and for today’s blog – a mustard seed. The more we tend to His kingdom in our lives, the bigger it grows. The more we cultivate, acknowledge, and obediently interact with His kingdom in our lives, the more we will grow. This means that other people can come to our little ‘kingdom of God mustard tree’ and shelter in its safety.

We don’t make this tree grow by ourselves – the ground it is planted in does. A whole lot of people move around from one church to another in Christian circles, because they decide they don’t like the soil they were planted in! Imagine a tree that moves around?? In His kingdom we do not grow because of the soil – we grow as we accept that it is our destiny to grow, and dry ground or rocks provide us with the opportunity to adapt and grow stronger. 

Every time you and I do whatever the Lord says in the book, on purpose, His way … we are nourishing the kingdom of God within us. Just like we would fertilise and water a mustard seed plant. That seed inside us is nurtured by  obedience and by us choosing to abide where we were planted. Saying ‘no’ to yourself in difficult moments, and ‘yes’ to God’s way, can seem very insignificant, but when we live that way, we are providing the right atmosphere for the Kingdom of God to grow inside us. We are abiding!

Sadly, we can’t just speak about growth and claim it, and hope it will magically appear. Like I said a tree when it has been planted – does not pull up its roots if it doesn’t like the spot it is in and go walk-about. It yields to and adapts to its circumstances. This means WE will need to change. The major point of this parable is that this particular seed is destined for greater things. It is there to grow and provide safety for others. When we have deep roots, our ‘tree’ won’t just flop over when a storm hits. Storms, I have decided, are inevitable. We cannot prevent them. Despite all our efforts to the contrary, we can’t control much of anything. Sadly, in some circumstances, we can’t even control ourselves!

It is also important to take the time to meditate on the fact that His kingdom has no end. So every time we co-operate with His kingdom coming into our lives, we are touching the eternal… and the eternal is touching us. Like I said before, we are providing for others when we live this way. I’ve watched this happen through my husband’s attitude toward strangers. He believes in the kingdom of God within Him and He knows God wants to touch others! 

Recently our bank changed its system. Yay! We were told if we did thus and thus all would be well. Naturally, we promptly did thus and thus – BUT … all was not well! The bank had provided for this time of change by listing a number we could call. Hubby called the number. But as he was talking with the bank operator, he empathised with her about what a tough day she must be having, because she had to deal with so many calls. Hubby cared for her, instead of getting grumpy because this new system inconvenienced us. She opened up to him like a sunflower. The young lady came into his mustard tree’s shade and was able to rest. For a few minutes she was free from having to explain her work’s policy and she was able to be herself. They had a great chat and in the end, all was finally well!

Matthew 13:10-12 says this: “The disciples came to Him and asked, “Why do you speak to the people in parables?” He replied, “Because the knowledge of the secrets of the kingdom of heaven has been given to you, but not to them. Whoever has will be given more, and they will have an abundance…”

The way to get an abundance of His love to give away, and provide shelter for others, is to cherish and nurture His kingdom within us. His kingdom must go deep inside us – this means it will challenge and expose flaws and hindrances to growth. But many many people will find rest, comfort, encouragement, healing and a greater knowledge of God Himself in our own personal mustard tree. This is why we need to be good Kingdom farmers – so people can personally, “…taste and see that the Lord is good!” 🌳 Bye 👋🏻

P 2173 The way through to love.

/ DVH

Recently I realised that my inability to love some of the difficult people I know is actually a weakness in my character. Well yay! Boy did I get happy! 🥳 🎉!! No, I haven’t lost my mind – I think I actually finally found it again. The renewed bit anyway. You see, I remembered something from the bible. My bible says – ‘His strength is made PERFECT in my weaknesses.’ The Apostle Paul struggled with this, yet he says in 2 Corinthians 12:8-10. “when I am weak then He is strong!”  Plus it says to ‘rejoice’ or ‘take pleasure’ in our weaknesses! The greater the resistance to change, the more potential I have to build up strength … 

A lack of love in me reminds me that I have an opportunity to throw myself upon His strength, His mercy, His Grace, and all I need to do is to let Him help me. The Holy Spirit won’t sovereignly just take over and do it for me, I have to resist the devil for myself, and draw near to Jesus. Now, with His help, I have positioned myself to become a channel of the Holy Spirit’s love toward that other person. I simply need to follow the His prompts, step by step. Plus I will probably have to do quite a bit of ‘holding my tongue’ as well! That’s when I ask for His Grace.

My husband shared this thought with me the other day, about hearing the Holy Spirit. He said: ‘If we can hear the enemy, inside our heads, accusing us and reminding us of our faults etc. – then we can most definitely hear the Lord of ALL telling us He loves us and guiding us into His ways!’ The bible says our enemy accuses us ‘day and night before the throne of Grace.’ However, the One sitting on that throne IS THE GREATER ONE! Ya might want to think on that for a bit! Moving on …

If we choose to want to see His good in difficult situations, or ask Him to show us something good in them … that is when we cultivate looking through His Eyes of Love. Because: ‘Love hopes all things, believes all things etc.’ Nevertheless, we can’t do that repairing and restoring work by ourselves – we always need Him! When His Presence becomes more important than my opinion and hurt feelings, I am in a prime position to overcome what comes AT me. When we set our hearts to see the good in situations, that’s when He helps us, and we will start to see other people the way He sees them. Looking at sinful humanity through the Lord’s eyes is life transforming. Jesus is incredibly compassionate …

Then I need to remember that the Lord dearly l❤️ves Me, and His love is not based on my performance it is based on His own Character. Whenever I feel rejected and unaccepted, that’s when I can easily react, instead of acting in faith. His new life inside my heart will remind me from His Word, how to give away acceptance in the face of rejection. I always have the power to change my responses, but I need to use my faith to access that power. I have to put down what happened to me, and how I feel about it, and deliberately ask Him for His eternal viewpoint. 

You and I are always able give grace away, because we also need to constantly go to the cross ourselves to receive His grace for our own stinky sinful attitudes. We live this life of faith in a place of utter gratitude, this means I can give away love because I already have His love shed abroad in my heart. Love looks like the cross – and the cross is a place of suffering – you die (to self) there. 

In those moments when we choose to die to self and say nothing – or even proactively extend kindness;  we are refusing to bow down to our own limited understanding. Instead we seek His greater wisdom. It helps me to remember that the other people involved may not be following the Lord’s heaven-made script at this particular unhappy moment in my interaction with them. This is actually my moment to learn …but it may not be theirs.🤗

We don’t always have to like this process – nobody wants to walk with the Lord through the valley of the shadow of death! And dying to self is a form of death. Think about this for a minute, do you need to find God? He is always in that valley! The 23rd Psalm tells us that He is there to comfort us. Let us remember He suffered at the hands of mankind too! 👋🏻

P 2120 We need to protect our sense of expectation….

/ DVH

…so ask the Holy Spirit to help you keep it!  I’ve learnt, first-hand, that I can do nothing without Him.. (John15:5b) 

Isaiah 40:1-10 “Comfort, yes, comfort my people,” says your God. “Speak tenderly to Jerusalem and tell her that her sad days are gone. Her sins are pardoned, and I have punished her in full for all her sins.”

Listen! I hear the voice of someone shouting, “Make a road for the Lord through the wilderness; make Him a straight, smooth road through the desert. Fill the valleys; level the hills; straighten out the crooked paths, and smooth off the rough spots in the road. The glory of the Lord will be seen by all mankind together.” The Lord has spoken—it shall be.

The voice says, “Shout!” “What shall I shout?” I asked.“Shout that man is like the grass that dies away, and all His beauty fades like dying flowers. The grass withers, the flower fades beneath the breath of God. And so it is with fragile man. The grass withers, the flowers fade, but the word of our God shall stand forever.”

O crier of good news, shout to Jerusalem from the mountaintops! Shout louder—don’t be afraid—tell the cities of Judah, “Your God is coming!” Yes, the Lord God is coming with mighty power; He will rule with awesome strength. See, His reward is with Him, to each as he has done.” 

Some of you lovely people out there in blog-land have been praying about difficult stuff in your lives for so long – the result is that now you try not to think about those things anymore. I hear ya! Me too! But  there are verses like this in Isaiah. The Lord said to tell you: HE’S COMING… Just like He said to His disciples at the tomb of Lazarus – ‘this DELAY is to glorify God.’  The question is not: “is He coming?’  It is … “will we wait for Him?”

Sometimes things have to get to the place that human beings call impossible. We are incredibly creative, inventive beings … after all, we are made in His image! We figure heaps of stuff out – check out the Tower of Babel sometime. The Lord does not postpone His arrival on the scene of our lives to frustrate us or lead us into despair – He is just doing something else, much bigger than we can imagine. 

Here’s another scripture that comforts me a lot. Let me set the scene … in Revelation 5 there is an incredibly important scroll mentioned – an angel asks: ‘who is worthy enough to open this scroll?’ And, get this – no-one was!They couldn’t find one worthy person, and there are angels, elders etc. etc. flat on their faces worshipping Almighty God. Here we are IN HEAVEN, and nobody can open that scroll because even in that incredible group nobody was found worthy. They start to weep, because everybody wants to know what is in the scroll. We are not told how long they waited because time is irrelevant in eternity. They are all just waiting… waiting … waiting…Does that sound familiar??

Here it is – Revelation 5:5 “Then one of the elders said to me, “Do not weep! See, the Lion of the tribe of Judah, the Root of David, has triumphed. He is able to open the scroll and its seven seals.” Yay! It’s our precious Jesus!!  👏 ONLY HE can!  Now, there are also angels at that scene with harps, and golden bowls full of the prayers of the saints. OUR PRAYERS ARE NOT LOST just because they have not been answered, yet. They simply have not reached the tipping point … but they will. When I pray and there is no visible answer – I just keep giving the person, subject, situation, back to the only One Who was found worthy – in Heaven – to open that scroll. Jesus Christ is a PERSON. A Man.  He is totally God and man in one glorious, holy, redemptive Person!

Actually, one of the last things He did before He died, was to make sure His Mum was taken care of – how utterly human is that? We can trust this Man, He understands human beings – He IS one. Like Isaiah says, in chapter 40, our sins are pardoned. The sad days are gone because God has already heard us. At the same time, while I’m waiting … personally, I go into the road-making business – I look for weeds, rocks and stones that might be in the way of making the path straight for Jesus and I ask the Holy Spirit to keep my expectations in Him high.

We are the pathway that Jesus walks on to reach those people we care about. The more we let Him change us – the clearer that road becomes. Don’t postpone change because it looks impossible – there is an Answer right now, in heaven. And we also have the Answer with US right here on earth. Jesus Christ, Son of Man and Son of God – His Spirit is with us. 👋🏻

P 2106 I have a gift for you…and it’s a big one!

/ DVH

It’s 4.02am at my house – and I was awake, thinking about YOU and praying for you. I thought about a gift that I would like to send to you, with love, for Christmas. 🤗 So here it is 🎁  …”Be still before the Lord and wait patiently for Him : do not fret when people succeed in their ways, when they carry out their wicked schemes. Refrain from anger and turn from wrath;  do not fret—it leads only to evil  For those who are evil will be destroyed, but those who hope in the Lord will inherit the land.” Psalm 37:7-9 Presents often look pretty on the outside, but it’s actually what’s inside that counts. Let’s ‘unwrap’ this one.

So, the above scripture is my gift to you for today. What does it mean to: ‘be still before the Lord?’ For me it means give up. Give up whatever it is that is bugging me, making me cry, or causing me awful pain – LET. IT.GO. I know I sound like a Disney movie (!!) ❄️ But doing this works. And after that, every single time I start churning away about whatever it is that is bothering me – I let it go again. I’ve learnt that I need to give myself breathing space when it comes to difficult situations – being hurt or angry uses up a whole lot of energy! 

Meanwhile can I suggest you take tissues, tea, coffee, or water with you when you go and sit somewhere where you won’t be disturbed?  And please try to refrain from punching walls! 💥 Sadly you will only hurt yourself and then you will have physical pain as well as mental and emotional anguish. 🙄 Now, sit down and mentally, prayerfully, push the problem away from you. I usually tell the Lord … and yes, this happens to me quite often! … “I can’t do this anymore, and I’m absolutely sure I’m stuck. I need a new plan. I can’t fix … (insert whatever it is) … so I’m giving it to You, I don’t want it anymore.”

‘This thing’ – the current problem, could be a difficult situation, or a person who acts like your enemy, or even unanswered prayer. The first thing that needs to be realised is that when we give something to Jesus – it isn’t lost. I haven’t thrown it away, I SIMPLY GAVE IT TO SOMEONE WAY BETTER AT FIXING THINGS THAN I AM. I can still see the problem, but now I’ve taken my hands off it.  BTW, don’t make excuses for the other person. That is a dead end street, unless the Lord gives you something that you know to be true, and then you can pray FOR them. But excusing other people’s behaviour eventually leads to compounding your own frustration. Plus I’ve found that you can get very tired very quickly when the other person stays where they are – and you appear to be doing all the work! 

Next, I talk to Him about how I feel about whatever it is. This bit is extremely important, but please don’t get stuck there! We can end up building hatred and anger inside us if we revise who did what and start surmising why they did it or how it happened. (This is the “refraining from anger and turning away from wrath” bit.) The important thing is to get YOU out of the way and get whatever it is into the Lord’s hands. Then I simply repent. I remind myself that I am talking to Jesus and if I cannot be honest with Him, then He and I have a problem! Maybe I have tipped over into bitterness – which is another good place to humble myself and repent. 

I don’t have to feel bad about being honest with the Lord, He personally took my sin and nailed it to the cross. He already knows what I did. I usually spend a while doing this, mulling over my own responses and how I contributed to what happened. Then I admit that I wanted to thump whoever it was, but now I am over it … or not … as the case may be. “Help help” works here. Then I ask Him to heal my heart from the awful pain of betrayal and grief inside. I tell Him I want to change and I am prepared to fight my own natural responses so I can give Him room to change them.

Then I follow the instructions in the scripture and I exercise the power of choice. I may still feel incredibly angry … but, nevertheless, I still have a choice. This is part of relinquishment. We need to understand that we are powerless to change things, or other people, and we can get very stuck with their awful choices. But the point is, we don’t want to let their bad choices ruin our walk with Jesus – or our own lives! The Psalmist says: ‘do not fret when people get their own way. and it hurts you…’ (My translation) Trust me, I too have a long list of people that I know who qualify for that statement – but that does not negate my own responsibility.

Did you get the bit that says: ‘they succeed in their ways.’ Yeah. 😶 They wanted to hurt you and they did, and they meant to do it! But what are you gunna do about it? Are you going to let a person who intends to hurt you, control your life, your thoughts, your actions, your responses? Personally, I want Jesus to be  in charge – He faced a lot of mean people in His time and He knows how to do this stuff and get through it. BTW if I feel overwhelmed with pain, it is OK to let Him comfort me, because He was overwhelmed too. I remind myself that HE has a plan for me – it’s for my good. 

Plus, He is wa-ay smarter than my enemy. He knows how to get through this thing without it taking away my peace. That is why it is good to put Him in charge. He is so brilliant, He can take what was meant to harm me and work it together for my own good. And at the same time, He has a plan for the other person/people too. EVERYBODY BENEFITS WHEN WE PUT JESUS IN CHARGE. People who are deliberately malicious don’t get away with their actions – they will eventually have to face HIM – this Psalm says so! “…and it is a fearful thing to fall into the hands of the living God.”

At this moment in the process of unwrapping this present, you and I have another choice. The problem, or person, and/or the situation, is now over there, with the Lord. Will we walk away and leave it there? Or will we feel temporarily better from sharing, crying, yelling etc., and talking to Him … and then go and pick it up again as we leave? Or will we walk away free – knowing that the King of the Universe has got our back, and He is going to use this difficult situation to increase our trust in His goodness. Enjoy the present and have a great day. 👋🏻

PS. Hands on – my problem … Hands off – His problem.