Electricity

P 2931 Sometimes life is awful …

/ DVH

…and there ain’t nuthin’ I can do about it, except pray that everything that is going badly will be redeemed by the One Who redeemed me! 

I had a tooth filled yesterday. The whole thing was an unexpected miracle. The tooth broke once, so we had to quickly make an appointment … then it, like … really broke and the appointment was already in place. 🙌 Let me tell you that poor tooth was basically non-existent. I shan’t bore you with details except to say that my marvellous dentist from Venezuela, totally fixed it. He has mega skills! All I knew was my gnasher was in a terrible way and when he took out the old filling, what was left was ridiculous… What tooth!? Meanwhile, I’m immune-suppressed and I thought I heard the Holy Spirit whisper: “ …take antibiotics.” So I did.

Well, goodie! Now I have oesophageal spasms, because the antibiotics can bring them on. Ho-hum. My inner PH goes wild and gets cranky, and basically I don’t cope much. Plus I get candidiasis in a whole lot of places nobody wants it. Sigh. And now here’s the clincher … the electricity at my house, has been turned off for 8 hours. No feet up in my reclining chair when I feel awful, no power for computers, no lights, no kettle, … and suddenly I can feel myself slip-sliding away down the down-a-later of …“poor me.” 

You know it sure is good to sing songs of victory when everything is great, but I gotta say, it definitely improves my prayer life when they are not! Sadly, I had an actual plan for today — I was going to see my mum after our trip. Well, that’s off. People groaning in pain are a bit off-putting. So what am I on about by writing all this dismal stuff? Well, I’m just trying to keep it real. The bible says clearly that we will all have these days, however, nobody in their right mind seeks them out! They just land on us and then we can be stuck under a mountain of disappointment and have to pray our way out.

Of course, when circumstances get bad, it is also easy to blame everyone else around us for what has happened, and make them miserable too – OR – we can draw near to God because He has promised He will draw near to us. At that point I just have to wrangle my feelings and tell them they are not the boss of me! The marvellous thing about loving and knowing Jesus is that the Lord totally understands how human beings feel — I just love Him even more for that!  Let’s look in Hebrews 4:15

“Now that we know what we have—Jesus, this great High Priest with ready access to God—let’s not let it slip through our fingers.We don’t have a priest who is out of touch with our reality. He’s been through weakness and testing, experienced it all—all but the sin. So let’s walk right up to Him and get what He is so ready to give. Take the mercy, accept the help.”Yes please!! 

Isn’t that verse just incredible? Maybe you didn’t get it … it often takes me a while … it said mercy, God’s mercy and help is always available to us. Never undervalue the privilege of mercy! How amazing that God Himself would choose to come here, into this world that is plagued by our own greed, torment and anger, plus satan’s nasty little surprises, and He deliberately chose to identify with us, personally. This day is already looking up! ‘Dear Lord please keep the guys up working on the light poles safe, thank You,’ Amen… and God bless my super-skilled dentist too!  

Now to some more good things to think on. Did you know that my hubby is not just an excellent seed-sower, he also looks after me? He cooks, he cleans, he makes beds, he helps me shower, dresses me, keeps track of all my medicines, and he is emotionally supportive on hard days. Yeah I know, how DID I get that blessed, right?

On our last trip, a two and half feet long sofa jumped up and attacked him, right on the top of the middle finger and he broke it, very badly. I shan’t go into how the whole “sofa fell on his finger” thing happened, but he soldiered-on still taking care of all this day-to-day stuff. He also doesn’t complain much. And for the past two days he has been helping our single-mother daughter and her son move house. Our son has been there helping her pack for weeks – thank you God for such a thoughtful, helpful son too.  

So what on earth am I doing? As I am sitting in my dark house with spasms that fold me up like a deck chair… but … I’m counting my blessings. When I’m not coping I need to look at the precious things God has given me in my life. Depending on the level of discouragement that came and sat on me, I might need to press in while I am doing it! Otherwise those things start to set-up camp in my brain and I can end up going over and over all the stuff I can’t cope with! And before I know it, I’ve forgotten that I am redeemed and I’ve started acting like the people-who-don’t-know-Him-yet!

Our greatest strength is not in us, no matter how resilient we are — it lies in what Jesus has already done for us before we were ever born. Because of Him we have a chance to experience the supernatural. As we ask Him to help us to cope;  and He takes the pain away;  or He reveals more of Himself;  or He brings His peace with Him;  we will enter even more deeply into our own personal relationship with Him. Now it is based upon our own private revelation of how much He loves us … and that’s priceless. 

Sometimes life is awful. ← That’s a full stop right there. Bye. 👋

P 2821 Wisdom.

/ DVH

Proverbs 4:7-9,13. “The beginning of wisdom is this: Get wisdom. Though it cost all you have, get understanding. Cherish her, and she will exalt you;  embrace her, and she will honour you. She will give you a garland to grace your head and present you with a glorious crown.”……Hold on to instruction, do not let it go; guard it well, for it is your life.”

I would just like to begin by saying that Wisdom is not just being clever or smart or super intelligent. Wisdom is choosing to see this life from Almighty God’s POV. It is deliberately asking for, and then carrying out His Ways, even when those ways appear to undermine our own logic and day-to-day experiences. How many people do you know Who can walk on water and feed thousands with a kid’s lunch? The Lord thinks differently to us.

Today, the people of the 21st Century are getting smarter and smarter. We even have smart cars that drive themselves — which is pretty clever considering the first combustion engine was invented in 1600, and the first car in 1885! Henry Ford invented the first affordable car and he used mass production for the first time to do it. (1908)  The 20th century has totally changed our world – helping us with this, and entertaining us with that.

Before that men were tinkering away in their workshops, plus earning a living. Women were slogging away in their homes … minus electric anything. Electricity became commonly useable in 1880! So there were no washing machines (1868), vacuum cleaners, (1901) disposable nappies (1930) etc. etc. Up until the first world war, women did all the work in the house, and then in 1914 they joined the work force out of necessity. My point is that it is easy to see people are smart …but God’s wisdom is a whole other way to think, and that’s why the writer of Proverbs exhorts us to go after it and seek it out. God’s wisdom does not lie about like a lost newspaper, we have to actively go after it.

The Apostle Paul suggests we renew our minds, all the time, because our minds are ‘me’ centred.  What we believe to be true can simply be our way of making God serve us. And if we are ticked off at someone, then we can easily get to be ‘them’ centred. No wonder Jesus talked about logs and specks, it can be so easy to ignore what’s wrong with me … I often think to myself: “how can you see at all round that blooming great log you are currently nurturing.” Sigh. 

The Lord thinks differently than we do. In His Ways – the first are last, the last first. The guy who works all day in the hot sun, gets paid the same as the guy who just started working at afternoon tea time! The guy whose theology was often wonky and small like a pebble – the Lord called a rock and He put that man in charge. Jesus throws a wedding feast and when the invited guests refuse to come He sends His disciples out to compel anybody going by to come to the feast. Jesus even washed the feet of his known betrayer. Who does that? God – that’s Who!

He doesn’t think like we do! Do I hear a hearty hallelujah?! I know I’ve got one. The sneaky way human beings think, and the way they present things is destructive and deceptive. Many people today are run by money. Even the people who haven’t got any! We settle for pity or attention instead of real love. I think the Lord’s greatest disappointment with His people is that we bail out too easily. The tough not only don’t get going … they get lost … on purpose!! (There’s a double negative in there somewhere!)

The wisdom of God is active – it mends, it creates, it opens new doors, brings about new opportunities, it gives people a chance to make a fresh start every single day.“The steadfast love of the Lord never ceases, His mercies never come to an end… they are new every morning, new every morning, great is thy faithfulness O Lord, great is thy faithfulness.”  Now there’s an advertising campaign that would make many people sit up! BTW, God doesn’t make empty promises, if He says His love is new every morning, then it is!

His Word gives us the opportunity to seek fresh wisdom every single day, but we have to choose to open the bible and meditate on what He is saying to us, personally. Almighty God speaks human but do human beings speak God? I know One Man Who did! Praise the Lord someone wrote that stuff down. Wisdom enables us to understand His Ways like nothing else can. The Word of our God stands forever – because that Word is a Person – Who paid the price, lived the life, and died an unmerited death. Jesus gives us access to God’s loving Wisdom for free! Bye. 👋

“Wisdom cries aloud in the street, in the markets she raises her voice:  at the head of the noisy streets she cries out;
at the entrance of the city gates she speaks: “How long, O simple ones, will you love being simple? How long will scoffers delight in their scoffing and fools hate knowledge? If you turn at my reproof, behold, I will pour out my spirit to you; I will make my words known to you.” Proverbs 1:20-23.

P 2791 Let’s simplify life.

/ DVH

There are many kinds of difficulties in this life, and they occur because real life is not full of rainbows, unicorns and happy endings with blue birds! Instead we get to live day by day with ever-increasing complicated systems that don’t work. Yet our daily delight is to advertise the Lord by the way we treat others – even when they annoy the living daylights out of us.

The other day hubby was explaining stuff very carefully to a person, or maybe it was AI  …whatever-it-was on the other end of the phone! Meanwhile it took him 15 minutes to reach a voice!  AI? Actually it could have been someone who was not the brightest light bulb in the box. He explained to whoever it was on the other end —— that he did not want to be transferred to their local office, because he had already phoned there and they didn’t supply what he wanted. He needed another outcome please. The person listened, said “one moment please” and immediately transferred him to the place he just said he didn’t want to go! There’s a test on self control coming up!!

He went round the merry-go-round three four times before he found someone who was a genuine, regular, breathing proper person. And NO! We will not tell you where that real person is, we found her … she’s ours! Find your own. My hubby loathes phoning large companies. He would honestly rather walk to Alice Springs, than phone the gas company, the electricity company, the bank, the insurance people, the hospital or the government … that last one will really show you where your heart is! It’s an ace diagnostic tool!

It’s not just the wasted time, it’s also the wretched “hold please” music, which is never to your taste and incredibly loud … but you can’t turn it down. So you have to hold the phone away from the your ear, and that means you can miss out on the little voice, that turns up … after 3 months, and if you miss them, then … you go round and round again! “You are tenth in the queue … you are 24th in the queue … ” Huh? How come I went backward? I told hubby the other day when he had been on the phone for hours, circling the drain – that it is OK to be furious with AI!! 

Eventually, when you get off the phone you want to get rid of that explosion of fury you’ve built up, because you want  to walk in Grace. No wonder some people have thinning hair – they must have been pulling it out in frustration. The directions drive you nuts! Press 1, press 7 … press 484 … that’ll get ya where you want to go  …or not! You can end up playing word bingo and you have to guess the right word. Some organisations are like MI6. You need a password to get in!

I’m old! When I use the phone I am hoping to talk to a real person, with a name, and hopefully an address, A proper human VOICE on the other end, that actually understands my questions. I do not want ABU DHABI, I want to find my parcel! And how the heck did it end up in Abu Dhabi in the first place? The other week hubby had to press one cyclic number so many times —because the list of possible destinations for the call were so large that he couldn’t remember them. And he had to start again .. five times! He was stuck like that on the phone for hours — getting nowhere. It’s like hurtling along on a roller coaster. It’s a terrible ride and you can’t get off. Plus you need a rubbish bin to throw up into when it finishes.

BUT, if you don’t phone, then you run the risk of having whatever service that you-suddenly-instantly-wish-you-didn’t-have … cut off! You are informed by the ‘voice’ you must be polite, not sexist, not racist, not homophobic or religious or angry or they will terminate the call.Yet they seem to enjoy poking the bear!! Sigh. Apparently the police can turn up at your house tomorrow to carry you off to Abu Dabi — where hopefully you just might find your parcel!  After you’ve been on the phone for hours, you need a strong cup of coffee, a nice sticky bun and a long lie down. 

AI, BTW, is not even remotely helpful because it doesn’t have enough options — especially the one YOU want! Tragically we are all sunk, forevermore. At the same time is incredibly galling to see advertisements telling us how convenient their phone systems are. I do hope they find Alice in that Wonderland!

I think the Lord Jesus was incredibly wise to have entered this world at a time when life was so much simpler! After these phone call episodes we have found ourselves longing for a life without phones, and their accompanying annoying institutions. The government in Jesus’ day simply killed you if you bothered them. And if you were sick, then Jesus healed you – or you died!  A simple life is the thing, that’s what I say. 

So if you do get trapped on a phone going round and round for days, try singing your favourite Christian songs loudly so you don’t lose your cool.  NOTE OF WARNING — but not into the receiver because you are not allowed to be religious. You might also read the bible out loud – again — not into the phone!  Bye …📞