Good gifts

P 3091 Define the word ‘gift!’

/ DVH

“Every good and perfect gift is from above, coming down from the Father of the heavenly lights, Who does not change like shifting shadows.”James 1:17.“Ask, and the gift is yours. Seek, and you’ll discover. Knock, and the door will be opened for you.”Matthew 7:7 TPT.

If I were to ask you to define what you think a good gift looks like, what would you say? A happy life, travel, health, a nice house, great kids, plenty of money …a happy wife? Here’s a side note … the bible talks about finding a wife. “He who finds a wife finds a good thing, And obtains favour from the LORD.” God has a whole other take on what He thinks good gifts look like! That cranky wife is His gift to you  – you prayed for transformation!

It seems to me that we have translated the above scriptures in James and Matthew to mean that ‘I’ get to define what a good gift looks like! Good luck with that one. Why? Because only God is good … so He is the only One we can trust to define what good looks like! You might like to put your false teeth back in and chew on that one. God’s idea of good, and ours aren’t always the same. The bible tells us in Isaiah 53:10 that: ‘…it pleased the Lord to bruise Jesus’ – His Son.

Father God looks through the difficulties and pain to the overall end result. Jesus’ death meant salvation for all of us! He will use every bit of our journey through hard things – to grow, and diagnose and transform us. I believe human beings cannot discern good, because our minds are saturated with bitterness, resentment, troubles, worries and strife … as well as the so-called pleasures of this world! Somehow all that stuff skews our thinking, and we end up focusing only on the things that we think are advantageous to US, and not on the overall benefit to everyone. 

While our minds are in defensive or offended mode – we cannot easily see whatever is going on in that other person. We’ve been emotionally and mentally distracted, and we will be clouded by our own self-interest. Maybe a nasty attitude in another person is a demonic influence. Maybe it’s a habit, or maybe they are in nine kinds of pain!! But because we are prepared for pickiness, or fight, or flight, that means we are not in a prayerful position to receive heaven’s download about the situation.

The Holy Spirit always has a contribution to make … a gift.  A word of knowledge, some insight, a word of wisdom for every scenario. If we concentrate on how we feel – our anger, loss or pain, we probably won’t see or hear His answer, or we will reject it! And that means the broader deeper blessing is missed. We sometimes trot off feeling relieved when we manage to avoid a grumpy person. But, in truth, we have only postponed change – for me, for them, for the situation. Part of being transformed means we will need to yield to His wishes, His way, even though at the time it feels like the last thing we want to do.

He says this in His word: “No test or temptation that comes your way is beyond the course of what others have had to face. All you need to remember is that God will never let you down; He’ll never let you be pushed past your limit; He’ll always be there to help you come through it.” I Corinthians 10:13. Did you see the gift in that sentence?  Yeah yeah, I know you think you’ve had times when you’ve been pushed too far, but the punch line is this — Almighty God thinks you can do it! He believes in you! Here’s another gift to think on:“Wait on the Lord: be of good courage, and He shall strengthen thine heart: wait, I say, on the Lord.” Psalm 27:14. You know, the bible says that waiting on God renews our strength. (Isaiah 40:31) 

When we start out prayerfully trying to resist any kind of temptation, we may feel weak and not capable of what we know we need to do. But waiting for Him, pulls our focus out of the normal mixmaster mindset that rattles our brain. Waiting allows us to breathe – to find our peace. This is also a gift! Suddenly all the mind-cloudiness etc. lifts and we can begin to see spiritually. When we stop rattling our brains about “this or that or some other solution” and just sit in silence, and wait for Him! The same way we might wait for a friend in a coffee shop. We will quickly find that silence is another gift.

“My soul, wait in silence for God alone, For my hope is from Him. He alone is my rock and my salvation, My refuge; I will not be shaken. My salvation and my glory rest on God;  The rock of my strength, my refuge is in God.” Psalm 62:5-7.

This answer is a gift to us. In reality the Lord is saying to us:“this is the way walk ye in it!”He is showing us another way to get through difficulties – and that’s another gift! God daily gives us good gifts and if all we choose to see is this whizz-bang spiritual gift, or that special ability, we will miss seeing Him in our day to day ordinary life.

We need His definition of the word GIFT not ours. Prayerfully ask Him to help you to see and recognise Him, as He is active in your life. He showers us with blessings every single day! If you want to settle for a car park when you need one, then … have at it! But there is more! If what you receive is just perfect, then it is Him. Bye. 👋

P 2573 Godly advice for the sleepless.

/ DVH

From the book! “I lie awake each night thinking of You and reflecting on how You help me like a Father. I sing through the night under Your splendour-shadow, offering up to You my songs of delight and joy! With passion I pursue and cling to You. Because I feel Your grip on my life, I keep my soul close to Your heart.”Psalms 63:6-8 TPT.

Man, those psalmists knew how to write. However, it seems like they didn’t sleep so good all the time, even back then!  The Holy Spirit must have helped them with their attitudes, because the things that are written in these psalms are wiser than the ways of men. There is no greater ambition than for us to live to praise and enjoy Him, at any hour. Today I was up at 4.30 am writing the blog … at about 6.30 am I started to wish I had stayed in bed. My brain feels like it is melting. I do wish I could write beautiful stuff like that psalmist did … he’s inspiring.

Here’s some of my less-than-spiritual advice for free — unless you are single and live by yourself —bursting into song singing to God in the middle of the night may not work out well for you! Somebody else… maybe even a bunch of somebody elses … could wake up and be less than enthralled by your singing! My advice is if you have to sing, then don’t sing loudly, or take it elsewhere … like into another room! I try to toddle off upstairs when I do the early bird routine – hubby needs his sleep, he works hard.  We can see that Jesus went away from His disciples to talk to His Heavenly Father. Apparently they weren’t like Joshua, who stayed talking to God longer than Moses did!  Moving away from those who can sleep is called appropriate public relations behaviour –  anybody with a lick of sense knows you don’t poke a bear when he is sleeping.

But in those moments, in the middle of the night, I sit and quietly read the scriptures to set my heart firmly back on Him. So often nowadays, this life squeezes us so tightly, sometimes it feels like we can’t breathe. Even the bible can seem to be impossible to grasp, especially when you feel like you have fallen down a deep deep hole and His love and light is hidden from you. That’s when you PAF … Phone A Friend. Seriously. But!! Not between 12.00am and 6.00am!  You might find out your friend’s smiley face is wearing thin at that hour. Most of all take the time talk to the Lord, despite how you feel. He’s your Dad and He’s always UP and happy to hear from you! “He that keepeth thee does not slumber.” Psalm 121:3.

Sadly, for me, and about a zillion other people in this world, that word ‘Dad,’ has little or no meaning. But I’ve seen enough Dad-like qualities in the godly men around me to get a picture of what a great father looks like. Plus Jesus talked about it too. Almighty God is the greatest of all fathers. He’s where Fatherhood comes from!  His book gives us a lovely picture of what a great father looks like. Here’s Matthew 7:9-11.“Which of you, if your son asks for bread, will give him a stone? Or if he asks for a fish, will give him a snake? If you, then, though you are evil, know how to give good gifts to your children, how much more will your Father in heaven give good gifts to those who ask Him!”Good verse to think about at 1.00 am.

Our Father will not lie or try to deceive us. When He says something He means it. Our task is to believe what He has said, even though sometimes in this world, other people are trying to sell us something. I’ve found that many people lie because they want something, or they have something to hide or lose. When we are sleepless, or down, because of life, or something someone else said or did — we need to remind ourselves that our God does not lie. HE has nothing to hide and He doesn’t have agendas. Everything He says is the truth. ‘There is no shadow or turning in Him.’ This simply means — because HE IS THE LIGHT … good luck finding anything dark anywhere near Him.

Our current world provides us with poor images, those things are not good to think about at 1.00am. This world is used to double-dealing, double-talking flam-flam artists who pretend to be one thing when they are really another. Deception often flows through our streets like water. Think about a simple thing like watching a movie. Movies are all about people lying to themselves …and to each other … and to YOU, for a living. And we pay them heaps of money to do it!  We’ve gotten so used to living with these things that we think of them as harmless. God is truth,  and we already know that ‘in Him there is no shadow or turning’ –so anything that is a lie is not from Him. And yes, I watch movies too! But I think that some movies are definitely not geared to help us sleep!

However, this psalmist has the sense when he wakes up at some ridiculous hour of the night, to respond to God with praise and worship. He meditates on God’s goodness, instead of making his worries bigger by thinking about them. Nor does he think about that cute little maiden he saw last week in the temple! He remembers what the Lord has already done and he gives thanks. This man is giving us sound advice. In the middle of the night when we have any worries, we need to hand them over, and go after Jesus. Try praying for people who need to be saved – satan is glad to let you nod off when you do that!  

I also like to remind myself, that even though I know I can be faithless, my Heavenly Father cannot!  BTW, FYI, I do not expect you to be Him — if I want to see what my Father looks like then I look at Christ – He’s a sure thing. The most wonderful miracle of all miracles happened a couple of thousand years ago – God came here to reveal Himself to us, personally.  And that’s plenty to think about today or tonight … or in the middle of the night when your brain is UP and you wanna sleep! Bye zzzzzzzz. 👋