Learn of Me

P 3311 Just enjoy the ride.

/ DVH

So many times we can be so caught up in ticking our daily boxes of things to do, we can easily forget that none of us get out of this life, alive! My advice for today is this: take the time each day to allow yourself to enjoy the ride. Taking pleasure in each day is the secret of true ongoing acceptance and happiness. It is much too easy to postpone JOY ‘until things get better.’ Don’t let disappointment jump on you and stay!

We can use up our allotted time here on earth, on things that won’t last, and those things can steal away the truly important things. Years ago, there was a saying: ‘Take time to smell the roses.’ Good advice! Unfortunately, today most people feel they don’t have time to grow roses … let alone smell them! We can spend so much time, planning this, and organising that, we can forget to live in the moment. But sometimes His JOY comes in brief moments that help to perfume our whole lifestyle. 

I just heard a story about two black holes which collided outside our universe, billions of trillions of light years away. There were two astrophysicists monitoring the night sky – night after dreary night – and they were tired of looking at nothing much. So one turned to the other and said: “I’m tired, let’s just go home early.” 40 minutes later, the gravitational pressure waves of those two black holes merging eons ago, washed across the earth! This phenomena had never been noted before. But that night it showed up, and registered on their many dials and gizmos. History happened and these men had gone home to bed. I laughed and laughed and laughed.Missed it by ←  that much → Things like this help me enjoy the ride. The two men laughed at themselves too.

If I have one piece of advice to anybody reading this – ya just gotta learn to laugh at yourself! Some of this stuff isn’t worthy of the angst you are spending on it! Make cherished moments just for YOU!  I truly enjoy the bible — it has lovely interesting, expressive words and phrases … a-n-d puzzles. I do love a good puzzle, and the bible is the best puzzle of all! Big confession! I’m a cheater, so I ask the Author loads of questions and He helps me. The more I read, the more I become delighted. Our Father’s Personhood comes out, particularly in the Old Testament. I enjoy this ride every day. At the same time we are so blessed to be able to know the Lord Jesus, He is there — on page after page, in the Gospels. “Jesus is God’s story!” Don’t treat reading it as info – see the Person.

Our Heavenly Father loves to hide things in plain sight. That to me is a big part of the enjoyment I get on this ride we call life. It’s the feeling that He isn’t half as serious about the things that turn our hair grey, as we are! Cyclone Alfred hit us last February, and we are still working on getting our bedroom fixed. So far we’ve moved out of our room 4 or 5 times – we actually lost count. All the furniture – in and out! At the same time, we’ve had people come to fix this, and remove that, and as a consequence — we have had the opportunity to meet people we would never have met who don’t share our faith. 

Enjoying the ride is a skill we can cultivate. It is like living with silence – it is incredibly valuable! I slowly picked things like this up, right after my last child went off to school, when I found I could think in proper English again! 10 years of babies, toddlers etc blew my brain. Sadly I got sick somewhere in there, and then I stopped enjoying the ride, for quite a while. So the Lord had to teach me step by step, how to see the good in things. Living this way helps me focus, despite what is going on round me. Despair bangs on my door too! But looking for Jesus has made it easier to see His pearls amongst the dark grey gravel of life!  

In Galatians 5: 17,18a it tells us why we need to look for the good. “For the flesh desires what is contrary to the Spirit, and the Spirit what is contrary to the flesh. They are in conflict with each other …” The still-being-redeemed part of me can fight against what God wants to give me.That’s why I need to put to death the deeds of the flesh … because I can’t see the good until I change my focus. For me sometimes coping with life, is like turning trouble upside down … to find out what’s good about it! I’m going to shake that joyful sucker out of there somehow!!

One of my best blessings is my dear hubby who has the silliest sense of humour. Somehow I find his peculiar Dad-humour absolutely hilarious!! ‘A cheerful heart truly is the best medicine!’ And I appreciate the Lord’s joy through him. I have checked this out personally, and I can tell you —-‘the joy of the Lord really can be our strength’ … a couple of minutes of laughter will lift anyone’s mood.

“It is for freedom that Christ has set us free. Stand firm, then, and do not let yourselves be burdened again by a yoke of slavery.” Galatians 5:1. The yoke we need to fight against is the idea that this life should be perfect. This verse tells us that God has already given us freedom, so we don’t have to be slaves labouring away to maintain something we already have! That’s like praying for more air in the middle of a forest. I think many man-made yokes rob people of enjoying the ride in their lives. 

Our participation in this life, is that we get to give our burdens to Him. “Come unto me, all ye that labour and are heavy laden, and I will give you rest. Take My yoke upon you, and learn of Me; for I am meek and lowly in heart: and ye shall find rest unto your souls.” Matthew 11:28,29. WE ARE WEARING THE WRONG YOKE. Jesus has a better one.  Let’s allow ourselves to enjoy the ride. Bye 👋

P 3224 Look at what God did …

/ DVH

… with another ceiling leak in the bedroom. I’m not big about talking about stuff that happens around us all the time, but this one was so incredible, I thought others might what to hear what the Lord has done, supernaturally.

Our bedroom roof leaked again somewhere else the night before last. It was a steady drip … Hilariously, it was right near a power outlet! So we had to call our roofing company once more. Despite being overwhelmed, because we did just pay a lot to have it fixed – we gave it all back to Jesus, again. The elder brother of the family of roofers was so kind, apologetic and responsive on the phone, and the next day at 11am, he turned up with his younger brother. The problem was fixed in no time and he is coming back in a week to apply another coat of waterproofing. 

Then the eldest son proceeded to share an incredibly lovely testimony about his father. The day after he had been at our house ago, he had suddenly developed sepsis.The older man’s gallbladder had a massive infection and he had gone jaundiced and collapsed. His heart apparently nearly stopped and he had high fevers and nearly died. He ended up in intensive care. He is still there, and is now critical, but more stable. 

Just to recap and put you in the picture… you may remember, this whole story started on the day when our roof was leaking like a waterfall in our bedroom. (P3209) A local family of roofers came to repair it. While they were here, I felt very strongly to make three bookmarks, with an eagle charm on them, for the father and his two adult sons. I also had a strong prophetic word for the father. 

I actually had to make the bookmarks from scratch, whilst the men were still on the roof! Hubby gave the word I had gotten from the Lord, to the father of the group, and spoke to all three of them. But the word that was given the father really hit him. It moved him so much he said he was going to put a picture of an eagle on his truck to remind him of what Jesus had said to him. The gift of the bookmark for himself and his sons, and the specific word really impacted all of them. 

However, many days later, in the semi conscious, near death state, he said he felt his spiritual body float upwards. All he could see was the eagle charm on the bookmark we had given him. He said he was looking down on himself as he floated upwards, and then Jesus Himself met him and said, “It’s not your time to come here yet, you still have things to do,” and then he floated back down into his body. 

This incredible vision has had a huge impact on him for these past few days, and all he could think or talk about was his powerful encounter with Jesus, us and the word God gave him about eagles. His son went on to say that it was hard to get his Dad to talk about anything else! Even though he was getting better, he was still quite seriously ill.  

The eldest son said his dad has been so impacted by this word that when he gets better he wants to come and fix our main roof for us, free of charge. (We won’t be doing that! What God gives is free!!) The point was, it had meant so much to the older man. We told his son that we will be praying for his Dad and he was very grateful. The father wants to talk to us when he gets out of the hospital.

I haven’t written down what the Lord told me to tell the father about here, because I regard those things as a private conversation between someone else and the Lord. Meanwhile —isn’t God amazing?!? All of this started with a leaking roof!  The result of a bad hail storm.

The first thing I want to say about this situation is that if God had not been teaching hubby and I to hand over burdens and problems — I would have been in such a state about the bedroom roof potentially falling in that I probably wouldn’t have heard the Lord when He spoke to me!  Plus we would not have known about any of this if the roof hadn’t leaked again. 

Secondly, the Lord didn’t shout! It was just a whisper. I sort of knew that the Word I was given was more for the father than his two adult sons, but I had no faith for anything else that followed. Like I have said before, it is amazing what the Lord will do with our obedience. It certainly has put a brand new slant on the scripture: “Come unto Me, all ye that labour and are heavy laden, and I will give you rest. Take My yoke upon you, and learn of Me; for I am meek and lowly in heart: and ye shall find rest unto your souls.” Matthew 11:28-29.

Lastly, I felt the Lord tell me this: “This is the purpose of prophetic words out in the market place. They are not sent to correct, they are sent for identification, direction and encouragement.” We have seen the Lord do amazing things with something that seemed so simple to us, and yet it meant everything to the hearer. 

We need to take whatever word He gives us and give it , whether the person is a Christian or not. Prophetic words are not the exclusive property of Christians.. I was just reminded of the parable of the wedding banquet, again, all the king told his servants to say was: “Come!”

I believe we are beginning a “come” season. This means we can invite others with whatever He tells us to say, they receive it, and then He does the rest. I hope this testimony has blessed you the way it blessed us. Bye. 👋