Learning

P 2891 Obedience is its own reward.

/ DVH

People say odd things sometimes. things like: “I can’t hear God.” Here’s a big fat clue. Did you obey the last thing He told you to do? How are you going with putting Matthew chapters 5&6 into practice? That’s a great place to start!  I think the Beatitudes will keep us busy for a lifetime of practising, listening, learning, and allowing His Word to transform us. I must admit I have never quite figured out why we skip those first two commandments, and still feel good about ourselves, because we’ve obeyed all the other ones.

Opportunity came knocking on this man’s door! “Why do you ask Me about what is good?” Jesus replied. “There is only One who is good. If you want to enter life, keep the commandments.”“Which ones?” he inquired. Jesus replied, “‘You shall not murder, you shall not commit adultery, you shall not steal, you shall not give false testimony, honour your father and mother,’ and ‘love your neighbour as yourself.’“All these I have kept,” the young man said. “What do I still lack?”Jesus answered, “If you want to be perfect, go, sell your possessions and give to the poor, and you will have treasure in heaven. Then come, follow Me.” Matthew 19:19-22. Jesus is not talking about our owning stuff, by the way, He’s talking about the kind of stuff that owns us.

Point number one: This young man was on the right track:  when we choose to follow Jesus, we need to ask Him this kind of question. Yes I am serious! There is way too much back-slapping going on in the Body of Christ, and not enough soul-searching. I ask myself questions, because I know I am not done yet.  I know I’ve wasted a great deal of my life so far, trying to fit in, and find approval. However, this young man had approval from the Lord immediately, because he had done his best to obey what he already knew. God is so generous – He values the attitudes of our heart. But, at the same time He’s not shy, He will also expose what’s else is in there too.

Point number two; Never ask a question when you are not prepared to get an answer!! I believe this man was sincere, he wanted the life of God in him and he wanted to be wholly His. Jesus gave him what he asked for – right there, on the spot! There are many times we go to the Lord and all we want is to be petted and patted. Life has gotten rough and we need a big cuddle. If we want to be mollified and pronounced excellent, then we need to go to someone who wants something from us and ask them the above question. Those people will tell us how great we are because they have an agenda!

Personally, I think we are better off asking our enemies to give us their opinion – they may not be entirely accurate, but they won’t pander to our needs either. Our enemies may have a great read-out on what’s wrong with us!  In the interest of full disclosure I must say I haven’t done that one yet…! I’ve been put off because I’ve had plenty of enemies tell me – they volunteered! … what’s wrong with me. My problem was … because they were enemies I didn’t think I had to listen! Ya might want to Selah that thought a while.

Point three: did you notice that Jesus praised the man for his ongoing efforts? Yet at the same time, the Lord actually knew what was holding this man back from his expressed desire to do whatever God wanted from him. The desire to do what is right in God’s eyes, is not the whole ball-game. There is always more, and in this guy’s case the ‘more’ was in his finances! None of us are perfect, so learning what we need to know is a blessing, not a criticism.

Now let’s not miss the punch-line, shall we? After Jesus tells this young man to sell all the profits from his own hard-work and give the results to the poor — then He says the most amazing thing: ’YOU can be My disciple and follow Me.’ This is the reason I wrote this blog today, we all have things in our lives that we want more than God – we just choose to ignore them. We live our lives virtually unaware of what could be holding us back from utterly yielding our lives to Him. Maybe you could ask yourself this question: What is it that is holding me back from giving the Lord all of my life, and choosing to obey Him – no matter what it costs? 

I can’t answer that question for you. I can only tell you that in my own experience, you can never ever out-give God. His plans for us are to give each of us a hope and a future. Sometimes we can stumble over full-surrender, because we don’t know what is on the other side of yielding everything to Him. However, we do know that God is gracious, He is kind, He’s OUR loving Heavenly Father! 

If we only focus on what we will lose … we’ve missed the real point. God is good, what He does, is always GOOD. We just don’t get to define ‘good’ for ourselves! Obedience is its own reward — check it out:  Deuteronomy 6:24; 10:12-13; and Proverbs 9:12; Ecclesiastes 11:5b.  Bye 👋

P 2877 Suffering is a door.

/ DVH

The bible tells us that the Apostle Paul had something or other wrong with him, health-wise. Meanwhile there has been much debate about what it was … I mean … who cares… really??  Any-way, the man asked God three times to take it away. My point is this: Paul asked God to take it away! Three times!! There’s nothing wrong with wanting to change your circumstances when hard times have overtaken you. Paul did that!.

Be comforted, there is no judgment from me, if you want to put up your hand and say; “Enough please. Point me toward Your exit, Lord.” I pray that myself.  Amazingly, in those times, I feel like I can’t take any more – but … meh! I’m still here talking about it! That ought to tell me something!

Back to the Lord, God told Paul this in 2 Corinthians 12:9 and it provides us with a clue as to where He is coming from: “But He said to me, “My grace is sufficient for you, for My power is made perfect in weakness.” Therefore I will boast all the more gladly about my weaknesses, so that Christ’s power may rest on me.” We need to understand, from our heart, that weakness is not a fault, it is an asset in God’s kingdom! Boy, if most of us managed to absorb that info it would help us daily, mightily. 

It’s OK to not cope and feel weak and overwhelmed! Because when we are weak we are in a prime position to experience the power of God in, and on our lives. Of course we will need God’s opinion about how He wants you or I to respond to our own personal current awful circumstances — but at the same time, just remember … … the Apostle Paul wrote nearly half of the New Testament, so he wasn’t a small character on this stage. Paul was one of the people that God specifically chose, to write about what he was learning and experiencing first-hand as he followed Jesus. 

You know, speaking for myself it is way easier to write down an acceptable faith answer, than it is to live it out! But it seems to me that Almighty God wanted Paul to understand personally the depth of Grace that He has released toward each one of us, and so He allowed many things in Paul’s life that human beings aren’t keen on. And God said ‘No!’ to Paul’s escape prayer. NO is an answer! By the way, ‘no’ means we can’t say that God didn’t answer us, we are now stuck, simply because we didn’t particularly like that answer! 

We need to pray that we will continually grow in our understanding of what Christ’s sacrifice did for us. He did it so we can be called Sons and Daughters of God. To me that means that sacrifice is a part of our new life in Christ. The bible says: We are now capable of MORE, and that’s why Christ died – to give us more! He died to give us access to His kingdom, right here, right now, so we can live this life like He did.

I can see the enemy’s subtle hand in a lot of Christian articles produced today. They have been written by Christians in all kinds of genuine pain and distress, who need answers to their suffering. Actually, my personal experience is that the more I walk with Him, the less I will care about what you are doing… I have my hands full already with the dumb stuff I do! These articles have called some sorts of behaviour this specified thing, and other kinds of behaviour something else. They excuse the judgment that flows from such things,, as “protecting ourselves.”Understanding, or analysing other people’s behaviour, doesn’t remove pain, it can actually increase judgment. 

Gird up your girdle, Gertie, I’m about to take down some myths that have no references in the bible. My bible says: “My God is my protection and with Him I am safe.” Psalm 18:1-2. My point is this, IF He is my Protector in some circumstances and not in others … because apparently in those circumstances I can protect myself from the bad people … How will I know where His protection ends and my self-effort begins? Meanwhile please notice the word ‘effort’ – grace doesn’t flow through efforts, it flows through unconditional love. 

Maybe our first and only question needs to be: “How can I continue to live in love while this is going on please Lord?” Christianity is not meant to be a part-time, hokey pokey way of life. We are either IN and walking forward, or OUT, sliding backward. Living any other way slowly removes His power to change out of our lives. It pushes transformation to one side. Then some of us go round and round achieving nothing and going nowhere. Please note: I speak from experience!

The power of God to overcome the trials of this world is free to people of faith, BUT, that does not mean we can turn it on and turn it off. Instead we now have a new focus, we choose to serve others at the pleasure of our King. Christians need to remember that if the Holy Spirit doesn’t like what we are doing then He will vote with His feet. He.Will.Leave! There is no room for compromise in the bible. You either do what He says or you don’t. It is a very exacting book.

Paul’s response to his suffering is a wonderful key for us, when suffering impacts our own lives, it’s a door. He found something to focus on that increased and stretched his faith. This man understood that being powerless in the face of adversity is not the end of things … it can even be the beginning of a new way to think. Bye. 🤔

P 2863 The fight!

/ DVH

This world is not our home. Seriously. And I’m not an alien and I don’t come from another planet, either! I have simply been reborn into another permanent, everlasting kingdom and … so have you! Otherwise you wouldn’t be reading this blog. The only way you or I can move away from living in that kingdom, is if we are ignorant of His Ways. OR if, and when, we choose to be disobedient to what He asks us to do. Just FYI His kingdom has no end.

Now let’s read 2 Peter 3:8-9 to find out a little bit about what God’s ways … what His idea of time is looks like. ‘But do not forget this one thing, dear friends: With the Lord a day is like a thousand years, and a thousand years are like a day. The Lord is not slow in keeping His promise, as some understand slowness. He is patient with you, not wanting anyone to perish, but everyone to come to repentance.’

This thing we call “time,” that human beings measure with clocks and calendars, is not what this passage is talking about. Here are my thoughts about the way Almighty God regards what WE call time. We are living in the time of God’s PATIENCE not permissiveness. It all started that day in the synagogue when Jesus stood up and read Isaiah out loud. God’s kingdom is so much more real than anything this world has to offer – plus you can SEE IT in action!

Luke 4:16-21: “He (Jesus) went to Nazareth, where He had been brought up, and on the Sabbath day He went into the synagogue, as was His custom. He stood up to read, and the scroll of the prophet Isaiah was handed to Him. Unrolling it, He found the place where it is written: “The Spirit of the Lord is on Me, because He has anointed Me to proclaim good news to the poor. He has sent Me to proclaim freedom for the prisoners and recovery of sight for the blind, to set the oppressed free, to proclaim the year of the Lord’s favour.”Then He rolled up the scroll, gave it back to the attendant and sat down.” He sat down because that was the end of His mission statement!

Let’s look at what Jesus Himself said, about His mission… why did He say God’s Spirit was upon Him? To establish His authority, and to witness to His Father’s participation in what He was about to do, because the Holy Spirit was going to do glorious things through Him! He had an anointing to do those things to demonstrate God’s will, word and favour visibly toward these people. And He explained to everyone present that favour had arrived when He arrived. His mission started when He chose to undergo baptism.

In the bible it often says: “in the fullness of TIME…”  God has timing. This is mentioned in Isaiah, Galatians and Ephesians. There is a point to His patience with every single person on this planet – He is waiting for everyone to hear, and respond, like it says in 2 Peter.  Sadly, lately we’ve been leaving the bit He told us to do, to the experts. Look around — we’ve dun run out of experts! God has been extremely patient with you and I, because He wants us to walk with Him, just like Jesus did, while we are still here. You and I have things only we can do!

Part of His plan is about us learning to overcome, sin, this world, and the devil in our own lives – with His help! Overcomers always have something to testify about. Our overcoming is daily, sometimes minute by minute – it is our new way of life. A battle we willingly enter into all the time that ends in transformation. Our testimonies are about telling others HOW THE HOLY SPIRIT HELPS US win the daily fight for this transformation, as well as talking about how “God did this or that for me.”

These changed things are the result of the active nitty gritty daily choices we deliberately make to obey His Word. The things we suddenly find we no longer want to do, because we’ve learnt they are not part of His Kingdom. Here’s one of my icky questions; if someone were to ask you to talk about the reality of God in your life, today, what would you say? We often think salvation is just about when we are DEAD – instead it is about what we do when we are still alive HERE.

Lastly, we need to pray for eyes to see what our Good God is DOING, all the time, in each of our lives! That’s when we will have something to talk about. I am of the opinion we sometimes barely notice what He has done, or is doing on our behalf.  So this is our daily FIGHT – to recognise what He is doing in the middle of the junk that flies at us day after day after day! Think of this life as an opportunity to grow and when it gets even more difficult – it’s weight training! Bye👋

P 2621 Responding rather than reacting.

/ DVH

Reactions are easy-peasy. Somebody does or says something daft or provocative … or maybe we are having a bad day — and bingo bongo! — our response is not exactly excellent. Sadly that dratted ball starts rolling down the hill and the other person says or does something that gets under our skin. And then the bad stuff … the stuff we sorta kinda hoped wasn’t in there, inside us, starts bubbling out … e-v-e-r-y-where. Sigh. After that, maybe we are a tiny bit ashamed, because we feel that we ought to do better. But then that thought quickly flies out of the window. and we slam the window shut behind it … so it can’t get back in and stop us, as we settle in to dissect someone else’s life and attitudes!

OR … we half-apologise for bagging some poor schmuck who has no idea what they just did! But then, a little while later, because we are not done with feeling offended yet … and now they are looking at us funny ..  we pick it up where we left it and keep right on going …!! This sometimes means that we have made a decision that we need sympathy or understanding, more than spiritual growth. Suddenly we are dragging out every single thing this person ever said or did that hurt us, to add to the glorious bonfire of ‘poor me,’ we just built. Afterward, we can’t for the life of us figure out where that roaring blaze came from! … while we are sitting in the smouldering ruins of REGRET.

OR … maybe we FEEL JUSTIFIED be-cau-se of the way we’ve been treated. After all, ‘they said this and they did that! And what are we supposed to do after they were so mean to us? After all we are only human!’ ….even bigger sigh. Justifying ourselves is the first step down the slipperiest slide in the world. The thing is, to continue the ride down that slide we will probably have to give examples of their badness – usually to someone else who has ears the size of Dumbo the elephant. Someone who knows how to make sympathetic noises, because they too have their own bad people who don’t understand them either!

If we are particularly miffed at someone we may even talk to several different people about the offender, collecting ‘votes’ for or against the other person’s behaviour! That’s a really dumb idea that leads to self-justification. Of course I know that nobody reading this has never bin there and dun any of that!! Me neither! However, if I were Pinocchio, my nose would be out of the house and down the street by now.  My point is this, we opt for sympathy and ‘oh you poor dear,‘  rather than clinging to Christ and what He did for us, and doing what He would do. Psalm 31:1-4.

Jesus said NOTHING. He did NOTHING. He gave his back to those tormentors… Isaiah 53:7,8a. ”He was oppressed and afflicted, yet He did not open His mouth; He was led like a lamb to the slaughter, and as a sheep before its shearers is silent, so He did not open His mouth. By oppression and judgment He was taken away….” …If we want to follow Jesus Christ, our precious Master and beloved Friend, then we will need to take the road He chose. His road had a huge cost and it ended up on a cross.

Mean, critical, spiteful people are our personal cross to bear. And most of us have a few of them, hanging about. Time for the dance of joy! 🥳 🎉 Remaining silent in the face of criticism and someone else’s miserable … or even accurate … opinions of us and our behaviour, seems impossible. But Christ did it. That means He knows how to do it and the Holy Spirit can get us through it. We can learn to respond instead of reacting. He died to give us the same power He used.

How? Well, I recommend saying nothing, and praying “help help” over and over again, until we begin to feel His peace … ‘which passes all our understanding!’  Then we wait until we feel it starting to settle down over our hearts, and then we cling to it like a limpet. Philippians 4:7. His peace makes no sense to my mind but it is the most blessed thing E-V-E-R. Anger disappears. It goes away even more when I apologise for getting angry with the other person … even if they started in on me first. It actually grows as I fix my mind on Him. However, I can be tempted back into my reactionary attitude if the other person hasn’t got the same script I am reading from, and they start being unpleasant again! I need to pray that His peace will be more valuable to me than making my point or feelings known. 

I must conclude by saying that I am still learning this process, and I fail a lot… I’ve always been a last-word-Lana kind of gal. (Apologies to anyone out there who is called Lana – I don’t mean you … I just liked the alliteration! 🤪) Which means once I am wound up, unwinding me becomes difficult. But nothing is too hard for the Holy Spirit – including me. I have realised that my faith in His ability needs to be greater, than my own faith in my bad attitudes!

Responding to the Holy Spirit is way better than reacting to someone else, because it can change the outcome … and on some occasions, it even changes the outcome on both sides. Bye. 👋

P 2598 No fake smiles please!

/ DVH

My dear hubby loves the Emoji movie, especially that over-the-top female smiley face that blinds people with its toothy grin. He thinks she is hilarious. You know, that face is actually pasted on – it’s stuck. In other words that emoji has been carefully drawn to pretend to be something it isn’t.  So when bad things happen, that smiley emoji isn’t being REAL — which is just like a whole lot of Christians. Bad things happen and they paste on a smile but inside they feel God, and everyone else, has let them down. 

Most people in this world know FAKE attitudes a mile off. It is so much better to be your real self and repent for stinky attitudes, than it is to hide who you are. Now if you happen to be a grump … then the answer is to be transformed. 😂 The bible covers that! Please note: transformation is not instant. It’s repetitive… it’s re-pet-it- ive … it’s actually quite repetitive! So now we spend our days learning to lean. Getting stuff right is no longer our goal, leaning on Him is! 

If we are not careful we can make living for Jesus … into a future goal. We can live this life hoping that if we fake it we will eventually make it. Yielding, surrender, dying to self – these are all key words.  Otherwise transformation becomes something we work hard towards achieving, but we never seem to arrive!  The bible says we need to be living for Him every single day. 

Almighty God wants us to draw on His strength all the time, using our faith. Faith grows when you use it! So we exchange His beauty for our ashes. His joy for our mourning etc. We are human and we run out quite quickly — but Jesus is rich in these things ! He will give us what we need as we live a life of total dependence. The Lord is not fooled by our positive, Sunday morning smiley faces.

We could see miracles every single day if we stop trying to be what God already made us and learn to yield to and trust in Him! Listening to yourself being kind to someone, when you wanted to smite them mightily a minute ago is a miracle! Success is no longer our goal – because we know can’t do anything without Him and we don’t want to be without Him.“Trust in the Lord with all your heart and lean not on your own understanding. In all your ways acknowledge Him and He will make straight your paths.” Proverbs 3:5-6.

We need to be changed inside, and honesty matters.  We can’t! … But He already did it for us. Some of our nice attitudes are barely skin deep — so when they are provoked they end up coming out. The Lord is not looking for perfection … Jesus already nailed that, and then He generously gave it to us – for free. Ask yourself this: why would Almighty God – Who loves us – want us to live our lives pretending to be something we are not? But oh! How He LOVES a truly transformed heart and life. Then when someone else hurts us, we feel worse for them than we do for ourselves.

I know some transformed people. They know they can’t do anything without Him, but they yield in obedience to what the bible says daily, so they can change the way that they live. They are not perfected. Not at all! But they enjoy being close to Him, and they don’t want to give that up for living a shallow life that has no substance. Things stay shallow when we stop living by our faith.  We must learn that we are not called to exhaust our OWN patience/love/joy/peace,  first — only to find that we have run out! Here’s a hot tip, let go of your pride and GIVE UP RIGHT AWAY and fall into His everlasting arms. He will supply that need.

My point is, learn to pray “Help help” early! We cannot afford to wait until we are overwrought and exhausted because we’ve been wrangling a problem in the natural. I pray a surrender prayer all the time now. I remind the Lord that I won’t be able to  manage anything at all without Him. I do that at the beginning of the day and I repeat it when I find myself pasting on a fake smile. I could care less about looking incompetent, or inefficient. I cannot tell you how much I enjoy seeing Him active in my life. I feel Him help me to go further than I ever could in my own strength. I know I can’t meet Christ’s standard, what He did was perfect. So I start with surrender and I don’t move from there. 

We have all developed coping mechanisms over the course of our lives and when we get saved, we carry those coping mechanisms over into our faith. Then when we read in the bible and see what we are supposed to look like, who we are meant to be, we increase the pressure on ourselves to be like that. Unfortunately, when we fail in our own efforts – we feel we are letting Jesus down. And if we do happen to succeed, then WE GET PROUD.

All that leads to a level of inadvertent deception, and a lack of transparency that prevents intimacy. It stops Christians from becoming all we can be in Christ. It also leads to a form of religion with no power in it. We need to learn to live our lives dependent upon Him, using our God-given faith instead of striving to reach an unattainable goal. We cannot make ourselves perfect. He has already accepted us.  No more fakey fake smiles. Learn to lean on Him. 👋

P 2546 We will sometimes suffer wrong.

/ DVH

I Samuel 24:1-12 “After Saul returned … …set out to look for David and his men near the Crags of the Wild Goats.He came to the sheep pens along the way; a cave was there, and Saul went in to relieve himself. David and his men were far back in the cave. The men said, “This is the day the Lord spoke of when He said to you, ‘I will give your enemy into your hands for you to deal with as you wish.’” Then David crept up unnoticed and cut off a corner of Saul’s robe. Afterward, David was conscience-stricken for having cut off a corner of his robe. He said to his men, “The Lord forbid that I should do such a thing to my master, the Lord’s anointed, or lay my hand on him; for he is the anointed of the Lord.” With these words David sharply rebuked his men and did not allow them to attack Saul. And Saul left the cave and went his way.

Then David went out of the cave and called out to Saul, “My lord the king!” When Saul looked behind him, David bowed down and prostrated himself with his face to the ground. He said to Saul, “Why do you listen when men say, ‘David is bent on harming you’? This day you have seen with your own eyes how the Lord delivered you into my hands in the cave. Some urged me to kill you, but I spared you; I said, ‘I will not lay my hand on my lord, because he is the Lord’s anointed.’ See, my father, look at this piece of your robe in my hand! I cut off the corner of your robe but did not kill you. See that there is nothing in my hand to indicate that I am guilty of wrongdoing or rebellion. I have not wronged you, but you are hunting me down to take my life.  May the Lord judge between you and me. And may the Lord avenge the wrongs you have done to me, but my hand will not touch you.”

Every time I read this scripture I am extremely impressed by David’s integrity. He had totally committed himself to living His life Almighty God’s way. But at the same time, King Saul was constantly attempting to kill him. Saul was the legitimate king, appointed by God, but he was threatened by David and he had been chasing this young man here there and everywhere for years. Jealousy and spite drove that older man along. But David’s conscience was so soft before God, it smacked him upside-of-his-head when he cut off a piece of Saul’s robe.

We may not like it but submission is in the book. We are not submitted to God if we are not prepared to submit to the person who is the leader. In our homes, at our office, in the government or our churches. Just because it is not cultural to submit, that does not make it wrong. Submission is not meant to be fashionable, fun or enjoyable! It’s hard work and sometimes even dangerous – as David found out! Particularly if you happen to disagree with the person you are submitted to or they have a bone to pick with you! 

However, real submission is a tool to facilitate transformation in us, not make us comfortable. After all the Lord Jesus was utterly submitted to His Heavenly Father, but He also submitted to all the religious leaders of the day. The King of all glory was standing right in front of these experts, and they didn’t know Who He was! But Jesus chose to submit to them, anyway. God’s way is not always about us enjoying the process, it is about obedience. ‘Rebellion is as witchcraft in the eyes of the Lord.’ 1 Samuel 15:23.

David understood this truth and he respected God’s order. He understood the Lord lifts up one, and pulls down another. So David left Saul to God, so the Lord could deal with him … for twenty-five years. Did you get that? Twenty five YEARS!  This young man had been anointed by Samuel and he knew he was to be the next king, yet he let the Lord God build His own house. He did not try to wrestle the kingdom from Saul. Instead he lived honourably, and learnt from God how to respect His enemy. And at the same time he honoured God by his diligent obedience.

You know in my denomination, sometimes there are things that happen that I don’t understand. People move around between churches like ice cubes in a water pitcher. These people are often here one week, and gone the next. It seems to be that they think the preacher is not spiritual enough, or they don’t like what he says, or he doesn’t come to visit them, or they already know all that stuff they want something different. Why this world doesn’t already know all there is to know about the Lord Jesus because of these gifted people, who apparently know everything there is to know … escapes me! 🙄

Human beings disagree, mainly because we prefer to hold onto our own rights. But it is not a matter of compatibility. It is a matter of learning how to love those who cruelly use us. Meanwhile, some days, nobody can annoy us better than a spouse! LOVE CONQUERS ALL … not war of the words! None of us are nice – that’s a rumour started by people who want their own way. Without the Holy Spirit in charge, we can all be mean. Look at Adam and Eve. God came to be with them in their garden every evening and yet they still disobeyed … then they blamed each other. Before we make important decisions we should try looking in the mirror, strangely enough, the person at fault is often in the mirror!

King David knew all about facing his weaknesses, and through God’s processes he was transformed by them – but he  still suffered. Suffering wrong is one of the greatest keys in our spiritual keyring. It hurts like mad, but carries with it the incredible honour of sharing in the fellowship of Christ’s suffering. 👋

P 2342 Learning to catch the wind.

/ DVH

This morning I thought about three different scriptures I’ve read recently that touched my heart … but none of them seemed right for today’s blog. Some days I have no idea what I want to write about. So it was utterly amazing that I came up with three extremely different things on the same day! You’d think that gave me heaps of choices… but NO! … not one of them seemed right. In the end I gave up trying to bam a square peg into a round hole and wrote this instead.😂 

We can get so intensely fixated upon a task that we forget: “His yoke is easy and His burden is light.” My immediate response to that thought is – if it ain’t easy then it ain’t God! And today, with those three different thoughts, none of them were simply right for now! We are not bull-dozers, we follow the wind. His Presence is in that task, and He lifts the weight or the burden for us. 

Today I want to talk about the similarities between writing this blog and witnessing. Facing a blank page is daunting, knowing that tomorrow total strangers are going to read it, and hopefully understand what you have written. And facing a total stranger and talking about your faith is also very challenging. You feel you must get it right or you will fail the Lord, and mislead that person so badly you will put them off Jesus forever. 😱No pressure of course!!  But that moment also clearly diagnoses that we are trying hard again. We do what we do because we love people, there is no pressure.

So here’s what today’s lesson showed me – when I feel the weight of responsibility to get whatever I am doing right – then I need to back up and …WAIT. I am waiting for Him to prompt me, or until I see an opening I can drive a Mac truck through. I’m waiting for HIM, I’m not waiting for feelings, I’m waiting for some sort of clarity. Sometimes that could be just one word so I go with that. I could look at someone and see anger, or sadness, and I ask them how they have been doing lately. These things, unfold, sometimes one sentence at a time.

Meanwhile, I figure things like witnessing probably will be scary because I am dying to my carefully cultivated life of self-preservation!! In these past few months I’ve noticed an opportunity to talk about what I know about Him, with strangers, a number of times. Those people asked me questions. I like that, it seems way easier than being obedient when He asks me to bring up something He gives me to say.  At those more difficult times I have a clear choice to obey or not …and I don’t always make the right one! Just being truthful …😶

Witnessing is not a rigid thing, it is fluid. In the past few weeks, practitioners in the health profession have asked me what I write about in this blog. I figure they are checking me out, since I fell downstairs quite badly, and they want to make sure my marbles aren’t scrambled, or broken or lost! The first time I simply told the person that it is a Christian blog and then they asked all kinds of questions, and I answered them as clearly and carefully as I could. We had a lovely talk together, and then we went back to my health again. The next time the new person asked exactly the same question and I thought ‘here we go again!’  Except we didn’t. They said “Oh, OK,” and they went straight back to asking health questions.

‘There is no system.’  Seriously, witnessing is a ‘fly by the seat of your pants, always relying on the Holy Spirit’  kind of thing. The Lord is always in charge, and right after His leading, comes the other person’s curiosity. Our job is to remain a safe place for them to ask questions. We are planting seeds, not restructuring their lives! Be prepared to stop in the middle of the most intriguing opportunity ever, to let the whole conversation slide. Even though you might badly wanna shout: “Dag-nab-it we were nearly there!!” We must leave it to Him to turn that conversation around again – if He wants to.

The Holy Spirit is gentle, HE Leads, He does not push – so no shoving please. He is the wind, we are just weather vanes turning to and fro as He blows on us. That’s all for today, maybe I will write about those three things I mentioned another time. Who knows, I’m just trying to catch the wind.👋🏻