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P 2476 Ruth.

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Ruth 1:9-17 “May the Lord grant that each of you will find rest in the home of another husband.”Then she (Naomi) kissed them goodbye and they wept aloud and said to her, “We will go back with you to your people.” But Naomi said, “Return home, my daughters. Why would you come with me? Am I going to have any more sons, who could become your husbands?  Return home, my daughters; I am too old to have another husband. Even if I thought there was still hope for me—even if I had a husband tonight and then gave birth to sons— would you wait until they grew up? Would you remain unmarried for them? No, my daughters. It is more bitter for me than for you, because the Lord’s hand has turned against me!”

At this they wept aloud again. Then Orpah kissed her mother-in-law goodbye, but Ruth clung to her. “Look,” said Naomi, “your sister-in-law is going back to her people and her gods. Go back with her.” Then Ruth uttered one of the loveliest lines reported in the bible,  But Ruth replied, “Don’t urge me to leave you or to turn back from you. Where you go I will go, and where you stay I will stay. Your people will be my people and your God my God. Where you die I will die, and there I will be buried. May the Lord deal with me, be it ever so severely, if even death separates you and me.”

Naomi did all that she could to send these two young women back to their homes… but logic wasn’t the tool of the day – FAITH WAS!  Orpah returned to her homeland, but Ruth chose to stay with her mother-in-law. That just blows my mind. Think about it… one person turns back to the familiar and the household of their birth, and the other is activated and presses on into faith. Every step Ruth took after her decision to stay with Naomi, was one of faith.

Everybody loves the book of Ruth, it is a brilliant, inspiring, redemptive story about the power of God to redeem every type of human condition, and transform difficult situations for everybody’s good. The stars of this story were quite clearly not anybody fame-worthy.  But God, took an older lady whose faith had taken a battering, and a younger one who didn’t have much to look forward to, and put them smack in the middle of His-story and they didn’t even know it.

Boy is that saying heaps!! This is what the Christian life is like, it is a series of choices and we cannot always see the results. And some of them don’t seem all that significant when we make them! But Orpah’s choice separated her from a totally different destiny. She leaves the story at this point, and we don’t know what came next for her. Maybe she married again too, and had a very nice life … but there is more to this life than safety! There is courage, and innovation and freedom and the future to be fought for and won.

Our heroine Ruth starts out by being poor and having to scrounge for food, but eventually she finds a new husband, by following instructions, and by using her faith! She even has a family, when she thought that opportunity had passed her by. And she ends up being Jesus great great great great great great etc.etc. GRANDMOTHER. This story is so rich in spiritual imagery. Ruth chose to follow Naomi and use her faith and love for this older woman to move on, she seized the adventure as it unfolded before them both. Everything Naomi told that young woman to do, she did – she trusted and then she acted.

I’m starting to believe a lack of inspiration to be spiritually mature, is part of the problem today, particularly with many Western Christians. Plus we’ve all stopped being pilgrims. We seem have lost our sense of adventure. Instead of striking out in our little boats for foreign shores … stretching our faith and watching the Lord protect, provide and lead us … we’ve become settlers.

Settlers can’t wait to have a family, get a house and earn a living! BTW, we don’t need more pastors – we need more missionaries, at home and abroad!  People who leave comfort behind to make sure that others find out about Jesus. Surely we were born again for bigger things than normal! Our biggest claim to faith, these days, seems to be whether the Lord gave us the spouse/car/family/job we wanted! 

Pilgrims and pioneers press on, always believing there is more. More to know about Him, more to learn about themselves and others. Meanwhile we don’t have to go to the darkest places on the earth to become pioneers. We can reach unreached people groups in the alleys and doorways of our own cities! Or our offices, or schools, or at the shops. Pioneers are people with more than a dream – they are people of action. Ruth made a choice and she did not turn back. After all, she was not Jewish she was a Moabite, and yet God provided for her … all because of her obedience and loyalty. 

The Lord loves loyalty. Loyalty is more than an attitude, it is the way we live. Ruth is a wonderful example of a woman who could easily have seen her life as being over … instead she decided to take her chances in an unknown land. Today I want to leave you with yet another one of my icky questions …where have all the home-grown missionaries gone? Bye 👋🏻 

P 2449 About the gifts of the Spirit …

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“Every believer has received grace gifts, so use them to serve one another as faithful stewards of the many-coloured tapestry of God’s grace.”1 Peter 4:10 TPT. I have gifts that were given to me, so do you. The point is — what are we doing with them? Peter is telling us to use our gifts for others, they are not for our own self-serving purposes. When we use those gifts the right way, people don’t see US — they see Jesus! That tapestry we are all weaving reveals the Lord Himself.

I don’t have God-given gifts to help me feel better about myself, or to help make me important to my church. No. Those gifts are for others, they keep me humble and obedient to God’s Word. Because Jesus Christ died for me I have an opportunity to live and die for Him. Jesus means everything to our Father, and that means He gave up everything to purchase my life, by His Own dear Son’s death. He did it for all of us because He loves us that much. What a glorious generous Father we have!

Christ’s death and subsequent resurrection is the place we need to build our life on— that is the heavenly reality and we are to live this life making it part of our earthly reality. We don’t build our lives on gifts, or fame — but on Christ and what He did for us. That way the storms of this life will not be able to knock us down. Building on sand means I am building on the things of this world, and they will pass away. But when I build on what Christ did for us, that will stand forever!

Let’s look at Isaiah 11:2&3 – He’s talking about Jesus Christ: “The Spirit of the Lord will rest on HIM—the Spirit of wisdom and of understanding, the Spirit of counsel and of might, the Spirit of the knowledge and fear of the Lord—and He will delight in the fear of the Lord. He will not judge by what He sees with His eyes or decide by what He hears with His ears;…” 

We can see these words in action in the Gospels, in Christ. He was so wise and so dedicated to His Father’s will. When Jesus dealt with a woman who was adulterous, He did not decide by what He saw or heard from others – He listened to the Spirit. The Spirit of God knows what is in the heart of a man and only He has the wisdom to see through the things human beings stumble over. Jesus walked with the Spirit of God, in Wisdom, so He didn’t give permission for this woman to continue in sin, or tell her she couldn’t help it, He gave her forgiveness and a new beginning.

Today I am talking about spiritual gifts… and you could ask, what am I doing in Isaiah? Everyone knows that spiritual gifts are a New Testament concept! They are mentioned in 1 Corinthians 12:8-10. And …Romans 12:3-8! Yes, they are;  but Isaiah is pointing us to the One Who was coming, long before He came. He is our example in life and death. Our Leader. He is the illustration of God’s purpose in the Holy Spirit’s Presence in this world. Jesus is the One Who is the Author and Finisher of our faith. As we follow Him, and grow to be like Him, the gifts will follow us.

Before Christ died – the Holy Spirit came and rested on various people at various times for different purposes. However, He was not sent to just anyone … He came for a purpose. Isaiah describes Christ and His ministry, long before Jesus left heaven and came here. This Old Testament prophet is making it clear where the gifts we have today, came from… They came from the One Who was sent back to help us – the Holy Spirit … the Spirit of the Lord … That is the place to start when we think about spiritual gifts. We look at Jesus Who is our example. We don’t covet gifts simply for our needs or to feel important, instead we covet the Presence of the GIVER, like Christ did.

Jesus healed the sick, He raised the dead, He cast out demons. All this and more happened because of the Holy Spirit’s guidance and Presence within Him. Jesus Christ loved the Holy Spirit more than people. Whenever He chose what to do, He chose according to the Holy Spirit’s guidance. Even His brothers and mother could not sway Him from obeying the Spirit. Currying favour with other people can be a stumbling block in our walk with the Holy Spirit, and we need to love His Presence more than anything, or anyone else. Humility is His favourite language. 

We can spend way too much time concentrating on ‘what gift is mine,’ and not enough time focussing on the Giver! And sometimes we can even let those gifts make us seem important. But Jesus Christ cherished the Holy Spirit’s company, and that’s the way we are to walk with Him too. God’s grace manifests itself toward others through those gifts. Because of the Holy Spirit’s Presence, they flow into us … and they  flow out through us. The gifts are not a lake, they are a RIVER. The flow is more important than the results.

To operate in the gifts of God we need to be intimately acquainted with the Holy Spirit in us. He is the same Spirit Who lived in Christ. Now He moves through us, as we actively learn to co-operate with Him. It is His power that empowers us to do what we do for the building up of the saints, and the releasing of God’s Grace into this world. BTW, the Holy Spirit will be friends with ANYONE who is prepared to obey and cherish Him. Don’t seek the gifts, seek the GIVER. – the gifts will find you!  Bye. 👋🏻

P 2398 To really live, we must die.

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Absolutely everything depends on how seriously you and I take what Jesus said! “For whoever wishes to save his life [in this world] will [eventually] lose it [through death], but whoever loses his life [in this world] for My sake and the gospel’s will save it [from the consequences of sin and separation from God].” Mark 8:35 AMP.

Salvation is not just a one time event, where you make a decision to become a Christian and that’s that. At the time of that commitment, we might cry a little … or a lot, depending on our response … but this moment is the beginning of our understanding of what Christ did for us all. After this moment then we need to begin to fix the broken relationships we have. Plus we start to pray about tithing, and regularly attending church. Maybe we also go to prayer groups or bible studies. These are difficult but still attainable life-changing things. Sadly many Christians stop right there. 

However, salvation is a PROCESS – not just an event. That process involves the transformation of our lives and it takes a lifetime to bring it about. As we enter into it and God teaches us His ways — we will be changed. We won’t pray, walk, talk, think, or speak the way we did before. Not because of rules or traditions, but because the bible itself changes us. This is when we start to understand that our old nature was taken to the cross when Christ went there – we deliberately choose His ways. Now we want to live the way He did, for God’s glory. Jesus Christ came to earth to die for humanity’s sins, and He also left us an incredible legacy.  A new way to live.

Hubby and I have been married for 35 years. Knowing him has changed me heaps. I laugh more than I used to, despite the difficulties we face daily. It is not that he is hilariously funny … sometimes he tells the worst jokes(!!!) … but in spite of that, his humour evokes a happy response from me. Knowing him and how he thinks, has changed the way I view this life. You could say his life has influenced mine.

Some things that I used to panic over, I have learnt to dismiss or leave alone. Hubby has taught me something no-one else ever taught me … it is possible to stay in love with one person for the rest of your life. However, always liking them … meh! Some days that’s a whole other story. 🙄 But ongoing, fully-committed love is actually possible from a human POV, if each person is prepared to die-to-self in the process. Forget the whole “Oh that’s just me, I’m just like that” rubbish – marriage is about two people becoming ONE. Adjustment will be required.

Now, if another person who is like us can teach us such important stuff – then imagine what the Lord God Maker of heaven and earth can teach us as we get to know HIM. This is the real point of salvation – it is about getting to know SomeOne … and as a result we can progressively learn to rely upon Jesus in all kinds of circumstances. This is how He has taught me, personally and authentically, how wonderful He is. I experience Him, His thoughts, His ways, as I interact with Him in my prayer time, and by reading the bible, and when we obey Him. 

However, if I limit my interactions with Him, and live my Christian life spasmodically, in and out of what His Word says … I will end up with a limited view. He won’t quit on me, but I am distancing myself from Him. That’s when our relationship will become stunted and stiff and lack spiritual life. By engaging in this growth process, I have become aware that this relationship can be costly. I have had to give up my ideas and attitudes about this world and the people in it. Here’s a couple of examples:  before I met the Lord, I saw some people as enemies – but Jesus sees potential for a loving relationship. At other times when I am afraid, and try to hide or run away, He stands with me as I face whatever it is. He helps me conquer my fears. 

Father God’s view of love can seem upside down to what human beings think. Eve thought – “its just a bit of fruit and it looks OK – here you try it  Adam!” She thought her own wisdom was enough. King Saul thought looks and presence would put him over, as a king. But God wanted a man who trusted in Him, not appearances. Solomon thought that many wives meant He was a very important king. He ended up going the wrong way after those wives influenced him. Goliath thought being bigger, stronger and overbearing would give him victory. So God sent a kid to kill him with a round stone.

When we shrink God’s ways into a shape that suits US, we are making a god after our own image. Jesus Christ came to show us that He could live life as a human being like us and still have and maintain a God-obedient love-filled life. We simply need to continually study and obey God’s Word under His guidance, and let it change our minds and reactions. Then He will make that word alive inside us. This means to really live – we will have to choose to die. 👋🏻

“His divine power has given us everything we need for a godly life through our knowledge of Him who called us by His own glory and goodness.” 2 Peter 1:3 NIV

P 2393 Those who have gone on before us.

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“And consider the example that Jesus, the Anointed One, has set before us. Let His mindset become your motivation.” Philippians 2:5 TPT. Isn’t it marvellous that we have incredible, recorded, Godly examples to follow? Praise God we have what Christ did and said, in this book we read every day. Jesus made God’s will very clear! 

We have all of the New Testament to explain how the things of God unfold and transform, and how they worked for someone else. Whether it was Paul or Peter or Jude – they all lived this way… HIS WAY. All we need to do is to take what it says seriously and apply these things we read about into our lives! The sky is the limit when somebody starts living their life doing what God’s book says for Jesus’ sake.

Here’s something that Peter said: “Everything that goes into a life of pleasing God has been miraculously given to us by getting to know, personally and intimately, the One who invited us to God. The best invitation we ever received! We were also given absolutely terrific promises to pass on to you—your tickets to participation in the life of God after you turned your back on a world corrupted by lust.” 2 Peter 1:3 MSG. Peter knew that what he was given was also for others who would come after him – that’s you and I. 👏 We have been left an enormous inheritance by these great men and women of faith. 

Don’t fall into the trap of thinking that getting to know Jesus is a series of endless spiritual experiences. It is so much more than that – we get to live the way He lived and do what He did – we get to be like Him, in this world. His loving heart, His Character, His devotion to the Father. Jesus Christ shows us how to live a transformed life of devotion to God and He actively taught us what God wants from His kids.

Let’s look at His disciples, who totally relied upon the Holy Spirit for Christ’s guidance, and they too lived overcoming lives. They lived that way in a world that used Christians for target practice, lion chum and barbecue lights! Nothing much has changed today, many Christians are still paying for their faith with their well-being, lives and health. However  I can be inspired into action, when I read about the saints’ of old’s adventures, missteps, and godly actions in His book — and from there I get the courage to have some adventures with God myself. 

Both the Old and the New Testament tell us about people who gave up this life to gain the next. They watched Almighty God work on their behalf. I’ve written down some examples from the New. Let’s look at Ananias who got a word from God and was used to restore Paul’s sight. That man was scared to bits about his God-given assignment, but he did it in spite of his fear. He teaches me that fear does not have to win! Plus, I can simply go and do whatever God tells me, I don’t have to feel like it.

There was another Ananias – Ananias and Sapphira. That couple taught me that lying to God and others has a really really bad ending! Or Timothy, who listened carefully to his mother and his grandmother, and ended up as a companion to Paul. He had two whole books in the bible written for his personal edification. Timothy has taught me that godly mothers with faith are powerful people. 

Or Simon Magus the magician. He taught me the Holy Spirit cannot be bought. Grace can embrace the Holy Spirit but a lack of Grace, together with greed, sends Him away. Or there was Stephen, who waited tables and witnessed to the Sanhedrin, Jerusalem’s supreme rabbinic court. He recited the whole Jewish history from Abraham to Christ! I believe Stephen’s pure faith, together with everything the Holy Spirit gave him to say, had an effect on Saul as he stood and watched that stoning, and heard Stephen pardon his murderers as he died. This shows me that the word of God is a SEED – it has the power to change a life. Stephen died, but Paul eventually converted!

We have these witnesses in God’s book to help us to enrich our own faith. We don’t have to stay within the status quo, living our lives in dull little always-acquiring-new-things lives. We can be led by God Himself, the Holy Spirit, to “go into all the world and preach the gospel…” Acts 1:8. Hubby and I are about to go out again into Samaria, even though we preach the gospel where we live, to anyone who will listen. 

We go out there where the people are and to our amazement – Jesus is out there too!  Listen to what Jesus said about the Samaritan woman and her village in Samaria: “Don’t you have a saying, ‘It’s still four months until harvest’? I tell you, open your eyes and look at the fields! They are ripe for harvest.”John 4:34&35. What more do we need than… ‘GO?’ That was enough for the people in the book.👋🏻

P 2382 Faith needs to shape how we look at things.

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A renewed mind creates an environment for faith to be activated. But even so, we still need to go past renewing our minds — into acting on God-given revelations. Because our mind is not the source of faith – the bible alive within us and coming out of us, IRL, is!  We need a faith revolution. We need people who take every word that comes out of God’s mouth, seriously. Let’s start whatever we do, with the book!

Our God’s idea of faith needs to shape everything, even how we see any disasters in our lives.  Sometimes all we want is trouble fixed and everything AOK and sorted, so we can get on with what we really want to do! Did I say that out loud?? 😳 Most things we’ve believed in the past were validated by the way we read His book. We actively went looking for verses to prove our point, because we wanted life to be easy. So we found lots of verses that suited our theology, tied them all together and went with them.

Sadly we were reading the book to get stuff and be happy and stay happy! Instead of letting it teach us how to follow Jesus. For a number of years we rattled off ‘positive verses’ at each other and we went right round the ‘hard’ ones about dying to self. Unfortunately, so many Christians believers fell down this plug hole. We quoted things to and at each other, and waved those things at our Heavenly Father when we wanted something. That came under the heading — “God loves me and He wants me to be happy!” And off we sailed, into the sunset, waving these verses around, like some sort of good luck charm.

From now on, we need to look deeper into the book and digest what is in there! Jesus Christ’s life led Him to a Cross – but many of us think that we don’t have to follow Him there, because He already did all that for us. Really?? The bible is way bigger than our thoughts of gain. Meanwhile, did you know that in God’s way of thinking more than two things can be true all at once?? So here’s another different thought  — Jesus died to give us the power to live the same sort of life He lived. Sac-ri-fi-cial-ly. He died to give us the power to live for Him, doing whatever He did to tell others the good news. He lived with total dedication to God’s will, laying aside the charm and comfort of this life so that others could hear about God’s plan. That sure sounds like a cross to me!

Jesus consistently talked about the sort of faith that had difficult kinds of actions to go with it – stuff like forgiveness. Read the book! In the Beatitudes it says: ‘If your brother offends you … go to your brother.’ ‘Leave your gift at the altar and … go to your brother.’ You know as a younger Christian attending a lively church … I could never figure out why the road to church was not busy with people being reconciled. 

The same people who believed that God could do anything that they needed Him to do, didn’t seem to believe that reconciliation was important. Instead they simply avoided anyone who annoyed them. Or, as a last resort, they left that church. Here’s a fun fact – reconciliation is TOP of the Lord’s list. Christ started that list by what He did. He was an example for us. If we want to live a life of faith then FAITH needs to run the life we live. Not just agreement. The devil agrees with the bible! Check out James 2:19. 

If we take one or two, or even four verses that we like the sound of, and paste them over our lives, we are missing the biblical wider picture. That’s why we need to do more than read. We need to act on these things – practise them!. Let’s be careful of presenting one thing, or even a group of like-minded things as the only answer… when they are merely AN answer – one of many! Our God cannot be summed up in human words – He’s God. Our only response is to fall on our faces and obey Him. 

It is time to get rid of the selective weeds we’ve taken on board, the sort that can strangle true faith and total dedication to His will. Great verses taken out of context become a weed. If you don’t believe me then read Matthew 4:1-11, and watch with your own eyes … satan is trying to plant weeds in Christ’s heart, in the temptation in the wilderness!  

There is nothing like working with Jesus, doing things His way, to experience Him. Here’s a verse to pray over: “The people who love their God will be strong and do great exploits.”  Daniel 11:32. That verse is not just a suggestion – it’s a statement of fact! Daniel sure knew all about great exploits and his were very costly. Our faith shapes how we see things, so let’s look hard at what we think we believe and get rid of any weeds – and start reading and doing the hard bits to renew our minds. 👋🏻

“ …My old identity has been co-crucified with Christ and no longer lives. And now the essence of this new life is no longer mine, for the Anointed One lives His life through me—we live in union as one! My new life is empowered by the faith of the Son of God Who loves me so much that He gave Himself for me, dispensing His life into mine!”Galatians 2:19-20 TPT

P 2333 Be planted in the place He chose for you.

/ DVH

Psalm 1:1-3 “Blessed is the one who does not walk in step with the wicked or stand in the way that sinners take, or sit in the company of mockers, but whose delight is in the law of the Lord, and who meditates on His law day and night. That person is like a tree planted by streams of water, which yields its fruit in season and whose leaf does not wither—whatever they do prospers.”

These first three verses sound impossible, especially in the dim, spiritually nasty light of the world we live in. “Get thee to a nunnery” springs to mind. Maybe we all need a cloistered place to hide in, filled with like-minded people. Oh that’s right, that’s called church! 😳So should we all go and find a desert island??

My point is this – is the Psalmist saying avoid this world? I don’t think so. Walking in step with the ungodly;  standing still in a spiritually dark place;  or sitting down with people who think being a Christian is a load of stupid bunkum is dangerous, because doing these things involves influence and choice. We ignore what this Psalmist says at our own peril. 

This kind of careless living leaves us open to our own reasoning and logic, not to mention loads of people-who-seem-to-be-much-smarter-than-me. Most followers who walk away from Jesus do not reject Christianity overnight, they just kind of slowly drift away. Sometimes they feel let down by the church, or they lack the ability to fit in. They have not grasped the reality of what Christ actually did for us… or maybe they were never told in the first place.

Instead they’ve ended up with a hybrid gospel — ‘Jesus saved me, but … now I have to work hard to meet a standard that seems impossible to me.’ The Grace that Christ’s death and resurrection released has not been fully explained to them, so it cannot be appropriated by faith and action. He died to give us His Grace to successfully change the way we live – one step at a time.

I am of the opinion that simply telling people Jesus died to save them is not enough information. When they come to know what Christ did for us, if we are not careful we leave out an important part of the whole Gospel. In our anxiety and enthusiasm to ‘get people saved,’ we don’t talk about COST. Jesus died to save us and all that is absolutely totally free … BUT … it will COST us everything. We will have to die to ourselves, our hopes, our dreams, etc and live for Him now! 

Our old way to live is now gone – it went to the cross with Jesus. WE LEFT IT THERE WHEN WE LAID DOWN OUR SIN, once and for all.  His death released the power for us to live this life differently .. now we live using our faith! The day we are born again is the beginning of a whole new life and it is up to us to choose to live this new life from now on – every single day. 

Dying to self is not an optional extra. It is essential —because we cannot participate in this new life, without daily shedding the old one by dying to self. We must actively get rid of the old one, our old way of thinking, being, doing and living. We have entered a process. The Gospels and the Epistles are full of explanations about how this process works. Our new, born again, spiritually alive man rises from the dead.

Now we choose, with the Holy Spirit’s constant help, about WHERE we are to walk, stand and sit. And what we will do in response to other people’s sin against us. The result of this new life is a blessing, because it is our true identity now, our destiny. Because of our total life change, His word in the bible is essential, so it becomes our delight. Now, daily, minute by minute, it provides us with our Master’s voice. What HE thinks. In this book, He tells us how He sees thievery, murder, coveting, lying, idolatry, cheating, etc. etc. He knows that those things take us away from our pure devotion to Him. They rob us, because they possess us and our thoughts. 

They are traps and snares that steal away our love for the One Who gave up everything to save us. When we cherish what He said, above what we think, or feel, or think we need, we are planted by a stream that supports us in our daily lives. The Holy Spirit is that never-ending stream. Fruit naturally occurs, because we’ve been planted somewhere that is conducive to growing fruit.

JESUS CAME HERE TO SHOW MANKIND THERE IS A BETTER WAY TO LIVE and He lived that way in front of our eyes to prove it can be done. We need to allow the Lord to plant us in a place of His choosing – that is where we will prosper. 👋🏻

P 2331 Hard times do not mean that God has left us.

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Boy, is that sometimes a faith statement!! Hard times however, do st-re-t-ch us, and that is definitely no fun. Growth of any kind is hard work. I remind myself that His Grace is enough. It is astonishing what you can see if you stop focussing on the difficulty and focus on His Grace instead. After my recent accident, my broken humerus has had to grow enough bone to reattach itself to the head of the bone. Imagine that. What an amazing thing, I am literally growing new bone as I type this! At my age!!

I have not been given any medicine or specific treatment to help this healing. Rather I’ve been engaged in physical therapy to teach my muscles they may not lie down and hope for the best. Instead (!) they have to get stronger and support these broken bones. The human body is a miraculous thing, our God gave it all sorts of healing skills. My body, is currently working on healing itself in secret places. Thank you for your prayers, we are so grateful.

Now to my point today, we can become so used to, and adept at, hiding from and avoiding any sort of pain… that we do it without thinking and it eventually that becomes an unconscious lifestyle. There is much more to this life than a defensive posture.Do yourself a favour – take risks – really LIVE! We have His book, filled with stories about other people just like us — how they coped … and how they didn’t. That helps us change our mind and think like Jesus does, and boy, do we need to keep reading it. 

There are also some kinds of pain that are totally unavoidable.  Sigh. These things crash into our lives without our permission, and then they explode. Some things are sent to sidetrack us from our God-given mission and distract us from His purposes. Human beings have very limited energy when they are suffering, but we can use that limited energy to distract ourselves away from the pain. Then we are avoiding transformation, in favour of hiding.

I urge anyone reading this to deliberately ask the Holy Spirit for His help, healing, protection, wisdom and strength when trouble and suffering overtakes you. We don’t have to fix these things, after all they ‘happened’ to us — we just need to deliberately turn our faces to the One Who made us — and stay in that place of need and surrender. For ordinary suffering human beings that is not a fun place to sit! We want action, we want the pain to stop or go away. 

In these times it is incredibly tempting to think that: ‘God doesn’t care about me, or the the stuff that is important to me, and the people I care about,’  simply because things don’t always instantly turn around. Doubt about His love for us can cling to the walls of our heart like a climbing rampant weed and it tries to strangle our faith that He is ALWAYS good and He ALWAYS loves us.These times are opportunities to stand steady, and hold fast to God’s incredible goodness, whether we can see it… or not.

1 Peter 4:12-19 “Dear friends, do not be surprised at the fiery ordeal that has come on you to test you, as though something strange were happening to you. But rejoice inasmuch as you participate in the sufferings of Christ, so that you may be overjoyed when His glory is revealed…

… If you suffer, it should not be as a not murderer or thief or any other kind of criminal, or even as a meddler. However, if you suffer as a Christian, do not be ashamed, but praise God that you bear that name. … …” So then, those who suffer according to God’s will should commit themselves to their faithful Creator and continue to do good.”

Suffering is not a sign of God’s disfavour, it is simply the result of living in a fallen world, surrounded by imperfect, susceptible human beings and their sometimes corrupt systems. 1 Corinthians 10:13 says: “No temptation has overtaken you except what is common to mankind. And God is faithful; He will not let you be tempted beyond what you can bear. But when you are tempted, He will also provide a way out so that you can endure it.”  He hasn’t left us alone to suffer with our anguished thoughts. It’s simply time to do what it the book says.

In times of trial, sorrow and suffering we need to immerse ourselves in His Grace. Let His Grace be your hiding place. at the same time, be forgiving and generous with each other, sharing that Grace that God has given us. Always remembering that hard times are never convenient — they often turn up when we are already worn down by life. If our response utterly depended on us, then we may not be able to come up with the exact desirable attitude … but we know the One Who understands human suffering. The Lord Jesus will not condemn us for being weary in the fight. Cling to Him like a limpet on a rock. 

Hold fast to whatever you can see that is good – you will come through this. Almighty God is totally committed to your victory. He has not left us alone because He promised He would never do that. Keep watching out for what HE IS DOING. Feed your heart on that. 🙏