Meditating

P 3083 Adaptability.

/ DVH

““Learn this well: Unless you dramatically change your way of thinking and become teachable like a little child, you will never be able to enter in.” Matthew 18:3 TPT.

Back when my kids were little, once a year I took the three of them, separately, off into the city to buy an individual ornament each for our Christmas tree. Those individual journeys included a visit to the Christmas theme park on Myer’s roof, a ride on something or other, plus a joyous inspection of the Myer windows. Then we wandered around the Christmas shop together choosing this year’s ornament. Finally they had a yummy treat, and a return long train ride home, with lots of time to talk. 

However, even though fun was on the agenda, I knew I was there to teach them how to be responsible caring people, whilst preserving as much of their childhood fun as I could. So somebody else, (me!), cleaned their clothes, and decided what they would eat, and I looked after them when they were sick etc. Unfortunately, once they started to grow up, things became more difficult. They didn’t like this and they wouldn’t eat that. Their ‘teachability’ and ‘adaptability’ levels dropped clear away as they grew older. 

I discovered today, when I spent time meditating on this verse from Matthew, that I personally have no idea how to be a child when I am with the Lord. After all children trust their parent to get things right! But that kind of freedom was absent from my own life, because I don’t think I actually knew very many carefree moments. I’m not complaining BTW, I simply lived with a distinct lack of the kind of freedom a happy child enjoys. So it continually clouded my view of the way the Lord sees me. 

And let us be clear —the Lord sees us as His children, as well as seeing us as His people. It dawned on me that I need my thinking transformed in this area as I have a limited human reference point to draw upon. I strongly suspect that I am not the only pickle in this barrel, many other people have had limited childhood experiences too! But is this what this verse is all about? Is it just the idea of being taken care of without even noticing? Or being able to play anywhere you want, whenever you want? I came to believe this verse is all about our inner attitude toward God Himself.

So I did further research and decided to look at children in other countries. And lo and behold, in the midst of war, starvation, and suffering, I saw that if a child can play, it will. We’ve all seen pictures of children playing in bomb sites, or in the dust and dirt of a refugee camp. I came to the conclusion that childlikeness is an inner attitude – it is not formed by our outward situations. It seems to me that Jesus is talking about the way we approach this life. Things like wanting to learn and being adaptable to change.

Those children in refugee camps etc. don’t want to be where they are, they would probably like a nice little safe house to live in, but their circumstances have taught them to ADAPT.And as I have aged, it seems I have become less adaptable. That attitude, plus life’s ongoing difficulties, trials and heartaches can actually keep me from the very place Father God wants me to live in! He wants me to remember that I can always be confident in Him, despite my inner or outward circumstances. 

Faith is defined in the dictionary like this:“complete trust or confidence in someone or something.” That’s when I took a good look at my own measure of faith and I decided that my somewhat oppressive childhood was no excuse. I can’t hide in what other people did to me, because now – today! – I have a choice. I can’t even hide in what some people continue to do to me …because my confidence is in GOD HIMSELF, not in my circumstances or other people’s actions. Whether I am damaged by this life, or ill because of my body’s weaknesses, I can still choose to live in complete confidence that God is with me, and for me, and He will finish the work He started in me.

That’s what childlikeness looks like. It is about trusting in  SomeOne Who is greater than I am – even when I don’t understand what is going on. Every single thing that happens to me does not always have to be assessed by my understanding because my understanding is broken! Unless I believe that God Himself means to do me good, when things look bad – I will start to lose my childlike attitude and trust. 

Wonder of wonders, my glorious Father has given me a book that gives me detailed descriptions of how He feels about me, (and many many other people) so I need to put my faith in His written word, more than I put it in whatever is going on around me. Children trust their parents to fix things – while they go on with what they are doing. In the end, I decided to pray to be more adaptable … how about you? 👋 

“Energise the limp hands, strengthen the rubbery knees. Tell fearful souls, “Courage! Take heart! God is here, right here, on His way to put things right And redress all wrongs. He’s on His way! He’ll save you!” Isaiah 35:3-4.

P 2985 Learning to soar.

/ DVH

Anything that talks about soaring above the difficult things in this life will grab my attention. So today I want to read Paul’s idea of soaring above the cares of this world —- from Galatians 5:16-18 TPT. “Let me emphasise this: As you yield to the dynamic life and power of the Holy Spirit, you will abandon the cravings of your self-life. When your self-life craves the things that offend the Holy Spirit you hinder Him from living free within you! And the Holy Spirit’s intense cravings hinder your self-life from dominating you! So then, the two incompatible and conflicting forces within you are your self-life of the flesh and the new creation life of the Spirit. But when you yield to the life of the Spirit, you will no longer be living under the law, but soaring above it!”

Eagles soar. Have you ever noticed that chickens are always looking down, kicking up dust, looking for worms, scratching and pecking …  But eagles!! They fly higher and higher above this world’s activities, enjoying the warmer air that helps them fly. They see this world from a different vantage point.

I think this is part of Paul’s point today. We can face this life one of two ways. After the dust of trouble and strife has settled, we can choose to mount up on eagle’s wings. Thank you Isaiah 40! Or we can go on scratching about in this world’s ideas and clever trends, and miss seeing the vastness and incredible plans of God Himself. But we will need to choose to rise up and see what’s going on from His point of view. 

Sometimes, I end up being a chicken! Life can seem like one ghastly event is followed rapidly by another and then another — and I end up thinking “If I could only just get a moment to catch my breath!’  But the waves of life’s difficulties keep coming … and coming … and coming! Suddenly you have the horrid thought that you may be stuck in an endless sea of trouble, and it seems like you’ve been there for months! In the end I asked the Lord “Jesus, what is going on?”

Yeah! Have you ever had one of those moments when you wish you hadn’t even thought to ask a question…because you were pretty sure the answer was not going to be all that great?? I hear ya! This is what the Lord said to me, and I have to be honest – because I promised I would be honest on this blog …I was not over-the-moon thrilled with His answer. He talked to me about pruning. You know that stuff you have to do when you have a garden and the rose bush is heading for another state and your trees are hanging over into your neighbour’s yard? “I’m pruning you,” He said.

That’s when I realised I’d asked a question that I didn’t really want an answer to because I had already decided what kind of answer I would like! Which is an incredibly dumb idea. What I really wanted to say was: “Lemme outta here, I’m drowning. I need a happier times fix!” Eventually I sat and read the book. So far I’ve read John 15 about six times because it talks about pruning. Spiritual pruning didn’t sound all that much fun. The first thing I noticed is that if a branch in my life is fruitless … then a-pruning He will go! That pretty much emphasised the fact that being fruitful is extremely important to the Lord, even though I believe being fruitless can happen to all of us..

The secret to being fruitful is to stay in Him and His ways. This is what came up for me, as I was meditating on it. Remaining in Him, means I live this life aware of what I have been given by Him, but it is not just a happy thought I visit every now and then. Everything I am now, comes from that place of grateful recollection of Him saving me, plus everything He died to give me. I need to live my life, my very ordinary life, aware of the incredible exchange Jesus Himself provided for me. His eternal life for my death to self. His righteousness for my sinfulness. His perfect love for my own natural human affection …His peace for my irritability etc.

At the same time, I will have to actively cultivate and deliberately let what He says in His book remain in me – in my life and my thoughts. So now His Word becomes my reference point for everyone I relate to, everything that happens to me, and everything I do. It becomes my new conscious-thought pattern. Which sounds remarkably like “renew your mind” to me! The Lord cannot be an add-on —. He, and His life in me, are to be my focus. Living like this will lift me up above life’s difficulties and give me an eagle’s view instead!

We all want to be productive for His kingdom. We may be daily growing in knowledge, but if we are not bearing fruit, then we will eventually need to be pruned. Not because He is mad at us, but because pruning produces … fruit! Maybe we have all lived in the natural for so long, we’ve turned into chickens and the things of His kingdom seem hard to scratch out and find. We will have everything we need for whatever comes our way, if we let Him teach us how to soar, and cutting off the old dead wood is a good start. Bye. 👋

P 2937 Two ways to read stuff.

/ DVH

“So, because Jesus was doing these things on the Sabbath, the Jewish leaders began to persecute Him. In His defence Jesus said to them, “My Father is always at His work to this very day, and I too am working.” For this reason they tried all the more to kill Him; not only was He breaking the Sabbath, but He was even calling God His own Father, making Himself equal with God.”John 5:15-18.

The Pharisees could not see beyond their prejudices because they thought Jesus was making Himself equal with God. That’s the trouble with human opinions and prejudices – they colour in whatever you see to prove your own point. Sadly, these brilliant scholars and teachers missed something in their singular focus! They missed a huge revelation, because they wanted to disprove its source.The sabbath was made for man, for our benefit —man was not made for the sabbath. REST is our portion, every single moment, hour, day, of the week. Not just on Sunday! We are to live in His rest right now, by doing what God wants us to do. (Matthew 11:28) 

Almighty God often hides Himself and His truth inside things that could offend us, or stuff we may dismiss or resist. We are to do whatever we do from rest, not from striving to get it right, or trying to be good enough. And that’s not some-day pie-in-the-sky stuff. It’s REAL, it’s for today, it’s for YOU. God absolutely, totally took care of our sin when Christ came and died on our behalf. Now we simply enter into the place that Christ won for us – using our faith and then we rest in what He did. 

Jesus was pointing to a new reality – one that ushered in a different way to live … Now we are destined to live this life totally dependant upon Him, and follow His plan for our life. That’s what freedom looks like, it looks like the right to say YES or NO to God Himself. At the same time, what He said pointed to His authority to say it! But these legalists didn’t like that at all, they stumbled over His claims that God was His Father. He’s OUR Father, too!

Right before the above incident happened, Jesus healed a man who had been lying by the pool at Bethesda. The people in authority took exception to this healing because He did it on the Sabbath. That’s why He explained Himself in the above scripture. He basically said: “I’m working because God Himself is working.” Jesus spent His life helping people, ushering in healing and deliverance, and everything He taught us was to show us what the Father is actually like. He went over and over it. He did what He did because He saw His Father doing it. 

We need to go far deeper than simply reading and rereading the stories — we need to be more like Ruth, who went into the fields to gain food so she and Naomi could eat. Even the leftovers in God’s kingdom can feed people and change a life. (Matthew 15:27) There is always more. The more we look, the more we will see. If we only look for instruction, that is all we will see. But if we look for HIM, His nature, His Ways, we will find HIM and, He is our forever treasure. 

The Pharisees were already happy with what they believed, and they weren’t willing to have their lives turned upside down. But Jesus persevered with them, over and over again. He said stuff like this: “You’ve got this bit right, but you need to look hard right there!” Jesus didn’t just come to die for us and show us a new way to live, He came to reveal His Father! We get so tied up with finding the benefits we miss the Main Event!  He said this in John 5:30.“By myself I can do nothing; I judge only as I hear, and My judgment is just, for I seek not to please Myself but Him who sent Me.” 

The Lord had no agenda – at all. It’s hard for us to imagine what that is like, because most people today are all agendas! But watching Jesus do what His Father wanted Him to do, gives us big clues. “It is the glory of God to conceal a matter, But the glory of kings is to search out a matter.” Proverbs 25:2. God likes to hide things, and they are not always in plain sight. It is worth soaking in, meditating on what is said in the bible, plus asking the Holy Spirit to give us eyes to see what is really going on. And don’t forget to ask how it applies to me! 

Father God is there as plain as day for those who take the time to seek Him out. However, we must stop seeking Him to prove our point and let Him make His own! Things that don’t make sense to us now, will suddenly begin to make sense, when we stay open to His point of view. The bible was not just written to benefit us –it was supernaturally written and preserved to reveal HIM.  We must pour over the scriptures like it is a puzzle we want to solve, because our clues to our Beloved are IN them – the Living Word is in there!  

Why would He use a whale to post a man somewhere he needed to be? Why would He use 300 men to vanquish more warriors than someone could count? Why would He walk an entire escaping nation across the bottom of an ocean? Why would He explain Himself to someone who was so devastated by loss that he couldn’t hide under his own platitudes any more? Why would He speak through a donkey? Why would He send His ONLY Son as an infant? That list goes on … there are two ways to read the bible. Stop simply reading, and ask the Holy Spirit questions.

He’s looking for the people who choose to lap water – the ones who are ready to run with Him.  Bye 👋

P 2837 What we do with what God tells us daily, matters.

/ DVH

I know that many people, past and present, have had a great deal to say about this parable, I personally love the clarification the Lord Himself gave, which comes directly after it in Matthew 13:1-9:

“He (Jesus) taught them many things by parables, and in his teaching said: “Listen! A farmer went out to sow his seed. As he was scattering the seed, some fell along the path, and the birds came and ate it up. Some fell on rocky places, where it did not have much soil. It sprang up quickly, because the soil was shallow. But when the sun came up, the plants were scorched, and they withered because they had no root. Other seed fell among thorns, which grew up and choked the plants, so that they did not bear grain. Still other seed fell on good soil. It came up, grew and produced a crop, some multiplying thirty, some sixty, some a hundred times.” Then Jesus said, “Whoever has ears to hear, let them hear.”

Almighty God gives us seed to sow from His Word – hopefully… daily!! His book is a fantastic source of life-giving seeds. We need to take those seeds He has personally given to us, and share them with others. That seed that His Spirit kisses, especially for us, has His life in it. Its power lies in the fact that God revealed His truth to us.

It may have been something someone said when they were preaching, and it struck us in the heart like an arrow finds the target. Or it may have been something that stood out as we were reading the bible. It could even be when we were talking to the Lord and suddenly a scripture fell down from our thinking and meditating —- where we had hidden it while we were renewing our minds – and it sank down deep inside us, into our heart where growth can begin. Wherever or however it happened, that fresh seed is now ripe for planting. It can produce a crop.

The seeds of His Word that we sow into our lives – as we daily read the bible and act on it — can behave exactly like this parable describes. Sadly some seed doesn’t even make it past 2 seconds of thought, because it has fallen upon a well worn pathway of previous knowledge, and so it is whisked away by the birds of the air … those thoughts and words that are constantly flying past us, because of everything we are exposed to in a single day. It is so easy to think: “I know that already.” Now we have a seed immediately stolen by pride.

Also in our daily bible readings, if we take the time to treasure His voice, we can sometimes discover “rocky places” in our hearts. They are not like the well-worn pathways that we barely notice, these are hard places that we try to skim over and ignore with thoughts like this: ‘The truth is, I don’t think I have to change, I think the other person should.’ The scorching heat of that bad attitude kills off the power of His precious seed, and it is killed off by negligence. Always remember that true forgiveness doesn’t keep accounts, be-ca-use … hallelujah!!… fortunately for us, Jesus doesn’t keep them either.

“The thorny ground” seeds are the places in our hearts we haven’t bothered to weed and keep watch over our wrong thinking. ‘Weeds of unbelief, or discontent or disappointment’ have flourished there. What we haven’t realised is that, spiritually speaking, any one rotten attitude can take over our thinking. So the possibility of a harvest from any seeds that are sown into the weed-filled patch, is negated. These spiritual seeds won’t receive their share of nourishment from any water and good soil, because the weeds of our wrong thinking are crowding them out, and soon the whole plant of His word, becomes sterile and unproductive.

Now let’s look at “good soil,” the stuff we are to cultivate and watch over in our hearts. Good soil not only gladly receives the seed of God’s Word;  as we act on it, that seed begins to flourish, and grow into a healthy plant. The increase in our seed production, is always up to the Lord, our part is to cultivate the soil of our hearts with humility and love. And take the time to prayerfully water and feed these His seeds with tears of repentance, and acts of sacrifice as the healthy plants begin to grow. Now we have seeds that will bear fruit and can be harvested.

As you can see, there are four different results from exactly the same seed. The seed does not change, but how it is received does. Even if we sometimes feel unsure about what we think the Lord is saying – it is our responsibility to watch over His seed and act on it accordingly. What we do with what God tells us daily, matters. How we receive it matters. Preparing our hearts to be open to change and transformation matters. A huge harvest can come from our dedication and our willingness to yield to His Ways, even to the death. Bye.  👋“They triumphed over him (satan) by the blood of the Lamb and by the word of their testimony; they did not love their lives so much as to shrink from death.” Revelation 12:11.

P 2448 I’m a fan of James.

/ DVH

“Every gift God freely gives us is good and perfect, streaming down from the Father of lights, who shines from the heavens with no hidden shadow or darkness and is never subject to change.” James 1:17 TPT. ” Every good thing given and every perfect gift is from above; it comes down from the Father of lights [the Creator and Sustainer of the heavens], in whom there is no variation [no rising or setting] or shadow cast by His turning [for He is perfect and never changes].” James 1:17 AMP

I really like James. His subject is always related to Who God is, and what He expects from us. When you write a blog like the one I write every day, you should really only have one point each time. I sneak a couple of others in every now and then – but James jumps about like a grasshopper in a grass fire! This means that sometimes even the smallest part of each paragraph or chapter has an individual point worth meditating on. You simply can’t rush reading James! The deeper you dig, the more you will find.

He’s full of prayer points. He makes reading, simply for the sake of general reading, harder. James is a book to be studied, not just casually read. I find I have to stop and think and pray a lot! We need to savour what he says as we go along, then decide to take the time to chew on each of his points, because James has not made it easy for us. Instead we simply have to stop and pray and ask for help. Today I want to look at the above scripture. I put it in two different versions to help give it breadth. I often read the same thing in other versions when I read from the book of James!

As he carefully tells us, our God has given wonderful gifts to mankind — salvation is definitely the greatest one. However, wisdom is also a great gift. Further on in this book James tells us to ask for wisdom, and use our faith to receive it. Wisdom will not simply fall on us, we have to go after it. Every single thing Father God gives us is great. – no matter how it looks at the time. And these gifts are not meant just for you and I, they are meant to be shared with everyone else around us.  Someone once told me that the best gift from God, is the one you need at that moment! That sounds good to me.

At the same time the verse above contains revelation about Father God’s character. Who He is, how He relates to us. Our precious Father is not deceitful, or whimsical. He doesn’t change His mind according to His moods … because He doesn’t have them! Our Heavenly Father is not subject to moods like human beings are … His love is always ON! He doesn’t like us one minute, and not the next, simply because we did some awful or dumb thing or other. Jesus Christ took care of that.

When you read the Old Testament, God’s incredible patience, and endurance with man’s poisonous self-serving manoeuvring, plus controlling manipulative ways, becomes apparent. Mankind constantly questions the Lord’s purity of purpose all over the place in the Old Testament. That is still a huge danger for us today. We can end up negating our own faith by questioning His goodness and His loyalty to us. In this scripture, James highlights Father God’s goodness. It needs to be firmly established within our hearts, without question. However, we must continue to look for signs of His loving goodness, when we read – otherwise His goodness becomes an add-on to our own needs.

The Holy Spirit will help each one of us uncover how loving and kind He is. Just simply ask for eyes to see Him as you read it. Otherwise we can end up looking for something to benefit ME, help ME in my hour of trial, and miss the very best part. HIM. God is always the best portion. The more revelation we have about His Love and Character the more our faith will grow. I have personally discovered that the more I intentionally look for the best in other people, even when it seems elusive, I will see something good I haven’t seen before. Living like this changes my attitude towards others.

This scripture in James tells us that Almighty God never changes. That word never is powerful. Never means … not ever! So when our circumstances are not favourable or even incredibly difficult, GOD HAS NOT CHANGED TOWARD US.  Our circumstances must never dictate our faith. We need to practice relying upon His goodness and faithfulness to get us through life’s hard bits, and continually look for evidence of His involvement in our lives, despite our personal situations. Acknowledging that I don’t know everything, diminishes pride and it humbles me … all at the same time.

All of this may seem obvious, but under extreme pressure we can easily question “why?”  ‘Why has this thing happened, why are things so difficult?’In those times I believe that it is almost impossible for us as human beings, to understand the kind of love, wisdom, forbearance, faithfulness, and gentleness Father God gives us AS A GIFT. I love that James reminds us that if it is good, then it is God, and even when it looks bad, it can still be Him …working in ways we do not understand. We can count on that fact because God’s loving consistency is without question.  Bye. 👋🏻