Message of reconciliation

P 3199 Real life.

/ DVH

At our house, we like to watch endless Christmas movies before Christmas. My dear husband loves them… ME? … not-so-much. He likes the soppy, sappy, sometimes sad ones the best. And if we find a funny one, it becomes a classic, and it comes out year after year, after year … …Unfortunately, I’m a Big Bird meets Bambi girl myself, I like to look for movies in the kids department … well, I did, until they became nasty as well!

My daughter explained to me that this situation could be much worse. Lots of men like exploding, guns blazing, blood and gore movies …I think those blow-everybody-up movies should be piled in a heap and burnt. Now there’s a strangely telling response to violence if ever there was one. Any-way … we were suffering through… sorry …’happily watching’ … some totally inane junk … and somebody in one of them actually said something that was worth our attention. 

It took me a little while to recover, because what they said was vastly unexpected!  It actually made sense to me, but we will definitely need His help to do it! When you are watching soppy movies endlessly, the most ridiculous things suddenly seem quite brilliant. It’s called brain damage, and should be listed under the heading of things you should never do to your wife! Hmm, I may have a slight problem with resentment there, I’ll have to look into that.

This is what was said, and it really got me thinking: “Let’s act like the person you want to become.” I mean, like WOW! … Like how cool is that?  U-oh! Please hold…I’ve just realised that I may have been spending wa-ay too much time with my adorable granddaughters, and I’ve picked up the habit of over-using the word “like.” That word now seems to be the new comma. I wonder whatever happened to ENGLISH, and peculiar things like Grammar. Meanwhile it seems good to keep up with the younger generation, they’ll be in charge one day soon. Now, where was I? … ‘acting like the person I want to become’. Well, that got lost in the wash fast didn’t it?  Maybe it is easier said, than done. 

Yet this sentence still has a clear ring of truth in it.  So, today, I want to look at something I learnt from some dumb movie I recently watched to help my spouse enjoy Christmas. After all, hubby endlessly does all the work and all the cooking so that everyone else can have a lovely Christmas. That is now my motivation. However, at the same time, I must honestly say that a teeny tiny bit of the rest of the movie did make me laugh …. 

Here’s the bit — one of the main characters in the movie is asked by their small granddaughter. ‘why there are so many Santas?’And, then she wanted to know all their names because they couldn’t all be Santa! Of course Grandpa didn’t have a clue so he said whatever popped into his head. ‘Santa, Janta and Mylanta…” For some inane, utterly ridiculous reason I found that hilarious. Probably because Mylanta and I have more than a nodding acquaintance. Meanwhile, I think some of my marbles may have given up on me.

Third try to go back to my point… let’s act like the person you want to be.  I have to say that I’m not big on acting at all, because actors get paid incredible amounts of money to LIE for a living! But, I believe the Holy Spirit is delighted to help any one of us, as we begin to take teeny tiny faith steps out onto the choppy dangerous waters of this life.  He can take our intention and make it real.. What would happen if we decided to ignore any and all provocation, and respond with love instead? It could go like this:  someone says something mean because they are angry, but we choose to say something sweet instead: “I’m so sorry, I seem to have offended you,” I have to say I’ve tried that one and it works beautifully.

At the same time there is a chance that others can take great offence if it seems you are able to be more gracious than they are feeling at that moment. That’s why I pray help a lot! I pray like that because everyone needs it. All by myself I can make things far worse than they were ten minutes ago. The Holy Spirit is a wonderful Helper, and He often tells me: “Time to be quiet now.” He’s way too kind to me to tell me to shut up! There are other times when He reminds me that I may be mad in that immediate moment, but I do actually love that other person, so it is not good to injure our relationship by flinging my uncensored opinions about all over the place. 

He is, without a doubt, the very sweetest Person I have ever met. He gently reminds me about what the bible says too. My advice is to watch out for His whisper. He says lovely things like: “Love suffers long… it bears all things …” You know, all that stuff that we can say by heart — but then we find that what we believe is only skin deep. And right now it seems I am tempted to run on hurt feelings, so I’m probably going to choose to go with, ‘I wanna hurt you back!’  That’s not a good plan.

Here is a scripture to refresh everyone’s memory, including mine, about the kind of Love the Lord Himself,  extends to us, all day every day.“…that is, that God was in Christ reconciling the world to Himself, not counting people’s sins against them [but canceling them]. And He has committed to us the message of reconciliation [that is, restoration to favor with God]. …” 2 Corinthians 5:19. In real life, we may feel like we are pressed hard on all sides. But actually we’ve left our faith behind. Let’s go get it again and choose to find our inheritance and use it instead. Bye. 👋

P 2990 The great wall of blankets … as seen from space!

/ DVH

“If we are out of our mind [just unstable fanatics as some critics say], it is for God; if we are in our right mind, it is for your benefit. For the love of Christ controls and compels us, because we have concluded this, that One died for all, therefore all died; and He died for all, so that all those who live would no longer live for themselves, but for Him who died and was raised for their sake. 

But all these things are from God, who reconciled us to Himself through Christ [making us acceptable to Him] and gave us the ministry of reconciliation [so that by our example we might bring others to Him], that is, that God was in Christ reconciling the world to Himself, not counting people’s sins against them [but canceling them]. And He has committed to us the message of reconciliation [that is, restoration to favour with God].” 2 Corinthians 5:13-15,18-19 AMP.

Well you could easily think that hubby and I have lost the plot…until you read 2 Corinthians 5. Then, hopefully, maybe not! It seems the Apostle Paul also suffered from the same idiosyncrasies as we do, only his case was wa-ay worse than ours! He went on the road and stayed on it, permanently. He preached in jail as well. Gee I hope we never have to check that jail one out!! And what Paul is saying in Corinthians above in a nutshell is this – if I’m nuts, then I’m nuts for God, and if I’m sane then it is for your benefit.

He knew what was important, and he did more than ask people to church next Sunday – as if!!  Or hand out flyers and pass-it-on cards, he totally left comfort behind and travelled all over the Mediterranean preaching and starting churches. He was not just saying “I have A message” — he is saying “I have THE message.”  The message of the ages…  and … you in your small corner and I in mine ... we two are off on the road again! 

If I told you everything that is in our way you would think we have totally lost the plot! The thing is, we probably have. But Jesus is our Redeemer and He can take our spirit of stupid and do something amazing with it. All we need to do is be obedient. We are going because we too know we have been given the message of the ages and we want to give it away to everyone we meet. Our wonderful God is incredible, He turns up even when we have nothing to give. Actually, I should say – especially when we have nothing to give! He truly loves poverty- stricken people. Sometimes I wonder why we try so hard to look like we are coping, when God promises to be our strength. Moving on… 🙄

The above picture is just some of what we need to fit in our wonderfully elastic car. We have heaps of medical aids for me as well – not to mention some little things … like food and clothes! Every single time we go, hubby throws his hands in the air and says: “It is just not going to all fit in the car, I can’t fit it in.” This whole thing is becoming like a well-known play – the stuff always goes in. And afterwards we say things like:“I dunno how it went in, but it did. Just don’t sneeze OK?” Meanwhile the relief we feel when we off-load blankets, food, and bibles along the way is huge. Suddenly there is oodles more room… 

We once took our only slightly crazy dog on a trip with us … just once mind you … once was enough! Her presence added a degree of difficulty we were not equipped to handle. We are never doing that again. Instead we are giving her a holiday somewhere else safe. Anyway, hubby went around a particularly steep corner and a packet of chips and the lid of a container fell on her head.  She sat there for ages until we noticed she had a new hat, and then we figured out how far back that corner was! What a patient creature she is… I know I could definitely use some of her doggie patience.

As you already know hubby and I are big fans of love in action. Love in action facilitated me hearing the gospel. I was 27 years old. Years ago a dear older lady at a previous church used to come to my front door and give me the local parish newsletter every week. She didn’t have a car, and she walked all the way from her house to mine. I imagine I was one of many people she kept up with. 

I was highly suspicious of her kindness, and barely spoke to her when she appeared at my door, because I had 3 little kids who needed my attention. However, that lady just kept on coming … and when a crisis in my life occurred she was the person I phoned. I gave my life to Jesus on that day, all because she just kept on coming, week after week after week. We don’t always know what key will unlock someone else’s heart. But God’s love through her did not give up on me. She too was constrained by the love of God.

It is good to understand that loving God and others, starts with our obedience to what He has told us to do.“Therefore I urge you, brothers and sisters, by the mercies of God, to present your bodies [dedicating all of yourselves, set apart] as a living sacrifice, holy and well-pleasing to God, which is your rational (logical, intelligent) act of worship.” Romans 12:1. 

I have absolutely no idea what God could possibly want with my busted elderly body, not to mention dear hubby’s bad back! My theory is this – let’s all just live our lives presenting whatever we have to Him, following Him. Visiting our neighbours, or people in hospital or old people’s homes, shut-in mothers, plus genuinely caring for those people who work alongside us. We may never reach multitudes, but anybody can talk to one person! Let’s live this life, stuffing our cars full of blankets. ‘Cos love looks like something. Bye. 👋