Provide

P 3211 Procrastination.

/ DVH

“Procrastination is the thief of time.” I was taught that saying in my teens, years ago. Here’s the meaning: procrastination is the act of unnecessarily delaying tasks, even when you know it will lead to negative consequences, by choosing less important activities instead. It’s a common behaviour, not just laziness, often stemming from poor emotion regulation, perfectionism, fear of failure, or executive function challenges. While occasional procrastination is normal, chronic procrastination can cause significant stress, guilt, anxiety, and harm productivity and well-being. 

If you are a Christian, this particular attitude can cause doubt, fear, unbelief, and eventually inactivity to grab us. These traits often show up in our thought patterns: “Did God say that?’ “He wouldn’t really want me to do that would He?’ ‘I need to wait to be ready to do what He said.’ ‘He knows I can’t do that!’ ‘There are other people who can do things like that better than me.” ‘I don’t have an anointing to do that!’

That last thought is just plain dumb. We have the Lord’s instructions written down in the bible, signed in Jesus’ blood. It almost goes without saying that none of us are ever ready! I urge everyone to stop looking at famous Christians and let go of the kind of thinking that says, they are our example. Maybe you and I don’t have their anointing but we can still be obedient to our own personal heavenly calling. Besides —Jesus is OUR example, and motivation – not other people.  

Sometimes all I can do in a ‘talking to people’ situation, is to get my feet moving. When that happens it is not because I am disabled, it’s because I’m scared! Scared of someone else’s response, scared of somebody being mean to me, scared of the consequences in my life and in theirs. Maybe I will mess witnessing etc. up! This is a good time to remind ourselves of the things the Lord has done in the past. God fought without-number Midianites with Gideon and 300 men, and He also got Jonah to Nineveh via a whale taxi. Of course He can help us! Here’s something from His book to sort out our excuses. PS … when the Lord says ‘ME” He means YOU too!

“The Spirit of the Sovereign Lord is on ME, because the Lord has anointed ME, to proclaim good news to the poor. He has sent ME to bind up the brokenhearted, to proclaim freedom for the captives and release from darkness for the prisoners, to proclaim the year of the Lord’s favour and the day of vengeance of our God, to comfort all who mourn, and provide for those who grieve in Zion—to bestow on them a crown of beauty instead of ashes, the oil of joy instead of mourning, and a garment of praise instead of a spirit of despair. They will be called oaks of righteousness, a planting of the Lord for the display of His splendour.” Isaiah 61:1-3.

If we both sit about waiting to feel super spiritual, or hoping to have some wild experience with Him, to signify we have been sent by Him – we will miss the boat. Famous Christians are the exceptions, not the norm. Procrastination can easily steal the time that God has generously given to us, and we will end up at the end of our lives in the land of regret.  

The bible says this in 1 Corinthians 3:15 In the Message bible: “Take particular care in picking out your building materials. Eventually there is going to be an inspection. If you use cheap or inferior materials, you’ll be found out. The inspection will be thorough and rigorous. You won’t get by with a thing. If your work passes inspection, fine; if it doesn’t, your part of the building will be torn out and started over. But you won’t be torn out; you’ll survive—but just barely.”  Um… found out? We won’t get BY?! Torn out and started over?!! Barely survive?? None of that sounds good! 

There is a kind of evasive thinking that can dominate our hearts and minds, spiralling us into fear, as well as hiding from our calling. We can never afford to forget that we are now dead! We died with Him. We’ve been saved for His purposes now – plus we’ve been given gifts to use for His glory, and to benefit other people. None of that has anything to do with our comfort, lives, families, or our careers. When we live our lives for His glory our focus actually changes.

Someone once told me that their boss was so demanding they couldn’t find a minute to talk to anyone about anything, so Jesus was relegated to the back seat…. plus it didn’t seem fair to do the Lord’s work on the boss’s payroll! That kind of sounds OK eh? Except the bible tells us we can ask for anything and it will be given to us, and if we have a need He will supply it. Ask the Lord to make a way, where there seems to be no way! He’s really really good at it. 

I’ve had to face facts, one of them being there is nothing extraordinary about me. I’m everybody and nobody rolled into one older lady! But it’s a New Year and Father God has left us on this earth for a purpose. We need to find out why, and start doing it. Postponing God’s will, together with doing things His way, means we are postponing the very thing that will set us free from fear, anxiety and the spirit of stupid that seems to be extremely prevalent everywhere.

We are called to pray so we can find out what we are here to do. We do not pray to get Father God’s rubber stamp on what we think we should be doing! If HE is not in charge, then whatever we do, it will fall on its head! And produce no fruit! Procrastination is the thief of time, I urge you to watch out for it. Otherwise it will steal your birthright away. Bye. 👋

P 3081 Priorities.

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My title today seems to be the catch cry of this world we live in, people are practically lining up to take over our priorities: “If God gives such attention to the appearance of wildflowers—most of which are never even seen—don’t you think He’ll attend to you, take pride in you, do His best for you? What I’m trying to do here is to get you to relax, to not be so preoccupied with getting, so you can respond to God’s giving. People who don’t know God and the way He works fuss over these things, but you know both God and how He works. Steep your life in God-reality, God-initiative, God-provisions. Don’t worry about missing out. You’ll find all your everyday human concerns will be met.”Matthew 6:33 MSG.

Isn’t this a lovely version of this scripture? Here’s another version of the same scripture, from the Good News bible: “Instead, be concerned above everything else with the Kingdom of God and with what He requires of you, and He will provide you with all these other things.” This verse reminds us that priorities are important. It is my belief that we have accidentally let our own personal human priorities take precedent over God’s Kingdom business. Now here is my third version of the same verse from Matthew: “So above all, constantly seek God’s kingdom and His righteousness, then all these less important things will be given to you abundantly.”

The secret to this verse is highlighted for me with the words “less important.” Which leads me into assessing how important God Himself is in my life. Is He more important than whether the sun is shining or not? Is He more important than what’s for breakfast? Is He more important than my job? Giving God first priority means we will discover a whole other way to look at everything around us. I think Jesus picked flowers etc. as an illustration because that stuff is beautiful, but fleeting.   

God is a giver, He gives us … Himself, His Son and …time. Time to worship the Lord. Time to say that thing you always meant to tell your spouse. Time to say I love you, you are my friend. Time to be glad to have somewhere to sleep and something to eat. Did you wake up today? Me too! 🤣 That means that God has given us another day. Some people didn’t wake up this morning, but we did! What are we going to do with this day? I truly believe the focus we choose is the thing that steers us from day to day. Our God is not thundering from Mount Sinai — He is whispering inside our hearts. When He is our focus He tells us clearly that we don’t have to worry about anything else. Well, there’s a blessing! “This is the day that the Lord has made, we will rejoice and be glad in it.”

I am learning not to project my time into tomorrow, otherwise I start to worry what I will do about this and that, and usually those worries are fears, not real things. My point is this:  I don’t have tomorrow … I may leave here and wake up there overnight! I think that’s why the Lord told us: “so do not worry about tomorrow; for tomorrow will worry about itself. Each day has enough trouble of its own.” Matthew 6:34. Lately some of my days appear to have a fair share of difficulties, so that means that I will deliberately have to choose to put all those worrisome things down, simply because He told me to do it.

God made flowers, plants, trees etc and we know that He looks after them, but the book says —He loves US MORE!! Let that sink in a bit. He called you, by your name, you are not a minor member of the faceless crowd to Him. You are special to Him simply because you are you. His heart is sooo big it is more than big enough to take ALL of us IN. When we worry about tomorrow or what might happen, it means we’ve forgotten that His thoughts are always toward us. It’s kind of insulting really. We often lose our time to something that is not worthy of our attention. He made everything around us, and He will not forget us. We need to actively remember WHO HE IS and how much He cares for us.

Our earthly father may have been absent, busy, or just absent minded. He may have been switched on most of the time – or off. Those sad facts cannot override the fact that God is always ON and He is always interested in every single detail of our lives. When He mentions flowers which are transitory things, He is saying that nothing is too small for Him to care about. If it happens to YOU — He cares about it. I’ve found it is healthy to live each day I am given with eternity in mind. I think that’s what Matthew 6:33 is about.

However, God is not our head housekeeper, or a concierge, He isn’t with us to facilitate our lives and run them like clockwork! Emmanuel means God with us, so we are never alone. Maybe nobody else knows that we spend our days weeping over our heartaches. Or maybe soldiering on regardless – numbing our senses to cope with the pain that this life continually produces — but He knows. He does not want His precious people starved of love and meaning in their lives. That’s why He came here. 

Taking care of our day to day priorities can squeeze out the very life of God within us. Before we know it we are treating Him like an obligation, or, even worse … SomeBody Who is too hard to relate to. If that happens, go back to reading the Gospels and watch the way Jesus treats people, how He interacts with them. He is our priority because God made us His priority. Bye.👋

P 2685 It’s SO obvious!

/ DVH

I Corinthians 10:12-13: “So, if you think you are standing firm, be careful that you don’t fall! 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.”

Often when I am writing this blog each day, the Lord has already given me a scripture, or He points me in a direction that He wants me to go. Sometimes hubby shares a verse with me that has spoken to him, and I read through those verses prayerfully. I am listening for the Lord’s smile. Yes! I know that sounds weird. How on earth can you listen for a smile? I have no idea, I just know it happens. Moo-ving on …

Today’s two verses are verses that have haunted me for years. I know all about temptation, because I have fallen into it – lots, and getting out again has proved to be very costly. I got myself into those messes but I expected the Lord to rescue me and get me out with no contribution from me! However, today I read this scripture again for the umpteenth time, and I saw that I’ve been mis-reading a portion of it. A very important bit I might add! Does that ever happen to you? You read away and think ‘yes, yes, I know that bit, blah blah blah,’ and you move onto something else. 

New thought especially for today: When we eat, we bite, then we chew. There’s a lot to be said for chewing, it helps your digestion! It’s the same thing with the Word. You sit at the table the Lord has already prepared for you, and tell your enemies to go take a hike – and you bite off a bit of the scripture and, hopefully, chew on it. Except for 50 years or so, I’m pretty sure I didn’t chew all that thoroughly on this scripture.

Let me enlighten you: It seems that I have always stopped reading at the words:“He will provide a way out …” Retrospectively speaking that oversight was an extraordinarily dumb move! Six little words, that’s all I missed … but they are the whole point of this particular instruction. I have been in some deep dark holes and when I couldn’t find the way out, I started complaining at the Lord … (that’s never a good plan BTW )… that there was no way out, and what was He thinking about giving us that verse, when there WAS clearly …no easy let-off-the-hook way out! Sigh.

I should have kept reading! ← I’m just going to leave that there, because all temptation is common to man and somebody out there in blog land may need this particular thought too. The last six words change that whole instruction. Lemme repeat them for you… and me!  “… so that you can ENDURE IT.”  In other words, the way out, has a purpose!

The way out is NOT actually a WAY OUT, it’s the way IN … to gaining endurance. Sigh. I could’ve used that bit of info many MANY times in the last 50 Years. It would have saved me from myself. Instead of me looking for a ‘way out’ sign I should have been looking for a ‘way IN’ sign. How to stand firm in the face of temptation and gain endurance.

Instead I was busy looking for the exit sign. To be truthful, I’m pretty sure I actually saw just what I wanted to see. So here’s me literally and figuratively, on my face repenting! No wonder I fell flat on my face so many times, that’s a good place to repent from! Those six words I’ve written above, make a huge difference. Paul is not just telling us that the Holy Spirit will fish us out of whatever temptation we fell in to, He’s saying He will help us to stand fast  – as we resist the temptation! And standing fast gives us endurance.

Here’s what endurance means in the dictionary: “The act, quality, or power of withstanding hardship or stress.The state or fact of persevering.” Hmmm. Like I said, I could have used that quality in my life lots of times – there were times when I was pretty quick to bail out on what the bible said, in favour of Brother-so-and-so who said much nicer and more palatable things … like: “God will give you what you want, here’s a bunch of verses to prove it.”

I can’t blame Brother-so-and-so. My faith is up to me, not him! So if I let him mislead me it’s my own fault. This is a good place to remind everyone that it is a great idea to check up on what anyone else tells you. The fact that you might like what they are saying is no guarantee that it is right! Faith is personal, and we are not baby penguins who get their food pre-digested from their parents. When we read the bible it means we are settling into some prayerful work.

Now I have read those six extra words I will never forget them, but I could have saved myself, and others … ‘Oh Lord, forgive me for messing up things for others!!’ Amen! I could have saved myself and other people a heap of sorrow and suffering, not to mention the fact that I was misreading the Lord so badly!! — when it was all so obvious. 😞