Scary

P 3337 Life ain’t boring, that’s for sure!

/ DVH

Here are some memories from our trip: At our farm stay the hosts had one Scottish Highland cow, multiple chickens, three dogs, not to mention a herd of ordinary garden-variety cows. The Scottish Highland cow loved carrots, so hubby went to feed it a number of times, as she was quite friendly. Her nose was as hard as a rock – it looked like a giant potato! And her tongue was so much longer than the large carrot he gave her. Crunch, munch … all gone! Some pet – half the size of a barn!

Two of their farm dogs were very active, but all of them were somewhat chubby from too much love. There was an elderly Pit-bull, a Labradoodle, and a Golden Retriever. The two younger dogs were quite bouncy – but fortunately, as you will learn, also a bit slower because of their excess weight. We were all in the lounge together talking about life on the farm, and suddenly the golden retriever runs by outside the large glass doors, with a pair of chicken legs hanging out of one side of her mouth and the chicken head hanging out of the other. She’s having a whale of a time. Hubby noticed her, said discreetly: “That doesn’t look like a good thing.” He’s a master of understatement. 

The owner went from a pleasant, friendly person to a distraught owner instantly. She screamed, “Lindy stop!” And ran out the door chasing after the dog. Lindy had quite obviously latently discovered her real role in this life … retrieving things. The dog thought the whole thing was a game, but when the owner yelled out “drop it,” Lindy dropped the ….mostly-dead-looking-straggly-wet—chicken on the ground. She’s still ‘smiling’ ‘cos she’s thinks she’s clever. Good time to note that retrievers have a soft mouth as they are often used for retrieving pheasants. Anyway, there were feathers everywhere because it seems the chook put up a bit of a fight. 

Now the dog sat by this totally collapsed chicken, looking so pleased with herself, wagging her flag of a tail. However, her owner was not amused. She picked up the chicken, the poor thing had fainted …  then she took the dog and the chook with her, and disappeared. Five minutes later she came back and announced that the chicken was going to be OK. For a few minutes I thought we might be headed for a chook funeral. How it survived that ordeal I will never know! However when we understood said chook was OK, we laughed so hard we couldn’t stand up. It truly was the funniest thing. 🤣 You could not have choreographed it.

Meanwhile the next day, in yet another town – we went to deliver some blankets, bibles etc. to a trained social worker at a local hospital. She brought tea and coffee with her, and came out to the car to collect packages, to save us the bother. An-y-wa-ay … we had already prayed for her before we met her, and when we were talking together, the Lord said to me: “Tell her she needs an exit. Tell her to pray for an exit.” We like know, zero, zilch, zip-didley-squat about this girl who is cheerful and smiley and looks professional and normal! I’m kind of dubious about this idea…”I can’t tell her that Lord! You can’t do stuff like this nowadays, it is not PC!”  Jesus said: “What are you concerned about? You won’t be here tomorrow!” 😂

I got the impression that the Lord was holding a big EXIT sign in His hands. “Tell her to look for the exit.” He said again. So bearing in mind the actual happy truth that I am definitely escaping soon, and I won’t have to see her ever again – see how heroic I am? … I simply told her what He said and Who said it. I had no faith whatsoever. None!

This precious young lady cracked open like an egg, weeping and nodding, and yes-sing all over the place. It transpired that she loves the people, but hates the job. She travelled 140km each way, every single day, from Sydney just to go to work – because she doesn’t live where she has to work. God sent us there — supposedly to provide blankets and toiletries —- but He really sent us to tell this sweet young lady to actively look for another place to do what she is trained to do. You never know what the Lord has up His sleeve and it can be a lit-tle bit scary. 

Next fun story:  someone back home mentioned to us that they just love autumn leaves, because when you pick them up, no other hand has touched them. They just kind of float down from the tree by themselves. Well, the town we were staying in was chock full of gloriously coloured trees and I had the bright idea that perhaps we could collect some and take them back to this person as a gift. So there is hubby, (I volunteered him, I sat in the car invisible to the world!… As you do!) He’s jumping up and down, bumping and thumping branches, so that leaves would fall off, and he could catch them in an open plastic bag – look Ma no hands! He’s racing round and round the tree holding the bag open. Yes we got some!

After that we trundled off to deliver bibles to a caravan park, 6 kms down the road, the last time we were here they said “No!” very firmly. This time, praise God, they said ‘Yes.’ However, on the way back we needed to buy some fruit, and the only Woolworths was on the wrong side of a very busy road. So I light-heartedly said to the Lord: “Do You think some angels could build a Woolies on this side of the street for us please?” Jesus said: “How long have you got?” He cracks me up every time. 

Last story, I promise! In one of our overnight accommodations, the ceiling of the unit was covered in tiny black insects. Hubby can get anaphylaxis from some bug bites, and I suffer from rampant hives. Well clever hubby carefully sprayed them with bug spray that we had brought with us – so now they are like … dead … on the floor, the bed, our clothes, the benches, the soles of our feet etc. were all covered in tiny black bugs. That was soooo fun! I am very glad neither of us sleep with our mouths open. Reaching out to people for His sake ain’t boring that’s for sure. Bye. 👋

P 2976 The difference.

/ DVH

There is a difference between who we really are, and who we think we are, and it is extremely useful to know the difference. Our self-perception is often based on self-deception. That is, we can’t bear to think badly about ourselves, so under pressure we hold ourselves away from the Lord and other people and frantically make excuses. We even revert to childish answers. Whenever you notice that – don’t excuse yourself, ask the Lord to show you what is actually happening. Go on to read the bible, wherever you are normally reading it and expect answers. Then act on what you read.

Let’s look at Peter, he very kindly shows us what a human being looks like! Jesus said in John 13:34 – “A new command I give you: Love one another. As I have loved you, so you must love one another.  By this everyone will know that you are My disciples, if you love one another.” Simon Peter asked Him, “Lord, where are you going?” Jesus replied, “Where I am going, you cannot follow now, but you will follow later.” Peter asked, “Lord, why can’t I follow You now? I will lay down my life for You.”Then Jesus answered, “Will you really lay down your life for Me? Very truly I tell you, before the rooster crows, you will disown me three times!”

The Lord knows the true blueprint of who each one of us is in reality, and He has freedom for each one of us. As I see it, we get into enormous trouble the minute we decide that WE are old enough to know who we are. There is no transformation in that stance, only roadblocks. After that we stop praying about things, or won’t consider change. We are selling ourselves short of our Glorious Ideal.

Unless we are prepared to choose God‘s kingdom as our yard stick, and not our own opinion, we will become stuck. And every subsequent return of our childishness is like cement. When opportunities come up for change and we refuse them, or excuse ourselves, we are hardening our hearts against the Holy Spirit’s promptings. Change is scary but it means I choose to actively hold up everything in my life to the light and say: “is this what Jesus wants for me?” I stop excusing myself and I no longer tell myself that this is just who I am. 

I treat my personal preferences like I would treat sin — carefully and thoughtfully, specifically, without beating myself up about it. Repentance is not beating yourself UP – it is agreeing with the Holy Spirit’s diagnosis of our hearts and doing something about it. If my attitude involves other people then I go to them and confess my fault. The bible tells us we are to confess our faults to one another, and I have found that one question helps me do this. I ask myself ‘is this love’ the way it is explained in the bible.

My own idea of love will not do, because I will probably excuse myself and blame YOU!  So I don’t stop there, then I ask myself: ‘would Jesus think it’s love?’ In other words would He do it or say it? If the answer is no … then it is time to repent, like I said above. I think we excuse a great deal of aberrant behaviour because we think it’s a personality trait.

Somethings have been adopted as protective mechanisms from when we were too young to understand what we were doing. I call those things Button A —  sadly, our world explodes if some dumb schmuck presses Button A! If you try to tell the exploding person about this phenomenon, they will deny it exists. For them it has always existed. Only the Lord knows how and when to deal with stuff like that and we are always on His learning curve and timing. We also can’t stop participating in His processes simply because changing some traits about ourselves seems to be uncomfortable or impossible! This is the place where we must actively learn to press in – the plus side is we learn faith in the process. 

It is not good to make excuses for our behaviour and continually use the past and the way we’ve been treated, as an excuse. Everybody has a story – and our story isn’t going to be graded by helplessness and sincerity! Sadly, when we live like this, we are limiting God‘s capacity to be ALL He is in our lives. He won’t just barge in and take over — that’s what free will is all about!  Instead He will give us more and more opportunities to choose differently. I have found that if I get the same sort of situation occurring over and over again, in my life… God wants me to pay attention to it.

Jesus is the Limitless One, so He is our benchmark. Just because we are afraid of the unknown, or anxious or proud, that does not give us a reason to stay where we are. Our yielded life is our contribution to our heavenly calling. Our God is kind, loving, merciful, generous, He is not looking to punish us, instead He wants to teach us His Ways. So when things get hideously sticky and ugly, and I can’t stand it, I remember that Isaiah taught me that: “He will not break a bruised reed,’ (Isaiah 42:3). Then I reassure myself that things may seem hard but He will not break me — so I put my faith in that verse, by choice, and hang on. I know from experience it may get bumpy for a bit. 

Sin is not terminal for us, someone else paid for it, and it is part of our faith walk to believe He did. There is no longer punishment for our shortcomings – there are, however, limited opportunities for change. We need to put aside childish reactions even if I reacted that way yesterday! And put on the new self, and we live our lives always willing and ever ready to change. Because the difference between who we think we are, and who we really are… can only be truly resolved by the One Who knows us intimately, and chose to pay for our sins. Bye. 👋

P 2326 God always has a plan.

/ DVH

Exodus 36:3-7 “They received from Moses all the offerings the Israelites had brought to carry out the work of constructing the sanctuary. And the people continued to bring freewill offerings morning after morning. So all the skilled workers who were doing all the work on the sanctuary left what they were doing and said to Moses, “The people are bringing more than enough for doing the work the Lord commanded to be done.” Then Moses gave an order and they sent this word throughout the camp: “No man or woman is to make anything else as an offering for the sanctuary.” And so the people were restrained from bringing more, because what they already had was more than enough to do all the work.”

When I read this my first thought was this – when is the last time we heard in church, on the tele, on Facebook, on some Go-fund-me page etc. ‘Don’t give anymore, we have enough?” Yeah, me neither. It proves my favourite theory… the line for ENOUGH always moves away from us. You know in the light of extra funds, Almighty God did not suddenly decide on an alternate plan, like maybe He needed to build a two storey tent/sanctuary just because those excess funds became available. He also didn’t decide to put gold-plated taps in the bathroom either! 

This shows us the Lord already had a plan, and that plan was to build a tabernacle that foreshadowed the one in heaven. (Hebrews 8:5) Remember? “Thy kingdom come, Thy will be done on earth,as it is in heaven?”

I think this story teaches us something about our Heavenly Father’s Character. Money, riches, excesses, are not an issue for our God. He is not greedy and He does not take advantage of people. Money is a very real issue for human beings however. We work hard for it so we think it is ours. In my opinion that is a big mistake – it says in Deuteronomy 8:18: “But you shall [earnestly] remember the Lord your God, for it is He Who gives you power to get wealth, that He may establish His covenant which He swore to your fathers, as it is this day.”

This story in Exodus also shows us that Almighty God is extremely happy to re-distribute wealth as He sees fit! It is also interesting to ponder the thought that what the Israelites were actually giving to create that tabernacle … was not originally theirs. It seems to me that it is much easier to be generous with someone else’s loot! This stuff was the plunder they had taken from their Egyptian taskmasters when they left Egypt behind.

I love stories like this one. Mainly because it creates a whole lot of ‘why’ questions. Asking why is one of the best ways to get further revelation and go deeper. into Who He is. Why would God want Egyptian gold etc to be used to build a tabernacle to Him? Yeah. I dunno. My only thought is that God provided that wealth so He’s entitled to use it however He wants to. 

On a side note, sad to say, down the road it appears that the left-overs, the bit the Lord allowed them to keep, was involved in the golden calf debacle. (Exodus 32.) Aaron called for earrings, rings, whatever … to be given to him, because the Israelites wanted a God they could see, of their own design, and control! Meanwhile, I dunno how anybody could have possibly missed the reality of the Presence of  Almighty God, when there was a thick black cloud, with lightning and thunder on top of the mountain they were camped right next to … 🙄 …

Later on, they complain that: ‘God scares us too much – you go Moses.…!!’😶  Like, would you, could you, please make up your minds??! A-n-y-w-a-y!!! … Aaron then claims he threw all that left-over gold into the fire and a golden calf ‘jumped out.’ Sounds like a Pinocchio moment to me. And then the Israelites had a very decadent nasty time worshipping that thing. However it made pretty awful snack food later when Moses ground the calf up and made them eat it. Exodus 32:20.

It seems to me that the Israelites did not know how to manage what they were given. None of that gold was theirs and the portion God gave back to them was mismanaged into sin. He had a plan, a purpose, to build a place for Him and His chosen people to meet. But they valued immediate gratification and their own ways over His. They virtually said:  “We want a god we can see and we can manage all that by ourselves thanks.” 

Boy I was convicted by that particular thought alrighty! I have had it myself, when the road ahead of me seemed dark, filled with lightning, extremely thunderous and scary. And at the same time, I was so-o-o over whatever situation I am stuck in. This is the time when we need to cling to the sanctuary we have already made in our hearts, with the gold and precious stones He has given us along the way. In those moments we need to remember HE’S GOT A PLAN. 👋🏻