damsel in this dress

Ok so I think it’s time I got back here… It’s been a while… my intentions have been good… but intentions don’t do anything lol…

Wow, what a journey. I am back into the swing of things with homeschooling and it has been interesting after such a long holiday (that only seemed like it lasted a week :-).

Have been rediscovering a book on Experiencing God. It talks about the seven realities of God which are challenging and awesome all in one. I’ll tell you just a few. But if any of you are wanting to hone in on what God is saying to you at this particular time then I recommend this book.

Reality Two is that God pursues a love relationship with each one of us. How true is that!? He draws us, woos us, and then just like in our relationships with others He shapes us… the more time we spend in The Light, the more the darkness is dispelled. Unless we run from the light so we can keep it “hidden”… but I am trying not to do that. My thoughts are, that it might be a bit painful to begin with but if I can just hold on, it’ll get lovelier as I am more like Jesus.

Reality Three: God invites us to join in on what He is doing. He has a place for all of us in different capacities to serve Him and His world. We just need to see where the invitation is. We can fill our lives with many things, but a friend of mine once said: “the need is not the call”. I thought he had rocks in his head, but I’m beginning to see what He means. We can be so busy we miss what God is trying to say and do. And sometimes we leave no room for him to steer us. Even when we have the right intentions (there’s that dreaded word again-intentions)

Now I’ll jump to Reality Six. Major adjustments are required to join in with what GOd is doing. Whether those major adjustments are in the physical or emotional or spiritual it is true. When God speaks, it requires faith and action. Faith that God will do what He says He will do, but obedience to jump out and stand on His word (which actually shows that we really are believing what He says). We can say we believe, but unless we do something about it then we don’t really believe it in our heart of hearts…

That brings me to the seventh reality- my fav one. That we experience God as we are obedient to His call.

I’ll give you an example from my life.

God lavishes His love on me and that allows me to see some unforgiveness in my life. He invites me to take His yoke which is easy and burden which is light, instead of my own heavy weighted heart of bitterness.

When I acknowledge I want to do that it requires me to have a “crisis of belief” (reality five) that requires faith and action. I need to choose to lay down MY rights and injustice and forgive which can be quite a major adjustment. Releasing that person who hurt me from judgements I had on them and giving up the right to harp on how I have been wronged and let my heart forgive (with God’s help)

This then frees me to experience God’s forgiveness and love, and I experience the “God who has caused me to forget”. We may remember the incident but the pain has been removed and placed at the foot of the cross. We are now carrying a yoke that is easy and a burden that is light.

There are other examples; like when God calls us to move to join what He is doing.

Anyways, hope this had made sense…

God longs for His people. He loves us with an everlasting love. And He wants to be involved intimately with our lives!!! The CREATOR OF THE UNIVERSE converses with me!… I just need to stop and listen.

The gift God gives us is a perpetual spring, bubbling up and bursting forth from within us to impact our own life but also those we come into contact with.

Sometimes I am acutely aware that I just don’t get it. I don’t even come close to getting it. At other times I feel like I could slay giants, ride any wave, face any storm because although the outside is looking grim the inside is telling me: Greater is He that is in me… what can man do to me?… it is no longer I that lives, BUT CHRIST…

The woman at the well was keen for this perpetual spring or living water at first because it sounded like it would make life easier physically, save some time and labour…”Please sir, give me this water… and i wont have to come here to get water”. But as we know Jesus wanted to quench a different thirst… and when she got just a hint of that, she went and ran back to her village to tell anyone who would listen what she’d found… and share it with them.

I want to have that spring constantly bubbling… I don’ want it to get stagnant so I become sour and forget the gift freely given…

I want to always have an answer when people ask about the hope I have… but first, for them to ask… I have to look and sound like I have got hope. Now I’ve said before, it is not positive confession(lying), but it is an inward knowing- which naturally outwardly shows- that regardless of what is going on…”it is well with my soul”.

I had the pleasure recently of hearing one of the most Bible based preaching I have heard in a while. I was impacted deeply and would like to share one particular point out of the many that has stuck in my head…

“Behold the Lamb”.

God is looking at THE LAMB when He looks at me. And that Lamb is perfect. No spot, no blemish… Just like when the Israelites would bring their lamb to be sacrificed as an atonement for their sin, the priest would look at the lamb to see if there was anything wrong… not at the man carrying the lamb.

ANd Jesus is the ULTIMATE LAMB!!! He is the once and for all sacrifice for me missing the mark, getting it wrong etc…

BEHOLD THE LAMB, not the man.

It is time I behold the Lamb in every part of my life. It will change my thinking and in turn my circumstances.

I don’t know if you know the old song with the line “when He looks at me He sees not what I used to be but He sees…. Jesus”.  AMEN!!!

Pra’da’Lord

Aah the mystery, simplicity and beauty of the gospel. I just love my Jesus

Can you smell it?
The stench of flesh burning…
oh how I resist the furnace and the threshing floor. I am struggling. My soul and spirit at war. The Sword which rightly divides between soul and spirit is at work in me and oh what an ugly sight I see before me, oh what a stench. But I will come through and see His beauty reflected in me have His sweet aroma permeate from my very core… because I am a stubborn mule. Which can work against me, but also for me. For me, in that I am passionate in my pursuit of my God and He even more passionate in His pursuit of me and so I know who’ll win… but I should learn to be the living sacrifice without all the thrashing. Without constantly getting off the altar to check out my “options”. As I read somewhere yesterday, “ I am the wretch that song was talking about” , I’m just glad for that Amazing Grace!

Food for thought: There is a teaching going around that Christ does the fighting for you. But if this was truly the case then would He have given us a sword?
Aaah but the Sword is the Word of God… and who is that Word…Jesus… i think i’m starting to get it…

however it still requires us to take up the sword… then let the sword do the rest

Our family have had a great time of late getting a little acquainted with the outback. We ministered at a Cobar Fellowship on the Sunday morning and then travelled on to Bourke to a pumping meeting in a jam-packed little church full of almost every nation on earth (and every dog)-nah the dogs were outside

It was so refreshing to meet new people who love Jesus and get excited about Him. We came away refreshed and invigorated. Can’t wait to get back there.  

The minister at Bourke has such an awesome heart for his town and Australia. We dropped in there to hopefully be spurred on with the same passion for our little part of Australia.

For a few months now, Ben and I have been meditating, and pursuing to drink and get immersed in the River of Life. We want to be flowing in the things of God so deeply that when others meet us there will be no doubt where we’ve been and that they will be moved to become a part… On Sunday night there was a song that seemed to be the epitome of what is stirring and almost bursting out of my heart… “Rejoice in the Lord and again I will say rejoice… come to the River and drink from the waters of Life…”. (that’s not all the words but that’s what I can remember).

Ezekial 47 talks about the River of healing… I don’t want to stay ankle deep, I want to be in over my head… I think it’s the only way to not just survive our journey, but truly live.  A few months ago, my friend Cathy posted a blog on a song that said “sink or swim I’m diving in”. That about sums it up for me!

This “becoming more like Jesus” thing sure causes grief, and tears… and joy. Oh the joys. (sing in a sweet melodic voice)…Oh how He loves you, Oh how He loves me, Oh how He loves you and me…
I think my most consistent trait is how spasmodic I am. Even when i go to write a post I am sometimes at a different headspace than when I started and what’s more can’t remember what I was going to write about that I felt was oh so important before…
Anyways enough ramble.

aaah the joys of holidays…

I see cardboard boxes lying around and want them moved, cleared, junk. My boys on the other hand see endless opportunities, and countless treasures just waiting to be made… most of time, they win- i see their point. So we keep the box and turn it into something wonderful.
Lots of fun, affordable and uses imagination. The downside is… finding the space to keep all these wonderful treasures that the boys don’t want to part with because there is so much of “them” in each project.

This post is a little “old” now(like written last week :-) but thought I would post it anyway…

I have often thought that some of the old songs I sung at church were lovely but fake. BUT what I am beginning to realise, is that reality isn’t always the truth. When they sang “I will enter His gates with thanksgiving in my heart, I will enter His courts with praise” (directly from the Bible) they were making a declaration. Not necessarily saying how they were feeling or what the circumstances they were in, but a decision that they had made. I WILL enter His gates with thanksgiving in my heart. I WILL enter His courts with praise.

I am giving this a go. Not positive self-confession where I pretend the world around me is all rosy and nothing ever goes wrong, but speaking to my heart and telling it the truth. That “no matter what happens, always be thankful, for this is God’s will for you who belong to Christ Jesus”. (1 thess 5:18)

Today I felt that familiar tightening in my chest when my husband said he was leaving to go to work. I felt like I wouldn’t be able to cope with the children, the housework, home school etc. I started going to myself, “I hate this, I’m sick of this, I can’t do this” and feeling worse by the minute. Then my wise husband saw it written on my face and prayed for me.

He left for work and another old song came to me (also Scripture) “This is the day that the Lord has made, I WILL rejoice and be glad in it”. And you know what? As I started singing it, something in my spirit lifted and I felt invigorated. Yeah God made this day and I WILL choose to rejoice.

I had to say it a few times throughout the day, but this is the first day in a very long time that I am not completely overwhelmed by the end of it and wishing it to end.