You know you haven't blogged for awhile when you forget where you put it....
Was listening to "This is Amazing Grace" by Bethel tonight and while it was playing there is a line it that says "that you would take my place, that you would bare my cross" and it reminded me of that scripture "Then he said to them all: “Whoever wants to be my disciple must deny themselves and take up their cross daily and follow me. Luke 9:23".
So I said "you know Lord, I have never really understood what you meant by that. I mean I kinda get it... actually no - I really don't. What DID you mean?"
And He said, "Well... it means - you take up YOUR cross. You do for me what I did for you"
"Yeah. OK. So... When YOU took up YOUR cross, you took all my sins, my failures, you stood in my place and took my punishment on you. OK so... um... I stand... and take up... your sins? No wait! That can't be right. You were sinless. You were God. What can I possibly do - what cross can I bare - there is nothing! Loooooorrrrrrd nope I still don't get it."
And do you know what he said to me? Now bare with me if this is complete heresy and I am still fleshing this out (no pun intended) but he said... and also the music was still playing so..., you know...
"No Nell. You are not the Messiah..." :-)
"Salvation is freely given. No price. I paid the price. Anyone can have salvation and live in the grace of what I did on the cross"
"Discipleship has a price. Discipleship is a cross experience"
"My cross was - I was sinless yet I gave up my sinlessness and I took your sin on me. Your cross is - you have sin, yet you take up my righteousness and live sinless for me"
"My cross was - I was a King, yet I gave up my Kingship and become no-one and nothing. Your cross is, you were no-one and nothing, yet you take up my Kingship and become a King."
"My cross was - I was the Son of God, but I lay down my Godishness (yeah come on that is totally a word) and became a man. Your cross is, you were a son of man, yet you receive the Holy Ghost. The power of God comes into you!"
"My cross was - I was the ONLY begotten son of God. I gave up my inheritance, my status as the son, my birthright. Your cross is- you were an orphan. Yet you take up your cross and you become an adopted son of God. You get full inheritance. You get to call my Dad, Dad."
"My cross was - I was the son of God, King, Prince, The Alpha, the Omega, the beginning, the end... a pretty important guy. I gave that up and was ridiculed, made fun of, and teased. Your cross is - you were 'a foolish thing', 'a vessel of dishonour', yet you become a pretty important person. A child of THE God of the universe. You get to actively turn away from every negative pointed finger against you, and put on robes and a crown and honour"
My cross was - I had to be separated from God. No you don't even know! I had known nothing but Him. Why do you think I prayed till I bleed tears in the garden? Why do you think I begged not to have to do it. To be separated from Him, to march into Hell alone, forsaken, To be disowned, dishonored, disinherited. To become an Orphan. For my father to turn his face from me because of the shame I bore.
Your cross - is that you are embraced by your father. That as he turned his face from me, it was towards you. That you could run into his arms and never, ever, ever be seperated from Him, His presence ever again."
"That is your cross. An active conscious acceptance of your inheritance. An active giving up of sin, of being an orphan, of being a nobody, of listening to ridicule or the things that keep you down, of being separated from him and being alone"
Thursday 29 May 2014
Monday 14 April 2014
I am such a hypocrite!
One of my favourite things about God is how he will gently and comically remind us of our... humanity... when pride starts blowing us up like a Pinata!
The other day I had an amazing experience. I struggle with forgiveness towards certain people. I am not talking about people who forget to pay me back that $20 I spotted them. I am talking about a handful of people who have really reached their hands into the core of my being and twisted my heart until it pumped tears. You know... THOSE people. We all have a couple of them.
One such couple completely changed my life. I was an extremely young Christian - I think I had known Him maybe 18 months. It had been a whirlwind ride! In that time I had been put into leadership within 6 months, had completely failed, tried again, and this time had experienced a mini revival with the youth. Somewhere in there my pastor's changed and the new pastor had a little bit of an agenda.
This pastor decided that I was possessed with around seven demons. I can't remember them all but two that spring to mind were the old favourite "Jezabel" and ... nope can't remember... something basically meaning rebellion. Anyway. In retrospect I think he probably just wanted me to leave his church but I of course decided I was called there and wasn't going to budge. I endured countless "counselling" sessions which were just weird and a little frightening. I would beg him to "cast out" the demons so I could get on with things but to no avail. It got to the point where I became very isolated. Church members would cross the street to avoid me, spit on the ground, yell abuse. Somebody I had actually led to the Lord did this which was particularly hard. My flatmate was told that he had to move out from us "heathens". I was banned from most church meetings, prayer meetings, home groups. The pastor would interrupt a preach from the platform to "pray against my demons". Crazy stuff. Yet I stoically and bravely remained thinking I was proving some sort of dumb point.
Eventually I managed to convince the hero in me that it was time to walk away and I peeled myself away from the church I had loved. I spent at least the next 10 years licking my wounds. It was almost like post traumatic stress syndrome. I lost all respect and trust for leadership, became a bit of a hermit and decided that ministry was NOT for me. Everytime I heard anyone preach on the demonic I would freeze up and get the shakes expecting them to waver a long bony finger at me any minute and blow my cover. I avoided prophets like the plague - what if I really had been possessed and they decided to say something?
I hated this pastoring couple with a passion. I raged with God - how could you let them do that to me? Can't you smite them or something? A little bit of pain... remove them from ministry. Anything really...
It must have been about five years later that I heard through the grapevine that the pastors wife had gone blind. I was horrified! Did I cause this? Was this God protecting me? Oops. I didn't mean it Lord. I felt terrible. Sure I hated them but I didn't really want them to suffer on my account. I started to beg God to NOT get revenge for me... or at least not to make it so serious... Just slap them a little perhaps or talk to them so that they work out what they did and apologise... but don't actually hurt them!
Finally I found some leadership that I trusted and who were very kind and understanding - Dave and Jen Von Blanckensee, who are like my Mum and Dad in Christ. They nursed me back to some semblance of health with a lot of patience and far too many abusive emails from me! I remember clearly them being quite surprised at the depth of my pain after so much time had passed - which kind of helped me wonder if it was time to move on.
So I began to try and forgive these people knowing to some extent that this was the key to my healing. I don't even know how many times I tried to forgive these people. It was certainly nothing I felt. It was just words out of obedience. But if I heard their names, or heard of their exploits all the old anger would rise up like a dragon inside of me. But I kept doing it and doing it and doing it. I found myself trusting Dave and Jen and trusting others and started to allow others to love me again.
Recently I had a very challenging experience - the final layer of forgiveness. My best friend whom I adore and only want good things for - rang me and told me she had been approached by her leadership who advised her that she had some spiritual nasties. My friend is amazing! There has not been one challenge that she hasn't overcome with a brilliant attitude. I admire her very much. I wanted to yell and scream at her to run for the hills - that her leadership were crazy people and that she needed to get as far away from them as possible. My silly friend was actually listening to them, examining her heart and willing to do anything to deal with anything that was interfering with her growth. Silly friend. Nell to the rescue - I would set that straight quick smart and thank God for my experience in this matter. But very quietly God told me to butt my nose out and that if I REALLY wanted good things for her - that I would shut up. Course I queried Him on that... That really you Lord? Don't you want me to warn her and rush in and save her? (Yep still a hero). The same quiet voice told me that I was too damaged and unstable in this area to be trusted to so much as whisper any form of advice. That the level of my bitterness was toxic and poison. I got out of the conversation as quick as I could and went and sulked.
A couple of weeks down the track and I have to admit that God was right.. sigh. Its funny - she rang me the other night and like a sparrow on glass egg shells she very gently tried to tell me how terrible what happened to me was, and that if I had better leadership around me... and while she is saying this God, in His incredibly loving way said to me...
"You know Nell... I need YOU to recognise YOU'RE wrong in this matter. You did NOT respond to them with an open heart, with a servants heart - with a heart that is willing to do anything to be closer to Me." This rang very true to me and I very quietly apologised to Him - and Boom.. the forgiveness finally came for this Pastor and his wife.
Twenty years I have held on to that bitterness. All this time I thought I had to forgive them. But I needed to face some stuff about myself and then forgive myself.
Now we get to the hypocrite thing. Hang in there if you have gotten this far! Now all the above is pretty cool and makes for a great blog! I must admit I was so elated over finally being able to forgive these people and how incredibly clever and open to God I was and how wonderful the blog would be! I felt pretty damn cool!
Hang in there. You need some background. Some of you may know I have a child with Autism. He struggles with friendships and has rarely gotten to go to school or formed relationships. A few years ago my neighbour, who happened to be an SSO, had a son around the same age and she encouraged Zech to come and play. It was wonderful and he loved this boy and spent many hours there. It was the first time he had really had a friend and I was elated. She talked us into letting Zech come to the school where she worked which I did. Not long after starting at school he had some pretty spectacular meltdowns - as kids with Autism do. She came to me and said that Zech could not be friends with her Josh anymore and was not welcome at her house. I was so hurting for my boy. He was devastated and could not understand and spiraled into depression. He felt ashamed, gave up on school and began watching endless hours of You-Tube where he would pretend the people were his friends.
I will be honest. Touch my kids and I will turn into a lioness. I wanted to shred this woman. I wanted to pour acid on her shiny car. I would spend many a sleepless nights dreaming of setting of fireworks in her backyard, or stealing her wheelie bin, or burying rotten meat where she couldn't find it. My bitterness affected the kids and my daughter ended up throwing eggs at her windows (shhhhh don't tell) which horrified me. But how could someone, worse someone who worked with kids with autism, be so horrible to someone with autism. It didn't make sense to me at all. We moved house as soon as I could yet its a small town and occasionally I still see her and rage.
Tonight I had a dream. In the dream all was forgiven and we were great friends again. I woke up and immediately pushed that feeling of forgiveness away and pictured pouring acid on her bonnet - which always helps me feel better. I was stopped in my tracks by a quiet chuckle from God. All my pride about my recent amazing 20 year forgiveness popped like a pinata at a 6 year old;s birthday party and I realised what a big fat pride filled hypocrite I am. LOL. Good thing that God loves me anyway!
Back to the drawing board!
The other day I had an amazing experience. I struggle with forgiveness towards certain people. I am not talking about people who forget to pay me back that $20 I spotted them. I am talking about a handful of people who have really reached their hands into the core of my being and twisted my heart until it pumped tears. You know... THOSE people. We all have a couple of them.
One such couple completely changed my life. I was an extremely young Christian - I think I had known Him maybe 18 months. It had been a whirlwind ride! In that time I had been put into leadership within 6 months, had completely failed, tried again, and this time had experienced a mini revival with the youth. Somewhere in there my pastor's changed and the new pastor had a little bit of an agenda.
This pastor decided that I was possessed with around seven demons. I can't remember them all but two that spring to mind were the old favourite "Jezabel" and ... nope can't remember... something basically meaning rebellion. Anyway. In retrospect I think he probably just wanted me to leave his church but I of course decided I was called there and wasn't going to budge. I endured countless "counselling" sessions which were just weird and a little frightening. I would beg him to "cast out" the demons so I could get on with things but to no avail. It got to the point where I became very isolated. Church members would cross the street to avoid me, spit on the ground, yell abuse. Somebody I had actually led to the Lord did this which was particularly hard. My flatmate was told that he had to move out from us "heathens". I was banned from most church meetings, prayer meetings, home groups. The pastor would interrupt a preach from the platform to "pray against my demons". Crazy stuff. Yet I stoically and bravely remained thinking I was proving some sort of dumb point.
Eventually I managed to convince the hero in me that it was time to walk away and I peeled myself away from the church I had loved. I spent at least the next 10 years licking my wounds. It was almost like post traumatic stress syndrome. I lost all respect and trust for leadership, became a bit of a hermit and decided that ministry was NOT for me. Everytime I heard anyone preach on the demonic I would freeze up and get the shakes expecting them to waver a long bony finger at me any minute and blow my cover. I avoided prophets like the plague - what if I really had been possessed and they decided to say something?
I hated this pastoring couple with a passion. I raged with God - how could you let them do that to me? Can't you smite them or something? A little bit of pain... remove them from ministry. Anything really...
It must have been about five years later that I heard through the grapevine that the pastors wife had gone blind. I was horrified! Did I cause this? Was this God protecting me? Oops. I didn't mean it Lord. I felt terrible. Sure I hated them but I didn't really want them to suffer on my account. I started to beg God to NOT get revenge for me... or at least not to make it so serious... Just slap them a little perhaps or talk to them so that they work out what they did and apologise... but don't actually hurt them!
Finally I found some leadership that I trusted and who were very kind and understanding - Dave and Jen Von Blanckensee, who are like my Mum and Dad in Christ. They nursed me back to some semblance of health with a lot of patience and far too many abusive emails from me! I remember clearly them being quite surprised at the depth of my pain after so much time had passed - which kind of helped me wonder if it was time to move on.
So I began to try and forgive these people knowing to some extent that this was the key to my healing. I don't even know how many times I tried to forgive these people. It was certainly nothing I felt. It was just words out of obedience. But if I heard their names, or heard of their exploits all the old anger would rise up like a dragon inside of me. But I kept doing it and doing it and doing it. I found myself trusting Dave and Jen and trusting others and started to allow others to love me again.
Recently I had a very challenging experience - the final layer of forgiveness. My best friend whom I adore and only want good things for - rang me and told me she had been approached by her leadership who advised her that she had some spiritual nasties. My friend is amazing! There has not been one challenge that she hasn't overcome with a brilliant attitude. I admire her very much. I wanted to yell and scream at her to run for the hills - that her leadership were crazy people and that she needed to get as far away from them as possible. My silly friend was actually listening to them, examining her heart and willing to do anything to deal with anything that was interfering with her growth. Silly friend. Nell to the rescue - I would set that straight quick smart and thank God for my experience in this matter. But very quietly God told me to butt my nose out and that if I REALLY wanted good things for her - that I would shut up. Course I queried Him on that... That really you Lord? Don't you want me to warn her and rush in and save her? (Yep still a hero). The same quiet voice told me that I was too damaged and unstable in this area to be trusted to so much as whisper any form of advice. That the level of my bitterness was toxic and poison. I got out of the conversation as quick as I could and went and sulked.
A couple of weeks down the track and I have to admit that God was right.. sigh. Its funny - she rang me the other night and like a sparrow on glass egg shells she very gently tried to tell me how terrible what happened to me was, and that if I had better leadership around me... and while she is saying this God, in His incredibly loving way said to me...
"You know Nell... I need YOU to recognise YOU'RE wrong in this matter. You did NOT respond to them with an open heart, with a servants heart - with a heart that is willing to do anything to be closer to Me." This rang very true to me and I very quietly apologised to Him - and Boom.. the forgiveness finally came for this Pastor and his wife.
Twenty years I have held on to that bitterness. All this time I thought I had to forgive them. But I needed to face some stuff about myself and then forgive myself.
Now we get to the hypocrite thing. Hang in there if you have gotten this far! Now all the above is pretty cool and makes for a great blog! I must admit I was so elated over finally being able to forgive these people and how incredibly clever and open to God I was and how wonderful the blog would be! I felt pretty damn cool!
Hang in there. You need some background. Some of you may know I have a child with Autism. He struggles with friendships and has rarely gotten to go to school or formed relationships. A few years ago my neighbour, who happened to be an SSO, had a son around the same age and she encouraged Zech to come and play. It was wonderful and he loved this boy and spent many hours there. It was the first time he had really had a friend and I was elated. She talked us into letting Zech come to the school where she worked which I did. Not long after starting at school he had some pretty spectacular meltdowns - as kids with Autism do. She came to me and said that Zech could not be friends with her Josh anymore and was not welcome at her house. I was so hurting for my boy. He was devastated and could not understand and spiraled into depression. He felt ashamed, gave up on school and began watching endless hours of You-Tube where he would pretend the people were his friends.
I will be honest. Touch my kids and I will turn into a lioness. I wanted to shred this woman. I wanted to pour acid on her shiny car. I would spend many a sleepless nights dreaming of setting of fireworks in her backyard, or stealing her wheelie bin, or burying rotten meat where she couldn't find it. My bitterness affected the kids and my daughter ended up throwing eggs at her windows (shhhhh don't tell) which horrified me. But how could someone, worse someone who worked with kids with autism, be so horrible to someone with autism. It didn't make sense to me at all. We moved house as soon as I could yet its a small town and occasionally I still see her and rage.
Tonight I had a dream. In the dream all was forgiven and we were great friends again. I woke up and immediately pushed that feeling of forgiveness away and pictured pouring acid on her bonnet - which always helps me feel better. I was stopped in my tracks by a quiet chuckle from God. All my pride about my recent amazing 20 year forgiveness popped like a pinata at a 6 year old;s birthday party and I realised what a big fat pride filled hypocrite I am. LOL. Good thing that God loves me anyway!
Back to the drawing board!
Friday 14 March 2014
Gambling in God
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The other day I was scrolling through realestate.com to see what houses were available where we are moving. One townhouse jumped out at me: It was gorgeous. Big rooms, schmick and modern and perfect. And it had a hedge, which is the only thing my son with Autism cared about! A lovely big green modern hedge. The timing was all wrong as I am nowhere near finishing renovating my house - but hey IT WAS PERFECT. Didn't matter if I had to pay rent while waiting for my house to rent out. God would look after me after all! I scrolled down and woops its a private landlord. Not real confident with private rentals. My last rental through an old Italian private landlord came to a head when he insisted on trimming the trees at the front... at 7:00 am... on Christmas morning. But hey IT WAS PERFECT.
After all - it must be God cos it jumped out at me and everyone knows that God jumps out at you with things sometimes right? So I rang the guy and he sounded lovely. We arranged for me to inspect the house that day as I was going to Adelaide anyway. Wow. See it must be God. What luck.
So we went and saw the house. It was fantastic. It was at the end of a long row of townhouses - the very last one - so complete privacy! It backed onto a park. Downstairs was a roomy lounge. Bugga no dishwasher - but that's cool as I shouldn't be so lazy. There was a little Harry Potter door under the staircase with a spare toilet. Oh man. Anyone with teenagers knows how important more than one toilet is!
Upstairs the rooms were kinda pokey, but there was a lovely balcony. I could totally see myself sipping orange juice and slicing up warm buttery toast as I read my bible and prayed at 5:00am. Hey Lord, yeah I know I don't do that now... but that's only because I don't have such a lovely balcony to do it on. If I had a lovely balcony like this I would absolutely seek you early and all that jazz.
Zech fell immediately in love with it and decided that we should actually buy it rather than rent it as he wanted to live there for ever. It is just down the road from his school and there is a great church around the corner. PERFECT.
I asked for an application form and the landlord, who was a nice looking thirty something definantly non-Italian guy, told me I was the only one who was applying. Wow. God must want me to have this! He promised to email it to me and off I went home dreaming of my brand new lifestyle.
The next day, true to his word, he sent the application. Weirdly for some reason I was getting this kind of yuk "warning" in my gut. I ignored it until the afternoon when I sat down and did a budget. The rent was pretty large. Almost twice what I pay on my mortgage. It was all good though as my budget clearly showed that as long as we went on a diet, developed a love for baked beans, gave up smoking, cut off the phone, and minimised outings, and then shuffled the money a bit - I could TOTALLY afford it. Awesome. Phew. Cos for a moment there I was worried. Besides if God was asking me to get this house... well its His responsibility to come through with the cash. So in fact, I am just going to believe that He is going to come up with something there and provide the cash. I am going to step out in faith and He can carry me like He promised. Wooohooo. Yeah I just need to get my faith happening. "Oh and if you do come up with something Lord - I can really see us having bible studies there - homegroups - the whole shabang. Would be a great house for you Lord. So clearly you are in on this so you are going to just have to back me up - okays?"
Late that night I was painting the bathroom with renewed vigour. The sooner I get done - the sooner we can move to our new house! I was listening to a pod cast on emotional decisions and impulsive behaviour. I started getting this really uncomfortable feeling again. After I while I started getting a bit annoyed, threw my brush on the ground and said "well what are you on about Lord. How can the house be an emotional decision? It was a FAITH decision!"
"Did you actually ask me at any stage if it was the RIGHT decision or do you just want me to back you up when things start getting messy?" He responded.
"But the homegroups..."
"..."
"the 5am bible reading on the balcony with toast and orange juice Lord?
"..."
"It's close to a real nice church Lord!"
"..."
"It had hedgggggggges!"
"..."
"Fine! (sigh) Is it the right decision?"
"Nope." He did whatever he does that kinda makes me feel like I am getting a big hug and said "I want you to know - I only want good things for you"
See. A lot of emotional decisions can look like faith or look right and God can even back us in it. "All things work together for good for those who love the Lord...". But if we actually do what he wants us to do - even if it doesn't look PERFECT - it will be - because he only wants good things for us. There is safety in that. Safety in that sort of decision making.
I turned the house down. Walking in faith is NOT gambling. As a poker player, sometimes you just get this feeling or impulse that goes against all logic... that something crazy is about to happen. That despite the odds, you are going to hit the right card or whatever. Sometimes it works, sometimes it doesn't. But walking in God is not a gamble. Walking in faith is not a gamble. Its not about whether something feels right, looks right.. whatever. Its obedience to what HE says to do.
After all - it must be God cos it jumped out at me and everyone knows that God jumps out at you with things sometimes right? So I rang the guy and he sounded lovely. We arranged for me to inspect the house that day as I was going to Adelaide anyway. Wow. See it must be God. What luck.
So we went and saw the house. It was fantastic. It was at the end of a long row of townhouses - the very last one - so complete privacy! It backed onto a park. Downstairs was a roomy lounge. Bugga no dishwasher - but that's cool as I shouldn't be so lazy. There was a little Harry Potter door under the staircase with a spare toilet. Oh man. Anyone with teenagers knows how important more than one toilet is!
Upstairs the rooms were kinda pokey, but there was a lovely balcony. I could totally see myself sipping orange juice and slicing up warm buttery toast as I read my bible and prayed at 5:00am. Hey Lord, yeah I know I don't do that now... but that's only because I don't have such a lovely balcony to do it on. If I had a lovely balcony like this I would absolutely seek you early and all that jazz.
Zech fell immediately in love with it and decided that we should actually buy it rather than rent it as he wanted to live there for ever. It is just down the road from his school and there is a great church around the corner. PERFECT.
I asked for an application form and the landlord, who was a nice looking thirty something definantly non-Italian guy, told me I was the only one who was applying. Wow. God must want me to have this! He promised to email it to me and off I went home dreaming of my brand new lifestyle.
The next day, true to his word, he sent the application. Weirdly for some reason I was getting this kind of yuk "warning" in my gut. I ignored it until the afternoon when I sat down and did a budget. The rent was pretty large. Almost twice what I pay on my mortgage. It was all good though as my budget clearly showed that as long as we went on a diet, developed a love for baked beans, gave up smoking, cut off the phone, and minimised outings, and then shuffled the money a bit - I could TOTALLY afford it. Awesome. Phew. Cos for a moment there I was worried. Besides if God was asking me to get this house... well its His responsibility to come through with the cash. So in fact, I am just going to believe that He is going to come up with something there and provide the cash. I am going to step out in faith and He can carry me like He promised. Wooohooo. Yeah I just need to get my faith happening. "Oh and if you do come up with something Lord - I can really see us having bible studies there - homegroups - the whole shabang. Would be a great house for you Lord. So clearly you are in on this so you are going to just have to back me up - okays?"
Late that night I was painting the bathroom with renewed vigour. The sooner I get done - the sooner we can move to our new house! I was listening to a pod cast on emotional decisions and impulsive behaviour. I started getting this really uncomfortable feeling again. After I while I started getting a bit annoyed, threw my brush on the ground and said "well what are you on about Lord. How can the house be an emotional decision? It was a FAITH decision!"
"Did you actually ask me at any stage if it was the RIGHT decision or do you just want me to back you up when things start getting messy?" He responded.
"But the homegroups..."
"..."
"the 5am bible reading on the balcony with toast and orange juice Lord?
"..."
"It's close to a real nice church Lord!"
"..."
"It had hedgggggggges!"
"..."
"Fine! (sigh) Is it the right decision?"
"Nope." He did whatever he does that kinda makes me feel like I am getting a big hug and said "I want you to know - I only want good things for you"
See. A lot of emotional decisions can look like faith or look right and God can even back us in it. "All things work together for good for those who love the Lord...". But if we actually do what he wants us to do - even if it doesn't look PERFECT - it will be - because he only wants good things for us. There is safety in that. Safety in that sort of decision making.
I turned the house down. Walking in faith is NOT gambling. As a poker player, sometimes you just get this feeling or impulse that goes against all logic... that something crazy is about to happen. That despite the odds, you are going to hit the right card or whatever. Sometimes it works, sometimes it doesn't. But walking in God is not a gamble. Walking in faith is not a gamble. Its not about whether something feels right, looks right.. whatever. Its obedience to what HE says to do.
Tuesday 11 March 2014
The beginning...
It's 5:30 am and I have spent the evening listening to Joyce Meyers and painting my bathroom. A couple of things really struck me tonight. She said "What is the thing your good at - what do you love? Cos that's what you're supposed to be doing".
Well what I love is writing. I love everything about writing. I love the smell of fresh clean paper and the smell of sharpened pencils. I love books. I love expressing myself.
The next thing that became very clear to me tonight - is that I wait till I am perfect to do what I am called to do, I will never get there. I will never be perfect - I am a work in progress. But there is stuff bubbling up inside of me that I just have to express. I don't really care if anyone reads it or not but I kinda hope that someone does.. that maybe some of what I have learn't or am learning can be useful to someone.
So here it is. The blog of a very imperfect Christian and my walk with God. I am not a preacher or teacher. I am not anything very special. I am not even a pew warmer right now. I don't even go to church and have hardly gone for years although that's going to change. I am everyman. I am pilgram. I am on a journey. I have bad habits. I swear. I eat too much bad stuff. I smoke. I drink coffee. Surely coffee is OK? I don't even know. All I have to offer is an honest account of my relationship with Him. Because He loves me anyway. I am the broken cup yet he cradles me and treats me like I am something precious.
So if any of my friends or family reads this - I just want to make clear: This is not about bible bashing. This is not about right and wrong. This is not about offending people. This is just going to be about my journey in Him. He has asked me to do this and no I am not ready. I am just like Moses - "dude, you have the wrong guy!". I am going to get it wrong sometimes... actually probably frequently cos I am the type of person who tries to walk on water in bathtubs. But hopefully it will give people a bit of a laugh and a bit of insight into the life of the everyman christian rather than the perfect preacher on the pulpit.
One day maybe I will write about the last twenty-four years. (Wow I have been a Christian for a long time) But not today. Cos today I want to go from here.
Today God has reached inside of me and grabbed my attention. I don't deserve it. I didn't do anything. I didn't pray, beat the ground, rub myself with ashes. One day I want to get all garbed up in sack-cloth and cover myself with ashes just to experience that. But I digress....
Today all I did was play some you-tube preaching after my best friend nagged me for like three months yet God took that tiny little bit of obedience. That tiny little bit of somewhat resentful stepping out, and just gave me the biggest warmest chicken soup like hug that you can imagine. He met me where I am at in this moment - a broken ugly mug - and said "I kinda like you... oh and by the way, its about time that you started writing isn't it... don't care if your not ready. Just write"
P.S. Buggered if I know how to make this look pretty
Well what I love is writing. I love everything about writing. I love the smell of fresh clean paper and the smell of sharpened pencils. I love books. I love expressing myself.
The next thing that became very clear to me tonight - is that I wait till I am perfect to do what I am called to do, I will never get there. I will never be perfect - I am a work in progress. But there is stuff bubbling up inside of me that I just have to express. I don't really care if anyone reads it or not but I kinda hope that someone does.. that maybe some of what I have learn't or am learning can be useful to someone.
So here it is. The blog of a very imperfect Christian and my walk with God. I am not a preacher or teacher. I am not anything very special. I am not even a pew warmer right now. I don't even go to church and have hardly gone for years although that's going to change. I am everyman. I am pilgram. I am on a journey. I have bad habits. I swear. I eat too much bad stuff. I smoke. I drink coffee. Surely coffee is OK? I don't even know. All I have to offer is an honest account of my relationship with Him. Because He loves me anyway. I am the broken cup yet he cradles me and treats me like I am something precious.
So if any of my friends or family reads this - I just want to make clear: This is not about bible bashing. This is not about right and wrong. This is not about offending people. This is just going to be about my journey in Him. He has asked me to do this and no I am not ready. I am just like Moses - "dude, you have the wrong guy!". I am going to get it wrong sometimes... actually probably frequently cos I am the type of person who tries to walk on water in bathtubs. But hopefully it will give people a bit of a laugh and a bit of insight into the life of the everyman christian rather than the perfect preacher on the pulpit.
One day maybe I will write about the last twenty-four years. (Wow I have been a Christian for a long time) But not today. Cos today I want to go from here.
Today God has reached inside of me and grabbed my attention. I don't deserve it. I didn't do anything. I didn't pray, beat the ground, rub myself with ashes. One day I want to get all garbed up in sack-cloth and cover myself with ashes just to experience that. But I digress....
Today all I did was play some you-tube preaching after my best friend nagged me for like three months yet God took that tiny little bit of obedience. That tiny little bit of somewhat resentful stepping out, and just gave me the biggest warmest chicken soup like hug that you can imagine. He met me where I am at in this moment - a broken ugly mug - and said "I kinda like you... oh and by the way, its about time that you started writing isn't it... don't care if your not ready. Just write"
P.S. Buggered if I know how to make this look pretty
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