Bride or “Mistress”? Which one are You?

I don't know about you but when I really care about someone, I talk about them all the time. Their name is constantly on my lips and I am always telling everyone who cares to listen, just how fantastic they are! I want to stay in touch with them all the time and am so grateful for the fact that I live in this modern age of hi-tech communications. What would I do without the ability to phone my darling hubby when he is far away (which he often is), or video-call my precious step-daughter on the other side of the world, or send text messages to friends and all the countless other methods we have of communicating. Don't you feel like that? Can you remember when you first fell in love? Didn't you want to tell everyone about this fantastic person you were convinced that the sun rose and set on? How about your first child? Certainly he/she is the most beautiful baby that has ever been born? Grandchildren? You get the picture?

Have you ever had an affair or known someone who has? Imagine what it must be like to sneak around and never be able to tell anyone about this person you love so much, never to be able to include them in those special family events or to meet in public places in case you get seen by someone who knows you. I can only presume that affairs never last because they are nothing but a pile of messy frustrations and unfulfilled dreams. They are doomed from the outset because they are selfish, hurtful, underhand relationships with no future to build on. An affair may stroke an ego or satisfy a desire but it is shallow and stagnant as opposed to a marriage which is like a river, filled with life, growth and movement. A marriage, like a river, may have its rocky and turbulent places, but it has direction and purpose.

The point I am trying to make is are you "married" to Jesus Christ, or just having a "fling on the side" with Him? Do you want to communicate with Him and praise Him all the time? Do you have a desire to show or tell everyone what He has done in your life and is still doing or do you keep your relationship with Him a secret? Are you living your life in a way that gives glory to Him, regardless of whether or not it makes you popular, or are you living to please your peers? Do you keep your relationship with Christ a secret and only make it to Church if there is nothing else happening on your social calendar? Do you laugh at the odd "dirty joke" so that people don't think you're a prude, maybe even tell one of your own? I could list a thousand other things that society finds acceptable and normal but that Christ would condemn and any true follower of Christ would not participate in.

A person who truly loves Christ cannot live in a way that is not pleasing to Him. Their desire is to praise Him and to pray, to serve Him by doing His works, being His hands and feet and spreading the news about what He has done for each and every one of us! To do this you don't have to become a missionary and travel to some foreign place, you can do all of that right in your own home or workplace. You can smile at a stranger, hold the lift door for someone, speak kindly to your employees, listen to a colleague who is having a bad time or provide a meal for a family in need. Of course there are a multitude of other things you can do, big or small, but it so often is the little things that count. Let your relationship with Jesus show in the way you conduct your life. Let the joy of knowing that the Creator loves you spill over and touch the lives of others so that they too want to know and experience His love in their lives!

So ask yourself, are you a loving "bride", pure in your love and commitment to Christ, or is your relationship a well kept secret?

Turn Times of Doubt into Times of Strength

We all have doubts at some time or the other. We generally doubt ourselves more than anyone else, but it just takes one disappointment, one situation or relationship going sour, and we begin to doubt God. When things seem to go contrary to what we are wanting, loved ones fall ill or betray us, or a countless other host of circumstances, the first one we throw all our doubts onto is God.

Personally, I think this is crazy! Not that I have never had doubts, far from it. In the depths of depression, God was the first one I doubted and blamed! No, the reason I say this is crazy, is because God is the only one that we can depend on. When I was circling down into the abyss of depression, feeling that I was unloved and unlovable, that I was a waste of a human skin who was of no earthly use for anything, that is when God was able to reach through to me, and convince me that He did have a plan and a purpose for my life and that He does love me.

When we are faced with a tough situation, a betrayal, or anything else that turns our world upside down, that's when we should be turning to God. He doesn't mind if we doubt Him as it opens the door for further conversation with Him and fresh opportunities for Him to work in your life and to show you that you can depend on Him. Give Him the chance to strengthen you, to renew your faith and to demonstrate His unfailing love. You will find, as you spend more time with Him, on your knees, a peace and inner joy that will permeate your soul and give you the courage and the ability to get through whatever difficulties you are facing. God allows us to go through these hard times because it is only when we are 'beaten' that we can be re-shaped and re-worked into a stronger, more faith-filled follower of Christ. Remember that He is ultimate truth and ultimate love and He loves us completely, therefore, we can trust Him over and above anyone or anything else.

 

A Trouble Shared

Philippians 4:13-14 'I can do everything through Him who gives me strength. Yet it was good of you to share in my troubles.' How many times have we heard just verse 13 quoted – with emphasis on the first few words "I can do everything". We are all so guilty of keeping the emphasis on verse 13 and completely ignoring verse 14. God has promised us that He will strengthen us and be with us through life's difficulties, but God has also created us to be in relationship both with Him and with each other. He has given us gifts that are only of any use when they are used for someone else's benefit; teaching, encouraging, hospitality, etc., are all pretty useless if they are not used for someone else's benefit!

The old saying "a trouble shared is a trouble halved" is true. The problem may still be your full responsibility, but by discussing it with someone (particularly someone close to you), you no longer feel so alone and you are able to get a different perspective on it, perhaps even some advice. By allowing someone to be a part of your problem, you are also allowing them to possibly fill a role that God had for them. Their role in helping you through your difficulty may be something that they have to grow through as well. Part of God's purpose for their lives and possibly for yours as well, could be the whole reason that you are going through that particular difficulty.

This doesn't mean that we must now start dumping our problems on everyone else! Not at all! With a little bit of discernment and wisdom you will know when and whom to share your problems with and to what degree! Just understand though, that God will often send someone to help you, it may be a stranger or someone close to you, but the thing is to accept the help that comes your way and not deny the person the opportunity to walk beside you. When I had my hysterectomy last year, my step-daughter was able to come and spend over a month with me, seeing to my needs and running the household. In addition to me being blessed with all her help and her wonderful company, she was blessed (although I am sure not as much) by having the opportunity to spend time with her Dad, her step-brothers and her friends, that she would not otherwise have had before she left for a year in Japan!

Can We Understand God?

How many husbands do you hear saying "I just don't understand her!" when talking about their wives, and vice versa when us women talk about our husbands. We look at our teenage children and wonder what planet they came from and who they are! They certainly don't seem to be anything like the children we gave birth too!

Our lives are fraught with misunderstandings and the consequences that result from them. From something as simple as who was going to take out the trash, to larger problems which can result in major fights and sometimes even divorce. These misunderstandings also occur in the work place and in miscommunications between friends. We are constantly having to ensure that we understood exactly what was being communicated to us.

This lack of proper understanding of each other is even more evident between the different sexes. Countless books have been written about this age old problem, offering countless different methods of overcoming this problem. I am sure, however, that in the next year, another bestseller will hit the shelves proclaiming to providing the answer to these problems of misunderstanding and miscommunication.

Yet I cannot help but wonder if this inability to fully understand each other, all the time, is not part of God's plan for us? If we were able to comprehend exactly what our partner wanted to express, would we have a need for patience? Would we need to learn to exercise self-control? Perhaps if we were able to know exactly what was going on in each other's minds then there would be no enjoyment in learning the mysteries that make up the psyche of each individual. Having a relationship with someone requires effort. We cannot be friends with someone without first extending a hand to them and drawing them into the circle of our lives. By doing this we are saying that there is something about them that makes them attractive to us and that we want to spend time with them. We then have to build on that relationship – whether it is a friendship or a more serious, more intimate relationship – it still needs to be developed and nurtured.

In the same way we have to understand that our relationship with God is the same. We cannot know His mind, why He does things the way He does, or even how He did them. We cannot even understand His heart. What we can know, if we are willing to enter into a relationship with Him, is that He does love us! Despite our sins, irrespective of our talents and abilities, our financial situation or our physical appearance, God does love us! Why He loves us exactly is a mystery! We are after all, a pretty miserable bunch! He gave us the Earth to look after, and we've trashed it; He instructed us to love each other and yet we are constantly at war; He asks us only to love Him in return, of our own free will, and yet we deny His existence and take more notice of the theories of crackpots rather than accept His word in the message of love (the Bible) that He has left for us! But still we want to understand God when we cannot even understand each other?

I am sure that if you were to ask any couple who have been married for a number of decades if they fully understand their spouse their answer will be No. Does this mean that they don't love them or that they are unable to accept that their partner loves them back? Of course not! They would not still be in a relationship if that were the case. Do you understand that your friends are your friends because there is a heart connection between you that does not depend on full understanding of each other and also an acceptance of the fact that you may at times disagree with each other? Of course you do! So why do we find it so hard to extend the same attitude towards God? The fact of that matter is that God is way bigger than our understanding. All we can do is accept His love, His mercy and His grace. He offers us a free gift of salvation, an eternity spent with Him, and all He asks is that we believe!! That is so amazing, so incredibly mind-blowing! A mustard seed size of faith and belief is all that is required and we get so much!

All I can say is, I don't understand it! Not at all! But I don't understand my husband, children or friends all the time either. I am not going to tell them that I do not want a relationship with them because I don't understand them; nor am I ever going to tell God that I don't want to be in relationship with Him because He is beyond my comprehension. No! Instead I am going to revel in the fact that my great big, incomprehensible God loves me, died for me and wants a relationship with me! Little old me! Now that is AWESOME!

Finding Forgiveness

Forgiveness must be one of the hardest things that God calls us to do! Yet it is the one thing that we desire the most for ourselves – that's when we are willing to admit that we have even done something wrong! Have you ever noticed that about yourself? You excuse your actions or try to lay some of the blame on someone else or on circumstances? Taking responsibility for our own mistakes and wrongdoings is very hard indeed but yes, we do always want to be forgiven for what we have done. Yet let someone else hurt us or our loved ones, we find it almost impossible to let go of that anger and bitterness that we feel towards them. We feel morally justified in our reaction to what they have done and consider forgiveness as a way of "letting them off the hook."

My ex-husband (deceased) once physically abused me, (I didn't stick around to let him do it a second time), and my parents were, understandably, furious. This was over twenty years ago and I had moved on with my life. One of the first things that I did when I became a Christian was to forgive him for all the things that he had done to both myself and my children. Although I never saw him face to face to do this, I forgave him in my heart. The relief that I felt when I did this was like having a large block of ice taken off my chest! About a year ago I was with my mother and we saw him in a mall where we were planning on doing some shopping. I was astounded at how much anger and bitterness she still carried towards him. She was equally amazed at the fact that I had forgiven him and seeing him didn't worry me in the slightest! I explained to her that her lack of forgiveness for what he had done would not have affected him in the slightest. The only person that her anger affected was herself! She held all those negative emotions in her heart and would bring them out to mentally "chew on" every now and again over the last twenty years.

Once she realized that she was only hurting herself and that forgiving him would benefit her even more than it would him, she was able to let go of that anger and pain. She was also able to forgive herself for not being able to protect me, something that she had been blaming herself for, unnecessarily, all these years. Not too long after that he made front page news. He was a scam artist and had finally been caught up with after fifteen years of low key activity. Shortly before his trial he died under rather peculiar circumstances. We were both able to feel pity for him because we had forgiven him. We both realized that even though he had done so much harm (the beating he gave me was just the final straw) we found no pleasure in his death or even relief. Our forgiveness did not change his life in any way, but it certainly changed ours. Walking around nursing old hurts and anger is very detrimental to our physical health and our spiritual healing and growth.

Although in our case we never got the opportunity to express our forgiveness, nor would it have made any difference if we had (he was a sociopath), there are so often times when we need to tell someone that we have forgiven them. Very often you will find that that person had no idea why you were so angry with them! This will often lead to a gradual restoration of the damaged relationship. It is a fact that most often the people we need to forgive are the people who have been closest to us. It is a simple fact of human nature that the ones we love the most are the ones who have the most power to cause us pain!

In addition to all of the benefits to ourselves in forgiveness, the question must be asked "what right do we have NOT to forgive?" When we consider how Jesus died, the torture he endured, just so that we could be forgiven of our sins – then we need to understand that with such a great sacrifice having been made for us, we must forgive others in return!

ABUNDANT LIVING – GOD’S WAY!

When I first heard the phrase "Abundant Living" I got terribly worried and wondered if this was a teaching on prosperity. Now don't get me wrong, there is nothing wrong with being wealthy, I just feel that too much emphasis is placed on it by society and some churches and people feel that they need to have a lot of money in order to be happy. Over the last year I have come to realize what this phrase really means (yes I know, I can be a tad slow sometimes!).

A year ago I had both the pleasure and the pain of spending time with a friend as she battled with cancer. I was privileged to sit with her at the oncology centre whilst she underwent a couple of chemotherapy treatments. This generally took a couple of hours and what an insight I received into the human spirit at that time. One gentleman there – I'll call him Tom, was the heart and soul of the centre. He too was there to receive his chemotherapy treatments, but he made it his business to keep everyone cheerful and focused on a future filled with good health. He planned parties and camping trips. He laughed, teased and joked with everyone present and never failed to make it clear how much he loved the Lord. He was living, despite his cancer, abundantly!

The lesson that I learned there was that happiness was not dependant on health or wealth but rather it is a condition of the heart. God has given us free will and thereby enabled us to choose how we are going to handle every situation that we are faced with. Wealth does not provide happiness at all. It may make our lives more physically comfortable and provide us with material goods, but it cannot and does not provide happiness. Certainly with wealth we also have the ability to help others, to be a positive influence in our community, but the percentage of wealthy people who actually do this is not very high. Wealth does not prevent a person from contracting life threatening diseases, nor does it lengthen your life-span in any way. It cannot avert tragedies from happening and the wealthy person feels as much emotional pain and suffering as the poorest person on the streets.

When God wanted us to live abundantly He wanted us to love abundantly, to have abundant joy, to pour our hearts into caring for those around us, wherever He places us. To know with all our hearts that He loves us so much that He was willing to send His precious Son to die for us. This knowledge should ignite a fire in our hearts to want to reach out to the lost and the hurting, the poor (both spiritually and materially) and the persecuted and to be His hands and feet in the lives of the people around us.

God may bless some people with abundant financial wealth, but as He has provided the blessing, He wants it to be used for His purposes. The more a wealthy person blesses others with their giving, the more blessing they will receive. Some people however, He blesses with abundant love! Those wonderful people, who cannot help but love others and commit their lives to caring for them. In this instance, Mother Theresa immediately comes to mind. She may have lived a very frugal life in one of the poorest countries in the world, surrounded by sickness and poverty, but she certainly lived her life abundantly!

I am sure that we can all think of examples of people either famous or within our immediate spheres who live abundantly the way that God intended them too! Their lives are filled with an inner peace and joy that cannot be explained and despite their financial position (or complete lack thereof, they are happy!

How can you live more abundantly? Is there more that you can do for your family? Can you spend more time with your spouse and children? Is there someone you know who has been unhappy lately that you could spend time with to help them through this difficult patch? Have you got money or food to spare for someone worse off than yourself? How many people have you hugged today or at least given a smile too? There are so many things that you can do to bring joy into the life of someone else and yet at the same time, get so much joy out of living! You could pray for people you know and through that prayer watch miracles happen in their lives! When you pray for someone you bring a petition on their behalf to our Creator…. What a wonderful gift that is!

Live life abundantly! Spend time with God every day; read His message of love to you – the Bible; be willing to do God's work and be a blessing in the lives of the people around you; smile often; hug regularly; pray constantly and try and see other people as God sees them.

Worry – the Joy Stealer!

One of my all time favourite sayings is "Worry is like a rocking chair – it gives you something to do but it doesn't get you anywhere!" How very true! I don't know how many people I have known in my life who feel that it is necessary to "worry" about situations and people. They feel that if they are not worrying about their children, friends, whatever, that it means they don't care! What utter rubbish! I read once that "worry is a misuse of your God-given imagination." Now that is right on the nail! I have learned from personal experience that worrying about a situation will do absolutely nothing about it! Worrying robs you of precious time and energy that could be better spent in prayer, action and trusting God. In fact, worrying about something is the same as telling God that you do not think that He is capable of handling the situation! Let me give you a personal example of how worrying was the most ridiculous thing I could do.

We had been renting a home for about eighteen years. The children had grown up there, the schools were in walking distance, church was a five minute drive and all our friends were only a few short kilometers away. The house was not the best and the neighbourhood had deteriorated due to an influx of businesses into what had been an exclusively residential area, but it was home and we were happy. Our landlords then gave the administration of their properties over to their son, and within a few short months we had been given two months notice to evacuate as he wished to use the property for business purposes. This happened in mid-November and we had until mid- January to find a new home! Have you ever tried looking for property over the Christmas / New Year period? Things are just not happening at that time!!

I must confess that all my faith flew out the window and I was absolutely furious with God for doing this to me! How could He allow this to happen? There was nothing I could do but face the inevitable and so my husband and I began the frantic search for a new home. To cut a long story short, I didn't want to leave the main area we were in as I wanted to remain close to church and friends but the houses in the area were beyond our limited budget. Eventually, and all at the eleventh hour, God, to whom I had by then given over the entire messy situation, provided us with a home about 20 kilometres from our old area. So how did my situation change? I have a lovely little home (that belongs to us) with an enormous garden; five dogs; incredible variety of bird life; no traffic noise; less humidity, etc., etc. I still attend the same church and see my friends just as often now as I did then. The one difference is that I now have the space to entertain which I did not have before.

God took a situation that filled me with fear and despair and turned it into a wonderful blessing! I truly worried about nothing and should have trusted Him right from the start. I am currently facing another similar situation. Again, there is nothing that I personally can do to alter the events (all of which are just hearsay at the moment), but I can trust God. His purpose for our lives is not to rob us and steal our joy, but to give us what is best or us. We can come before Him with our concerns and fears but we do not need to worry because He is taking care of us!