DETOURS AND SIDE ROADS

"A truly happy person is one who can enjoy the scenery while on a detour!" This quote was one that I had to re-read several times to really "get" it. I don't know how you feel about detours and side roads but I am one of those people who likes to have my whole trip mapped out in advance. I make lists of all the things that I need to take with me, tick them off before leaving and like to know exactly how long the journey will take and try to plan ahead for all eventualities! Stop laughing!! Yes, I am a bit of a "control freak" in that way. In fact, a joke amongst my friends and family is a small cosmetic bag that I have packed and keep in my car – it contains (amongst other things) pain killers, nail clippers, scissors, band aids, an emergency blanket, tape measure, calculator, note pad, energy bars, energy tablets, guitar strings, pen-knife, etc., etc. I would just like to point out that I am not the one who has had a need for anything from my bag, but several of my friends have!!

Anyway, my point is that no matter what precautions we take we can never know just what life is going to throw at us. No matter how much planning we do for a trip we cannot control the weather conditions, the potholes, road-works, accidents and other things that take place that may cause us to have to select an alternative route to our intended destination.

That is why I am so glad to have the Creator of the Universe in my corner and in control. No matter what plans we may have for our lives, if we surrender everything to God and let him be the driving force in our daily living, He will always get us to the best place we can be! God only wants us to live for Him, to live our lives doing His will and if we do that, we can be sure of an interesting time and that the journey He takes us on will be for more rewarding than anything we can plan for ourselves.

So if your best laid plans don't seem to be going the way you want them to, no matter how much prayer you have dedicated to them, then just enjoy the detour God is taking you on and trust Him to get you to your destination. He always has your best interests at heart because he totally adores you!

WHERE IS GOD?

I am currently feeling as though God has left the building! That I am standing on a crumbling ledge with no where to go but down. Intellectually I know that this is not true. But knowing something in my head doesn't always connect with what is in my heart!

I know that most times when someone feels like this it is because they have experienced some tragedy or crisis. Alternatively the day to day problems just seem to get to a point where they are too heavy to carry any longer and you just want to turn your back on everything, walk out the door and keep on walking! In my case my depression has been rearing its ugly head telling me that I am a waste of a human skin, worthless, useless and my life always has been and always will be meaningless! Not a very pleasant place to be let me assure you.

So what do we do when these feelings take a grip on our hearts and minds? Do we give ourselves a pep talk and say "buck up, you are just being silly", do we ignore how we are feeling and try to pretend that all is well and simply keep ourselves so busy that we do not have time to think about how we are feeling. Or do we allow the strong pull of depression to suck us down to the very bottom of its miserable black hole and wallow in our pain and misery? Well I tried the pep talk, it didn't work! I am too tired to pretend but have decided that I have had enough time in that black hole to never want to go back down there again. But believe me, the mouth of that hole is treacherously slippery and it is an uphill battle to pull out of it.

The only thing that we can do is call out to God and know that He hears our cries! He has promised to never leave us and because He is Truth, He cannot lie! There are times though when He is silent, as we may have a lesson to learn from the situation that we are going through. That does not mean that He is not still with us and ultimately still loving us completely!

We have to remember that God pursues us with His love. He wants all of us to come to Him but will never force us. He gives us the choice of following Him or not! So if He is going to devote so much time and thought and love on US then He will not leave our side or let us down, no matter how bleak our situation may be.

So that is where God is, even in our darkest times – He is right beside us, waiting lovingly and patiently for us to acknowledge Him and understand that when we feel worthless, we are not because He loves us, created us and has a purpose for our lives. When we wonder why we are still alive and other, more deserving people are not, it's because He hasn't finished with us yet! When we feel as though we are standing alone on a crumbling ledge, He is wanting us to trust Him and take a step of faith out in to what seems like a vast nothingness but is actually the start of another part of His wonderful plan for our lives!

ARE YOU LIVING YOUR DREAM – OR SOMEONE ELSE’S?

If faced with the question "what is your dream for your life" how would you answer? About a year ago this question was asked during a leadership programme that I was on. It sent me into a complete tailspin and was the catalyst for my depression to sink to an all time low! I realised that, in my late forties, not only did I not have any dreams for my life but that the few that I had in my youth had withered and died. After almost a year of soul-searching, fighting depression and clawing my way through each day, I have finally found the courage to tentatively start dreaming again.

As this subject is so close to my heart, I was thrilled when our pastor began a series of sermons on living God's dream for our lives. His one question raised an alarm bell and that is why I am using it as the title for this message.

Many people, women in particular, find their dreams being shelved or chucked out completely when they get married. I don't think that this is always a deliberate decision, rather it is a case of putting the needs of their spouse and children first.

Another similar situation is when a parent imposes their dreams on to their children. Pressure is put on little 'Johnny/Mary' to become an engineer or doctor, when all he/she wants to do is ……. (fill in the blanks if this applies to you.) In so many cases the parent who does this is someone who was unable to live out their own dreams and so tries to do so through their child.

To all those people out there who find themselves in this situation, I beg you to do something about it! God has put a dream into each of our hearts that He will use to fulfil His purposes. The dream that He has given us will be the one thing that will make our lives purposeful. Living out someone else's dream instead of your own is not a sacrifice that God wants us to make and is unhealthy in the long run as a time will come when bitterness and resentment will take up residence in our hearts.

Are we Insignificant? Or Not?

Have you ever watched a programme that shows how tiny our planet is in our galaxy and how we are positioned in an extremely "insignificant" section of our galaxy. Then you find out how small and insignificant our galaxy is in relation to other galaxies in the universe!!! You can't help but wonder about how significant we are. After all we are nothing but minute particles on a tiny planet that hangs out on the outer edges of a relatively tiny galaxy…… therefore why should we matter? After all if we accept that God created all this magnificence and we are such a miniscule part of it, then what is our role?? Do we even have one?

Well, the fact that God created us in His image immediately makes us significant. He didn't make the galaxies, or the oceans, or anything else for that matter, in His image. Just us. To me, that means a lot. I have been asked, "Well what if we are not the only planet that God put living beings on"? My thinking on that is "So what?" If God chose to populate millions of other planets with people then that would be His choice. It wouldn't make any difference to the fact that He made us, He loves us, so much so that He sent us Son to die for us, and He wants us to spend eternity with Him! As far as I am concerned, that makes us extremely significant!! As for our role, well God has told us that He wants us to love Him and do His will in our lives, but He gave us the choice to either accept Him or reject Him! He gave us CHOICE!! That is significant!! He could have made us love Him automatically, without any say in the matter, but He didn't. He chose to allow us to choose as to whether or not we want to be in relationship with Him.

As miniscule as we may be in the Universe, with lifetimes that are comparatively short, God has taken the time to make each one of us different from the other, nobody shares our fingerprints, nobody has the same dreams and aspirations. God has lovingly crafted each and every one of us to His specific design, for His specific purpose, and yet He still loves us so much that He allows us to choose to come to Him or not!!! The Creator of the Universe loves us, cares about our daily problems, and wants to have a personal relationship with each of us, I'd say that makes us significant, wouldn't you?

TODAY IS YOUR BEST DAY!

Psalm 118:24 'This is the day the Lord has made let us rejoice and be glad in it.' How many times have we complained about having a "bad day" or felt buoyant because we have had a great day! Every day we face is a gift from God. The good ones and the bad. The bad ones refine us and the good ones restore us. It is important that we understand the fact that once a day has gone, it is not going to be repeated. That we have to make the most of every day that we have. If you are working in a job that doesn't satisfy you, but you need it to keep a roof over your family's head and feed and clothe them, then try and find ways to get satisfaction out of your day in other ways. I will use myself as an example. I worked as a secretary ever since leaving college (secretarial college) and I hated every moment of it. I did, however, find that I enjoyed being with people, made friends easily and always had people coming to me with their personal problems. I remember my different places of employment not by the work involved, but by the people I worked with and the problems they faced. Looking back on my life, I realized that God had made it possible for me to get through the dreary times and at the same time showed me what area He had in mind for me. I have recently completed a course in Christian Counselling!

Be grateful for every day that you have, even when it seems impossible as you deal with hardship or even tragedy. For God is using all these situations, good and bad, to mould you into the person that He designed you to be. I am not suggesting, when I say make the most of each day, that you go out and live your life recklessly, but rather that you make the best of whatever situation that you are in. Living this way allows God to work through you and your life will be enriched and filled with an inner joy and peace that no man can destroy.

A Poem I wrote as a form of Worship

I ADORE YOU

Lord, to what can I compare You,

To the majestic mountains,

The waves crashing on the shore

Or even the mighty forests and

Shifting sands on the desert floor.

No Lord, they are pale reflections

Of the wonder that You are

Put there by your mighty hand

To fill our hearts with awe!

Your love reached higher than the mountains

Deeper than the ocean floor

The day you called out to me,

From your cross on Calvary

My child, it is you, I adore!

Surrendering Control

As I mentioned previously I have recently been in hospital and during my recovery program I had to learn some things about myself. The most difficult of which was to surrender control of everything I do. I am, in some ways, a bit of a control freak and like to have everything pre-planned – spontaneity is not my strong point! This served me well when getting ready to go in to hospital and I organized everything including arranging for my step-daughter to fly up and take care of me when I got out of hospital. I really didn't think that she would need to stay for more than two weeks and that she really would not need to do much more than meal preparation and some of my chores.

Was I ever wrong! I had no idea of how helpless I was going to be! Granted, I could get up and walk about, shower etc., but as for the amount of bed rest that I needed and how dependent I had become, I was shocked. Yet at the same time, because there was nothing else for me to do but accept my situation, I was able to surrender and allow her to take over.

As the days turned into weeks and my bedroom became like Grand Central Station for visitors, I was able to allow others to pray for me, do things for me, and, for the first time, to do it graciously. I had no choice. I was, in many ways, as helpless as a toddler.

The lesson that I got out of my situation is that, by letting my stepdaughter have control, I was doing exactly what God wants us to do with Him. You see, although I could have forced myself to do my own chores, I would have hindered my healing process and I could never, in my weakened state, have been able to do them anywhere near as effectively as what she could. God in His strength, wants us to give Him the control. Yes, we must do what we can, but with His guidance through His Word and Holy Spirit.

Surrendering may seem like a weak thing to do, as we tend to equate it with war, but we are not at war with God, nor was I at war with my stepdaughter. What we are, in effect, doing when we surrender our lives to God, is giving Him the opportunity to work through us, to strengthen and grow us spiritually, and to prepare us for the glorious riches that He has for us in eternity. At the same time, a life fully surrendered to Christ is a life that is filled with peace and inner joy no matter what our circumstances because we know that He is ultimately in control and that He works things for the good of those who love Him!