The Tree of Knowledge

Now this one may seem a bit of an oxymoron as it opens up but bear with me!
I have felt God is leading me to break something of the fear of success and other issues about education, and also time management, and would like me to do some study, which may in turn lead to a degree. So I have started studying with the London School of Theology on a correspondent course, which does fit in beautifully with home school, running a home, family life, and also my exhaustion that I am having to deal with.
Anyway I have just started on Introduction to the Old Testament, which is a bit of a doddle as I have read the OT and studied it loads, but this is where I must start if I am to get this degree.
Anyway I have been stuck by loads of amazing things, but what really got to me first off which is what I'd like to start with it is the story of Joseph. What struck me was that it says about him and the interpretation of Pharaoh's dreams is that the magicians had all their study books and had learned how to interpret dreams and yet Joesph did it through God.
It got me thinking again about how many courses and books we can get from churches that teach us how to be prophetic, how to interpret dreams, how to pray for people, and how we learn ways to evangelize. And it really got me thinking of how often we all do it because the book or the course told us and how often do we listen to what God is saying. Now I am not saying these things are wrong per se but I am wondering on them, of more how much we rely on what we have learned rather than what God tells us.
Rick Joyner in "There were two trees in the garden" says that it was interesting that Satan tempted man to eat of the tree of knowledge rather than the tree of life. And it is like we are still wanting to eat of the tree of knowledge now rather than life.
I find too it interesting that this is something I have been pondering for years, got into arguments about, etc and yet God seems to have made this very clear to me when He has got me studying.
Wonder just what He is saying?

Truely Humble

Must be something in the air at the moment, but my dear friend Judith in Spain and I have been starting to re-email about deep subjects. I don't think I often know what this woman is up to in her life but I do know what she thinks. Anyway this one is something that made me look more clearly after her email that I just managed to glance at before a weekend away with my husband just the two of us!!!

We were walking near Symonds Yat in the Wye valley and came across a lady with a cafe. Well actually cafe isn't the right word at all. Basically all she had was a table across her open front doorway and in the hall an urn, mugs, cakes, tea and coffee and that was all, and one sat on tables in her south facing front garden. A really blessing on a beautiful sunny January day.
We got talking to her and she turned out to be a Christian, who'd been saved at a Luis Pais meeting 24 years ago in Cardiff. The change in her was so dramatic that her husband, daughter, son and mother followed her into her journey with Jesus. She lived in this house from the time she married and has gone to the same church for the 24 years. And just listening to her this was her calling, to just be there for walkers as they passed by and just give them a mug of tea, a cake and a chat.
We watched her she seemed to have something to say to everyone and everyone was relaxed to be there.
She has a big conviction that she isn't to open on a Sunday as that is the day of rest and to be with God and family, even though she is probably losing hundreds of pounds. And she does say that the temptation is there when they sit in their garden watching streams of people go passed but no her conviction is to stay closed no matter what on a Sunday and God honours this.
But what stuck us most was the total humbleness of this lovely lady who was just obeying God in such a lovely simple way, no desires to run a church, go to Africa - not that there is anything wrong with these things if God tells us to do them. It would be being disobedient to not go. But I do wonder how often we want for the bigger things and miss our humble and obedient calling to just walk out the ordinariness of what God has for us on this earth.

Not So Positive

Over the last couple of days I have heard on Radio 1 of people who are unemployed but so disempowered that they don't quite know what to do.
One was an ex-crack cocaine dealer who had gone to the Home Secretary, with other Radio 1 listeners, and was telling her she needed to get him a job or he'd go back to dealing crack cocaine. The other was a 19 year old with 2 children, who had been out of work for 3 years, only having a job for a short time until his child was in hospital for a while.
Both these people saw it was the fault of the recession that they were out of work, not their own faults of not getting more qualifications, retraining, wanting more than just doing drugs or making babies. It just seems so sad that there are people out there in our country, which really even in these times of recession is so prosperous, who so do not know what they want to do or where they want to go that they drop out, esp when it is so easy to get into a college or similar.
I think this is why I would love to take the gifts I have got and take them out to these people. But would they come? Are they that are down the line that they think "someone" should give them something? and why should they do anything as its "their fault"?
I really would love to know how to help these people to help themselves but I do also wondering if we have produced such a "nanny state" that people cannot do that any more. Yes we do need to be able to give friee health care and free education, and to help those who do not have work so they do not starve and we should not make people feel guilty if they cannot do that, but we should also find a way to empower them and help them feel like they can achieve things.
Or, says she after having just watched 1984 and reading Animal Farm and Brave New World, is this what those in power want, a large amount of the population feeling powerless so they can use them as they see fit - which I do thing we see sometimes with people Ben comes across at college who see the army as the answer to life.
Who knows! But I will pray I can help those that God puts across my path.

First Paying Customer

Yesterday I had my first paying customer for life coaching. It was a bit scary because she is also a friend and through doing some of the stuff I did with her I found out loads of things that don't normally come out over a cup of coffee. But apparently I was very encouraging - which was a gift I remember asking God for when I first became a Christian (hey isn't that good the way God answers our prayers!!) - and had been a great help I have sent her off with some more tasks to do, which will reveal even more about her that we can then look at!!!
I feel greatly honoured that she trusts me to do this with her. What is that proverb about the wounds of a friend, and there is no way that I want to wound her, but to encourage her and help her to realise her dreams; which again is a great trust on her part to share her dreams with me, and together for us to bring them to fruition.
Though in amongst all this amazing trust, our friend's Jack Russell puppy that we were looking after for the day ate the fur trim from her hat. And I saw another side of her. No she didn't hurl the puppy across the room, but just laughed and said that was what puppies do and looked fondly at the dog. That was just as precious as all the other stuff.
There seem to be many situations where God is trusting me to hear from other people and I was wondering why, but then I read the latest post from "stuff Christians like" and one of the things he says is that we need to be asking the questions and listening to the answers not just asking and not caring. (paraphrased!) And I believe God has given me that gift and I need to stay in that place of trust with Him and with others. This is a gift that would be so easy to manipulate and use but that would be so wrong.
Thank you God with trusting me with other people's secrets and being able to help them along their journey. And thank you for answering my prayers to be able to do this. Please help me when I get frustrated that I can't do more of this.

God in charge!

Yes I do know that God is totally in charge of all my life and that He has my destiny in the palm of His hand, but sometimes when it happens I got totally amazed by it all.

Yesterday Tabi had a cookery course in Bristol, which she normally catches the train to, meets her friends at the station and walks to the venue. Well she was feeling a bit under the weather and had rehearsals in the evening, and a sleep over on Saturday night so we thought we would spoil her a bit and drive her in. Then Ben came back Thursday night to let tell us his girlfriend had dumped him and he was really really upset by it all as he really did like her.
So we looked on the map and saw that the cookery course venue wasn't that far from the climbing centre so Ian thought it would be Ben good to do some hard climbing so he took Ben there.
Well because the traffic was good getting into Bristol I dropped Ian and Ben at the climbing centre on the way to the cookery venue. We got there just on time and 2 of the mums were outside chatting. I knew one but not the other so joined them anyway. The one I knew was going shopping but the other one was off for a coffee so I went with her. We were meant to be meeting up with the other mum but finished up going to a different place as this mum I was with had lots of things on her mind and went where she was thinking of not to the place that had been arranged.
Anyway she got to telling me her story of all the awful things that had been happening to her, loads of horrendous stuff, but then loads of blessing in it all, and very much I could feel God in it all.
I could feel my hands trembling where I knew the Holy Spirit was so close to us. She does not believe in God, but also said that I had great insight and understanding into her situation. When she went up to get another cup of coffee I could really feel God pushing me, so when she came back I asked if I could pray for her. She said yes, as in yes you can pray when you want, I so I asked if I could pray now - here in Tesco's cafe!! It was an amazing time of prayer, of course God really stepped in and gave me some cool stuff to speak over her. and she finished up in tears. It was just so awesome.

So yes I am going to be praying for her now, but also I am going to be praying for more opportunities to be bold for Him. And also praying that I get over trying to work out where I fit.

New Year

New Year is a funny time, especially this year as Tabi is following on from last year's work and working towards GCSEs this summer. It means that the end of the year is now in June. Very strange!
But I feel like I should be doing something, starting something, moving somewhere, but when I pray all I keep getting is "Be still and know that I am God and I will be exalted in the nations", or other things about resting on God and waiting for Him to rise me up.
Now I am a doer which I must admit being remarried has slowed me down a wee bit. I have to now wait for my husband to decided what is going on and I can't just go. But also I am now limited by Ben being at college and only getting to really have holidays in school holiday time. Also with him it is having the time to see him as when he is busy he needs his head space at home and so doesn't really talk, but then gets grumpy if we aren't free when he wants to talk. And with Tabi she is busy doing so many things that she keeps my calendar full. Most of that involves just being here, supervising, ordering books or movies on line for school related stuff, and taxiing.
It might just be a time of life as well at time of year thing, as I was talking to a friend, also in her late 40's and she was feeling similar, but because she had a larger family has 8 years left of home school. Though as we talked we both realised just how great life actually is. We do have time to just hang out and be and talk and have time with our children which so many people don't.
Perhaps its the age we live in that we are always searching for more, to achieve something, when actually being contented is the most important thing in life.
Dear Father God, please help me to learn more to rest in You, to not have to achieve to know that I am of value, and to be content with the people You place around me and to stop searching for something I can't have.
God is just so brilliant that I do wish us Christians could proclaim that a bit more rather than being just as bad as the world in wanting more and more and more - and needing to achieve.
Love, Peace and Trust

Blocked Culverts

A friend of ours nearly got flooded in that heavy rain before Christmas; in fact the houses up her street did get flooded.
The comments that I found interesting were when she said that they had never been flooded there before and that it was a blocked culvert that had caused it.
I totally believe that God is always on the move and that He rarely blesses in the same way twice, and if He does then that is His choice not ours. But often it can come as a surprise, a feeling of "well I have never seen God move like that before" or whatever. But also that a times something that should've been a blessing in fact floods us and washes things away = in fact with this flood it got into the drains and many of the houses have sewage in them = and this happens to us because have got things in our lives that cause blockages for God to do all He wants. That we have blocked culverts in our lives, whether through bad things we've done, ways we have just moved off of what God wants or just not looking after something the way it should be.
I do believe if we are not careful in both our personal lives, family lives, church lives, churches, etc, etc we can get a huge blessing from God but because we haven't kept something clear then what should've been a blessing becomes something that brings up all the sewage in our lives, in our communities - whatever they maybe - and leaves something that will take a lot of clearing up rather than will water our land.
Even with having to deal with a horrid cough which is keeping me away I am looking into what things in my life could change the blessing of God into something horrid.

Goodbye Car

This post isn't really in keeping with the Positive blog bit, but I wanted to publicly say good bye to my red Peugeot. Just before Christmas someone ran in the back of it where Ian had it parked at work and smashed the bumper, number plate, and crumpled up the floor of the boot. We sort of knew it was going to cost too much to repair but still............ This was a car I bought with money from my stepdad after he died and when I bought it 3 years ago we joked about how Ben would be able to learn to drive in it. Well Ben isn't doing much learning to drive as he had his hours cut in the pub and so couldn't afford driving lessons any more and also wasn't working too hard a passing his theory test. But also now it is gone. And I know its only a car and much worse things are going on with people losing jobs, houses, etc and I feel very silly as I don't get attached to many material things. I am a relationships person so I feel odd. I did say my goodbye's to it before Christmas when I cleared all the rubbish out of it, and did cry when the car transporter took it away on Monday.
Mind you I have been saying for a while that I do feel like maybe we shouldn't have 2 cars and that maybe we should get rid of one, but there has always been that tension because I didn't want to get rid of my red one but we did need the big one for going camping, etc. So maybe, just maybe God had a hand in this and He made sure it happened. And also we have got some money from the insurance and no one was hurt in the accident. So who know?
Perhaps this too is a way of teaching me to trust God in all things. So perhaps this does still qualify for a positive blog.