I'm afraid I've been very lax in write and reading blogs and emails. I am taking today for a big catch up. I started college 2 weeks ago and I love it but having to be on a bus at 7.55 4 mornings a week and then 9am on the other day, having homework to do, and having taken on a couple of part time jobs, and then there is all the other things like running the home that have kept me busy beforehand. I have often felt for women how have to work full time and how hard it must be for them to effectively run a home, be with their kids, their husband - who I do find is the one I neglect! - and have time to read a book too, and now I totally sympathize with them. Though at times I still feel a light weight when I hear of these women on my course who are running families, doing this course and working loads more than I do but we are not to compare.
It has been great though too in that most mornings I get 40 mins head space. I am using it to read a book by Tommy Tenney on Esther called "Finding Favour with the King". It really is about how we can be lazy Christians; how we find it easy to give thanksgiving to God, esp when He is giving us things, to praise the One who gives us great gifts and to look to the gifts, but of how few of us really want to just worship God for the fact that He is God, including all the bits we don't understand. Are we willing not to give God a list but to find out what He wants and to get close to Him, to really get intimate with Him for intimate's sake?
I have found this time so helpful. Reading a chapter and then letting it sink in as I wait for the bus to complete its journey is really refreshing me. I'm not sleeping well because of so many things inside my head but chewing on these thoughts and wondering how to be intimate with God during a hectic day really does put a different light on things. It is make life easier with my husband, with my slightly wayward son at the moment, with my busy daughter, with my hectic routine, with missing my friends who I don't get the time to see.
I really do want to spend time with Father God just because of who He is not because of what I might get out of Him, and actually deep inside what I am hoping is that through that being with Him it can flow out of me and change the world around me.
Oh I'm not saying I don't lose the plot with everyone at times and find, esp immediate family frustrating, but I do know that I can get back to that place much quicker than beforehand.
Oh loads more I still want to explore. Joanna, Fawn Parish who runs the Reconciliation week I was on has written a great book about Honor called believe it or not "Honour: What Love Looks Like", which I have read and "The Power of Honor" which I haven't read, both of which are on Amazon!
Sunday 26 September 2010
Monday 13 September 2010
FatherHeart
First I want to say that a lot of the reason I keep going with this is the great comments I get from people. So thank you to you all for your comments, on the blog, in emails to me and on Facebook. Thank you!
Well it was an awesome week. It was a great time to catch up with people who I had not seen in over 6 years and to find that there was still that heart connection, and to meet up with new people and establish something there too. It was like coming home, like finding family, finding my tribe. I seem to have a tribe scattered world wide and someone did pray that I would find some of my tribe nearer to home too. And knowing God answers prayer I will wait and see.
It was great to be with some "big people" in the world of reconciliation and to hear them say that they are still learning, wanting input and that even though some of them are known names we are all important. We sat in a circle and though Brian and Rhianon were the main people to share their stories there was room for everyone to input, my stories being as valid as theirs, and lots of room to ask questions, to explore and tease out things, and to realise that for some things this side of heaven we really do not know the answers and we do not want to put God into a box, no matter how big!!
I've got loads I want to share but am going to start with things I learned from Rhianon Lloyd, which I know will expand as I have time to unpack all this, explore it, reread my notes and to pray.
Rhianon is involved in trauma counseling and reconciliation in Africa and really God put together what she does as she was doing it when she went to Rwanda 12 weeks after the genocide. And we need to realise that we should not go in with a set program but to let God lead and direct and be willing for Him to take and use us and go from there. Yes Rhianon had some training which was why she was asked over in the first place but she is a humble lady, and again this shows what the word humble means - someone who has total confidence in God and that He will take the lead, and a willingness to trust that leading.
It appears in so many things that we so often start the story of the Gospel, the good news of Jesus, in the middle. Rhianon goes into these stricken countries and meets with those who many not even know Jesus yet and talks to them about what they see as the perfect Father and they spend some time exploring this. Then she is able to tell them actually God is the Father they have been looking for and that He can be trusted with all their hurts and pains, which as you can imagine after a genocide are more than many of us could even imagine. Though actually God was talking to me and telling me just how real He sees my pain just as much as He sees that of the genocide victims.
Once one knows one can trust God the Father then the Cross can be introduced as the safe place to put all one's hurts, pains, sins, sinned againsts, and place it all at the Cross and accept God's forgiveness through Jesus. I feel that very often we say God is Father and that Jesus died so we can be forgiven but actually we do not help people to see that this Father is one who can be trust and who wont use what they say against them. And how a lot of the time we come to Jesus with hurts and get told He will forgive our sins.
Very much even in those who are victims of genocide they have sinned too by the attitude they have taken to their oppressor. They, understandably, want to see vengeance, our human form of justice happen. And Rhianon takes them through this journey of putting them accepting God's forgiveness through Jesus for their attitudes, and many repent for what they did not do, and getting them to a place where they truly want those who brutally murdered their families to have that same freedom and forgiveness as they have received through Jesus. How many of us want that from those who've hurt us? Hutu and Tutsi are together repenting and forgiving and blessing and honouring.
Now that is something I want to explore next time - the whole concept of honouring!
Well it was an awesome week. It was a great time to catch up with people who I had not seen in over 6 years and to find that there was still that heart connection, and to meet up with new people and establish something there too. It was like coming home, like finding family, finding my tribe. I seem to have a tribe scattered world wide and someone did pray that I would find some of my tribe nearer to home too. And knowing God answers prayer I will wait and see.
It was great to be with some "big people" in the world of reconciliation and to hear them say that they are still learning, wanting input and that even though some of them are known names we are all important. We sat in a circle and though Brian and Rhianon were the main people to share their stories there was room for everyone to input, my stories being as valid as theirs, and lots of room to ask questions, to explore and tease out things, and to realise that for some things this side of heaven we really do not know the answers and we do not want to put God into a box, no matter how big!!
I've got loads I want to share but am going to start with things I learned from Rhianon Lloyd, which I know will expand as I have time to unpack all this, explore it, reread my notes and to pray.
Rhianon is involved in trauma counseling and reconciliation in Africa and really God put together what she does as she was doing it when she went to Rwanda 12 weeks after the genocide. And we need to realise that we should not go in with a set program but to let God lead and direct and be willing for Him to take and use us and go from there. Yes Rhianon had some training which was why she was asked over in the first place but she is a humble lady, and again this shows what the word humble means - someone who has total confidence in God and that He will take the lead, and a willingness to trust that leading.
It appears in so many things that we so often start the story of the Gospel, the good news of Jesus, in the middle. Rhianon goes into these stricken countries and meets with those who many not even know Jesus yet and talks to them about what they see as the perfect Father and they spend some time exploring this. Then she is able to tell them actually God is the Father they have been looking for and that He can be trusted with all their hurts and pains, which as you can imagine after a genocide are more than many of us could even imagine. Though actually God was talking to me and telling me just how real He sees my pain just as much as He sees that of the genocide victims.
Once one knows one can trust God the Father then the Cross can be introduced as the safe place to put all one's hurts, pains, sins, sinned againsts, and place it all at the Cross and accept God's forgiveness through Jesus. I feel that very often we say God is Father and that Jesus died so we can be forgiven but actually we do not help people to see that this Father is one who can be trust and who wont use what they say against them. And how a lot of the time we come to Jesus with hurts and get told He will forgive our sins.
Very much even in those who are victims of genocide they have sinned too by the attitude they have taken to their oppressor. They, understandably, want to see vengeance, our human form of justice happen. And Rhianon takes them through this journey of putting them accepting God's forgiveness through Jesus for their attitudes, and many repent for what they did not do, and getting them to a place where they truly want those who brutally murdered their families to have that same freedom and forgiveness as they have received through Jesus. How many of us want that from those who've hurt us? Hutu and Tutsi are together repenting and forgiving and blessing and honouring.
Now that is something I want to explore next time - the whole concept of honouring!
Monday 6 September 2010
Healing
I'm off for a week conference, though will be a sort of retreat too before the busyness of work and college, from today till Friday. I leave in half an hour and am all ready packed and sorted. Hopefully I will get time to put some of the highlights in when I get back!
Here is a thought before I go - I have been reading my way through the gospels and it amazes me how many times when Jesus heals someone he tells them not to tell anyone and yet when there are healing services in churches we are always told to bring our friends and to tell everyone about what goes on. I wonder why this is.
To me we seem to use healings as a sort of testimony that Jesus/God has power and can heal and this is the big thing. Whereas Jesus said the greatest commandments, which is meaning the main things we are to do, is to love God with everything we have and love others as ourselves.
I wonder if at times we like miracles because then we don't have to do the lifestyle? This is why I love the reconciliation group that I will be with for the next 5 days because it is all about lifestyle, loving the unlovable, which is usually the person that winds us up the most, but also many others, of building bridges and seeing God's glory come in healing hearts as well as limbs and for lifestyles of those who are being reached out to and those doing the reaching.
Again for me I see so many things that are not something that can be quantifiable as a leg growing or sight being restored but that actually goes a lot deeper and empowers people, produces a love and acceptance so that all can reach their God given potential.
I am not saying physical healings are wrong because they must be right because Jesus did them but I am saying that they are like the icing on the cake and really we are to love God and love others and our lifestyle must reflect this.
Here is a thought before I go - I have been reading my way through the gospels and it amazes me how many times when Jesus heals someone he tells them not to tell anyone and yet when there are healing services in churches we are always told to bring our friends and to tell everyone about what goes on. I wonder why this is.
To me we seem to use healings as a sort of testimony that Jesus/God has power and can heal and this is the big thing. Whereas Jesus said the greatest commandments, which is meaning the main things we are to do, is to love God with everything we have and love others as ourselves.
I wonder if at times we like miracles because then we don't have to do the lifestyle? This is why I love the reconciliation group that I will be with for the next 5 days because it is all about lifestyle, loving the unlovable, which is usually the person that winds us up the most, but also many others, of building bridges and seeing God's glory come in healing hearts as well as limbs and for lifestyles of those who are being reached out to and those doing the reaching.
Again for me I see so many things that are not something that can be quantifiable as a leg growing or sight being restored but that actually goes a lot deeper and empowers people, produces a love and acceptance so that all can reach their God given potential.
I am not saying physical healings are wrong because they must be right because Jesus did them but I am saying that they are like the icing on the cake and really we are to love God and love others and our lifestyle must reflect this.
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