Monthly Archives: November 2010

What my heart wants

A couple of weeks back I was sitting with some girlfriends and we were talking about life and what we had always hoped to get out of it. I know we were all somewhat disappointed in the way had things turned out and we reminisce to what we always wanted to happen and make life what we always dreamed it to be. The most common ones were I want:

  • My spouse to help me with the work in the house
  • My spouse to take care of the devotional times and not be the one to initiate always
  • My spouse to take the kids to church
  • My spouse to understand me
  • Us to be free of the struggle to make ends meet
  • To be debt free
  • My boss this and that
  • My folks this and that

And on and on the list went and down the spiral of despair we went. At the end of the day we were not in good shape but we felt better because we had vented and got it off our chests. Misery loves company and at that point I did not realise I had just been in the midst of misery and had a strange feeling about that at the end of the day.

Much later I realised we were on the way to self-destruction if we remained on that road. The thought occurred to me that my life should be about more than what I want before God will come through and make changes. What do I mean? I never wanted it to be that I am the initiator of prayers in the home and I believe that it is the role of my husband the priest of the home. That’s cool but the real question is…what does God want me to do at this point? Now wait a minute: Where do the things I desire and want come into play? Doesn’t He say he will give me the desires of my heart? What will make life worth the living?

That is a foreign concept to most of us and I really struggled with that one. Then heard the man of God speak and many things clicked in and out. He said that the purpose of marriage is to depict the relationship between the Godhead. They are three, with distinct roles and yet they do not overstep each other’s bounds or fight. How many of us are like that. Then there is the purpose of the family and that is to raise a divine expression. This means that we need to raise the next generation of people who love God by choice and deeply to bring the kingdom closer to earth. In all this where is what I want? Where are all those things I have planned on all my life? NO WHERE!!!!! Isn’t that funny? I should really be asking “Lord what is your plan and purpose? What do you want me to do and become?” Not easy but that is the reality of my life. Wow!!!!

I realised that I am called to be more than just a regular believer but a change maker and earth mover. To be that, I must be clued into the will of God and choose to make his desires the desires of my heart. Yes, there are things that I desire and I make them known to him BUT when that is done I leave it ALL to him. Yes he gives me the desires of my heart but it is the renewed desires that he fulfils. When I am fully committed to him he will change the things I want to the things he wants.

John 6:56…As the living Father sent Me and I live because of the Father, so he who feeds on Me will live because of Me. This got me on a new page just now…wow talk about revelation on the spot…If I live because of Him then I desire what he desires and he works actively in me. I am in the midst of a place that makes it easy for me to be connected and wanting what he wants and daily making the changes that I need to make. This is because I have finally got to the end of me and realised that there is nothing I can do that will work. I found that I must plug into him and find the way through obedience. It is an interesting walk because some of the things he wants me to do are different and humanly outrageous but yet not impossible. However, as I walk with him I am in the midst of making better choices in life. I still have things to change and I am changing everyday but I am also learning new things.

I am learning to concentrate on what God would have for me and not push for what I want. However the closer I get to him the more intertwined my desires for the same things he desires. This means that the life I live is full and happy despite the surrounding situation and I am above all things. I am above because nothing can hold me down when I am in his hands. I now want the things God wants for me and the level of my frustration in life is now non-existent. I have been crucified with Christ; it is no longer I that lives but Christ that lives in me. The life I live in the body I live by faith in him who saved me…this is becoming my daily desire. I am learning to love life and live it to the fullest…

How clean is my heart?

Today I am sitting at home trying to rest and I wonder if a woman ever does so. I haven’t had help in the house for three weeks and it has been interesting. I have had time to appreciate the work my help does and realise that I do a lot too. The beauty of my line of work I can work from anywhere; the challenge has been that I have another full-time job on my plate and I didn’t anticipate just how much it would be. Several days I have been full of energy then I remember the days I have had to go out for meetings and all and my energy levels have been less than ideal in the evening. Just enough to get home keep the young man entertained and do dinner. Once we have eaten and I lie on the sofa I crash in the real sense of the word crash.

The work in the home is unending and if you live where I do close to the road with many trucks it can be daunting at times. There have been days when I have just reached the main door and realise that there is a new layer of dust forming as I stand there because a truck passed outside when I opened the door. I know now that there are things that may look undone at the end of every day that were done but were messed up by the location of the house. Will I move? No way! I love this place and I know that one day the trucks will be blocked as other residents build their homes and block the ‘panya’ routes they use.

But back to the house! There are rooms we clean very carefully and everyday and others that are cleaned thoroughly at a different frequency. I am thinking of the kitchen and the bathroom versus the bedrooms and the living room. We buy special cleaning materials and detergents. We take extra care and train the help extra hard with the skills needed to keep the chances of disease at bay. Of course we clean all rooms well and move the furniture to clean underneath it and behind it and on a monthly basis we do thorough cleaning and then maybe once a quarter we do spring cleaning or is it once a year? All in all we spend time daily to clean out our rooms and keep our homes clean and healthy to live in.

It makes me think about my life. I must clean out all the rooms of my life on a daily or monthly or quarterly basis and be consistent at it. Yet I wonder if I do so with as great a frequency as I should. There are rooms I don’t know when I last cleaned out. There are other rooms I work on daily and yet they are still kind of messy. In the recent past I have often heard the statement; “Die to self daily.” What does it mean? How do I do it?

The man of God said it and I mentioned it before “obedience is easy unless self is in the way.” I understand self to be those things that are me and not of the Spirit of God. Things that my human heart holds onto that have a negative consequence in the spiritual walk I am on. They are things that hold onto me or I hold onto that are detrimental to my spiritual growth. These are the things I need to die to daily and remove from my life. I am better off without them. I think of things like irritability, a bad temper, lies, envy, disobedience etc. on the other hand it could be things that in and of themselves do not seem to be evil but are leading me away from the desired path. Things like procrastination, the desire to see before believing; the need to confirm and re-confirm the word of God, slow responses to the word, the list is endless.

How do I deal with self? I must wake up each day and connect with God and lay my heart on the altar for him to make new. Every moment from then on is another opportunity to keep my heart on track. This is what Paul was talking about in Romans 12:1 when he says…offer your body as a living sacrifice, holy and acceptable to God which is your reasonable service. This implies that it is purely a voluntary act. There will be moments when I wonder what is going on and how to make it, or someone does something and I feel the anger rising in me, or I see something I have always wanted with someone I may feel doesn’t deserve it and I feel jealous or I find something I really wanted finished and want to blame someone or a long list of other things. My role in these situations is to remember those things that God has spoken over my life and still my heart to his will.

It is incredible that when I find peace and strength in the promises of God over my life that I am can overcome inappropriate feelings and emotions. When I am convinced that God’s word over me is true and will come to pass regardless of my current circumstances, I will be able to walk in the way that he has set out for me and die to flesh every day. An interesting scripture I found is John 6:63… It is the Spirit that gives life; the flesh profits nothing. The words I speak to you are spirit and they are life. If it is the spirit that gives life then I must plug into the Spirit at every opportunity and walk in him and achieve everything God has set out for me.

 My heart will be well and true when I am continually connected to the Spirit of God.

Can anything good come out of Galilee?

I have been reading in the book of John and it is very interesting. First of all the scripture has come alive for me like never before because the frantic pace of my life has finally stopped and I am ready to stop and concentrate. Second I have learnt to be still and know the Jehovah is God and he knows.

It is interesting that the people from Galilee did not receive Christ because they knew his parents, sisters and brothers and they even knew the home he grew up in the carpentry shed where he worked. Some of them saw him in the temple as a child with a dirty nose while others watched him when he played in the street with his friends. Yet they all forgot the twelve-year-old who spoke and understood the word so well that the teachers of the law marvelled about him. They were conditioned to believe that life was only right when lived by the laws of Moses yet Christ had come to change the map of life to be lived by relationship. In the end their mental presuppositions bound them and made them less effective in real life while puffed them up with pride in the face of the others.

They got stuck on the point that nothing had yet come out of Galilee that was of significance. Yet God in his wisdom had chosen this seemingly obscure place to begin something new. Remember Christ was indeed born in Bethlehem but they fled the wrath of Herod. Remember too that his father was a descendant of David and he was pre-selected to do this work of God. When the Pharisees were talking they chose not to look back into the history of this amazing man to see the correlation with the plan of the almighty God. Well maybe not forgot but they were so set in their ways and blinded that they could not see correlations.

In many instances, the same happens to us when we are entering a new season. We are full of wonder, doubt and cynicism of whether or not we will succeed in this new walk. How will we make it through? Who will be with us? The list is endless. In reality the greatest sources of this doubt and cynicism is our families and ourselves and we hinder the move of God. You see, those closest to us know us and what we are capable of and how much or little we can and have done based on our past experiences. We on the other hand know what we are currently working through and may so doubt that we will conquer these inner struggles and make it to the other side alive and unscathed.

I am so keenly aware of this place because I have been there many times. God has declared certain things over my life and I am not sure I know how they will come to pass because currently I am nowhere near where I should be. Worse still my life seems to be taking a turn for the worse and I am in the midst of fighting the biggest giants in my life…or so it seems. When you look at me I may not seem any different from the next person but I must assure you that I am and I am clinging to the belief that what He has said about me is who I should be.

Recently a man of God put it so well when he said “We get so stuck in “what is and was” and forget that our focus should be on “the is to come”.” I am a work in progress and even if I fall flat on my face every day as I walk the road that has been set out for me I WILL continue to run with perseverance the race mapped out for me. It is not where I am or where I have come from. It is not who I know or who I walk with. Galilee may be the place I was born but it is not the place I am destined to be forever. My birthplace defined me for a while but now I am defined by the new plan that Jehovah has handed me. I am not bound by what you think of me or where I was born. I have been set free to see myself as my Father and Creator sees me and that is becoming enough for me. What other people think and where I have come from are only as important as an example but it need not tie me down or make me feel inadequate. This is not a sprint but a marathon. It is in the daily commitment to be faithful and obey that I will reap the benefits of my walk with my Father.

Therefore I will daily seek the face of Jehovah and connect with his image and his image of me so that when I get to the business of the day I know who’s I am and who I am and the rest will toe the line. I will be able to overcome days when things are quiet and seem to be going nowhere by human standards because these are the times he wants me to focus on him.

I am called up to a higher dimension that walks exclusively with my hand in the hand of my Maker and the other in the hand of the brother or sister assigned to me for the moment. I will not force anyone to walk with me no matter how much I love them. Rather I would hope that as I walk they see in me and the joy that is inherent and thereof be attracted to the same place I am and help them seek God.

 I pray that we will be on the same road…I love my Lord and Father, how about you?

 Let the amen’s resound.