on forgetting and remembering...

It keeps coming up in the things I've been reading lately: we are forgetful. We're always forgetting things. We set reminders for the smallest thing - to go somewhere, to meet someone, to buy something. We forget where we put our keys and our glasses. We forget what we ate for lunch yesterday. Some may argue that this is because we don't need to remember it. True, but what about the things we should be remembering?

God warns us so many times in the Bible about forgetting Him and what He has done. This was the problem with Israel: they so easily forgot what God had done to bring them out of Egypt and all the miracles He did in making food fall from the sky every morning - seriously? But when things happen repeatedly, they become normal and lose their wonder and beauty. How often do you even notice the beauty right outside your window? For some of you, it might not be that amazing, but in Cape Town, we have Table Mountain right there in the middle of the city with the ocean right there too. Yet days, even weeks, can go by without me marveling at the beauty of what God has made. It's quite literally an elephant in the middle of the room that is being ignored.

I think maybe this is why in Phil 4:6, we are told to tell God what we need and thank Him for all He has done. Ok, so that seems like a simple statement, and we might be tempted to pray something like this: "God, I need x, y and z, and thanks for everything". But if you were really to thank God for EVERYTHING He has done... woah! I don't know about you, but I've seen and experienced God doing a whole lot in my life, not to mention everyone else around me's lives, and then He also made the world...

In grade 4, we had a thing called a 'gratitude journal', where each week we had to write down 5 things we were thankful for. Often someone would forget, but it was so easy to do last minute: there's always at least 5 things you can be thankful for, no matter how crap life may seem. I have clothes to wear. I have clean clothes to wear. I have more than one pair of clean clothes to wear. I have a laptop. I have internet. I have a house to stay in. Now these may seem like little things, but God is all about the little things too. If you look at all the ways that you are blessed, the ways you aren't seem a whole lot less.

Back to forgetting... We need to remember, or else we'll forget. God told the Jews to tie His word to their foreheads and to their door posts - so they would see it in front of them all day, and would be reminded of it whenever they walked in or out of their home. This is why they built alters - as reminders of what God had done, and so they could pass the story on to the next generation. Psalm 78 is a beautiful example of this, reminding the people of the importance of learning from the past and telling their children of God's faithfulness and what He has done.

There is this story of a village where they suffered from insomnia and slowly started to lose their memory as a result. One of the guys realised what was happening, and didn't want to forget, so he started labeling everything, and then wrote instructions for what they were for. At the entrance to the village, they had the name of the village, and a sign that said 'God exists'. This may seem like something sad and almost pathetic, but it's really a story about all of us. The only way we learn is by repetition and constant practice. We have to continuously remind ourselves about important things. Brushing your teeth may seem like the most natural thing ever, but try doing it with your other hand - it's not as easy. So often we forget who God is and what He has done. We need to remind ourselves daily that He even exists, and also of His nature and character.

When God made His covenant with Abraham and promised Him thousands of descendants, He used two different metaphors: that He would have as many descendants as the stars in the sky, and at another time, as the grains of sands. God gave Abraham visual reminders for the day and night, so that when feelings of doubt came, He only had to look at creation to be reminded of God's promise.

I found this on the Axiom page (christouraxiom.com), and I cried the tears of my Beloved as I realised how far we have fallen:

Robert Benson tells the story of a four year-old girl who was overheard whispering into her newborn baby brother’s ear, “Baby”, she said, “tell me what God sounds like—I am starting to forget”.

How far have we come and how much have we forgotten about what God sounds like? We need to practice listening and hearing His voice, so that in the storms of life, we can pick it out amongst the chaos. We were made for intimacy with Him, but we forget and so easily stray to do our own thing, that we don't hear the desperate cry of our Beloved for us to come back to Him.

In 2 Chronicles 7:14, God says that "if my people who are called by My Name will humble themselves and pray and seek My face and turn from their wicked ways, I will hear from heaven and will forgive their sins and restore their land."

May you open your ears to hear and your eyes to see that the LORD is God, and that His unfailing love and faithfulness endure forever. I pray that He will remind us, and that we would make a conscious effort to remember who He is and what He has done for us, for He has done so much!

about eternity...

So eternity has always been something that has pretty much freaked me out more than anything else. I don't often admit to it, but it has been my biggest fear. I know that this is ridiculously stupid and unspiritual of me - to fear the thing that is the selling point of many Christian messages: "believe in Jesus so you avoid hell and get an eternity of heaven instead!" I guess that's something I should be excited about, but from what I'd heard about it, or rather not heard about it, I honestly wasn't all that excited. I was scared, because to me, eternity was a boringly tedious, never-ending church service in a shiny place floating in the clouds somewhere with a huge throne up there somewhere with everyone bowing down before it in some sort of hypnotic trance... yeah, not exactly something I could relate to and not something that I was looking forward to experiencing - forever!


There were times when we'd have a Holy Spirit party, and I'd experience the amazing joy of being in God's presence, that this idea did become more appealing. Once I'd been in God's presence and felt Him so personally and tangibly, the idea of that forever seemed a little more manageable and appealing. But there was still the idea of nothingness and emptiness, where everything is God and God is everything, and we're just there, staring at Him forever, probably not even knowing who is standing right next to us.

That is one thing that I'd kinda hoped for - being able to meet people like Moses, Abraham, Elijah, Mother Teresa, and cool people like that so I could hear stories about their lives, but then I'd chide myself for being so unspiritual. There'd be no time for conversation: we'd be too busy staring at God in our hypnosis of worship. Don't get me wrong, God is perfectly awesome enough for us to just stare at for an eternity and get bored, but that isn't always the most appealing thing...

I've been reading this book "Desire" by John Eldredge that has been kicking me in the butt about a lot of stuff - seriously, if you can get hold of it, read it. It's amazing and so refreshing and inspiring and freeing. Over a couple of chapters, he touches on what eternity will be like, offering a different view than the one I'd always thought, but hoping wasn't true, probably because eternity is built into my heart (and all our hearts), so we know when we see it and when it's not quite right.

Something I've always had a problem with is the view that the world will self implode and be completely destroyed and obliterated by God before Jesus will come again. So that's all good and well, but if that's the case, then what is the point of us being here? To just save people's souls - fire insurance to avoid hell? If that's true, then why don't people get zapped up as soon as they accept Jesus? As God's ambassadors, I believe that we are here to establish and build God's Kingdom on earth, now. We're doing this in anticipation of the return of the King. If this is true, then there is a purpose to us being here, and the King won't come back until His Kingdom is established. Then He will come and set it in order, taking account of what has been done, of who was faithful, and rewarding them according to what they have done with what they were given. God is not a God of destruction, He is a God of restoration. So it makes much more sense for Him to restore the earth, rather than destroy it and make a new one. Maybe the 'fires of destruction and judgement' are metaphors describing the purification and renewal that will happen, when God will get rid of all the bad, and restore the good to it's perfect condition - to the fullness of glory as it was intended to be. This goes for all creation: the earth, the plants, birds, animals, fish, and us.

We were made in the image of God. At the point when this was said, all we have recorded of God is that He created the entire universe. He is creative. We were made in the image of a creative God - we were made to create and rule with Him, to govern this earth. If you put a blank sheet of paper and a vast array of art tools before a kid, they will immediately go about making a work of art. Do the same with adults, and they'll wait for specific instructions and make excuses that they're 'not artistic' or other nonsense. As kids, our instinctive nature is to create. As we grow up, we're told not to and our creative instinct is suppressed until we cease to believe we are creative and artistic at all. We all are, it's just expressed in a whole lot of different ways.

The people who are the most fulfilled and have the most joy are those that do what they do, not out of obligation, but because they love it. Dorothy Sayers says, "work is not, primarily, a thing one does to live, but the thing one lives to do". We will spend all of eternity doing what we love with no limitations or restrictions, because we will be ruling and governing creation with God, in His presence. So from that perspective - that our life now is our training ground for eternity, there is so much freedom with what we do. Taking an unending future into account, deciding could look more like this: "So, I'm going to be living forever, so if I don't get this done now, then I can get to it later". How ridiculously freeing is that??

It blows my mind, yet gives me that amazing sense of peace in my spirit that is saying, 'Yes! This is what I was made for.' Even if it doesn't make sense, it does somewhere inside of me. That sense of eternity built into me agrees with this because it is what I long for - to create alongside the Creator, doing what we both love, for all eternity. This throws such a different light on what life now is all about. The pressure is released, because you have all of eternity to do any and everything you want to do.

Like with Queen Esther, God says to us, "Tell me what you want. What is your request? I will give it to you, even if it is half the Kingdom". He says in Psalm 2:8, that we only have to ask, and He will give the nations to us as our inheritance. In Psalm 37:4, He says that if we delight in Him, He will give us the desires of our hearts.

What are the desires of your heart? What do you truly long for? If our delight is in Him, those things are God-given passions, and when we long for what God longs for, we can go after it together, working side by side at what we love.

I pray that God will bring out those desires in us, and will guide us to a place of  intimacy with Him where we are able to dream with Him about what we truly long for and want to do. God, open our hearts to dream again. Awaken our desires for the things of You - those parts of You that are uniquely in us. Draw us close to You, so that as we delight in You, You will give us our hearts' desires. Thank You that we have all eternity to discover the depth of who You are and how You made us like You.

trust in Him...

"Trust in me" was a phrase that started off as a joke on our Brazil outreach, but it's actually become something that God is continuously reminding me of. I actually had 'Trust in Him" written on my hand for over a month, and it was an amazing reminder every day, because I had to keep re-writing it, and others would ask me about it.

It really doesn't make sense why it's so hard to trust God, because He is the only stable, eternal, unchanging one in the entire universe, seen and unseen. Any and everything else will let us down at some time. God is the only on e we can truly rely on, because He truly loves us unconditionally, and He works everything for our good.

Why would I not trust Him? Because I've been hurt in the past and let down by people, and project those disappointments onto God, when He is nothing like us. He remains faithful, even when we are unfaithful, because that's who He is, and He cannot be what He is not.

These are the lyrics from 'Nothing I hold onto' by United Pursuit Band:

i lean not on my own understanding, my life is in the hands of the Maker of heaven
i give it all to You God, trusting that You'll make something beautiful out of me
i will climb this mountain with  my hands wide open
there's nothing i hold onto

This is my heart's cry, as I learn what it looks like to trust God with all I am, because I know He is trustworthy, and will catch me when I fall. He will lead me along the best pathway for my life. I choose to trust in Him.

I pray that He will lead you to a place of trusting Him out of love, not obligation, that He would teach you how faithful and loving He is, and that He would pour out His love on you. May He overwhelm you with His presence and change you from the inside out.

 

on Philippians 4...

This passage continuously kicks me in the butt...  Whenever I start getting frustrated about something, this always comes up. Probably because deep inside, we all long for peace - the deep shalom peace (wholeness and completeness in ever area of life), and this can only come from God.

Vs 4 gets me, because we must be full of the joy of the Lord... always. I don't know about you, but there are days when the last thing I want to be is joyful or happy. It's just not gonna happen. But then joy isn't peachy happiness. Biblical joy is defined as steadfast contentment. Now that is something that is more likely, but still hard. To be content always is really hard, especially when there is so much junk going on in the world. But I don't think it's content with the situation you're in, because if we were all just content all the time, nothing would change or get any better. There needs to be some level of discontent with how the world is, before we'll do anything about it. I think the kind of contentment is knowing that God is enough and everything you need - to not strive to prove yourself, but to be in His presence and love, and pouring that out to others. We feel truly fulfilled when we express God's love to others.

Vs 6 points out that we should tell God what we need, thanking God for all He has done. I think this is more for our benefit than God's, because when we actually start thinking about all that God has done, we see just how faithful He has been and how consistently He has come through for us. This boosts our faith and we realize again that we can trust Him. Then we stop worrying. So worrying is basically as a result of not trusting God completely. He explains how we counter this - pray about everything, tell Him what you need, and thank Him for all He's done.

It's interesting that in vs 7, it says that after doing that, and placing your trust in God, then you'll experience His amazing peace which blows our minds. So often we ask for peace for the situation we're in, but we don't trust God with it, and are confused when we don't get the peace we were hoping and longing for. God has this amazing peace available to us, and He's told us that it comes from trusting Him completely. That amazing wholeness and completeness comes from trusting Him and resting in Him. The end of that verse is interesting: 'His peace will guard your hearts and minds as you live in Christ Jesus'. Ever wondered how to avoid getting hurt? Let God guard your heart and mind with His peace, which comes from not worrying and trusting Him with everything. We're also called to live in Christ - it involves us loving God and loving others. It's active, not passive.

Vs 8 challenges us about what we think about. Our minds are the filter to our hearts. What we allow into our minds and think about will affect our hearts. And out of our hearts, we speak and act. People can see what you believe by how you live your life. You can say you love God, but your life should reflect it. You become what you behold. If you think about God and the things listed in this verse, your heart will become more like that, and you will start speaking and acting more like that too. The opposite is true as well.

I like that in vs 9 it says 'heard from me and saw me doing', because it shows so clearly that the gospel is not just works and not just deeds - both need to go hand in hand, else it is ineffective. You can tell someone that God loves them until you are blue in the face, but until they experience God's love for themselves, they won't get it. You can love people with actions, but unless you tell them the reason for your love is God's love, you're just another do-gooder. Both are vitally import parts of who Jesus was. He loved people, and taught people. When people see what you say match up with what you do, it has so much more impact, and they really pay attention. Vs 9 also places emphasis on putting into practice what you've learned. Often we read all these amazing inspirational books, but then we don't do anything with what we've learned. Knowledge must lead to action. In this sense, ignorance is bliss, because once you know something, you have a responsibility to share that and do something about it.

Vs 13 is the much quoted verse of doing everything in God's strength, but is often applied too liberally. The verses leading up to it give it a completely different spin. They talk about being content with whatever you have - being able to live with nothing and with everything, being hungry or full. Paul says that he has 'learned the secret of living in every situation', meaning that he has had plenty of experience and can get by, with Christ's strength. This is a challenge to us, who may complain about small things when life is going well, or big things when it's not. To be able to be content in all circumstances, is to have joy in all circumstances, which can only come from God's strength.

I pray that God would teach you what it means to live with joy in His presence every day, despite what circumstances you find yourself in. He is faithful, and His unfailing love endures forever. Trust in Him, and live in the amazing peace He has to offer.

To get you up to speed...

So last year (2010), I started on an amazing adventure with God.
From January til May, I did a Discipleship Training School (DTS) with an international missions organisation called Youth With A Mission (YWAM). In short, my life was radically transformed.

I'm from South Africa, so leaving home and going to Denver, CO was an adventure in and of itself. I really had to trust God with everything, and He totally came through! I was trying to find any excuse not to go, and my last one was visas. Now if you know anything about travelling, you'll know that US visas are really hard to get, and particularly impossible for South Africans to get... So I figured that if God really wanted me to go, He'd make a way. With God's hilarious sense of humour, I was given a 10 year visa with hardly any questions asked, and it arrived within a week. So I headed off to Denver, not really knowing what I was getting myself into.

When I arrived, I was an insecure, self-conscious, scared little girl. I'd believed a whole lot of lies about myself, and God took me through an amazing healing process of opening up. This was hard, because to open up is to be vulnerable to hurt, but also open to love and healing. I grew a lot in confidence, because I learned that being myself was great, because there is no one else like me. We're all made unique in the image of God, so you reflect God in a way that no one else can. So when you stop being yourself, a little bit of God is lost to us forever. I got so much freedom and joy from learning to step out in my identity - a beloved daughter of God.
I had the amazing opportunity to go to Thailand on 'outreach' (a time of applying what we'd learned during DTS). Our focus was to simply love people - no agenda, just love. We went to a village of Burmese refugees, the slums of Bangkok and the bars in Phuket. All these places are full of people who are rejected, shunned and looked down upon by society, so we went and loved them. One of the most amazing things we saw was a 40 year old lady from the slums who had been mute from birth, say her first word "Hallelujah" after we prayed with her. God is so amazing!

This was just the start though... I went back to YWAM Denver at the end of June, this time to do a School of Biblical Foundations (SBF). Talk about having your mind renewed! It was exactly what I needed after DTS, where God broke down so many lies in my life. I was saturated in truth every day, since our main project was to read through the entire Bible chronologically in 10 weeks. It was incredibly challenging, but set such a firm foundation in who I am and who God is in my life. It was incredible to see how God's love and faithfulness are the two things that keep coming up all the way through the Bible. I was reminded of all the times throughout my life that God has continuously been there for me and helped me through extremely hard times (but that's for another post).

I'd been praying a rather dangerous prayer: 'break my heart for what breaks Yours', and so wasn't really surprised that I found myself still at YWAM Denver doing a School of Social Justice (SSJ) in September. It was a heavy school, since we looked at issues like human trafficking, refugees, poverty and community development. It was rough, realizing that we have a responsibility to do something about it, yet also seeing how huge and deeply rooted these issues are. The most important thing we learned was that you need to just do something. Mother Teresa said that if she had known what she was getting herself into before, she would never had done it, but she saw one person in need and helped them, then another one... It starts with helping the one.

God also brought me to a place of trusting Him with everything and really giving it all to Him - not out of obligation, but out of love and in response to His amazing love. I know that I can trust Him, and I would willingly die for Him, if He would be glorified by my death. But more that that, I will strive to live in a way that brings Him glory in every thing I do. This is harder by far, but so much more powerful. Anyone can die, but how many really live?

I then had the amazing opportunity to go on another outreach, this time to Brazil (December-February). We got to help out at Mount Salem Children's Home for about 5 weeks, which was an amazingly hard and beautiful time. There were days when I felt like I had nothing left to give, but then I saw how delighted the kids were to see us, and I couldn't help but love them, because God's love for them is so overwhelmingly powerful. We also got the chance to go down the Amazon for 10 days, and help build a church in the river community. The pastor had been praying for 2 years for a team to come and help them, and we got to be the answer to their prayers, which was such a blessing to them and to us.

So that's a taste of what my life has been like this last year, as I've gone on adventures with God all over the place.
I'm currently spending at least 40 days resting and reflecting on all that God has done, and looking ahead to where He is beckoning me next.
A friend of mine gave me this quote: "I know not what He is about to do with me, but I have given myself entirely into His hands"
This is extremely true of my life right now, and what makes it even more exciting is that God is romancing me. He really is such a romantic - He invented it after all!
Here's what He's said to me:
"Out in the desert I'll teach her to sing, she'll call Me 'Husband' and she'll wear my ring'"
The amazing part about that, is that He has given me a ring - I gave away my ex's promise ring, and God gave me one back - from Him.

May God awaken your heart to sing, and may you hear Him calling you out of the business of life, to be still with Him. Let Him sing over you again. He longs for your presence, and He loves you so much.