Home
On the day I became a Christian, I went to a Church service earlier in the day where a lady there told about how her son had fallen away from the Lord. We prayed for her son. I really wanted her son to come back to the Lord. We had all gathered at the front to pray. As we were praying (me not a Christian at the time, but obviously God was working on me!) I felt like I had come home, that I no longer had to wear a mark of being good enough, that I could rest. I so clearly remember that impression many, many years later.
When I went to my first Church in Kingston it was on the recommendation of my best friend, who wanted to make sure that I kept going to Church even though I was so far from her. The church wasn't exactly my demographic. I was the only university student. I bet they didn't think I would stay, but I did. They may not have had people my age, but they had God. Where you have Jesus in common you can fit together if you want to. When the Church ran into trouble, people left, we lost our building, things got a little flaky but I stayed. When it finally closed we had to look for another Church.
We visited a couple of Churches but it was really easy to choose Next. Both Myron and I loved it. When Church in a Box started it was a no brainer as well. It suited the schedule of a young child and was very child friendly, a perfect fit.
The day before Al told us about the Rustle idea I had a dream about a baby and as soon as he told me about Rustle, I knew that the baby was Rustle and I knew that we would be a part of mothering that baby.
As it has so far been so easy and so obvious to know where God has planted me, it isn't always easy for me to comprehend when people struggle with this. Maybe they make it more complicated than it needs to be. Maybe I'm just simple. Not that there's anything wrong with struggling, just it's easier not to :)
New friendship
Recently, I made a new friend because our boys are friends. I went to her house yesterday so the boys could have a play date. Her boy is a bit wilder than James, so she was more prepared for the wildness that ensued than I was, but I'm learning. We are still in the learning about each other stage. We came over to her place after Church, but I didn't mention that was where we had been. I don't know if she surmised or not.
But anyway, we were swapping stories of daycares and she told me this story of a Baptist (?) daycare and she asked them if there was any religious component to their daycare. They said no, but it turned out they DID have a religious component (Bible study time). She said she would not have minded if they had just been honest with her. Because they weren't she pulled her child out. And as she was telling me the story, I'm just like - great- now she thinks Christians are dishonest. Sigh.
Letting go
There's something in my life that I feel God is telling me to let go of. I don't particularly want to let go of it, nor do I even know how to begin letting go. I just have to trust God that He knows what He's doing and that He will show me.
Bible reading blog
I didn't think I'd have as many posts on reading the Bible as I seem to be coming up with, so I've decided to start a seperate blog for my Bible thoughts and keep this blog for my internal musings. This is the link for the Bible blog if you wish to join me there
http://bibletree.blogspot.com/
Doing right
This quote comes after God rejects Cain's offering:
6Then the LORD said to Cain, "Why are you angry? Why is your face downcast? 7 If you do what is right, will you not be accepted? But if you do not do what is right, sin is crouching at your door; it desires to have you, but you must master it."Genesis 4
I understand Cain's reaction at this point. It can be hard to hear we're not doing something right. My students sometimes they don't understand their grades when they put so much work into it. But you can put a lot of work into something and yet still not be doing it right!
It is not clear what Cain did to make the offering unacceptable, but I would guess there were directions that God had given him that were not followed. But God seems to be saying -do what is right next time.
I thought the bolded description of sin was interesting. The Lord seems to refer to sin as an active thing.
The Lord also still seems to be speaking to humanity directly here. But immediately after God says this to him, it seems he goes and kills his brother. And this one incident affects his lineage. His line is soiled. His great-great-great-grandson (or so) also kills a man (Genesis 4:23) and claims to be much worse than Cain (Gen 4:24). The sins of the father rest on the children and help shape their destiny. It is not Cain's lineage that brings forth Christ, but another son of Adam and Eve - Seth.
Today's society lives in the 'now' and often does not consider that the choices they make affect future generations for bad or for good.
Tree of life
3 days ago, I decided to start reading the Bible from the beginning, about a chapter or so a day because it's been quite a while since I read the whole shebang from start to end. I think the last time was 1994!
anyway, after reading the first 3 chapters of Genesis, what stuck in my head was the tree of life.
In the middle of the garden were the tree of life and the tree of the knowledge of good and evil. Genesis 2:9
The second tree gets a lot of air time because that's the one that they weren't allowed to eat from. But they were allowed to eat from the tree of life.
22 And the LORD God said, "The man has now become like one of us, knowing good and evil. He must not be allowed to reach out his hand and take also from the tree of life and eat, and live forever." 23 So the LORD God banished him from the Garden of Eden to work the ground from which he had been taken. 24 After he drove the man out, he placed on the east side [a] of the Garden of Eden cherubim and a flaming sword flashing back and forth to guard the way to the tree of life. Genesis 3
This is where I paused last night - could Adam have eaten the tree of life and did not???? I guess Adam and Eve missed it! Ack. Or was it that God did not want Adam to live forever in his fallen state? (that he had eaten of the tree of life when all was good, but the living forever was revoked when he disobeyed and entered a fallen state)
And then he puts a guard up so that Adam and Eve can't get back to that tree of life. But Adam and Eve didn't seem all that savvy to necessitate a 'flaming sword'. You would think a stick across the entrance would work just as well!
In proverbs the writer talks about the tree of life as wisdom, fruit of the righteous and a healing toungue. But the tree doesn't get mentioned again until Revelation
To him who overcomes, I will give the right to eat from the tree of life, which is in the paradise of God.(Rev 2:7)
Well, at least we know the tree hasn't moved, but God has- now he's willing to let people eat from the tree of life (because of the redemption that Jesus got for us?) But then in Rev 22 it has a glorious but puzzling picture:
1Then the angel showed me the river of the water of life, as clear as crystal, flowing from the throne of God and of the Lamb 2down the middle of the great street of the city. On each side of the river stood the tree of life, bearing twelve crops of fruit, yielding its fruit every month. And the leaves of the tree are for the healing of the nations.
I'm not sure about the math in this. If it is 'the' tree of life how can it be on each side of the river. A bit puzzling, but maybe it is just the translation of participles. In any event the tree of life seems to figure prominently in the vision. Is it of heaven? It certainly is a beautiful healing picture. I think there are a lot of nations and peoples that need the leaves of the tree of life!
made new
In the summer of 1991 I was a new Christian and I went to an evangelical Church. It was a really great Church with excellent teaching and I learned a lot. They were very strongly evangelical and put a lot of emphasis on bringing Christ to people. That whole summer I prayed so hard for someone that I could bring Christ to.
I learned that God answers prayer in not the way I would expect!
I spent the summer growing, reading every Christian book I could get my hands on. Spent practically everyday doing something with the church- bible study, youth group, prayer, cleaning up the new church house they bought, camping, etc.
Then the day came that I would leave this healthy environment to head back to kingston.
That's the day that God answered my prayer.
I was taking the bus. I got on the bus and got settled. The bus was about half full. I looked out the bus window and I saw him. He was kind of rough looking and carrying a guitar. And I had this sinking feeling that he would sit next to me on the bus. He did. I was reading. He asked if he could sit down. I said yes. I tried to read. He asked me what I was reading. I told him. He sat quietly for a bit and then asked me what my sign was. I told him I didn't believe in that sort of thing. He asked me why. I told him. He asked lots of questions. I answered the best I could. The bus ride normally takes 1 hour and a quarter (to TO), but this ride felt like it took forever! This was not a soft spoken type of guy. He was rather loud and didn't seem to care if the whole bus heard our conversation. I didn't care either. The rest of the bus was silent. As we got close to TO I asked him if he wanted to pray to receive Christ. He did. We prayed together. I'm sure the whole bus heard him! We kept talking. We got off the bus. I felt completely exhausted and happy. I headed toward the Kingston line and he came up to me again to thank me. He was my answer to prayer. That day I realized God does answer prayer, sometimes not quite the way we expect. I was also very overwhelmed by the experience, it was amazing but scary at the same time. I stopped praying that prayer. I think I should start again.
It's not about you
When I have disappointing times with people, I'm generally good about not taking it personally. I think maybe they are having a bad day, or they had a bad childhood or whatever. I'm pretty good at depersonalizing bad situations.
But good situations, when people say good things about me. I take that personally much more easily, because it feels nice I suppose. But a day or so ago when something transpired and I felt good, I felt the Holy Spirit nudging me, that what the person was seeing was Jesus in me, so the compliment was really for God! It's not about me. I am glad to bring glory to His name, but I know it's not me- it's Him flowing through me.
We had a prayer meeting at Rustle last night. I think prayer meetings are important for a number of reasons: that it is important that believers participate in corporate prayer, that it is important that new believers learn how to pray being the main 2.
Henri and Karen and I are a three fold cord- we pray very well together and are very well balanced. But there is always a risk when you have a good safe environment to think this is where I want to stay. But God is always moving and stretching us so that is relatively unlikely!
So lat night there were the 3 of us + a guy who had come to church on Sun. after having been released from jail. He doesn't have a home, he's staying with friends. He has some sort of evangelical background as he knows a lot of flowery talk, though I'm not sure how practically it is showing up in his walk. He seems like a very sweet guy. A bit misguided but sweet, so it was a bit of work to keep the prayer meeting on track. But it seemed to go well and we all prayed together. He made Karen and Henri a bit jittery, I think. When he went out for a cigarette, I wondered aloud how he knew about the prayer meeting and Henri hissed at me "You ANNOUNCED it". Oh, right, it was indeed my fault! I am glad he came. Glad he had somewhere to go in the evening. Glad we were able to pray with him.
Listening II
Bob made this comment on the last post and I have been thinking about it:
When it comes to hearing God telling me to speak to others on his behalf, I try to be pretty cautious. Dangerous, heady stuff. A lot of potential for me getting in the way of the communication.
I agree that it is good to be cautious and good to understand that we do often 'get in the way' a bit because of our personal filters. We can take what we are hearing and interpret it in our filters and it might come out not quite right. BUT despite us 'being in the way' we are the vessels that God has chosen to use. Why? I don't know, but this is his show. If He tells us to tell someone something and we don't and they get messed up, isn't the blood on our hands? (I think there's a scripture something like that) The Bible also tells us to 'desire the best gifts' (not quite sure what qualifies as 'best' but most of the things Paul seems to be talking about here do involve listening to God)
1 Corintians 12 (Amplified)
28So God has appointed some in the church [[f]for His own use]: first apostles (special messengers); second prophets (inspired preachers and expounders); third teachers; then wonder-workers; then those with ability to heal the sick; helpers; administrators; [speakers in] different (unknown) tongues.
29Are all apostles (special messengers)? Are all prophets (inspired interpreters of the will and purposes of God)? Are all teachers? Do all have the power of performing miracles?
30Do all possess extraordinary powers of healing? Do all speak with tongues? Do all interpret?
31But earnestly desire and zealously cultivate the greatest and best gifts and graces (the higher gifts and the choicest graces). And yet I will show you a still more excellent way [one that is better by far and the highest of them all--love].
But if you see yourself as an obstacle to God instead of a conduit then you shut down the ability for God to work through you. Listen to God, it tends to be that one needs to take small steps first- to show we are willing to do the small things before He trusts us with bigger things.
I want to grow closer to Him and be willing to do whatever I think I hear Him saying. I know that I'll be wrong sometimes, maybe a lot of times, but I've got to keep trying.
Listening
Today Brandon talked about listening to God during his sermon. Often we have lot to say to God, but don't spend a lot of time listening. That may be because when we listen we may not like too much what God has to say! He has a way of challenging us! But He also likes to make sure we know we are loved, so it is really a good thing to listen.
I had a friend a while ago and I felt God told me some stuff to tell her. And I told her but not in a 'this is what God is saying' sort of way- I just brought it up in conversation. It was fairly obvious that she didn't want to listen to what I was saying. I tried a number of times and gave up in frustration. I don't know if she wasn't ready to hear or if I just couldn't communicate clearly so she could hear, so I gave up on the friendship. (Though I think if I told her that this is what God was saying to her, I didn't want to do that- but maybe if that's how she hears, that's the language I should have spoken?)
This past week I have been listening to God while playing the soundtrack to the movie "Flashdance". I know that sounds corny (Barbara don't disown me!) but while I was listening I felt God saying that this is me. Not that I'm the movie Flashdance! No, no. But that I am a light fragrance to Him. That we are all different fragrances to Him but that I don't need to hide who I am or pretend to be anything else because it's just the way He made me.
