Just forget the world

"If I lay here, if I just lay here, will you lie with me and just forget the world." - Chasing Cars - Snow Patrol

This week has been tough and on Tuesday night my body was just aching. I decided it was time for a long soak in the bath.  Once done and and with the body aches gone I was able to drift off to sleep peacefully. 

Sometimes when life is tough and demands are high we have to learn to take a step back, relax and just forget the world.  

Spiritually speaking this is possible too.  By taking time to soak in the presence of God and worship Him and let go of all our troubles, we are able to find peace and solace. 

We need to remember the words of Jesus when He said, "Come unto me all who are weary and heavy laden and I will give you rest." 

Trust your Prince if Peace to give you rest today. 

Reno-gard-nio

The last municipal water cut we had was so frustrating that I asked myself, "why suffer when you have the means to fix things so that you don't have to struggle to survive these difficulties" .  I bought a Jojo tank to solve the problem, but it isn't going to be a quick fix. 

The area where I plan to put it currently houses my herb garden and after much honesty and introspection I concluded that my energy for gardening isn't what it once was and I need to make changes to make the garden less hassle to work with. 

Hence it has been decided that a garden renovation is now required. At the same time as making space for the Jojo, I'll also make way for a garden shed to come when the time is right.

I have heard many sermons on prosperity, but the one definition that rings most true is that true Godly prosperity is the ability to meet any given NEED at any given time. 

With that in mind I'll plan carefully, keep what's needed and then make space for more important needs to be met. 

Thanks for the mess

There are times in life when you just have to say, "Thank you for the mess Lord!". Certain storms hit our lives and before we wipe our eyes out they have rearranged the furniture and we wonder what happened, only to realize as time goes by that the storm was a gift from God.

When the dust settles we see the reason for it all and we can be grateful.  God in His mercy will sometimes allow small disasters in our lives to protect us from bigger disasters down the road.  It is these acts of mercy and grace that baffle the mind and often leave us confused.

It is however a Devine act of trust on our part that will take us from a storm to a victory.  When we learn to surrender and learn to trust His timing, His saying No, His authority in our lives to do as he pleases, that we will one day see the reason for it all.... And it is usually good!

Learn to go with the flow with whatever God is doing in your life, surrender to Him, trust Him, love Him with all your heart and you will see the desires of your heart fulfilled. 

Organized chaos

Chaos theory is an interdisciplinary theory stating that, within the apparent randomness of chaotic complex systems, there are underlying patterns, interconnectedness, constant feedback loops, repetition, self-similarity, fractals, and self organization...This behaviour is known as deterministic chaos, or simply chaos - WIKIPEDIA  [Ya right, like I really understood all that :-p] 

Chaos can hit at any moment, in many different ways and in ways and shapes that we do not understand.  Believe it or not, chaos can begin slowly and then escalate in momentum.  You don't believe me do you?  Right, let me prove it to you.  Rewind to late 2018 when I began my home renovations.  Sure by the time we started it did feel like all hell had broken loose, but all of that would not have happened if it hadn't been for a very, very, very slow dripping water pipe that leaked so slowly it took months and months to find.  This slooooooow start of leaking pipes, eventually resulted in a drenched concrete ceiling in my kitchen, which resulted in....you guessed it, damaged kitchen cupboards.  By the time the extent of the damage became apparent, I already knew what I was going to need to do and this resulted in the renovations, which lasted a few months and which sent my life into hectic chaos.  Do you see the pattern?  Dripping water = drenched cupboards = renovations = chaos. Slow to fast.  

The repetition came in the form of a few more months of planning, while I waited for the concrete to dry and spending evenings and weekends going through dozens of stores to look for supplies.  Interconnectedness...one thing leads to another thing and so on......and we've all seen that pattern go wrong.  But what does all this have to do with our faith? 

Well the one thing I always ask myself is, how do I move from chaos back to order?  The answer is simply FAITH! 

Faith stabilizes the emotions because faith is a choice.  We have to decide to have faith that God can and will deliver us from the chaos that our lives are in back to a place of order.  When we have faith, we know that God will supply every solution along the way and that God expects of us to use our persistence, tenacity and endurance to see the storm through. 

So if you are going through chaos right now, I encourage you to join me in these faith declarations: 

* My God shall supply all my needs according to the riches of HIS in Glory.

* Nothing is impossible for God. 

* God is my shield and my deliverer. 

* God is my ever present help in trouble.

* He has sent me another helper, stand by, councellor and He is the Holy Spirit

* I can do all things through Christ who strengthens me. 

Amen!

Minute That

Tuesday evening we had my home complex body corporate AGM.  In years gone by I would have been stressed about it, but by now it is old takkie and I could get through it without any preparation the night before.  As has happened in years gone by, I had one particularly unruly resident who just had to make himself heard above everyone else.  Normally this would have sent me into a panic but this time I could not help but laugh, as the unruly member was none other than his royal highness, Mr Nibbs....AKA Ginger the cat! 

I couldn't help but giggle and all I could think was, this meeting is being recorded, I feel sorry for the managing agent who has to listen to this afterward and hear the meeting constantly interrupted by his meowing and me trying to shjoe him off the table.  It really was hilarious!  I have no idea how she is going to minute that, Lol!

The road of life has many interruptions and we often get grumpy and upset when things just don't go our way.  At times it really helps to just relax and find the funny side of things, make jokes and just generally be happy despite the circumstances.  If you can find life's funny side and ease up on all the tension you really would get through more difficulties with a smile.  God wants us to be strong and live life with joy and peace.  We should fight the attempts of the enemy to drag us down and do everything we can to smile, smile, smile!

Like Cannibals

I'll have to blame it on being hard of hearing, but when I was young and the Savage Garden song..."I wan to live like animals, careless and free.." started playing, my brain somehow heard, "like cannibals....."  - Lol, I kid you not!  At first somehow in the back of my mind I just thought, well alright then, whatever floats your boat....hehehehe!  It wasn't until a while later that something jolted in me to think....I don't think I have that right, and I went and checked the lyrics.....bwahaha. 

The moral of that that story is that sometimes we think we hear God clearly and we carry on our merry way believing that we are right, mean time God meant something completely different.  We really have to stop and think and listen before we really hear what God wants to say. 

God wants us to some degree to live life with careless abandon, to just throw ourselves into every opportunity that comes our way, to try things out and to learn something new and well if cannibals can be careless and free, Lol, how much more God's children who have His Holy Spirit living inside of us.  With that being said though, a care free spirit is not the same as a careless spirit and we need to know the difference.  

Pull yourself towards yourself

Sometimes we need to listen to our own scolding.  I was driving on my way home from work yesterday contimplating a new meeting I wanted to start attending but didn't really feel like it and I realized that my hesitance was due to the fact that my schedule was already over loaded.  One of my goals this year is to create a better home/work life balance and I realized it was time to do what my father used to say and "pull myself towards myself." 

I realized that unnecessary limitations at home meant I was blurring those lines.  One necessity was to get my home office sorted out.  Being and idealist I wanted a flat bed scanner instead of a printer scanner, but go figure, the cheapest printers are either half or a third of the price of a seperate scanner.  I had to lay down my preference and get the printer.  

The setup was long and tedious but eventually... printer done, check... copy done, check... scanner mpf, why does this thing not want to work?  I proded and poked that scanner to no avail.  Then it dawned on me that office and home printers are not the same and I needed to start the process from the PC itself.  After a while longer....walla, done!  

Sometimes we need to realize that exercising our faith is the same thing.  We cannot prod and poke the word of God and expect God to perform miracles on His own.  In most cases obtaining the goal will require action from you.  Most importantly we should pray to God for wisdom and what to do in our situation.  When we act positively on our faith God can direct our path and show us what to do, where to go, or whatever action is required from us.  

All the best for this year ahead and remember to, "Pull yourself towards yourself"!