Delighting in the Divine
Yes to freedom, yes to play and yes to celebrating the moment!
Delighting in the Divine
Yes to freedom, yes to play and yes to celebrating the moment!
All tagged humility
What would be your two top anti-stress tips? I bet they are not the same as Jesus’ observations on what will bring true rest in Him!
My top two ideas would probably be stopping and breathing deeply and counting to three, and thankfulness...
...but Jesus’ top two are:
I love words. I love how they wrap up a feeling and spring-board an idea. I love how words can paint the tumultuous storms of life in lightning-strike clarity. I love how emotions can be soothed by words, like the calm of an unhurried afternoon tea in the garden where the gentle breeze blows through the bushes; or emotions can be hair-raised and roller-coastered with violent passion that makes us bold and pushy...
Could God possibly desire brokenness above seeming fixed-ness?
Could God possibly prefer me broken and weak and at the end of me over held-together-all-by-myself me, because that is where He is? ...
Last week I wrote about how much I feel paralyzed by the inability to do big things or things I feel I should. Yesterday I was not feeling great, Mark was sick in bed and I was preaching in the morning. I find it hard doing ministry when Mark is not around as the boys still needed walking through social situations (one of our children still struggles with having so many people around in our house and interacting in socially appropriate ways around them - a lot of fun in community living!). In the afternoon it was the first birthday party of our friends' child. I was there at little David’s birth, so it was a significant birthday for me to be at and to celebrate and I wanted to be there. But by the time 5 o’clock came round, the party had started and I was asleep and wiped out! I wanted to attend the party but I also knew that I needed to make the children some food first or else they would just fill up on party food and that would not be helpful for anyone. Believe me...
Lie 4: What I am trying to achieve is more important than the relationship.
Truth: Your mission here on earth is first to love God and then to love others. Loving others is one way of also loving God!
Passivity and busyness are two snares the enemy uses to destroy relationships...
We desire to do great things for God and we crave a community to do it with. Unfortunately, when we work alongside others we soon discover that there are people who have mixed agendas, others who are unkind, others who are passive, others who got out the wrong side of the bed this morning. And those people are us!
Never have I seen a nation so honoring and proud of the role of President and yet so dishonoring and undermining of the President himself as the United States.
Recently, I saw a Facebook post by a Christian disrespecting the current President and comments which were equally disrespectful and it caused me pain and gave me much to think about, especially seeing as my first reaction was to judge them, just as they had judged the President! ...
I shared recently about pushing against resistance in order to see breakthrough. I have found this to be essential when wanting to see breakthrough in relationships with others which can lead to much joy!
Life has given me plenty of opportunities to have misunderstandings, painful relationships and disagreements with others and I'm sure you have had those too. In many of the relationships at school or university, I was able to pull away when things got hard, but marriage and living in community with others has meant that I have had to work at unity. It was really hard at first, but choosing to commit to the person and not pull away has led to joy! The feeling of joy and unity that comes when a broken relationship has been restored and brought to another level is worth it! ...
I remember waking up the first time I lost a baby a few days after the delivery. It was the middle of the night and I felt an extreme sense of joy welling up inside me - I could almost hear angels singing around me. It seemed so foreign and wrong to be feeling so joyful only a few days after losing a child. My first reaction was, ‘God, is this You?! How can it be You?!’ His reply came clear and strong: ‘the joy of the Lord is your strength.’ ...
For a long time I didn’t want to be involved in worship, because I didn’t want it to be about me. I didn’t want to be standing up there, self-conscious, wondering if I sounded great or terrible. I didn’t like the fact that during those times my mind was more bothered about myself than God. So I stepped back. I didn’t look for opportunities to be involved and when moving to Peru I didn’t get involved at the start for that reason.
I remember telling a pastor friend who led worship my reasons when he asked me why I didn’t get involved. He laughed kindly and said: ‘We alll have to face that! It is always going to be a challenge!’...
