As I was sweeping out the front porch this morning, I noticed a long narrow line of ants scuttling back and forth. Even though I don’t like ants around the house, I couldn’t help but marvel at how these little creatures kept even rank, each one seeming to know exactly where it was going and what it was about. They are such an amazing little creature, that they are held up as an example to lazy human beings in the Bible……”Go to the ant you sluggard! Learn her ways and be wise!” we are told in Proverbs 6:6-9. These verses tell us to be like the ant and not to be lazy but to get up and get going off to our own work.
Whenever there is a bit of food on the ground, those ants seem to find it! They all hurry to the spot, and do their best to get as much of it as they can. I wonder if we are like this with God’s Word? We are told that it is more necessary than our daily food, and yet how many of us bother to even look into its pages! How much time do we take to read it during the week? Or do we just open it on Sundays while waiting for people to arrive at church?
Let’s take these things to heart and to make time for the things that matter most!
All posts by Gwenyth
Foggy Morning.
When I went for my morning walk this morning, as I turned the corner the road ahead was swathed in fog and nothing was clear. I couldn’t help remembering times in the past when we had been boating and were caught in the fog. Nothing could be seen, and we had to edge very carefully along to make sure we were away from the shoreline. More than once, we found that we had been going in a huge circle and were back at where we had started from!
We are often like this in life and when things are dim and unclear, we find ourselves groping around and very often end up where we started from. We’ve made no progress at all!
But all is not lost! There is no need for us to grope around at these times, if we wait patiently, the fog will lift eventually and we will see our way clearly once more.
Another thing about the fog, is that as it begins to lift, it swathes itself around the highest points leaving the lower areas still in its mantle. This often makes for very interesting photos. So it is in life. As we come out of these foggy experiences, the things we have learned are to our benefit, and we can see what God was trying to teach us as we groped our way through these tough times. Let’s make sure that we don’t stay in the fog, but keep looking up until it lifts and we are once more in the clear sunlight of seeing all God’s blessings that He has given us!
Sticks and Stones
“Mum,” Betty wailed as she came into the kitchen, “Bobby’s calling me names!”
“Oh, come now,” said Mum, “He doesn’t mean what he is saying!”
“He does too!” said Betty, “He told me I was an old meanie-bum!”
“Well, what did you do to him?” Mum asked. She knew very well that Bobby wouldn’t call names if he hadn’t been provoked in some way.
“Well,” said Betty looking at the ground, “I did hide his phone, and I won’t tell him where until he says he is sorry!”
Mum was used to this sort of thing, and she said mildly, “Don’t you think you should say sorry too and go and get his phone back for him?”
“I don’t think it was a nice thing for him to say I was a meanie-bum,” Betty said sulkily.
“Well, you remember the old saying that ‘sticks and stones will break my bones, but names will never hurt me!’ ” said Mum, “And in this case don’t you think you deserved it when you took his phone?”
Uncle Jeff came in just then with Bobby following close behind. “Well, well,,” he said in his big cheerful voice, “What’s been going on here?” as he noticed Betty’s aggrieved face.
“Bobby’s been calling me horrid names, Uncle Jeff”, she said.
“And Betty’s gone and hidden my phone!” Bobby said, “She deserves it!”
“Now, now,” said Uncle Jeff, “I think you should both say sorry and you go and give his phone back, Betty. Two wrongs don’t make a right you know!! You know, saying things like this is like ripples on calm water….they go for a very long way. Even some jokes hurt other people. I remember once when I was going to school, a boy called me ‘Bandy’. He only meant it as a joke, but I didn’t like it and I’ve never forgotten it!”
“Yes,” said Mum, “And I remember once I told a girl in my class that I liked what she was wearing and she took it the wrong way, and acted as if I’d slapped her in the face!”
“Ooh,” said Sarah who came in then and heard this last bit, “What happened then?”
“Nothing,” Mum said, “But I’ve never forgotten it. It just shows that what we say can go much further than we ever intend it to.”
“Yes,” said Uncle Jeff, “We should always say things that will build other people up and make them feel good. People will always remember you by what you say!”
Betty had gone out of the room, and now she came back with her hands behind her back. “Here’s your phone, Bobby,” she said, pulling it out… “I shouldn’t have annoyed you by hiding it”.
“Oh, thank you Betty,” Bobby said, “And I shouldn’t have called you names either, but you did make me mad!”
“That’s great,” said Uncle Jeff, “Now what about that cup of tea? I’m awfully thirsty after all that!”
When Ignorance is NOT Bliss!
Ignorance is bliss so they say. But this is no excuse as far as the law is concerned! One day a new “Stop” sign was erected on a road I didn’t use much, and I slid over it as usual after checking that no cars were coming. Alas for me, a traffic officer confronted me around the corner where he had been waiting to catch the unwary offenders. My ignorance was no excuse for getting out of the ensuing fine, and it was large enough to hurt my pocket. I ruefully thought of the shoes or whatever else that I could have bought with that amount!
It made me realise that just as the law accepts no excuses for being broken, that God’s law is just as inflexible. He says, “The soul that sins, shall die!”
On the other hand is the verse that says, “God so loved the world that He gave His only beloved Son that whoever believes in Him will not perish but have everlasting life” (John 3:16).
Where Would YOU Be?
A very dear friend of ours went to be with the Lord last Sunday. It was most unexpected although we had seen that he was gradually losing weight and getting more feeble as the months went by. We can’t always choose the way we go, but we CAN choose where we go! You might ask how a person can be so sure of this.
Bill had lived a hard life, and was a real he-man. He had gone in for chopping competitions in his younger years and had worked his way up to being the New Zealand champion for some years….a fact that he very rarely talked about in later years. “That belongs to the old life”, he would say with a wry grin, and go on to talk of other things.
He had put everything he had into his axe chopping training and other things, including his family, had taken second place. It wasn’t until his wife nearly died after the birth of their youngest child, that he stopped to think about what would happen if he died. But like so many people, he brushed the thought aside.
He came across a young man in the course of his work, who would periodically sidle up to him and talk about the Bible. After some months of this, Bill began to wonder if there was really something in all of this. Around the same time, a Christian worker began to visit them in their home, and Bill became convicted of his need to do something about all this talk.
Meantime, his wife had turned to the Lord and was quietly, in her own way, showing him the difference in her life. One day, he was out in the bush in the course of his work, and really felt that God was with him there. He remembered a Bible story he had heard about a woman who obeyed what God told her and as a result she was able to save all her family from a sure disaster. He knew then that he could run away from God no longer, and so there in the bush, he confessed that he needed God in his life.
From then on, Bill was a different man. He showed love to his family in a way that he hadn’t before, and all his friends could see the difference in him. He left his job as he had a strong urge to devote himself to working with disadvantaged children and so they moved north to another area and took over running a children’s home for some years. After he retired, he then took up delivering Sunday School lessons to children in out of the way places.
As he grew older, a lot of Bill’s friends and relations started dying off, and at the funeral services, Bill was often asked to speak. Being rather shy, he started learning devotional poems, and he would stand up and with a smile would recite these off. He had such a great manner with him, that no-one could take offence, and he got his message across in a way that others couldn’t have done.
Now he has gone. What a way he went! As usual, last Sunday he drove to the chapel he attended, a twenty minute drive through the town, went inside and greeted everyone. He sat down and commented that his hands were very cold. Then he gave a little gasp, and his head fell backwards, and he was gone. Just like that! Quietly, with no fuss, just as he had lived.
We know for sure that he is with his Lord….his life showed it in everything that he did. Will our family be able to know for sure where we are when we have gone? Because when this life is finished, our spirits and souls are still well alive, and it is up to us to leave our loved ones in no doubt where we are!
The Peaceful Man
Psalm Four
Hear my call, O My Lord, and have mercy on me, I know You will hear my cry unto Thee, I will stand still in awe, and not commit sin, I will lie on my bed, and commune within; I will offer the sacrifice of praises and sing, And my trust to the Lord, I’ll continually bring, You put joy in my heart which will only increase, And I’ll lie down and sleep, in peace perfect peace.
Notice how the Psalmist here makes his call to the Lord for help, and then affirms his belief that God HAS heard his cry. He thinks of any sin he might have done and confesses it, then gets into bed still thinking of the things of the Lord. What a pattern for us to follow! There is nothing like a good rousing hymn for raising the spirits, and we can think of the words of many of these as we lie in bed, and then drop off into a peaceful sleep. This pattern is better than any sleeping pill and brings glory to God, even in a small way. *** *** ***
Whining or Shining?
I heard a pastor speaking on TV the other day and he asked a question that made me stop and think.
“Do you whine or do you shine?” was the question. You may smile at this, but it brought me up with a round turn. How many times do I complain about the weather being too hot, being too wet, or too cold? We have no control over the weather, but we DO have control over our attitude to it!
How do we react when we don’t feel well? Do we take some pain killers and get on with things cheerfully, or do we put up with the aches and pains and make sure everyone around us knows how we are feeling?
What about when we are standing in a queue waiting to be served at the supermarket check-out and there is some trouble at the counter and the line slows down…do we wait patiently or do our fingers start to tap, and our blood pressure rise? (I might add that nearly every line I get in seems to be the slowest one there!) so this is a good challenge to me! So now I will stop and think….”will I shine or will I whine?” and hopefully choose the right one!
The right choice will make me feel better, those around me feel better, and most of all will please the Lord!
Paul’s CV.
The Apostle Paul was a unusual character, yet God had His hand on him right from birth (Galatians 1:15). Even though he didn’t know it at first, God had chosen him for a special purpose.
When we first meet Paul, he is described as a “young man” known by the name of Saul. (Acts 7:58). He was a Roman citizen by birth (Acts 22:27-28), having been born in the town of Tarsus in Asia Minor and very well educated. He had finished his learning under the tutelage of Gamaliel , one of the highest teachers in the Jewish faith at that time, in the city of Jerusalem. (Acts 22:3)
Young Saul felt it was his vocation, indeed his bounden duty, to eradicate all those who were following this new faith called “The Way”. He went all through Jerusalem, hauling both men and women off to prison. (Acts 8:1, 3)
Later, his intention was to follow these people to the ends of the earth if necessary, to shut them up. He felt this was his calling that God wanted him to do. It was for this reason that he set off for Damascus to do this very thing, but he never got there….God stopped him in his tracks and spoke to him in a blinding light that left him without sight for three days. The men with him saw the light and heard a voice (without recognizing the words spoken). Saul knew it was indeed the voice of the Lord Jesus Christ and he responded immediately. (You can read about this in Acts 9: 1-9 and 22: 4-23)
After his eye sight was restored to him, he immediately began to preach that Jesus Christ was the Son of God who had come into the world to save sinners. People couldn’t believe their ears….this was the man who had been throwing people into prison for doing this, and now he was doing it himself!
Paul went off into the desert for a period of time after his initial preaching, and tells what happened to him there in Galatians 1:11-24. He also explained that what he was preaching and teaching was not a man’s idea or his idea, but that God Himself had shown him these things and told him what he was to preach.
At one stage he felt that his handicap was hindering his work for the Lord, and he begged Him three times to be healed. He must have wondered why the Lord didn’t regard his request, and then the Lord spoke to him clearly, “My grace is sufficient for you!”
It was then that he understood that God could still work through his physical weakness. Any “success” he saw from his labors would then certainly only be the work of the Lord, and not his work!
These letters that he wrote to the different churches were borne out of his great concern and love for the people he was writing to. We might wonder why, since he was doing such a great preaching work, the Lord allowed him to be shut up in prison so much, but it was during these times that he wrote these letters which indeed are God’s instructions to His people for that time right down to the present time. The young Christians had much to learn, and he wrote of God’s order in the churches, and the mysteries of God’s intentions for His people (Christ in you). He also straightened the people up when they took on board the wrong ideas concerning the old law’s rules, and showed that Christ had died once and for all time for man’s sins when people turned and confessed it to God.
We have much to be thankful to Paul for, and indeed are indebted to his writings which have been preserved for us. Let us each one make sure that we acknowledge that what he has written is surely the Word of God in truth. If any man think himself to be a prophet or spiritual, let him acknowledge that the things that I write to you are the commandments of the Lord, he wrote (1 Corinthians 14:37).
Let’s begin to take a closer look at these things that he wrote down and take heed to them for they are indeed the words of the Lord to us for today!