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Morning Musings, Uncategorized

My Rumpus Room

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             As we left the upstairs area of the house, He asked me if I had a rumpus room, where I went for fun and fellowship. I was hoping He wouldn’t ask about that! There were certain things that went on in my rumpus room  that I wanted to keep to myself!

   Very reluctantly I took Him downstairs to the basement, and gave Him a quick look around there. “H’mmmm.” He said, “Do you spend much time here?” “Let’s go upstairs again”, I said hastily before I had to own up about the things that DID go on in this room, and the friends that I entertained there. I didn’t want Him to see the pictures of the different ball games and teams, or the racing car pictures  that were all over the walls, or the well stocked bar in the corner!

   I heaved a sigh of relief as we reached the living room once more, and hoped He wouldn’t say anything more about the rumpus room. As we settled down, He said thoughtfully, “What would you like Me to read to you tonight? Something you would LIKE to hear or something that you SHOULD hear?” I squirmed as I  lamely said, “Perhaps we could have a bit of both!” knowing full well what was likely to come. He quickly reached for the Bible which I had made sure was in full view on the occasional table and turned to the chapter of Psalm 81. “I am the Lord Your God that brought you out of the land of Egypt…..Egypt is a picture of the world and its temptations,” He added as an aside. Carrying on, He continued to read…“open your mouth wide and I will fill it. But my people would not listen to Me and Israel would have none of Me. So I gave them up to their own heart’s lusts, and they went their own way! If only My people had listened to Me and walked in My ways, I would have subdued their enemies, and turned My hand against them…..I would have fed My people with the finest of wheat, and satisfied them with honey out of the Rock”.  I felt thoroughly rebuked as I knew very well that I was feeding too much on the wrong sort of things.

     Another evening when I was on my way out with some of my buddies, He stopped me with a glance and asked, “Are you going out?” I replied, “Yes.’ “Good” He said, “I would like to go with you.” “Oh,” I answered rather awkwardly. “I don’t think, Lord Jesus, that You would really enjoy where we are going. Let’s go out together tomorrow night. Tomorrow night we will go to a Bible class at church, but tonight I have another appointment.” “I’m sorry,” He said. “I thought that when I came into your home, we were going to do everything together, to be close companions. I just want you to know that I am willing to go with you.” “Well,” I mumbled, slipping out the door, “we will go someplace together tomorrow night.”

  That evening I spent some miserable hours. I felt rotten. What kind of friend was I to Jesus, deliberately leaving Him out of my life, doing things and going places that I knew very well He would not enjoy?     When I returned that evening, there was a light in His room, and I went up to talk it over with Him. I said, “Lord, I have learned my lesson. I know now that I can’t have a good time without You. From now on, we will do everything together.”

   The next day,  we went down into the basement of the house to the rumpus room. What a transformation He made there!  All those suggestive things came down off the walls, and He brought new friends, new excitement, and new joys along. All the old music was thrown out, and we spent many hours around the piano singing the old favourite songs and hymns. Laughter and music have been ringing through the house ever since. He makes sure that we are never the loser when we put Him first in our home!!!

Now the LORD says , “Be it far from me; for them that honour me I will honour, while those who despise me shall be lightly esteemed!” (1Samuel 2:30)

Life Lessons, Uncategorized

How Do we Take the Heat?

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      As we go forward into the year of 2022, we are finding that things are not really improving at all. The restrictions that we suffered from the previous year are still there, and in fact in some cases are even more onerous than last year. The hopes that we had, that things would improve and that we would get more freedoms, have already gone down the drain. Yes, some of the rules have relaxed with promises of others to follow, but it is the small things that people are finding so trying.

    As this is being written, there is a group of protestors sitting on the front lawn of the Parliament Buildings in our capital city, chanting and making a nuisance of themselves simply to get the government’s attention. People are getting exasperated with all the small details of the rules that seem to them to be unnecessary. On top of all that, the weather is typical February weather of hot steamy temperatures which is trying enough in itself without any other annoyances.

    But let us stop and think about all these things for a minute. How are we allowing these fires and trials affect us? We can allow them to either make us better or to make us bitter! Remember the boiling water in the pot will make the potato soft while it makes an egg go hard….which are we going to allow ourselves to be? The choice is ours. Our outward circumstances may be the same, but the inward results can be very different depending on  how we respond.

     If we read and take notice of what God says, we will have the strength  to stand firm in spite of these annoyances….the Bible says, “ Your Word I have hidden in my heart so I will not sin against You!”     (Psalm 119:11). If we do this, we will have a message to pass on to others from our own experiences, and this will carry far  more weight than merely telling other people what they should do!!

Life Lessons, Uncategorized

How Well Do You Know God?

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   Well, how well DO you know God? Or perhaps we could ask it like this…how WELL do you know God? Then again, how well do I know God?   Finally ask, how well do I KNOW God?

   Each of these questions puts the emphasis on different words of the same question thus needing a different explicit answer to each one.

    Firstly, how well DO I know God? Do I know Him at all? Have I had any dealings with Him? We can’t really know a person until we’ve had some experience of interaction with them.     

   For instance, if I were asked “do you know Queen Elizabeth”, I might answer yes, I know who she is, but that is not actually KNOWING her. I have read much about her, and I know that she has been a great horsewoman, and that she has pet corgi dogs. I could reel off a whole host of other things about her that I have read. But none of that means that I really know the inner person that she is.

    This is the same with our knowledge of God…we might know a lot about Him, but unless we have experienced His forgiveness and subsequently His peace, we do not really know Him at all. Until we have been in the depths of despair and turned to Him for comfort and solace, we cannot know Him fully. We need to come to Him with a contrite heart for the wrongs we have done to experience His forgiveness, and then we can say we know Him well. (Psalm 51:17)

  We come to the next question…..how well do I know Him? This gets down to the personal pronoun, I. It indicates that He must know me as well, and in fact we are told that He does indeed know us from the inside to the outside whether we like it or not. I cannot hide anything from Him, and until I can say wholeheartedly, “Search me oh God, and know my heart today, Try me and know my thoughts and see if there be any wicked way in me” (Psalm 139:23-24) ” I do not really want Him to find me out!

   After having pondered on, and answered these questions honestly, then we can evaluate how well we really do know God. It will be dreadful in a coming day when God pronounces on different ones, “Depart from Me, I never knew you!” (Matthew 7:21-23) when many of them will have been engaged in doing what they thought was His work..

   If  God feels far away from you,  guess who moved? Well, you might ask, “How do I get near to God?”

It takes a contrite  heart and a confession of sin to start with but  then it takes time, after that.  Knowing God well will not come automatically, it takes time and effort. We need to ask ourselves how much time we put into this,  and to remember that if we draw near to God, He will draw near to us (James 4:8). When we take the first step towards Him, He will take ten towards us!

Let’s make sure that we do this today!!

Morning Musings, Uncategorized

What is in Your Hand?

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    I was given a book to read this week about the old time bushmen that worked the bush in the backblocks of New Zealand in the early days. In this time of high mechanism and technology, it is incredible to read of how those huge trees were felled by hand, cut into manageable sized logs, and then hauled to the nearest timber mill for processing. To read of how bullocks were trained to pull them out of the bush to the nearest creek which had been dammed up until the next heavy rains came, and then to watch them tumble all the way to sea level.

    I found this account quite fascinating as my own father had been involved in the process of towing the log rafts to the timber mill by launch when he was a young man. He only gave up the job when the first timber trucks came in and took over the cartage of the logs to the mills, thus saving many hours of double handling.

   It just goes to show how, no matter what era man has reached, God has given the ability to cope with what is needed for the current job. One time is no more right than another, it is just a matter of using what God has given us, and these old timers did just that. The men of today would be useless if faced with what those men back then coped with, just as the old timers would be bewildered by the modern technology of today.

   It just reminds us that no matter what aids we have, we are still dependent on God as our Heavenly Father to provide the strength to do what is at hand, and it is still our responsibility to use what He has given us at all times.

Life Lessons, Uncategorized

What is Set Before You?

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We have choices every day, As we step along life’s way;

In God’s Word they shine so clear, So let’s take note, their message hear.

I have set before you life and death….Deuteronomy 30:19…..

God sets before each person born, The choice of life or death forlorn,

We must each one make this choice, Death to mourn, or life rejoice.

I have set the land before you….Deuteronomy 1:8,21…..

God sets the land before our eyes, The land that waits beyond the skies,

It’s joys we now can plainly see, Awaiting there, God’s gift so free.

I have set before you an open door….Revelation 3:8…..

God knows our works, He’s set before, Each one of us an open door,

As we go through to serve Him there, His Word and Work with others share.

Let us run the race that is set before us….Hebrews 12:1…

A course is set before our eyes, A race to run to win the prize,

Of knowing Christ who bore our sin, And gives us power this prize to win.

Set a watch before my lips….Psalm 141:3….

Before my lips a watch I set, ‘Tis only God this need has met,

Help me to hold my tongue each day, Be quick to hear, and slow to say.

I will set no wicked thing before my eyes….Psalm 101:3

Set your affections on things above….Colossians 3:2

No wicked thing I’ll watch or read, For on these things my soul will feed,

I’ll set my eyes on Christ above, And think of His amazing love.

God now has set these things before, Each one of us just like a door,

It is for us to open these, If we our Lord would seek to please.

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Who was the Apostle Paul?

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    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, 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, even more, 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 to do it….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 noise (without hearing 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.

    The 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, seeing that he was doing such a great preaching work, that 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 from  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 the things that he wrote down and take heed to them for they are indeed the words of the Lord to us for today!

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The Big Dry!

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For some weeks now we have been experiencing wonderful summer weather….hot sunny days that holiday makers have been rejoicing in. Not so, farmers and gardeners! Where possible watering and irrigation have been turned on, and it is some small comfort to see the plants revive and survive!

    But in some countries, this dry weather has resulted in massive bush fires with loss of crops, animals and in some cases even human life. We sometimes wonder why these extreme weather patterns occur, and people put it down to global warming and such like, but we know they have been happening since time began.

   We read in the Bible of famines and droughts occurring at different times, and often it is put down to a nation’s disobedience to God’s rules. It seems that people will only turn to God when they are in dire straits, and often then they still refuse to acknowledge that He has any part in the weather patterns! We read of the time that there was a severe drought with no rain for three years, and the nation of Israel attributed this to the idol they were worshipping at the time, Baal. They gathered together with their king and priests of the idol, and called out “Oh Baal, save us!” but there was no reply. The heavens still remained as brass. They began to dance around, cutting themselves and crying out, but still nothing happened.

   God’s prophet Elijah, began to mock them saying their god must have gone on a journey. At last, they were worn out, and Elijah took barrels of water and poured it over the animal sacrifice and  altar that he had built to the God of Heaven. He began to pray and for a while nothing happened. Then the sky grew dark, with lightning flickering around, and he told the king he had better get going to the city before the rain stopped him.

   He called out to the crowd watching and asked who they thought was the real God now? The people finally acknowledged that the God of Heaven was the one true God as the rain came pelting down.

   Let’s hope we don’t remain as stubborn as the people in that day, and keep attributing our weather patterns to the god of Global Warming!!

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What a Start to the New Year!

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Have you ever noticed that soon after you’ve had a great time somewhere, maybe on a holiday or an uplifting weekend, that some bad news strikes, Bump! The wind gets knocked out of you and you wonder what you are meant to learn out of this experience!

   Such was our case recently. We had been attending a summer Christian camp, and met a lot of new people as well as enjoyed the ministry meetings that were held. We had an excellent song leader that could get the most out of those there to sing lustily. We felt as though the weekend had been very worthwhile.

   We began the trip home in our motorhome, going to a friend’s place for a chat and to pick up our car and trailer load of wood. I left ahead of the motorhome in he car, and had a smooth and uneventful trip home. But when the motorhome failed to arrive close behind me I began to wonder if something had gone wrong….should I go back and see? More time went by and my daughter called in so we  unhitched the trailer and headed back the way I had just come from. Then a phone call came through saying the motorhome had been involved in an accident. A lady had come straight out of a side road without looking and the motorhome had rammed into her! Fortunately my husband hadn’t been hurt but she was pretty bad and had been airlifted to hospital.

   By the time we got there, most of the drama of police, ambulances and fire-truck was all over….all that was left was a motorhome with a sad looking front all stowed in and a tow truck waiting to take her away. So we did a hasty cleanout of our gear, and saw her being taken away down the road. There went the rest of our summer holiday that had barely started!  A minute earlier or later would have seen the motorhome safely past the side road and that crash would never have happened. It was no use asking “Why?”  These things happen all the time.

    But there was so much to be thankful for….the weather was fine, there were witnesses to what had happened who were happy to give their names, and only one person was hurt.

   I have noticed other times when things have gone particularly well and great time was had, then suddenly and without warning, a great thump will come. Perhaps the memory of the good times will buoy us up through all the drama that ensues. Whatever happens we have that verse in the Bible that says “ALL THINGS work together for good to them who love God”; it doesn’t say “ONLY good things happen to those who love God!” We know that whatever happens to us, that something good will come out of it in the end! The old saying that every cloud has a “silver lining” is very true!

At least we were able to sleep in our own bed that night instead of being in a hospital bed!