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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!

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Welcome to Twenty-twenty!

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          We are now entering a new year! No matter how wise, learned or educated we may be, none of us can accurately predict the future. So we are all entering the unknown. For us personally, the year 2019 was the “year of the funeral” with so many of our friends and relations passing away. Some we were sure of their destiny,  as they had followed the Lord openly for many years; others we were not sure of….good people yes, but  never having made a public commitment in Christians things; and others quite openly saying they had lived without God and they were going to die without Him!

   Some of the deceased went very suddenly and unexpectedly while others contracted cancer and fought it for a while until the doctors could do no more for them. One of our friends was with us in church one Sunday morning apparently in as good health as he had ever enjoyed, and then by the next Sunday he was buried and lying in the cemetery!  Some were older and had very poor health and we felt it was a blessed release for them.

    Death has no favourites, nor does it have to give any warning. This is why it is so important to be prepared in every way….legally with all affairs put in order, and spiritually to ensure our eternal destiny. In this life, we have real concept of how long eternity is. Everything in this life has an end, just as it has had a beginning, but in eternity, there is no end. Whichever state we find ourselves in, will be for ever and ever with no doorway out.

   So it pays to be prepared, then  we can enter this new year with confidence and leave our loved ones with a certain knowledge of where we are going.

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Tough Things to Learn.

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       I wrote for the last two weeks, of my experiences in training roses to grow straight and tall to make standard mop-top rose bushes. There are so many lessons that we can learn from the unpleasant things that come our way in our lives, and yet how beneficial they can be to us in the long run! It brought to mind the experience of a friend of mine who had this hard lesson to learn early in her married life…..

     She and her new husband had had a severe  disagreement over something, so she flounced off back to her mother expecting to find some sympathy. But her mother was a very wise woman, and after listening to her daughter’s story and grievances, she said, “My dear you can’t stay here now. This isn’t your home any more. You chose to live with your husband and you are going to have to go back to him before dark. But come and have a cup of tea before you leave!”

   So the young woman sat down with her hot drink and calmed down enough to go back to her new home with one lesson learned. She had made her choice and had to abide by it. Of course she loved her husband, but she was going to show him a thing or two, she thought. Instead, it was she who needed to learn a lesson or two!

   Then when she got home, she found that the door was locked! It didn’t matter how much she knocked and banged on the door, it stayed firmly shut. She wasn’t even sure if her husband was at home. So she sat down in the porch nursing her angry thoughts. She couldn’t go back to her mother….she had made that very clear. And now she couldn’t get into her home either. The door just stayed locked with no movement inside.

   Finally her husband relented and unlocked the door so she could go in. She had learned her second lesson well, and never again did she allow her temper get the better of her. It took tough measures for her to learn these two lessons, and it is the same for the roses that find themselves tied straight to a stake with their other laterals cut off to make them look up. It takes these tough lessons for us to learn these things too, but as we yield to our Master Gardener, so He can make something beautiful of our lives. We learn to look up into His face to help us overcome our petty hurt feelings and say, “Not my will, but may Yours be done!”

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Excuse me a Moment!

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I am finding that this web site has updated itself past me! So I am going to have a little play around on it to see if I can get my pictures back on track as they seem to have disappeared on me!

But I’m finding there are other things that this update can do that I am not familiar with. So bear with me a little longer.

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The Trials of Life.

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Trusting in God….“It is better to trust in the Lord than to put confidence in man”.

    As I read those words in my morning Bible reading recently, my mind went back many years ago to the time when we HAD put confidence in what people had told us and were badly let down. We were contemplating buying a commercial building with two tenants leasing it. The tenant downstairs seemed reliable enough, but the we had some doubts about the ones upstairs. We asked them how long they were likely to need the lease for, and they said as long as they didn’t expand, there was no likelihood of them moving. So with that assurance, we bought the building.

   For a few months, everything went well, and then the tenants upstairs gave notice that they were moving but would continue paying their rent until the end of their lease in six month’s time. This was a blow that we had hoped we wouldn’t have to face. Once the lease ran out, we were left with only half the income we had reckoned on, and as time went by we were unable to lease out the top floor. It was either too big, or there wasn’t enough parking. It was certainly never classed as being too small by any prospective tenant!

    Things were not easy and we began to wonder if we had made a mistake in “putting our confidence in man “. We had prayed about the proposition before buying it and done our homework as thoroughly as we could, but now the only conclusion we could come to was that we must have made a mistake in buying the place.

   During this time, my morning Bible reading was about the time when the Lord told His disciples to row across the lake, all the time knowing what was going to happen. He knew the storm was going to come and toss them about. Yet He still told them to go. They hadn’t made a mistake in setting off across the lake….they went at His bidding. He didn’t divert the storm, He allowed things to work out their course.  He knew He would meet them in their hour of desperate need and calm the storm.

    After reading this story, my mind settled down somewhat. We hadn’t made a mistake after all, the Lord just wanted to teach us that He was in control and would release us from the situation in His good time. It didn’t happen overnight but the building eventually sold and we were released from the situation we were in. How relieved we were and overjoyed at not having to go through this hard time any more!!

    I now know that whatever comes our way, God is always in control. If things are easy, we must give Him thanks, and when things come tough, we are to tighten our belts (figuratively) and still give Him thanks that things are no worse than they are! Above all, we are not to put our confidence in what people tell us, but to always trust in God and what He says. �����

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Why Problems?

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    Keith came in for lunch one day with a very sore back. He had been working on fixing our back deck which needed a large board to replace one with rot in it, and had twisted his back in man-handling this board. As it turned out, it was quite a while before he could get back and finish the job, taking several days of lying flat on his back and then being very careful walking around until it came right.

We all experience times of trials and problems as we go along in life and wonder why. Even worse, we wonder “Why me?” The Bible deals with this same question, and quite clearly tells us why. In the  book of Hebrews chapter twelve we read….                                                              “For the Lord disciplines the ones  He loves and chastises every son He accepts. Now all discipline seems painful at the time, not joyful. But later it produces the fruit of peace and righteousness for those trained by it.”

So we see that it is for our own good, and that we will benefit from it if we take it the right way. Sometimes we need to take time out for meditation and reflection and if we are always too busy we miss out on these times. We can either choose to be resentful and grumpy in our pain, or we can take the attitude that it will soon pass and things will get better. It is all up to us!

Then there is another aspect of when things go wrong and we are laid low. Paul had a disability of some sort, and he asked the Lord three times to take it away, as he felt it was hindering his work for Him. Each time he was told by God, “My grace is sufficient for you, because My strength is made (or shown) to be perfect in your weakness”. Paul accepted this and said that he would gladly suffer these problems so others would be able to see God’s strength enabling him to continue. (2 Corinthians 12:9)

We don’t realise how often we are examples to others of how God is at work….let’s make sure we are always a good example and not a bad one!

Grandma's Stories, Stories for Teens, Uncategorized

Progressions…..

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“Sarah, tell me what the sermon was about this morning,”  Uncle Jeff asked as the family finished their lunch around the table one Sunday.

“Well, the minister had three points,“  Sarah said as she folded her table napkin, “He was talking about Abraham, Isaac and Jacob, ” she said as an afterthought.

“What about them?” Uncle Jeff asked, “What can you remember about them Bobby?” he asked as he turned to him.

“He said that Abraham was always building an altar everywhere he stayed”, Bobby said.

“Well, that’s right”,  Uncle Jeff said, “But why would he want to do that?”

“He did it for God,” Betty piped up .

“Did not,” said Bobby, “He did it because God told him to!”

“That’s what I said, “  Betty said in an aggrieved voice.

“Come on you two,” Mum said, “That’s enough!”

“Well, what about Isaac then?” Uncle Jeff asked. “What was so special about Isaac?”

“Isaac was a promised baby,” Sarah said, “His mother and father didn’t have any children for years and years and God kept telling them they would, and at last they did. They called him Isaac which means happy.”

“That’s right,” said Uncle Jeff, “And he was a happy little boy too. What did he do when he grew up?”

“He dug wells wherever he went,” Bobby said.

“What do you think the wells meant? What were they for?” Uncle Jeff asked.

“ Well, wells give water,” said Sarah thoughtfully, “So they must stop people being thirsty. We need water too, to get washed with.”

“Alright,” said Uncle Jeff , “Let’s think about these two things for a minute. Abraham made altars, and Jacob dug wells. What do you think they meant?”

“Dunno!” said Bobby as he ran an imaginary truck along the edge of the table.

“I guess Abraham  wanted to worship God and that Isaac believed that God would give him the water he needed for his soul. After all, we all need water to wash with and to drink.” Sarah said.

“That’s quite right,” Uncle Jeff said. “What else did the preacher say this morning? What was the third thing?”

“Something about Jacob!” Betty said, “It was something about Jacob!”

“I remember!” Bobby said, “He said that Jacob was wrestling with a man….brrm, brrm.”

“Yes, but the point was that Jacob thought he knew it all until he had to meet his brother who he had cheated, and he was scared. All his cleverness didn’t do him any good then! “ Sarah said, “It was really an angel who was wrestling with him  wasn’t it,  and he didn’t know it was. Jacob was nearly beating him too, and then the angel touched the top of his leg and he began to limp, and he limped for ever after. What did that mean Uncle Jeff ? ”

“It showed Jacob that he wasn’t as smart as he had thought he was, and that he had to depend on God after all,” Uncle Jeff said, “It also showed everyone else that Jacob was different now, and he wasn’t  the cheat  that he had once been. You know, when we really come to know God, we will be different too….we won’t limp like Jacob did, but people will see that we don’t tell lies or dirty jokes any more or do mean things to other people.                                                                          And something more too about Jacob,” Uncle Jeff went on, “It wasn’t until Jacob got right with God, that he was able to go back to where the altar was that his grandfather had built so he could worship God once more in the right way. That’s just like us too, we can’t really worship God properly until we have washed ourselves in the water of repentance, and learned to depend on God. It was after this, that God gave Jacob a new name….Jacob’s name  had meant “Cheat”, now he was to be called Israel which means “Prince with God”, and that name has stuck right down to today!”

Mum had been listening to all this while they were talking, and now she said, “Isn’t it wonderful the way the Bible tells us stories that have such deep meanings for us if we will only think about them and take notice!”

“It sure is,” said Uncle Jeff, “And now I’d better go as I’ve got things to do. See you all next week!”  as he went off.

 

You can read this story for yourselves in the Bible in  Genesis chapters 13:1-4;   26: 32-33;   32: 24-30;   35:9-13.