Category Archives: Life Lessons

Life Lessons

Why Aren’t our Prayers Answered?

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    Why do we assume that when we don’t get the answer that we want for our prayers, that God hasn’t answered?  Do we always give our children what they want, when they want it? So it is with our Heavenly Father. We don’t always get what we want, when we want it!     But God HAS answered….. He answered it with a “NO!”  Another time it might be a  “Wait a while” answer. But it is still an answer!

Let’s look at some of the reasons our prayers aren’t always granted immediately. The psalmist tells in Psalm  66 verse 18 that if I “regard iniquity in my heart, the Lord will not hear me”. So if we are harbouring resentment against a person or hugging some sin in our life, our prayers don’t get any higher than the ceiling. We have to get ourselves right before God first, and then make our request.    There is another verse that says in a modern translation…. “Don’t worry about ANYTHING; instead, pray about EVERYTHING, and don’t forget to give God thanks for the answer” (Philippians 4:6). We are to give God thanks, even if we don’t get what we have asked for. We are to remember that He knows what is best for us.

    Then an example of this, is what Paul wrote in 2 Corinthians 12:7-10… “a thorn in the flesh was given to me, a messenger of Satan to buffet me….concerning this thing I pleaded with the Lord three times that it might leave me, And He said, ‘My grace is sufficient for you, for My strength is made perfect in weakness’. So Paul could see that there was a reason for his problem, and that he could overcome it with the Lord’s help. As a result he was able to give God thanks for it, and even glory in his weakness.

   Another reason is that we ask in the wrong spirit….we beg, we plead, we use other verses to show why our prayer should be answered how and when we want it. But we should always ask that it be in the Lord’s will, not ours. And then ask for  the patience to wait and see.     Then again, the Lord might be using us to prove a point to someone else. Remember how Job was the most upright man on the face of the earth in his time. But Satan kept on at God… “You just give him some trouble and see what happens, he’ll curse You then!” So God allowed Satan to take away all Job’s possessions, and even his children. But Job remained faithful to God, and said, “The LORD gave, and the LORD has taken away; blessed be the name of the LORD.”  In all this Job did not sin nor charge God with wrong.     Even when worse came on him and his health was taken away from him, being covered with putrid boils, and his friends telling him it was all his fault, that he must have been sinning secretly, Job was still able to say, “Though He slays me, yet will I trust Him!” (Job 13:15). What an example he is to us today, after all these years!

    So let’s remember these things when it seems the next time that God hasn’t answered our prayer. He HAS answered….with a “No” or a “Wait a while”, and don’t forget to thank Him for His answer!

Life Lessons

Blessings in Disguise.

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     To carry on from last week’s thoughts, I remember one year we were all set to go on our annual holiday trek further north from where we live. I was driving the car that was towing our runabout boat, behind my husband in the towing vehicle in front of the caravan. We had been wondering about this caravan as it was the first time we had done a big trip in it, and it seemed to have some irregularities in the way it towed, but we just put it down to not being used to it as it was new to us.

    We set off and about half an hour into our trip, I could see the caravan begin to sway as it went along ahead of me. Going down a slight slope the swaying got worse, and after going over a small bridge, it gave one wide swing right across the road and back again before tipping over onto its roof right there in the middle of the road! The towing vehicle had been pushed right up on top of the roadside barrier and sat there, half tilted over.     I pulled over onto the verge as quickly as I could and then saw  my husband crawling  out of the window, so I guessed he wasn’t hurt.  What to do? Ring the AA I guessed, and did this on my mobile phone. It seemed no time before the police and ambulance turned up, as well as other helpful people. All we had to do was sit and watch as they tried to clean the mess up!

    What were our feelings at seeing all this? All we could say, was “There goes our holiday”! It had happened and all we could do was to accept the fact. Both of us had a strange feeling of peace (or maybe it was some sort of delayed shock!) A couple of  hours  later, we were heading back home in the car. Our holiday was over before it had started, but we still had the feeling of peace about it all….we knew that God had been looking after us through it all.     We had so much to be thankful for. It wasn’t raining; there were people helping dispose of the wreck; we weren’t hurt at all, and no-one else was involved. On top of that list, was the fact we were going home to our own bed that night, and not to a hospital bed with injuries!

    It was established that one of the tyres on the caravan had had a blow out which caused it to sway so badly, and then flip over. Both vehicles were classed as write-offs and insurance covered it all. We ended up buying another caravan with dual wheels which was safer, and couldn’t help thinking of the verse in the Bible that says “All things work together for good to those who love God” (Romans 8:28).

    This was just one of the many blessings that we have experienced in our life, and we were able to give God the thanks for it all. Without Him, we would just class it as bad luck, and be complaining about our lost holiday!

Life Lessons

What is a Blessing?

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   We were at a home group recently and the leader asked “What is a blessing?” Now that is quite a question to be asked out of the blue! One person said that it was the good things that we have or get. Another said that it is what we give back to God, just as David said in the psalms, “Bless the Lord, O my soul”. Yet another pointed out, that if we receive a blessing, we are not to keep it to ourselves, but are to pass it on to someone else.

    That reminded me of an old hymn that we used to sing…. Is your life a channel of blessing? Is the love of God flowing through you?
Are you telling the lost of the Savior?
Are you ready His service to do? And the chorus…. Make me a channel of blessing today,
Make me a channel of blessing, I pray;
My life possessing, my service blessing,
  Make me a channel of blessing today.

The last verse says…. We cannot be channels of blessing
If our lives are not free from all sin;
We will barriers be and a hindrance
To those we are trying to win.

    So we see that as we receive, so we must pass it on. Especially in the matter of having a blessing from something we have read in the Bible. If we don’t know it, we cannot pass anything on from it!     When we stop and think of it, everything we have on earth is a blessing from God, even the very air we breathe! What a blessing good health is too! How thankful we have to be for all the blessings that God bestows upon us! We are to overlook the annoying things we encounter from day to day, and concentrate on the positive side of things!

   The book of Psalms has many thoughts about blessings….listen to these ones from Psalm 34 :1-6…this is how we can bless the Lord, thanking Him for what He has done for us!  This is how it starts….“I will bless the Lord at all times; His praise shall be continually in my mouth”  That on its own is a challenge to us….how much do we praise God for what we have ? Let’s think about these things and put them into practice!!

Life Lessons

Does God Know?

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The speaker this morning at our church service asked this question….Where is God when things go wrong? The passage he used was found in 1 Thessalonians 5:1-18…Rejoice evermore; pray without ceasing; in everything give thanks for this is the will of God in Christ Jesus concerning you.    He talked about how this is to be our attitude, when things don’t go our way,.  It doesn’t mean that God has turned away, it just means there are things for us to learn from what is happening. We are not to ask Why?, but to ask What? instead.  How can we do this?

    He went on to illustrate his talk by telling some of his own experiences of things going wrong. His brother who he had been in partnership with in his work as a builder had dropped dead  suddenly, only in his fifties.  That same week, news came from his wife’s side of the family to say an uncle had died. On the way home from the funeral, as they were travelling up a hill, a car coming in the opposite direction, ploughed straight into them causing serious injury to his wife. This has come back to trouble her as she now approaches older age.     Later on, his son contracted cancer and passed away in his fifties as well. All these tragedies could have caused him to ask “Why me, Lord?” but he had realised that a better question to ask is “What do You want me to learn from this Lord?”     In talking to others, it is far better to draw on one’s own experiences than to just quote a few verses and leave it at that. When others realise that you have had these things to face yourself, then your words carry far more weight in the light of their hardships.

      It is the same as looking at a hot house plant that is so delicate and frail compared to one that has been hardened off in the sun and taken the wind’s beating….it is then able to withstand further storms without breaking beneath the weight of the weather. So our words carry more weight when tempered with experience. We don’t just know ABOUT these things, but we KNOW for ourselves how the Lord guides and uplifts one in these trying times!

Life Lessons

The Storms of Life (continued)

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        Sometimes when we are faced with several choices to make with quite monumental results, we hesitate and think things through, weighing up the possible results carefully. Then we make our decision in the light of our research. This is especially true for those who believe that God can and will direct their paths.

    Take the time that the disciples  crossed the vast lake at the command of the Lord Jesus, and ran into one of the worst storms they had ever experienced. They were experienced fishermen who could read the weather signs and knew how to handle these sudden storms that whipped up the lake surface into a frenzy. Jesus knew all this, and He knew a storm was coming up that would test them to the maximum.  They hadn’t made a mistake that brought this upon them, they were there for a purpose.

     Remember this….Jesus Christ knows the storm we are in at any given time. He could have stopped the storm coming to the disciples, but He wanted to show them His power. We don’t encounter these storms because we have made a mistake, we have to go through them to learn more about Him. He knows the storm that I may be in right now, but He wants me to go through it so He can show me His power and refine the dross out of my life and strengthen the faith I have in Him.

The Lord speaks to us in these three ways …. In the storm….He comes to us through the storm, walking on the water…”I will never leave you”, He says. (Read Matthew 14: 22-26) Through the storm… He reminds us that He is there with us…”don’t be afraid”, He says, “trust Me”. (Read Mark 4: 35-39) The storm within you….often when these storms come, they attack us from the inside. We get in a turmoil because of circumstances beyond our control, and wonder where we are going to turn next. A man named Nicodemus was like this, and he went to Jesus to ask for help. It seems that he was a man in turmoil, not knowing which way to turn. But Jesus went straight to the root of his problem, and told him he needed to have a whole new way of life, and how to get it….we read about this in John chapter three.

Don’t be afraid of being afraid….storms always have an end. There will be a period of calm when it is over and then another one may come but because we have proved our Lord’s help with the first one, we have confidence within the next one. These things I have spoken unto you, that in me you might have peace. In the world you shall have tribulation: but be of good cheer; I have overcome the world. (John 16:33)

We cannot build the house during the storm, we must have it built before it comes! Remember….He is the Lord of all our storms.      Transitions in life come to all of us, and how will we handle them?  Will we go through them kicking and wrestling as it were, or will we just trust  God to work things out? Transitions are never peaceful, they are a time of turmoil. Take the birth of a child….a time of labour for the mother and time of turmoil for the child leaving the womb to enter this world.      So many things in our lives are a transition….a new baby brings a whole new way of life to a couple; a move to a new area is a period of turmoil until settled in; children reaching the teenage years bring a transition for both themselves and their parents.     Then again there is the transition into the empty nest syndrome and finally into retirement. But that is not the end….what about the transition into the retirement village and then the rest home? What about the transition of the loss of a spouse? It seems that the whole of life is a series of transitions. We need the Lord’s help in each of these transitions in life. Nothing remains static…change is the essence of life. Let’s make sure that we approach each of these transitions with the peace of God in our heart and mind. Let’s remember the verse in the  Bible that says….    Be anxious about nothing; but in every thing by prayer and supplication with thanksgiving, let your requests be made known unto God. And the peace of God, which passes all understanding, shall keep your hearts and minds through Christ Jesus. (Philippians 4:6-7)

Life Lessons

The Storms of Life.

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        We have been trying to track down where the different boats (launches and yachts) that we have owned over the years, are now. This brought back many memories, not the least the very first trip up the coast from where we had bought it, to our home port. At this time we knew very little about sailing, so it was a great learning curve for us. Not only that, but that very first trip brought us a whole range of different types of weather that could ever be found on the sea!

    Leaving port early on the morning of that first trip, we found the whole area blanketed in a heavy fog. Horrors, what were we to do? But we had someone with us who could read a chart, and he was able to guide us through the fog from buoy to buoy marking the channel. This made me think of how we all need a chart to guide us through the intricacies of life. There is no-one apart from Jesus Christ who can do this for us. The main thing is that we have to trust his leading, even when we can’t see the reasons why.     Finally the fog lifted, and we could see where we were after all…..we were right on course after all. Our guide had made no mistakes, and in the same way we can have complete confidence in our Heavenly Guide to keep us in the right way. We had a great sail the rest of the afternoon with a gentle breeze to the island where there was safe harbour to spend the night.  

     After this time of plain and pleasant sailing, we settled down for the night very pleased with our trip thus far.  The next morning however, was a different story. The wind had gone around and was coming right in from the sea with lowering skies, and the weather looked decidedly ominous. We had no option but to carry on, as the crew wanted to get back to work the following day.       It wasn’t long after we set off, that the wind began to rise, and continued to do so until it was reaching almost gale force. After battling this for a couple of hours, our guide said, “This is the last chance we have of getting some shelter before having about three hours of open sea to cross…..what do you think?“     The yacht gave a sudden lurch just then, and fell down a particularly steep wave, deciding us to make for shelter. In the storms of life, we find that things will get almost out of hand before we decide to take the shelter that God offers us. The sudden peace that such a course gives is past understanding! To hear the wind still howling in the trees on the headland while we sat in peace and quiet behind it, was wonderful! So it is as we take a course in life to escape the full force of the wind of trials and troubles to shelter in the promises of God. We can still hear the wind howling above us, but we remain untouched.

    One thing about storms, is that they never last for ever! So on this trip, after a couple of hours, the front passed over, and the wind went around with the sea dropping enough to  enable  us to carry on with our voyage. There was still a strong wind blowing, but it was a kind wind to send us on our way, not a vicious one set on hindering our trip.     This is what we will find during life….after the storms that beset us, there will come a time of relative peace. What we have learned through the storm, helps us to appreciate this wind that takes us along with a good speed, and to make the most of it.    We may wonder what the purpose of this rough weather was, but it may not be for ourselves, as it all goes to make for  experiences that we can encourage others by. Platitudes may not be much help to others, but the experiences that we have been through speak volumes to others in need.

     Darkness began to fall by the time we reached the harbour we were aiming for. But the buoys here were well lit, marking the channel as we made our way to the mooring. Once again, the chart had it all well marked, and we made our way up the channel with full confidence. So as we follow the words in the Bible daily, we don’t need to be groping our way through our life hoping for the best. We just need to remember to profit by the storms we experience, and to encourage others in their walk as well. No one can argue with a real life experience!

Life Lessons

Curiosity Killed the Cat!

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    I grew up in a small country community where everyone knew everyone else’s business, and what they couldn’t find out, they made it up instead! So I always like to find out the whys and wheres when something unusual is seen.

    This time, we had made our usual summer trek north to our holiday area, and what should we see as we came around the bend in the road by the big local river, but a house sitting on the edge of the river bank among the mangrove trees. Not only one house, but behind it was a second house! There was no real road  in to these houses, and they looked as though they had been dumped there from the river itself. Visiting friends a couple of days later, I saw a newspaper clipping about these two houses which solved the problem of how they had got there. They had been shipped on a barge from the big city over  two hundred miles south, and a description of the voyage north was given beside the picture. Their final destination was a few miles further up the river where they were going to be transported by truck the final few miles. So that solved the puzzle of the houses sitting in the mangroves on the edge of the river!

    It seems strange to me, that something like this makes the news, when really it is no-one else’s business but the people who bought them, while the more important things of life that concern every single person are completely ignored. It’s obvious that these houses will be eventually lived in somewhere, but no-one is really concerned with where their soul is going to live for eternity. We make all sorts of preparations for a big trip we may be going to take overseas, but pay very little attention to the most lasting trip of all which every person is going to take eventually. Surely this is the most important thing to be curious about, and the most important trip to prepare for!

Life Lessons

Lessons to Learn

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    There are many lessons we can learn as we go through life. No more so than in the garden! I like gardening and as I  tie and snip at the different plants, I think how much these things must hurt that plant. But it is all for their own good!

     The tomato plants tend grow rather rampantly if left on their own. But they must be staked, and then tied up to that stake so they won’t fall over and get untidy. Not only that, but there are extra shoots growing that need to be taken off regularly. The plant is firmly rooted in the ground before it can grow and that reminds me how that each one of us needs to be firmly “rooted” in our Lord Jesus Christ before we can yield the sort of fruit that He is looking for in our lives.

     Then again I grow a variety of rose that, if left to itself, will grow very rampantly all over the ground. So much so, that it is called a “Carpet Rose”. They send up long shoots from the ground, and I always cut these off and then tie the plant to a stake, and pick off any side shoots. If there is another strong looking shoot coming off the main stalk, then that gets tied in an upright position onto the stake as well. The plant probably doesn’t like being tied firmly like this, but it adjusts, and in time grows into a nicely shaped bush that shows off its flowers to best advantage. Not only that, but it is forced to look up, and ultimately to grow up!

    So it is with us….as troubles come into our lives, we are forced to look up to the Master Gardener, Who is growing us as He pleases. The plant may not like where it is put, but it has no option, it must stay there, and flower where it is. There are times when we don’t like where we are, or our position in life, but as we remember that God is over all, we can learn to be satisfied and give Him thanks. This is like the tomatoes growing on the vine, or the rose flowering tied to the stake.

     As we look around, we see those who are less fortunate than ourselves…..one lady I know is very short sighted and there is nothing that can be done to improve her eyesight. There have been many times when she thinks “Why me?” Another friend has had sudden hearing loss, and again might well be thinking, “Why me?” But these things are sent to grow us into being the sort of person God wants us to be….thankful in all things for the blessings we DO have. May we each one find that this is so.