Category Archives: Life Lessons

Life Lessons

Uncertain Times

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There is no doubt about it, we live in uncertain times! We ourselves have just been packing our motorhome up to go to a rally for the weekend and then received a notice saying that it has been cancelled. Someone had come to our district and then tested positive with Covid, so in case the whole area might be closed down, the rally was cancelled. What to do now?

The van was packed with our clothes, (first things first!) ; food next with the frig packed for the weekend, then finally (which I had not yet completed) bag of gadgets….phone, laptop, tablet, to take as we leave the house….not forgetting the charging cords etc.

So it had to be a complete change of plans and mindset. Thus it has proved to be over the last few weeks. Plans made and then cancelled; other events put on hold until certainty returns. It has been said, that life as we once knew it, may never return. How thankful we are that we did the things that we did while we could. But we could never have envisaged that things would change so drastically or so quickly!

For those who are committed Christians, there is much to be thankful for. We have a sure and certain hope (confidence) that God sees and knows it all. We know the time we have left is getting shorter as the days go by. In fact, we can’t help wondering just what disaster is coming next. The very earth itself seems to be convulsing in birth pangs with earthquakes shaking, volcanoes erupting and floods sweeping things away, as well as hurricanes brewing in the various oceans around the world. We know that the Bible predicts these things will happen (Luke 21:25-28) and it is all there right before our eyes! So we know that things are not going to go back to how they once were, but will indeed become worse before they get better!

There is only one solution for us all, and that is to make our peace with our Maker while there is still time. Not a one of us knows when our time will be up, and then it will be too late to do anything about it.

Life Lessons

Storms of Life.

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When the disciples experienced the worst storm of their life, they had been sent across the lake by Jesus Christ. The disciples 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, but 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 the purpose of seeing God’s protection and power..

    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. 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.

Through the storm… He reminds us that He is there with us…”don’t be afraid”, He says, “trust Me”.

The storm within you….often when these storms come, they attack us from the inside. We are all in a turmoil because of circumstances beyond our control, and wonder where we are going to turn next. We must not 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 ye might have peace. In the world ye shall have tribulation: but be of good cheer; I have overcome the world. (John 16:33)”

      Then we were reminded of the two houses that were built….one on the rock and one on the sandy beach edge. When the first storm came, the one on the rock stood firm, but the one on the sand fell and was destroyed.  So it is with us in life’s storms….we cannot build our house during the storm, we must have it built before the storm comes!  Remember…Jesus Christ is the Rock we must build on……He is the Lord of all our storms. Anything else is like shifting sand!

Life Lessons

Danger Ahead!

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        Our speaker in church yesterday was talking about the foolishness of refusing to hear God’s voice, and what will happen if we consistently shut it up. Every time we have that little niggle about doing something about that apology we should make, or fix up a problem there is between you and another person, is the prompting of God, and should not be ignored. It reminded me of the following story that happened many years ago….

   A man we knew had been taken to the Sunday night services where the Gospel was being preached regularly. But his wife wasn’t keen on him going and she tried to block him by asking the local school teacher for the evening meal on Sunday nights. In the end, he said to not ask him any more as he wasn’t able to go.

    Years passed by, and he never went back to those services again. One day he met his Uncle who knew him very well, and said, “You know Unc, I had a dream the other night. I dreamed that I could see God in heaven, and while I was watching, a big black blind came down between us, and I know now that I couldn’t come to Him even if I wanted to!”

   His uncle didn’t know what to say to this, but it proved to be true. That man never did turn to God, and he died without Him just as he had lived without Him. How sad we were when we heard this! But it serves as a warning that when we consistently block our minds to the truth of these things God says, ”OK, if that’s how you want it, that’s how it will be”. He says in the Bile that His Spirit will not always strive with man (Genesis 6:3) …He gives us our chance and we must take it as we never know when we might go beyond the point of no return!

Life Lessons

Growing Older!

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    I went to visit an old friend of ours last week who is now in a rest home and not able to get out much. I remembered how we had known him for over forty years, from the time when he was a vigorous man in his middle age, involved in his job and in various things in the local church. It is sad to see him as he is now, not able to look after himself, or even able to read for himself.

   I couldn’t help thinking of how we all like to think that things won’t change on one hand, and yet on the other hand we don’t think of how life IS going to change if we live long enough! We all want to live a long time, but no-one wants to get old!  We see other people getting older and becoming infirm, and yet we never stop to think what it must be like to be like that ourselves!

   But this is part of life. The Bible says that our life is like the flowers that start off in bud, then come into full flower, and finally get faded and then die down,  We have a graphic picture of this shown to us in Isaiah chapter 40, verses 6b-8  “all flesh is grass and all the goodness of it is as the flower of the field, The grass withers, the flowers fade because the Spirit of the Lord blows upon it. Surely people are like the grass which withers, and the flowers that fade but the Word of our God shall stand for ever”.

    In that last verse we have the whole point of life….God’s Word stands for ever! We can totally depend on what He says. Another friend of ours used to say, “God says it; I believe it, and that settles it!”

   When people like to argue with what we believe, we can hang onto that saying….their argument is not with us, but with what God says!

   Another older lady said  to me one day, “No-one told us when we were younger what it’s like to be old!”

I had to agree, and even if they had, we wouldn’t have taken any notice! We all tend to live in the present without giving a thought to the future, but we would all do well to think about what lies ahead and prepare our hearts and minds to meet whatever comes our way.

Life Lessons

The Storms of Life….

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We attended a Bible conference recently that was being held in the small chapel where we grew up as children and young people. We try to make a point of attending this conference each year, partly for old times’ sake, and partly for fellowship to catch up with old friends from years before.

   There were two speakers this year, and the two talks during the afternoon sessions really made an impact as they seemed to dovetail together beautifully. The first speaker talked about the Storms of Life, and this was a topic he spoke of from the heart. It had only been four years since his wife died with cancer. He broke his talk into three parts, showing how the Lord speaks to us in these three aspects of the storms of life that we all experience at different times.

    When the disciples experienced the worst storm of their life, they had been sent across the lake by Jesus Christ. The disciples 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 storms 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. 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.

Through the storm… He reminds us that He is there with us…”don’t be afraid”, He says, “trust Me”.

The storm within you….often when these storms come, they attack us from the inside. We are all in a turmoil because of circumstances beyond our control, and wonder where we are going to turn next.

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 ye might have peace. In the world ye 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….     The next speaker spoke about transitions and how the peace after the storm usually precedes a transition….and 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, and then turmoil for the rest of their lives! 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.    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)

   We had a lot to think about as we made our way back home.

Life Lessons

How Old is our Soul?

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    The older we get, the more we tend to think about what lies ahead. We get to the stage of avoiding going to reunions where everyone looks SO old! Then we realise that they are probably thinking the same about us!

   It gets to the stage when invited to a grandchild’s engagement or birthday party, that we look around and see with horror that we are probably the oldest ones there!

   I stopped to think about this one day and remembered an incident when a young man said to his grandmother, “Granny, tell me, how old do you feel?” (She was in her early eighties by this time).

“Well,” she said, “It’s like this, I know my outside looks old and wrinkly and my bones ache when I get up, but inside I don’t feel any older than fifteen!”

“Really!” said the young man astonished, as he went on his way.

    The reason for this is that our soul is ageless. It never ages. It has been made to live for ever regardless of the age of the body it inhabits and when it dies. Every soul is precious in the sight of God, and His great desire is that each one will live with Him for ever.

    But along with God’s great love which people like to think about, goes God’s innate holiness and sense of justice. All wrongs must be righted and dealt with, and we would all agree with that. God knew that man could never pay the debt of all these injustices so He took on Himself to pay for these in the Person of His Son Jesus Christ, the only sinless Person who has ever lived on earth.

   We may choose to not believe this, and this is our right, but then we must bear the consequences. God has done His part, and now we must do our part which is humbling ourselves to accept this free gift  so that our soul will live for ever in God’s presence. Don’t let anyone put you off making the right decision because the alternative of living without God or anything good for ever and ever doesn’t bear thinking about!

Life Lessons

Ruined!

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                                    Ruined!

We have just recently come back from a tour of the deep south of New Zealand that is full of beautiful pictures of lakes and mountains. One day we were sitting by a peaceful lake just soaking up the view. All was calm, and the reflections were just perfect. Then several ducks came swimming by and started squabbling in front of us.

Suddenly the perfect picture was broken into a thousand pieces by the actions of these birds, and it wasn’t until they had passed by that the reflections came back. It reminded me of how this is in our lives. We are told to be reflections of Jesus Christ in all His perfection, and perhaps we manage this for a time, but then we get upset over some little thing, and the reflection is broken to smithereens, and we behave in a very un-Christ-like manner.

But just as the reflection can come back to the lake, so we can pick up from where we left off, by confession and repentance. We are not to be worried that this happens because we are all human and God has made a provision for us, But it is an on-going thing, and is up to each one of us to put it into practice and not be discouraged.

Life Lessons

Man Proposes….

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            There’s an old saying that says…”Man proposes, but God disposes…”

There is more truth in this little ditty than first appears. We all like making plans, and sit down to get some idea of where we are going in the next few weeks. So it was with us. We had intended to visit the South Island once more, as it is some years since we last did this. With the restrictions put on us by Covid-19, we hadn’t got past just thinking about it. But now the pandemic had eased off in our country, and if we wanted to take advantage of what was left of the warmer weather, it was time to make some definite plans.

Finally, after tossing ideas around for a bit, we decided that halfway through March would be as good a time as any, and we would still be able to be back home for the next public holiday after Easter weekend.

    No sooner said than done. A few clicks on the computer and crossing Cook Strait on the ferry was all organised. Now we had something concrete to work towards. That was OUR proposal.

   But God had different ideas. Two things happened that we hadn’t reckoned on. First, the motorhome rolled into a bush and broke its grill….insurance job. But then the whole country was shut down again for a week, and we only had two weeks to go! Would the parts get through if the warehouse stayed closed? Not only that, how would we get through the affected area which was our only route to the ferry? So watch this space….it will be an on-going story. Now we have to put our money where our mouth is and put that verse into practice!! We have proposed, but God is the One who can dispose of them as quickly as they were made! We have to remember that God knows what is best for us, no matter how disappointed we may be!

There is another verse that says, “We know that ALL things work together for good for them who love God, to those who are called according to His purpose” (Romans 8:28)