Category Archives: Life Lessons

Life Lessons

What Sort of Legacy are we Leaving?

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   For nearly every month  this year so far there has been at least one funeral, sometimes two or three for us to attend. Each service has been so different,  depending on the family members responsible for organizing them!

Some have been  full of the confidence of seeing the loved one again in a time to come, but others have remained strangely silent on that outlook, even when it was widely known that the deceased  had been actively involved in  Christian work. I couldn’t help thinking about the legacy that is being  left for the family…..there’s nothing sadder than standing around an open grave and hearing some of the family of the deceased talking about the life of their dearly departed without expressing this certainty.  Whether we like it or not, this is going to happen to each one of us sooner or later. What will our family be able to say about us? Will they know without a doubt that the real “us” is in the presence of God? Or will they just vaguely hope we are there?

It’s not enough to like a certain hymn or to have given our spouse an inspirational book once (both examples of which I have heard given). Let’s make sure that our family KNOW without a doubt that our faith is in God and His Son Jesus Christ. This is the best legacy we can leave them.

Life Lessons

“I’m Too Little!”

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We sometimes think that we have very little to offer, or that we don’t amount to much. But just listen to this story….

A little boy was pushing his way through the crowd, wanting to see a miracle. He had heard about this preacher who did miracles, and he badly wanted to see one. But there were so many people crowding around the teacher listening to what He was saying, and the sick people were pushing forwards so that they could be touched by Him.  The hours passed by.

It had been a long hot day and  the people were starting to get hungry and tired. The little boy wondered what was going to happen next. He was getting hungry himself, but he had been so busy listening to and watching everything that was happening he had almost forgotten the five small buns and two little fish he had in his bag.

Then he heard the Master say to His friends, “How do you think we should feed all these people?”

They didn’t seem to have a clue. “Perhaps we should send them away to get something to eat”, one of them suggested.

Our little boy nudged Andrew, one of the friends, and said, “Look, the Master can have these little buns and fish to feed the people” as he gave them to him. Andrew was almost ashamed to show Jesus what he had. “Well, we’ve got these five buns and two small fish, but how will they feed such a crowd?” he asked as he gave them to Him.

Jesus didn’t hesitate as He took them. He gave thanks to God for them as though it was some great banquet He had in front of Him, and then started to break the buns and fish apart. They just kept going. More and more! He handed the pieces out to His friends and told them to distribute them to the people who were now sitting down on the grass. It was an incredible sight, a giant picnic. Not only was there enough food for everyone, but there were twelve baskets of left-overs too!!

Our little boy had wanted to see a miracle, and now he had not only seen one of the greatest miracles of all time, but he was part of it too!  He hadn’t done the miracle, but the Master had, with what he had given Him. If he hadn’t parted with his five buns and two little fish, he would not have seen it nor been part of it!

It’s the same for us today. If we don’t hand over to God the little that we have, we won’t see any miracles done, let alone be part of them. How much of the small talent that we have,  do we give to Him for His glory? God uses the little things to accomplish what He intends to do all along.

Goliath was a large giant of a man, yet he was killed by a teenage boy with a slingshot. Gideon took a walled city at God’s command with just three hundred men armed with…lamps and trumpets!

When God sent His Son into the world, he didn’t use a mature older woman to care for this precious baby. He chose an unknown teenager who loved Him (God) with all her heart and who was prepared to give up her reputation, and maybe even her future husband who she was engaged to.

It’s not our talent that counts in serving God, it’s what God does with what we give back to  Him. He takes the little that we have and makes something big of that. We must learn to quit holding on to our lunch thinking it is too small to be of any value!!

PS….You can read these accounts in the Bible to get the full story……Matthew 14:14-21;  Mark 6:34-44;  Luke 9:11-17;  John 6:1-14

Life Lessons

“I Wish I hadn’t Done It!”

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The old lady and her daughter sat in my study looking a little uncertain.
“What can you tell me about my mother’s family?” the older lady asked, “I know a bit but not back to my grandparents or where they came from”.
It seemed a strange request, but as it happened, I had done quite a bit of research on the background of this family as we shared a common ancestor, and had written a book on the early beginnings of this district in northern New Zealand. We’ll call this lady Ellie for the sake of this story, and her mother Essie.
Ellie had been adopted by her parents from birth, but never knew this until she was an adult. As it happened, her adoptive father was actually her birth father…his wife had never been able to have children. When he heard that the girl he had been seeing had become pregnant, he was convinced the child was his. Knowing how much his wife longed for a baby, he told her what had happened and put the proposition of adopting this baby to her. She was happy to do this….she said the baby was half theirs anyway!
So Ellie was adopted by this couple and brought up as their own child. Living as they did in a small country district where everyone knew everyone else, it was inevitable that the other children at school knew that she was different. Ellie wasn’t even sure what being adopted meant, all she knew was that she was different to the other children, and she had to endure many taunts in the playground because of it. Not only that, she was an only child in a day where large families were the norm, and this too made her stand out as “different” to the other children at school.
When Ellie grew up, she left the district to get work in the same city she had been born in, and here she met and married her husband. They eventually had five daughters and one son. As a young mother, she missed her real mother so much that she made up her mind to find her. She eventually tracked Essie down. She too, had married and had other children, but had never told any of them about her “disgraceful” youth. Neither her husband, nor her other children knew of the existence of Ellie.
So when she knocked on their door and Essie opened it, Ellie told her who she was, and that Essie was her birth mother. Essie was so horrified at the ramifications of this spectre from the past, that she slammed the door shut in Ellie’s face, and refused to acknowledge her. All Ellie’s dreams of a tender reunion with her real mother dissolved in a moment, and the realisation that she was nothing more than an unwelcome embarrassment to her overcame her as she stumbled away down the path and back to her home. When she got there, she tore the only photo she had of Essie into small pieces, and threw them into the rubbish bin. She felt that life indeed had dealt her a raw deal, and the seeds of bitterness and resentment grew and festered in her mind.
Many years passed by, and Ellie’s daughters grew up and married themselves. Her youngest daughter married and went off to the States to live, and her brother followed her over there and never came back to New Zealand. Ellie felt as though they had deserted her, and it was just one more nail in her coffin of resentment.
Her eldest daughter married and moved right away from the city, and then one of the other two girls was diagnosed as having cancer. She didn’t survive this, and once more Ellie felt bereft. Then to her horror, she heard that her eldest daughter who lived many miles away up north, had also been diagnosed with cancer. So Ellie lost this daughter also, and although the baby survived and was brought up by his father and new wife, Ellie never saw anything of him. She often thought sadly of how he was her last link with her eldest daughter.
More years passed by. One day there was a knock at Ellie’s door. She opened it to see an old lady standing there (it was Essie).
“I’ve come to see you before I die”, she quavered.
Ellie was so angry…who does she think she is, after the way she treated me? she thought. It gave her great pleasure to slam the door in her mother’s face, and watch her go down the path.
She heard a short while later that her mother had died, and there had never been any reconciliation between them.
Now here she was sitting before me wanting to know more about her real family. I was able to fill her in on her real mother’s side, who they were and where they fitted into the jigsaw of genealogy.
I had seen this lady periodically coming to the ladies outreach meetings at our church without knowing anything of her background. She had always looked so sad and miserable. Although there were many times when the topic of God’s love and forgiveness were spoken of, she never approached anyone to ask how this might help her even though the invitation to do so was frequently given.
As she told her sad story, it impressed itself on me what a difference it would have made to her if she had only done this! As far as I knew, she never did forgive her mother, and died still in her sadness and regrets of what might have been.
I include this story here as a warning of what bitterness and resentment can do to a person when it is not dealt with promptly. It is only natural to feel these things in the face of disappointments and hurts, but never let it stay and fester. The Bible tells us that these things have roots, and we are to get rid of them before they grow…
Watch carefully in case any person fails to show the grace of God; lest any root of bitterness springs up and troubles you. (Hebrews 12:15)

Life Lessons

Do you Have a Loose Connection?

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I heard a story the other day about a man whose car had a flat battery. This was in the days when a car could be started by cranking it, so he got out the crank and started to wind the motor but it still wouldn’t start. So he lifted the bonnet (hood) of the car and poked around having a good look at the motor. Then he found the problem….there was a loose cable connection. He joined it up, wound the crank handle again and the motor shot into life. “Ah!! ” he thought, “so THAT was the problem!”

This is just like our prayer life. There are many times when we feel as though God is far away and not hearing our prayers. The trouble is a loose connection between us and God, and it is not until we join the connection that the power of God flows back into our life. Let’s look at some of these loose connections that can cut our fellowship with God.

One of these is having a right relationship with our spouse or other members of our families. This is one of the main causes of a broken connection, and we are told that husbands in particular, are to treat their wives right or their prayers will be hindered  (1 Peter 3:7 ).    Another one is having a bad attitude towards others, and unconfessed sin….King David said, “If I regard iniquity in my heart, the Lord will not hear me!” (Psalm 66:18)                                                       Wrong attitude to our money….it is not our own, but only what God has given us, so it is only reasonable to give Him His share of it.      Habitual and continuous disobedience will block our communion with God.                                                                                                               Cherished continual sin in our hearts…..is there something that we know displeases the Lord but we don’t want to give it up? This is a loose connection cutting the communication between us and God. The prophet Isaiah said, “Your sins have come between  you and God and He cannot hear you!”   (Isaiah 59:2)

So after thinking about these things, let’s fix these loose connections in our life, and have our communion with God restored again!

Life Lessons

Do Others See Jesus in Us?

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The little boy stood looking a bit bewildered in a large and busy railway station. He was clutching a box full of jig-saw pieces to his chest, when he suddenly knocked off his feet by a man in a great hurry rushing to catch his train. The box flew out of his hands, and bits went everywhere over the floor of the station.                                                                                                                                               The boy nearly burst into tears, but bent down and began to look for all his pieces. The man who had knocked into him was an important business man who was in a great hurry to catch his train. He had had a busy day at his office, and all he wanted to do was to get home and relax. This would be his last train for a good while and he didn’t want to miss it.
But as he looked at the boy scrabbling around on the ground for his bits of jig saw, knowing it was his fault that he was having to do this, he got down with him and began to pick up the pieces as well while all the other tired commuters were hurrying by. He heard the train whistle blow again, and knew it was his last chance to catch it. But he kept picking up the pieces and at last the final one had been found.
“There you are Sonny”, he said to the little boy, “I’m sorry I bumped into you like that”.
“Oh, thank-you Mister”, the little boy said, “Thank-you so much! Is your name Jesus? That’s what He would do, isn’t it?”
Suddenly missing the train didn’t seem such a big deal after all. How much did he really show the love of His Lord to others?                                     How much do each one of us? Could we do what this man in the story did? Let’s remember that our Lord Jesus said that whatever we do for the least of His people, we do it to Him     (Matthew 25:35-40; Luke 9:48)

Life Lessons

Have We Done This?

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I was reading a well known Bible story in the Old Testament  this morning and some of the details hit me afresh, even though I thought I knew the story well. Jacob had deceived both his father and brother and had run away from home to save his life. His brother in particular, was very angry with him and swore to kill him if he ever got his hands on him!

Jacob went to his father’s relatives many hundreds of miles away, and fell in love with one of his cousins who was a very pretty girl. But Jacob found that the deceitful genes were just as much alive in his relatives there, and that his uncle  tricked him more than once over the years. He had given him the wrong girl for a start, and then changed his wages seven times over. Jacob ended up with both his girl cousins for wives (acceptable in that culture then), and at the time this incident happened, he had eleven sons.

His flocks and herds had increased to such an extent that his men cousins were starting to mutter about this fact. At the same time, God spoke to Jacob in a dream, telling him to return to his father’s house. It was time for him to put things right with his brother. Jacob prepared to do this, and gathered all his belongings and flocks and herds together  and left without telling his uncle he was leaving, sneaking away one night while he  was busy elsewhere.

When his uncle heard of this,  he started off in pursuit of Jacob’s party, but God intervened one night in a dream and told him he was not to touch Jacob or to accuse him of anything. When he caught up with Jacob, he asked him why had had done this , leaving in such a hurry that he couldn’t say goodbye to his daughters and grandchildren.     ” I thought you wouldn’t let them go,” Jacob replied, “Besides I’ve worked for you for twenty years and you changed my wages many times! I’ve looked after your animals and made good any that were taken by wild animals.”

Jacob’s uncle knew this was true, and he was somewhat pacified. “Well, let’s make an agreement that we will leave each other alone after this,” he said. So they put together a heap of stones and made an agreement with each other, eating a feast at the spot which sealed the  pact.

The time had come for Jacob to meet his brother Esau. It was an  easy  meeting, and they made up between them. Then this was the part of the story that made an impression on me.  After  Esau left and Jacob  had sent his wives and children off ahead of him,  God appeared to him as a stranger passing by and began to wrestle with him. Jacob was a tough outdoors person by this time, and neither of the contestants was beating the other, until suddenly the stranger touched Jacob’s thigh. Jacob began to limp with the pain and let him go suddenly.

The Stranger said, “What is your name?”                                                                “My name is Jacob,” he said. Suddenly it hit him what  his name Jacob meant. Supplanter, Deciever, everything that he had been in all his sinfulness up until this point. As he realised this and saw himself as he was, the Stranger said, “Your name from now on will be Israel, a Prince with God!” What a change happened within Jacob’s being as this was said. “What is Your  Name, then?” he asked.                   “Why do you ask?” the Stranger said, and gave him God’s blessing on the spot.  Again, the realisation hit Jacob, and he cried out, “This place shall be called Peniel, because I have seen God face to face, and I’m still alive!”

Jacob was never the same again, either in his spirit or in his body as he limped for the rest of his life, a perpetual reminder of his encounter with the God of his father and grandfather.

This story reminded me of the same principles that govern our lives today. We must each one have a personal encounter with God; we must realise the sin we are in, and how crooked and deceitful we  are naturally. We must confess our sin before God can forgive us and make us anew. We CAN become new creatures in Christ, and this is the only way we can rise above our sinful natures that abuse each other and cause untold misery in our lives today.

The blessings that God gives each one who does this are unspeakable,  and we are given a new name as well as a new nature. It is only as God touches our lives, even if this causes pain in some way, that this can happen. Let’s pray and look to God for this to happen.

(You can read this story about Jacob in Genesis 29-32)

 

Life Lessons

The Unexpected!

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We have had two unexpected deaths in the last couple of weeks in our church congregation… one was a lady in her early eighties, but a very alert and fit lady who led a Bible study and was full of life….she suffered an aneurism and was gone in a matter of hours. The other one was equally unexpected where this lady’s neighbour heard the dog barking all night without letting up. She went over to this lady’s house in the morning and found the backdoor hadn’t been locked the night before, and there she was lying on the floor, gone.
Neither of these ladies knew that last day, that it would indeed be their last. It was a great shock to all who knew them, and is a real wake-up call to us all, to make sure that we are ready for this, the last call. When these ladies woke up that last day, they had no idea of what lay ahead.
The first one had even been to a Keep-fit class that morning. These incidents show us how uncertain life is. We aren’t promised tomorrow. We aren’t even promised the end of the current day. The only moment we have is NOW.
The only certain thing about life is that it is going to end one day. Whenever there is a birth, there will be a death. But no-one knows when.
There is a verse in the Bible that says, “Teach me to number my days (consider my mortality); so that I may live wisely” (Psalm 90:12)
Let’s make sure that we consider these things and be ready to meet our Maker, no matter how suddenly or unexpectedly it may happen.

Life Lessons

The Dream Home

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As I went for my morning walk each day, I watched the new house at the end of the road taking shape. First the land was prepared, and then the floor laid…everything on the plan was put in place from the drains to the power cables before the walls went up At last the house was completed down to the last new curtain and all the floor coverings. What a lot of care and thought had gone into the planning of it all! Later on, they asked us inside and proudly showed it all off. It was indeed a lovely home.
Can we say that about the home we are building with our lives and what we do? Make no mistake, we are all engaged in building this home whether we know it or not. Is it going to be a place of comfort or a place of regrets? Is it going to be a place where we can invite our Maker to come into and show it off to Him? Or will it have some secret corners that we would be ashamed to show anyone?
The lady of this new home flung open the cupboard doors to show how it had all been planned to the best advantage, and how every bit of space had been utilised. Can we do that with the cupboards of our lives? Or do we just throw things inside without folding them, and shut the doors on the mess?
Everything was colour co-ordinated with not a thing out of place. It made me wonder if my life was in as good order with colours of everything complementing the rest? We may say that we haven’t got the gifts or wherewithal that others have to do this, but we ALL have something we can start with.

Let’s make sure that we do the best we can, with what we have….no-one can expect more than this of us. We all have attitudes and concerns we can build on….let’s start with those and then go on to find other things we can do to help and build up other people.