Random Devotional Thoughts

The Potter’s Hand….

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VASE“Take me, use me, Fill me, lead me, By the Potter’s hand”, the choir was singing lustily from the front of the church. These words made me think of the deeper meaning of them. Perhaps you have sung these words, and really meant what they say without knowing the full implications of them……

“Take me”…. have you stopped to think of all that this means? How much do we really want God to take us for His service? Remember, His service is in serving others around us. What about the times when all we feel like doing is just to kick our shoes off and relax in that lazy-boy chair! The times when we feel like having a day at home rather than go out yet again to help others,  to visit an old person in the rest home, or to encourage others in a Bible Study!

“Fill me”….we can only be filled by the Holy Spirit when we empty ourselves of our old nature. There is no room for both the old nature and the new nature to have control of our soul and spirit. It is only as we empty ourselves of our old desires, bitterness, and prejudices, that God will find room to come right into our being.

“Lead me”….once again, how much do we really want to be led by the Lord? He could say, “The Son of Man has nowhere to lay His head”. As He travelled the dusty roads of the land, He was reliant on the goodwill of others to give Him a bed for the night. Many times He spent the whole night in prayer to His Heavenly Father out on a mountain top, meditating and renewing His spirit to continue in His Father’s will.

“By the Potter’s hand”, the choir concluded with a flourish. I looked at those fresh young faces of the singers and wondered if they knew what they were singing, or if any of us know what that means!

We read of the potter seeing a bowl he has made and it is not to his liking so he breaks it and starts all over again. How many of us have gone through bitter experiences and shed tears of grief over broken relationships and disappointing things that have happened! It is often the only way the Lord can get rid of some of the things in our lives that are not pleasing to Him. We have to come to the end of ourselves in these broken times, so we can be re-moulded by the Master Potter to be of better use to Him.

Morning Musings

How Careful Are You?

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Maile 2 - CopySummer is drawing to a close in the Southern Hemisphere. In New Zealand this is the season of sun, sand and fun on the water. But our weather in these islands of New Zealand tends to be very changeable and variable. Especially in the northern part of the country. The land is long and narrow and sandwiched between two large oceans….the Pacific Ocean on the east, and the Tasman Sea on the west which is said to be one of the roughest and most treacherous seas in the world.

Most people living in Northland have some association with the sea, if not commercially, then recreationally. When the weather is good everyone who has a boat takes to the water, and on good days, little boats dot the wide open bays as far as one can see.

My great-grandfather’s family came from an area in England that was inland and as far as we know, had never had any association with the sea. When they emigrated to New Zealand in 1861, they had a four month ocean voyage ahead of them, and then a short coastal trip from Auckland to the Bay of Islands. From then on, their lives were inextricably tied up in the sea. All travel was done by sea; all their goods were transported by coastal scows; one son became a sea captain of sailing ships, another son turned to boat building. The sea was their very life blood, and their descendents have this love of the sea in their veins.

But like a lot of things, while the sea can be a good servant if used wisely, it can be a bad master when carelessly taken for granted. Treat it carefully and it will repay you a hundred-fold, but ignore the signs and one may even pay for it with one’s life!

This summer season many people have lost their lives due to carelessness and taking the sea for granted. Going out in boats that are too small for the conditions, or diving into river pools without being too sure how deep they are. Even when proper precautions are taken, the unexpected can happen.

An acquaintance of ours was recently body boarding with his young son when a wave caught them and the father came off the board hitting his head with some force on the sand. His neck was broken but fortunately for him, his spinal cord wasn’t snapped. He has been told that he is very fortunate to be alive, but that it will be many months before he can lead a normal life again. How prepared are we for a sudden calamity like this? How would we feel in the face of such a change of life style as this calamity has caused?

We have to remember that God has even these things under control, and can bring some good out of ALL things that happen to those who love Him. We cannot blame Him for things that are the results of our own actions, but we CAN look to Him for help and strength in the consequences of things that we do.

 

 

Morning Musings

How Sweet is Honey?

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Bee 1Honey is a wonderful healer in more ways than one. The venom of the bee can be mixed into honey and when a certain amount is taken each day, it can relieve the pain of arthritis. Honey is a natural sweetener, and yet with the sting added, it is a healer as well.

This reminds me of the experiences of life. Sometimes we have wonderful times with friends, family or on holiday and then shortly afterwards, there will be the sting of some disappointment. But if we allow it to, the sting can be a great teaching lesson that we can learn from, and then the healing will come later. Without it, all sweetness has no lasting effect, and will leave us with very little depth to our character. Without the bitter sweet experiences of life, our character will never be developed into what it is capable of being.

Without these times, we aren’t able to comfort others who might encounter similar things in their lives. Just as the honey with venom takes a while to work, so time will heal the sad times we may be going through right now.

Morning Musings

Curiosity Killed the Cat!

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4. Curiosity killed the cat, the old saying goes.  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 near 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.

1.    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!

Random Devotional Thoughts

What Do You See?

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        images 2The other day we were driving along a beach frontage….the day was beautiful and the colours of the sea were brilliant and superb. Just as the road was about to leave the shore I noticed three teenage girls sitting on the edge of the stream that came out at the end of the beach. Their backs were facing that superb view and their eyes were glued to the smart phones they were each holding.

    My mind went to the story in Pilgrim’s Progress about the man confined in a room playing around in the rubbish at his feet while an angel was hovering above him holding a crown. Alas, he never looked up to see the glories above him, but just kept on with the worthless stuff around his feet. There were those three girls with their backs to the beautiful view that God had created, and not enjoying all that the beach offered in the way of swimming and playing in the surf, or even just walking along the beach scuffing their feet in the sand, but with their eyes glued to what world offers.

It does us well to take stock of ourselves, especially during this first month of the year when so many make New Year resolutions, and resolve to see the things that God wants us to enjoy.

Random Devotional Thoughts

What Are Your Seven Wonders?

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downloadThe following story came through in my mail box the other day…..maybe it has been around for a while, but it really made me think….what would my seven wonders be? I don’t think anyone could better what the girl in this story came up with. Read it and see what your choices would be…..

A teacher once asked his class to write down the seven wonders of the world. After some thought, they came up with these answers….

  1. Taj Mahal; 2. Egypt’s Great Pyramids; 3. Grand Canyon; 4. Panama Canal; 5. Empire State Building; 6. St. Peters in Rome; 7. China’s Great Wall.

As the teacher was picking the papers up he noticed that one girl was still writing and asked why she wasn’t finished yet. She replied that there were so many, she was having trouble choosing the top seven. He picked up her paper, and read out the top seven she had written …

” 1. To See; 2. To Hear; 3. To Touch; 4. To Taste; 5. To Smell; 6. To Laugh; 7. To Love.”

The room was so quiet you could have heard a pin drop. The things we overlook as too simple and ordinary to mention, and take for granted every day, are truly wondrous!

The most precious things in life cannot be built by hand or bought by man…..all are blessings and gifts from God, our Creator! Let’s give Him thanks for each of them!

Morning Musings

A Joyous Christmas!

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    ANGEL1    And the angel said unto them, Fear not: for, behold, I bring you good tidings of great joy, which shall be to all people. For unto you is born this day in the city of David a Saviour, which is Christ the Lord (Luke 2:10-11).

None of the characters in the Christmas story were important or famous people from other people’s point of view…in fact, they just seemed very ordinary. Elisabeth and her husband Zechariah the priest, were two older people with no children. At the other end of the spectrum was Mary, engaged to Joseph the local carpenter, young and looking forwards to what life had in store for her. Both these couples had had a visit from the angel Gabriel telling them that they would each have a miraculous child born to them. Elisabeth was too old, and Mary was not yet married, but they both accepted this news as from the Lord Himself with Whom nothing was impossible. Once Mary had ascertained how this miracle would take place for her, she humbly said, “Let it be so as the Lord has said”.

Elisabeth was already six months pregnant by the time the angel visited Mary, and after talking with him, she immediately went to visit her older cousin. We wonder what these two pregnant ladies would have said to each other! We are told some of their conversation….it was not their condition or their symptoms they spoke about. It was the babies that they were carrying. In fact, Elisabeth the older lady, deferred to Mary the younger girl, recognising the importance of the child that Mary was carrying. She referred to her as “the mother of my Lord” and said how her baby had leaped in her womb at Mary’s greeting.

Mary immediately burst into a song of praise….this was not a song of someone else’s, this was a spontaneous series of quotations from the book of Psalms that she knew off by heart, and that glorified God for what He was about to do with and through these as-yet unborn sons that she and Elisabeth  were carrying. God’s plan of salvation for mankind was about to be unfolded, and these children were to be the means of bringing great joy to the world.

 

Grandma's Stories

The Broken Vase

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VASE        Bobby   was sitting in his KidZone class listening intently to what his leader, Mr. Brooks, was saying.

“You know kids, we sometimes wonder why bad things happen in our lives”, he was saying, “It’s a bit like this. Would you like to come up here Sam, and help me show everyone what I’m talking about?”

Sam went forward, and Mr. Brooks held up a china vase. “You see this vase”, he said, “This is like us. It’s a perfectly good vase, in fact it is Mum’s vase, and she puts her flowers in it. Now, I want you to hammer this Sam, and see what happens. I’ll put it inside this bag so bits won’t fly everywhere”, and he put it into a plastic bag.

Sam picked up the hammer, and hit the bag firmly. Everyone heard the clatter as the vase broke inside it.

Mr. Brooks took it out of the bag and held it up. It was a sorry sight, broken right in half.

“Now, do you think it can be fixed at all?” he asked. Bobby put his hand up.

“Yes, Bobby”, Mr. Brooks said.

“It could be glued back together with super glue”, Bobby said..

“That’s right, it could be”, Mr. Brooks said. “But there is an even better way to do it. People in Japan have discovered a way to mend broken china with gold. It’s called ‘kitsugi’, and instead of the mended vase being tried to make look like nothing has happened, the cracks are all filled with gold and it looks like this….” and he held up another vase the same with beautiful gold lines where the cracks had been.

“Oh”, said Hayley from the back of the class, “That is so pretty!”

“You know,” said Mr. Brooks, “That’s the same with us. When we’ve made mistakes and messed things up, we try to cover up our mistakes by mending them with superglue and pretending it never happened. It looks OK, but people will still remember the wrong things you have done, like a broken vase that has been fixed. But if we take our mistakes to God and confess them to Him as a sin, He will make us be even better than if we had just tried to cover it up ourselves. The Bible says He will not only forgive us our sin, but that He will make it as though it never happened at all, just as if He has mended us with gold seams. We can learn from our mistakes then and tell others to not do the same silly things”.

“I guess I’ll have to remember that”, Bobby said as he picked his things up and stood up, “I often do silly things and make mistakes. I don’t want to go around looking as though I’ve tried to fix them up myself!”

See what God has to say to YOU.