Tag Archives: broken

Morning Musings

Chip Gone Wrong!

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    Our motor home let us down badly last weekend. We were all set for a great weekend of fun and fellowship with like minded people, but it all ended up very differently to what we had planned. Just as the old saying goes, “Man proposes, but God disposes!”

    We were nearly at the village where the venue was, when our motorhome gave a few jerks and grunts and then refused to go any further! We finally managed to limp our way out of the surrounding traffic, and then try to figure out what to do next.  We had had this problem before, of the letter “F” coming up on our dashboard, and had found out then, that it stood for “Fault”. That time, it had needed the chip in the computer system replaced and all was well.                            So it could be a simple problem again this time, or it could be something more serious. Whichever way it was, the fault had to be found and fixed before we could move again under our own steam.

    This little incident reminded me of  our prayer life when our connection with our Heavenly Father seems to be broken. Or perhaps, we have never ever been connected to Him in a personal relationship at all. There are many times in our life, when we feel as though God is far away and not hearing our prayers. The trouble is a broken chip between us and God, and it is not until we get it seen to,  that the power of God flows back into our life, and our fellowship with Him is restored. Let’s look at some of these broken “chips” 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 “chip”, 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 broken “chip” cutting the communication between us and God. The prophet Isaiah said, “Your sins have come between you and God like a thick cloud!”   (Isaiah 52:1)

   So after thinking about these things, let’s fix these “broken chips” in our life, and have our communion with God restored again!

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.

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!”