Changing Seasons

Here we are slap bang in the middle if winter and yet in the past we've had worse; rain, hail, sleet, snow, ice and frost. As the year ended and a new one was about to begin, the Lord gave me 2 words ... Seasons Change

Many people see the end of the year as a place for reflection, a place where they need to leave things behind. Some are sad to see the end of the year, it was all good and they're not sure what the new year will bring, others just can't wait for the new year to begin, they've had sorrow, lost loved ones, illness abounded, they've struggled with finances but seasons change and as Christians we too might find we have to change. 

Instead of worrying about what has gone before or wondering what is yet to come we must simply trust, embrace and look forward to a new adventure with the Lord - you see, SPRING is coming.

A season of new life when we see the first of the spring flowers pushing through the earth, bringing beauty and reminding us of the importance of life. 

It's a time for planting ... While the earth remains, seedtime and harvest, cold and heat, summer and winter and day and night shall not cease. (Gen 8:22).

For the Christian there is always something for us to do ...  and if the Lord doesn't show us immediately what he has planned with us in mind then we can plant. Wherever we are, a small act of kindness, an encouraging word are all seeds waiting to be planted; seeds waiting for someone to come along and water and then as the summer months arrive the seeds have grown into beautiful flowers filling the air with a sweet perfume. Even our prayers can be seeds waiting to be  sown and we wait to see the answer as we move into Summer with flowers in full bloom, the trees are full of luscious green leaves and fruit begins to appear on the trees.  The ground brings forth vegetables that have been planted, the birds are singing and Song of Solomon 2:10 reminds us that the flowers appear on the earth the time of the singing of birds is come and the sound of the turtle (dove) can be heard in our land and the song What A Wonderful World comes to mind.

Whatever it is that the Lord has planned for us in this season you can be sure it is for our good.  We don't need to fret that we are surplus to requirements.  The psalmist says that the blessed man is like a tree planted by rivers of water that brings forth his fruit in his season, his leaf also shall not wither and whatever he does shall prosper.  (Psalm 1:3).  The Lord will show us, if we wait on him, just what adventure He is about to take us on.  It may even surprise us and take us out of our comfort zone or He may have plans to use us just where we are.

I said back in the Spring that even our prayers can be seeds and as we waited for answers to them we had moved into Summer. We were in a place of warmth and beauty and it seemed  life was easier but now our prayers can maybe help reap the harvest as Autumn comes along with its abundant showers and spectacular colours of the leaves on the trees. 

Behold, I say unto you, Lift up your eyes, and look on the fields; for they are white already to harvest.”

The fields are white unto harvest

Harvest comes and it is here scripture introduces us to the gospel through the autumn feasts among the Israelites. Feasts such as 

* Rosh Hashana the feast of Trumpets, 

* The Day of Atonement and

 * The feast of Tabernacles (Booths).

So a very quick run through 

1. Rosh Hashana marks the start of the Jewish new year, the trumpet or shofar is sounded to call the people to repentance and prepare them for God's great judgment. It is also a time of hope when their name could be written in the book of life for the coming year.  Ofcourse Rev 20 says the Lord wants to put our name in the Lambs book of life for all eternity not just a year..  

Lots of things point to the gospel, not least cleansing and giving of a new heart. A little story .. a young man with infantile paralysis used crutches to get around. Asked one day by a colleague  "why", he said infantile paralysis to which the enquirer remarked "how can you bear to go on and help others with such joy"  The young man replied, oh, the disease never touched my heart. we can learn from that nothing is too difficult.

2. Day of Atonement when the priest would enter the most holy place and sprinkle blood from one goat onto the altar to atone for sins and symbolically transfer the sins of the people to the scapegoat.    

3. Tabernacles begins at sundown  coinciding with the final harvest of the year.  This celebration is for God's provision in the wilderness, the manna from heaven and water from the rock and we know that Jesus is the rock and the living water.

Maybe we can go through the feasts at a future date but we see the trees letting go of what they no longer need, the autumn leaves begin to fall and the ground is a carpet of colour of reds, greens, gold, orange everything seems to be getting ready to slow down but Jesus at one point said  Behold, I say unto you, lift up your eyes, and look on the fields; for they are white already to harvest.”.

Fog descends as if getting the earth ready, ready to see the frosty glow of a winter morning where spiders webs seem frozen in time and what a glorious picture they make.   The Lord has set all the borders of  earth and has made summer and winter  PS 74:17) and the seasons in between.

Seasons change but in all of this,  I  see the hand of an unchanging God.

Heb 13:8 Jesus Christ is the same yesterday, today and forever.

Mal 3:6 For I am the Lord, I do not change

He is the one stability in an ever changing world. He is perfect and permanent in a world not so perfect. His nature will never change, he is ever faithful, loving, gracious, his mercies are new every morning the father of lights in whom there is no variation or shadow of turning James 1:17.

He will never be anything less than his word reveals him to be and his word stands unchanged for eternity.

He is God his power will never diminish. He can't be anything but who and what he says he is. He is in every one of these  books that make up the bible and while we may change and the seasons may change He remains the same. Unchanging

So whatever season you find yourself in this year, remember you have an unchanging God who has you in mind and will see to it that you are right where He wants you to be.  Will you breath new life into what you do in the Spring, will you flourish and blossom like the flowers in the summer, will you begin to slow down in the autumn to catch your breath  or will you shine like the frost on the ground in winter, like the lights as Christmas approaches and we celebrate again the birth of our wonderful Saviour and start all over again as we see a new year coming in with new adventures and a fruitfulness that only the Lord can give us.  

Dont worry or fret, don't hide away, don't ponder the what ifs just wait, wait on the Lord, he will strengthen your heart, wait on our unchanging Lord in your season of change.

 

First blank page

I'm one of those people who love journals. I'm about to start on my third and there is just something about putting pen to paper on that first blank page. It reminds me about my life in Christ. Before I knew Him my life was kind of ordinary. I had a family, friends went out to the pub for drinks but as ordinary as it was there was something not right. I'd given my life to the Lord at 12 years old and in a sense it changed but not where I had a real understanding of what had happened so as I grew I just did the normal things a young girl does. I did however read the John's gospel I'd been given and I prayed every night. As an adult the day came when a friend showed me scripture and then it was like a blank page in front of me, clean, new, refreshed. It's not all been rosy since then but I love the first blank page in my journal, knowing it will be filled, not just with my daily thoughts  but with the wonderful things my Saviour does and shows me in my daily walk with him.

If, like me, you love journals, keep writing, fill the pages with each step of your walk with Jesus. If you've never had a journal I'd encourage you to start one, for you, and as a legacy of what the Lord has accomplished in your life. The one I'm starting today has a lovely front page and is scattered with scripture and snippets of the author's thoughts but it will be filled with my own thoughts as we go through these strange times and hopefully come out of the mess stronger for it. 

15 April 2020

A little bit of shop talk

A few years ago I helped out in a quaint shop in the city centre so here I am only now sharing the thoughts I had some mornings.

As I look around the shop, I'm struck by the many lights and realise at this time of year people are fascinated by lights.  I wonder why then,  they aren't fascinated by him who said "I am the light of the world".

Jesus came to bring true light to a dark world, a world where sin abounded, and had done for years and years, but he came that we might be saved. Born in a manger where the animals were kept and 32 years later died the cruelest of deaths to take upon himself the sins of the world that we might be saved and have eternal life. What a Saviour.

He has called his followers to be a light too, a light in the darkest of days, to shine his light and love wherever we go.

For God so loved the word that he gave his only begotten Son, that whosoever believes on him should not perish but have everlasting life. (John 3:16)

122018

It Matters To God About You

I'm one of those people who have things tucked away in my bible case; tracts, poems, bible verses, little cards and I came across a tract I'd been given years ago when I was going through a really bad time and the storms of life were crowding in. 

I'd prayed on the way to the shops and asked the Lord "does it matter to anyone about me".  As I came out of one shop a lady handed me a tract which I tried to decline as someone might have needed it more but she was adamant it was for me. The front was entitled "It matters to God about you".

Wow, the Lord answered my prayer and let me see he was concerned about everything I was going through.

He impressed on me to that we often tuck things away, not just the paper things but we tuck things away in our mind; the trials, struggles we face, the storms of life, finances, marriage, children, work, the list is endless but I believe if you happen to read this "It matters to God about you" yes you.

Whatever you're facing, don't tuck the thoughts away, give them to Jesus. He might want you to bring them to the forefront of your mind so he can help you deal with them.

I get excited when I think of how much he cares. We might not have been around when he walked this earth or did miracles but one day he'll wipe the tears away, we will see him face to face and there will be no more pain, no more tears. Read what John says at the beginning of Revelation 21:1-7 - It really does matter to God about you.

May He bless your day. 

Wait on the Lord

I came across quite a few blogs I didn't get round to posting, so over the coming coming days I'll post as many as I can and hope they bless anyone who reads.

 Wait on the Lord, be of good courage and he will strengthen your heart, wait I say, on the Lord (Psalm 27:14)

There are lots of biblical references to waiting on the Lord and in life there are many things we have to wait for.  

I  had to learn to wait on the Lord when my grandson was taken into hospital as a youngster.

I had to wait to see if his temperature had returned to normal. 

I had to wait to see if he had meningitis or if he had just a virus.  

I had to wait for news while doctors decided whether to do a lumbar puncture and head scan and 

I had to wait on the Lord to see him answer mine and many others' prayers as we were told it was his adenoids that had caused the problems.

In all of this I began to see that waiting wasn't simply just expecting something to happen, it was much more than that, there had to be an action on my part.

There are many instances in the bible of 'waiting'.  

In Genesis 8 I found that Noah waited.  The Lord had told him to build an ark, had given him instructions on how to build it and instructions on how it was to be filled with animals of every kind.  

Noah then had to wait for the rains to come and then wait for the waters to subside.  In all this time of Noah waiting the thing that struck me most was .... Noah TRUSTED. It wasn't just about the waiting, it was trusting the Lord, he had to continually trust the Lord. He trusted the instructions the Lord gave him, trusted Him to keep him and his family safe, trusted when the Lord said he would establish a covenant with him and trusted He would not destroy the earth again when the Lord said he would set his rainbow in the cloud.

I saw how we are meant to trust the Lord in all of our waiting. He has given us a blue print for the kind of person he wants us to be. In Jeremiah 29:11 it says 

for I know the thoughts that I think toward you, saith the Lord, thoughts of peace and not of evil, to give you an expected end.

As we wait and trust Him, the Lord has thoughts of peace for our life.  In his grace and mercy, he thinks only good things of us, thinks of our wellbeing, plans to give us a future filled with hope, but we need to trust him as Noah did.  

No matter how long it takes, no matter what it is whether difficulties, storms, trials or just leading our ordinary, everyday lives, we need to trust, to wait on the Lord, to be of good courage and he will strengthen us.

In Genesis 18 we read of someone else who waited. It would seem Sarah, after waiting so long, thought she was too old to conceive a child and in her long wait she took matters into her own hands when she came up with the plan to give Abraham a son through her maid Hagar, and Ishmael was born.  

I wonder if Sarah ever regretted her plan because when she and Abraham were very old she was told she would give birth to a son.  She laughed when she heard the news and despite seeming to doubt what God could do through her, Sarah is mentioned in Hebrews 11:11 where it says "through faith,  Sarah herself received strength to conceive and bear a child even when she was past child bearing age because she judged him faithful who had promised". Sarah had faith in the Lord, sh trysted Him..

 In Jeremiah 32:27  The word of the Lord comes to Jeremiah saying behold I am the Lord, the God of all flesh, is there anything too hard for me and 

In Luke 1 when Mary is told her cousin Elizabeth was with child when she was barren, the angel says for with God nothing shall be impossible. 

Sarah became somebody despite her old age, she became a mother despite her doubt about what God could do through her. She had faith and trusted in Him who said nothing was too hard for Him. 

So what is it today that you think is too hard for God to do in your life. Nothing, absolutely nothing in your life is too hard for God, no matter what you think he can't do through you or in you. 

I read somewhere that the Lord responds to faith even in the midst of failures, he isn't bound by anything and can cause unheard of events to happen.

Faith my friends can remove mountains, Jesus himself said so and if you wait upon the Lord, exercising your faith in Him, and trusting Him, then just look at what He might do in your life.

Sent from my iPad 14.7.15

Jacob's Well

 This is something I shared with our Sunday School Class. I love how children are eager to hear about Jesus.

1Jesus sat on the wall of Jacob's well.  He and his disciples had been travelling from Jerusalem to Galilee and they took the quickest route through Samaria. It took them hours and sometimes days to go from one town to the next.  

Tired and thirsty Jesus stopped in Sychar while his disciples went into the city to buy food.  

One of the Samaritan women came to get water from the well, lowering her water pot down into the well and drawing it back up again.  As she did so Jesus asked her for a drink.  

The woman was shocked because Jews had no dealings with Samaritans and she told Jesus this, wondering why he had spoken to her.  Jesus told her that if she knew the gift of God and who it was that asked her for water she would have asked and he would have given her living water. (Read John 1:10-14) 

The woman then asked Jesus to give her that water so she wouldn't be thirsty again and wouldn't have to come to the well. Jesus went on to talk to the woman telling her things about her life that only she knew and wondered how he could know.   (Read John 1:22-24)

The woman told Jesus that she knew when the Christ came he would tell them all things and Jesus said to her "I am he".

The disciples came back at this point and were surprised to see Jesus talking to this woman but none of them said anything and she went off into the city and told the people who she had met and that he knew everything.  The people started coming to Jesus to hear what he had to say.  

Jesus knew he had to talk to these people because they needed to hear the truth about God.  The people wanted Jesus to stay and he taught them for 2 days.  They all said to the woman, "we believe now because we've heard what he had to say with our own ears and we know he is the Saviour of the world",  and many Samaritans accepted the gift of God which is eternal life in Jesus. 

The woman at the well was changed.  She met Jesus and her life was never going to be the same.   

When Jesus touches our lives something inside changes and we want other people to know who he is, this is what happened to the woman of Samaria.  She was touched by Jesus when he spoke to her at the well and she went into the city to tell everyone about him. 

Sometimes Jesus asks us to do that, to go and talk to our friends to tell them about how much he loves and cares for us all.  If you hear Jesus in your heart asking you to tell your friends, don't be afraid ... Just tell them.  He will do the rest.

30.1.14

WALLS

I sat in my favourite cafe and as I looked around one of the first things to catch my eye was the word 'walls' written on the side of an icecream cabinet. As I looked at it I was reminded of another wall in the bible;  the wall in Jerusalem, that half a century after the rebuilding of the temple, we see Nehemiah weeping over, weeping, fasting and praying before God because the wall of Jerusalem was still broken down.

Here in Nehemiah the fact that the city wall was broken down meant there was no protection from marauders / robbers. The people were at risk of being attacked and without a wall for protection even the temple was at risk of being ransacked or worse and if there was no temple the presence of God would have nowhere to dwell, so it was on Nehemiah's heart to rebuild the broken down wall.

Walls seem to represent safety and I wondered can we relate any of this to our spiritual walk?.  Is there a wall in our life that we've built to help us get through the day.  Did we build a wall to keep others at arms length or perhaps to hide behind to prevent us being hurt. 

When a wall has been built there's a tendency to want it knocked down but that isn't always easy because the wall helps us feel safe.

Now just say we've pushed through, we've managed to knock down some walls but we're feeling a little exposed, we don't feel quite as safe as we did with the wall there, what do we do?  

I'm going to suggest that we quite simply trust, trust the Lord to keep us safe and that perhaps he wants us to rebuild some of those broken down places in our life because he wants his presence to have a place to dwell. 

"Do you not know", Paul says,  "you are the temple of God and the spirit of God dwells in you" (1 Corinthians 3:16). 

Nehemiah was about rebuilding a literal broken down wall: with the Lord's help should we be about rebuilding a spiritual broken down wall. .

I don't know if you've already knocked down a few walls:

I don't know if you're still hiding behind a wall of years of hurt or broken relationships and still have a sense of dread, distress, disappointment:

I don't know if you can't even name the reason you built a wall in the first place but it's still there and it's never coming down.

I don't know,  but I do know the God who loves us and wants what's best for us. He wants those walls to come down and he will help us rebuild those broken down places of hurt, disappointment, sadness, addictions and many more and his presence will really be seen in our life.

I cried when I read Nehemiah. I saw his sadness as he wept then spoke to the king about what was troubling him,  but I also saw his heart as he set about restoring and rebuilding the broken down walls of the city after talking with the Lord.

Is it time to be asking "which walls need to come down Lord, which ones are preventing your presence to be really seen in my life" and then to ask "where do I start the rebuilding".