Life Lessons

What’s over the Hill?

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        We have been recently watching some documentaries of the early explorers of Australia, and how they wanted to explore this new continent that they had settled in. Sadly, some of them lost their lives in the process, and all because they went into the trip unprepared for the conditions that they found. They thought that by travelling with camels which were used to dry conditions that they would be safe enough. They made their way over the thousands of kilometers of trackless desert, only to lose their lives on the way back through the heat and lack of food and water.                               

Yet, if they had only known it, there was enough food in the desert if they had only known where to look for it. The river that they explored had an abundance of creatures in it that they could have eaten, but they weren’t aware of it.                                                                                                           

       It reminds me of how we flounder along in life at times hungering for the truth, and yet not able to find it because we are looking in the wrong places for it. Or maybe we aren’t prepared to search in the right direction because of some preconceived ideas that we have. The explorers didn’t fancy the idea of looking in the river for something to eat because they weren’t familiar with the things that lived in it. So even though they were desperate for food, they perished because of their lack of knowledge.

    So let’s make sure that we aren’t looking for spiritual satisfaction in the wrong places through ignorance or preconceived ideas. Jesus Christ said that He is the Way, the Truth and the Life and that no one can come to the Father (God) except by Him. He is more than a mere name or word to be carelessly used, but is the source of all truth and life. Not only that, but He is able and willing to reveal Himself to all who sincerely look for Him.

Morning Musings

Reflected Light…

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 The other morning while taking my early walk just as the sun was peeping over the hill, I could see a distant house that we never normally noticed. But just at that time of the day, the rising sun caught the windows facing it, and the reflected light was almost blinding. A bit further on, a closer house also caught the sun’s rays on its front windows. The thing that impressed me was the fact that there was no light in these windows of themselves at all, they were merely reflecting the sun at that time.

   It brought to mind the story of Moses in the Bible how that after he had been in the mountain top with God receiving the ten commandments for the people, his face was lit up with the light of heaven  on it. It was too bright for the people to look at it and he had to wear a veil over it until the brightness had faded somewhat. Then there is the account of how a man called Stephen was arrested for preaching about Jesus. As he spoke in his defence, members of the council saw that his face was shining like that of an angel.

   You might think that this was just in Bible times, but we heard of an elderly Christian gentleman who we knew, who was in hospital recovering from some heart trouble. One day, one of his friends went to visit him and asked the nurse where they could find him. She said, “Oh in the room just along there….look for the man with the face like an angel”.

  I wonder if people could say that about us? Or do we have a hard expression on our face when in repose? I often find myself so busy thinking about my own affairs that I hardly see other people and just march past them! It takes effort to think of others and give a smile to lighten their day. If we practiced that more often then perhaps people would see Jesus in us too. This is how we should be….little reflectors of His great light.

                                               

  

Stories for Teens

Be Sure Your Sin Will Find You Out!!

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You will find this story in the book of Joshua 10:1-27, 11:1-11…….(in the Old Testament part of the Bible)…..

     News of the way Joshua and the men of Israel had conquered the cities of both Jericho and Ai had spread far and wide in the region that Israel was now entering.

    The men of Gibeon got together and said to each other, “Have you heard what Joshua has done to Jericho and Ai? We’ll have to do something to make peace with him before he attacks us!”

“Yes,” said one, “Let’s pretend we’ve come from a far country with old worn out clothes and shoes and mouldy bread to make it look as though we’ve been on a very long journey, and ask him if he’ll make a treaty with us”.

“What a good idea!” they all agreed.

     So a group of them got together, and dressed in old shabby clothes with worn out shoes, and carried their bag of mouldy bread over their shoulders and went to meet Joshua. When they found him, they told their story and produced the evidence….”Look Joshua,  here’s our mouldy bread and worn out shoes. This shows how far we’ve come! Make a treaty with us,” they said.     This is where Joshua slipped up. He should have said, “I’ll ask God first”, but he didn’t. He looked at the supposed evidence and believed what they said. “Sure”, he said, “We can do that!” So he agreed to make a treaty with them which guaranteed them to be protected by Israel, no matter what. They went away smiling and pleased with themselves.

    Three days later the news leaked out, and the men of Israel found out that these people who had supposedly come from far away, actually lived right among them! The people of Israel heard what these people had done, and they started whispering among themselves against the princes and leaders who had made this treaty. They heard these death threats that the people were making.   “We can’t do anything to them,” they said, “We’ve made a solemn treaty with them.”  Joshua called for the Gibeonites to come to him. “You frauds!” he said, “You lied to us! You just live nearby! From now on, you will be our servants and do all our heavy work for us!” The other Israelis said, “Let’s teach them a lesson, the lying sods!” “No, we can’t do that,” Joshua said, “We’ve made them a solemn promise and we have to keep to it!”     The Gibeonites didn’t mind, and said to each other, “At least we’ll be protected if we become their servants!”

      In chapter ten, we see that is exactly what happened. The people of Gibeon started to prosper and do really well. Their animals all grew fat and big, and their gardens bore large crops. The other tribes round about them began to mutter….”Let’s get together and go and teach Gibeon a lesson! That will teach them to make peace with Israel our enemy!” The men of Gibeon heard these threats, and quickly sent a message to Joshua, saying, “Come and help us from these other kings. We’re your servants, remember!”     This time Joshua remembered to ask God what to do. “Go and chase them out,” God said, “Don’t be afraid, because I’m going to fight for you!” So Joshua and his men travelled all night and came upon the enemy first thing in the morning. They didn’t know what had struck them when Joshua and his men started to chase them. They ran, and as they ran the sky got darker and darker, and God sent enormous hailstones on them. More people died with the hailstones than died in the actual battle!

   This was the beginning of a great victory for Israel, and they took all the cities of the land one by one because the Lord fought for them (Joshua 10:42)

Morning Musings

Thinking Ahead

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    We have been reminded several times lately how it’s been pretty pointless in thinking ahead and making plans…even from one week to the next. One weekend, we had got as far as packing our motorhome for a  Christian Rally we were going to, only to hear about four hours before we were due to leave that the whole thing had been cancelled. Someone in our district had been diagnosed as having tested Covid positive, and as a result everything was closed down within a few hours! And it stayed that way for the next two weeks!

    We’ve heard it said that things will never get back to what we considered to be normal….maybe we older ones have had the best years of life! But then, the younger ones will grow up in a world that knows nothing else and will become more adjusted to it all!

     None of us likes change, but it  seems that this will; become the new normal….changes all around us. When we look at the seasons, we are always glad when spring time comes and everything is fresh and green. The trees are covered in new leaves, and fruit for the coming season is setting on them. This is change with a capital C! The old is left behind with the winter chills, and the new gleams ahead of us full of promise.

       Let us look at life like this….what lies ahead will be infinitely better than what we now know, and we can say, “The old has gone and the new has come!” So no matter how uncertain things are here for making plans ahead, we can say with confidence that “we know in Whom we have believed, and are persuaded to that He is able to keep that which we have committed to Him until that day!”   (2 Timothy 1:12)

We know that we can have this confidence if we know God personally, and if we don’t have this assurance, let’s begin to read the Bible and find out how we can know these things!

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.

My Life

God’s Preservation

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     There are so many things that we can thank God for….things that others might call a “coincidence”. But how much better to see God’s preserving hand in these mishaps that we experience.

    I remember one time when I was setting off down the hill from our place, out onto the road and speeding up as the road opened up. The road was narrow and windy, and to take the corner at the bottom, I cut across the corner and then saw another car approaching.  
I automatically put my foot on the brake so I could navigate back to my own side of the road, when horrors! The car spun around about three times out of control, flew across a deep ditch and landed up against a large tree facing the way I had come, with a gentle thud. It had all happened so quickly that I hardly realised what had happened!

   The other car passed by (he must have seen it all happen), and backed up and asked if I was alright. By this time, I had felt around and decided that nothing was broken on me, and there were no obvious breakages on the car. The windows  were all intact, the  motor turned off, and the door opened. But outside was a different story….the wheels didn’t look right, and horrors, the tyres were torn off! So when the man asked if was alright, I asked if he could run me back up the hill so I could find my husband and tell him what had happened which he did. I never saw that man again, and often wondered if he came that way regularly!

    That was the end of my part in the story….the men folk got the car back across the ditch, and put new tyres on it and it was able to be driven home without a scratch on the body. Amazing!

    It often gave me the shivers thinking about what could have happened to me…I could have ended up in a wheelchair with a broken back, or been in the hospital for weeks recuperating from injuries, or even worse, could have been killed. Truly the Lord sent His angels to preserve me that day!!

    Needless to say, I never went too fast down that hill again! But what a way to learn a lesson I should have known anyway!

    There are many ways that God preserves His people, and we should never cease to give Him thanks for this every day….we have no idea how many times He keeps us safe from things that we don’t see coming.

Grandma's Stories, Stories for Teens

Who’s Driving your Car?

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   Sarah was sitting in church one Sunday morning with her mind only half on what the speaker was saying. ….”I’m going to tell you a modern day parable to illustrate what I’m trying to get across to you”, he said, “We hear people talk about being ‘filled with the Holy Spirit, and allowing Him to control you’. The Apostle Paul tells us that we are to allow the Holy Spirit to fill us….we are not to be controlled by strong drink like a drunk person, but we are to allow Him to control us in the same way….”

   Sarah suddenly sat up when she heard the preacher say….”It’s like this. Imagine you are driving your car along the road of life, and you see a hitch-hiker with his thumb up asking for a ride. You somehow know that this is the Lord Jesus asking to come into your life. You have the choice of either going straight past Him or stopping and giving Him a lift. Most people will just go straight past Him and not give Him a thought. But perhaps you think you would like to ask Him into the car with you.

 You stop and let Him in….but where are you going to put Him? In the luggage compartment? No, you are not that mean. In the back seat then? Well, no, you would like to talk to Him a bit on the trip. What if He asked for the keys of the car? No way, you think, I’m driving this car and I want to go here or there where I please. This is just what we all do with the Lord Jesus…we might let Him drive a short distance after we’ve been to camp and got a spiritual lift, or after hearing a good speaker at church. But then you simply HAVE to make a stop along the way, and when you get back into the car, you are back behind the wheel again!”

   Sarah sighed. Why did preachers always have to put you on the spot? She knew very well that there were times when she did wrong things and went to wrong places or looked at wrong things, and that Jesus certainly wasn’t driving her car at those times.

    The preacher finished his talk, but the things that he said stuck in Sarah’s mind, and as she got older she always thought of this little parable whenever she was tempted to do something she knew wouldn’t please the Lord.     She really DID want to let Him drive her “car” but it wasn’t always easy. After all what was it the Lord Jesus said to His disciples?  “If any person will follow Me, let him deny himself and take up his cross daily and follow Me”. (Luke 9:23)

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!

See what God has to say to YOU.