A Heart Untroubled

When I started my second year as a student at Charis Bible College in Colorado, God gave me a word for the year.  Even though I really felt it was for that year particularly, the truth has carried through many more years.  The word was 'balance'. Sometimes we can all get out of balance.  I've spoken a lot about this already, but it's very, very important on so many levels. God's view of balance, often looks different to ours. For example, in the beginning, in Genesis we see the account of God creating the earth and everything we know. But on the seventh day God rested.   God wasn't tired, ill or fed up, but he rested.  The word SABBATH means to rest or cease from work, not because you're tired, but an intentional stopping. God set up the pattern of rest at creation and nothing is different now, except we are no longer bound by the law to keep the Sabbath,  We do not have to labour and strive to please God.  We are no longer justified by works of the

Let's think for a moment about someone who wants to be slim.  If that is truly your quest, it will influence not only what you eat, but how you spend your time, your money, who you hang out with.  You will spend time exercising and working out.  You would spend money joining a gym, taking fitness classes or buying workout clothes or equipment.  You would avoid friends that maybe want to eat pizza all day, and you would make friends with others who shared the same goals.  You would adjust you eating habits to help you to reach that target. Let's think about another example, let's say you want to be a doctor.  You will study hard at college, maybe not going out with friends so that you can study. You work to gain a place at a good uni, even if that means relocation to attend it.  You may put on hold relationships and houses in order to really focus on your studies.  You will work any job, no matter how tedious, to support you while you are training. I was listening to a

In Exodus 3 God has met with Moses and he is sending him out to go and liberate the people of Israel. Moses is protesting this assignment and says to God "Who I am to do this?" In verse 12, it says this: God answered, “I will be with you. And this is your sign that I am the one who has sent you: When you have brought the people out of Egypt, you will worship God at this very mountain.” Have you ever thought about the fact that when we look at a sign, it's not really the sign that is important to us, it is more important that we see and understand what the sign is referring to that is the issue. For example,  in the event of fire, we don't go to the EXIT sign and stop. We look for it only to guide us to the door to take us away from trouble.  Have you ever asked God for a sign?  What if He gave you a sign and you stopped at it and never went on to see what it was really showing you? Even weirder than that! Let's look at the first paragraph again.   

Many years ago, not long after we were married, John and I went to Paris for a week.  One day we went to Monmatre.  It is a place famous for its artists. It was a rainy day, and the square was quite empty, but an artist came up and asked if he could do our portraits.  He had a black piece of paper and a pair of scissors.   The picture on the right is me.  I've got shorted hair now, but back then, the likeness was spot on, anyone who knew me would have recognized me from the silhouette. However, if John kept this picture in his wallet and pulled it out everyday spoke to it, kissed it, took it to the movies... that would be strange!! The reasons is because it's not me!  It's a likeness (and a good one) but it's just my shadow.  From it you can recognize some things about me, but you can't know me from it. So many things in the Word are like that.   They are shadows of things to come. We can look at them and see them and recognize them, but they are just a sh

I am sure that many women will totally identify with this, but it amuses me when my husband asks me 'Where is my...?"  I tell him where the item is, to which he inevitably replies "I looked there".  The thing is, for whatever reason, when John looks for something, he doesn't see what I see! I want to think about a couple of passages from the bible.   12 spies have been sent out to 'spy out' the land and see whether they think it can be conquered. When they come back, Joshua and Caleb say "Let's go!  With God, we got this!" The other 10 spies say "No way!  We got there and we saw all these giants.  We felt like grasshoppers and that's what they actually think of us!!!"  (My paraphrase). The 10 spies saw something totally different to Joshua and Caleb.  You could say the 10 only looked at a natural perspective, while Joshua and Caleb saw things from God's perspective; a land promised by God, and knowing that God was w