Faith

Here’s a thing.

It’s amazing how many definitions, interpretations of the term faith there are. It’s equally amazing how emotive talking about faith can become.

Just try telling someone that their concept of the term faith is wrong!

Or that they don’t have faith!

Or that you do have faith and it looks like …!


For me faith has to do with a simple word called BECOMING.

Okay not so simple because here we go again. Becoming means this…Becoming means that.

How do we go forward then?

I’m not sure but for me becoming has to do with living or more to the point:

Changing:

From a life based on rules: social restrictions: control: guilt: peer pressures: fear and all the other emotions that can control our lives:

To

One of trust in the Creator of all that there is.

Kinda like – I’m at one with all that is past and all that is future and I trust that my life has meaning and purpose just like Jesus’ life had meaning and purpose.

Are you struggling with your faith then pray the prayer on the Tell Me about Jesus link and start your road to BECOMING.

God's Family

Usually when someone mentions God’s family, it’s immediately assumed the church is being spoken about.

On one level that’s true, the church is God’s family, but surely there must be more? What about those outside the church who are believers, are they not also part of God’s family? And what about creation – are not the birds, animals, fish, plants and trees also not part of God’ family?

I believe they are.

So what does that mean then?

Perhaps a beautiful flower, studied closely can reveal the immense imagination of God or the way animals relate to one another as they protect their young, nurture their family life and instinctively know what is good or bad for them can teach us where we have gone wrong.

When someone gives their life to Jesus, not only do they discover God’s love but also God’s love for His creation.

God’s family waits to welcome you.

If you want to be part of God’s family the first step is to ask Jesus to be your Lord and Saviour. Click on the link Tell me about Jesus and pray with us.

THE BLESSING OF THORNS

Here’s a touching story (long but amazing!)

Sandra felt as low as the heels of her shoes as she pushed against a November gust and the florist shop door.
Her life had been easy, like a spring breeze. Then in the fourth month of her second pregnancy, a minor automobile accident stole that from her.
During this Thanksgiving week she would have delivered a son. She grieved over her loss. As if that weren't enough, her husband’s company threatened a transfer. Then her sister, whose holiday visit she coveted, called saying she could not come for the holiday.
Then Sandra's friend infuriated her by suggesting her grief was a God-given path to maturity that would allow her to empathize with others who suffer.
She has no idea what I'm feeling, thought Sandra with a shudder.
Thanksgiving? Thankful for what? She wondered. For a careless driver whose truck was hardly scratched when he rear-ended her? For an airbag that saved her life but took that of her child?
"Good afternoon, can I help you?" The shop clerk's approach startled her.
"I....I need an arrangement," stammered Sandra.
"For Thanksgiving? Do you want beautiful but ordinary, or would you like to challenge the day with a customer favourite I call the Thanksgiving "Special?" asked the shop clerk. "I'm convinced that flowers tell stories,"
she continued. "Are you looking for something that conveys 'gratitude' this thanksgiving?"
"Not exactly!" Sandra blurted out. "In the last five months, everything that could go wrong has gone wrong."
Sandra regretted her outburst, and was surprised when the shop clerk said, "I have the perfect arrangement for you."
Just then the shop door's small bell rang, and the shop clerk said, "Hi, Barbara...let me get your order." She politely excused herself and walked toward a small workroom, then quickly reappeared, carrying an arrangement of greenery, bows, and long-stemmed thorny roses. Except the ends of the rose stems were neatly snipped: there were no flowers.
"Want this in a box?" asked the clerk.
Sandra watched for the customer's response. Was this a joke? Who would want rose stems with no flowers! She waited for laughter, but neither woman laughed.
"Yes, please," Barbara, replied with an appreciative smile. "You’d think after three years of getting the special, I wouldn't be so moved by its significance, but I can feel it right here, all over again," she said as she gently tapped her chest. And she left with her order.
"Uh," stammered Sandra, "that lady just left with, uh....she just left with no flowers!
"Right, said the clerk, "I cut off the flowers. That's the Special.
I call it the Thanksgiving Thorns Bouquet."
"Oh, come on, you can't tell me someone is willing to pay for that!" exclaimed Sandra.
"Barbara came into the shop three years ago feeling much like you feel today," explained the clerk. "She thought she had very little to be thankful for. She had lost her father to cancer, the family business was failing, her son was into drugs, and she was facing major surgery."
"That same year I had lost my husband," continued the clerk, "and for the first time in my life, had just spent the holidays alone. I had no children, no husband, no family nearby, and too great a debt to allow any travel."
"So what did you do?" asked Sandra.
"I learned to be thankful for thorns," answered the clerk quietly.
"I’ve always thanked God for the good things in my life and never questioned the good things that happened to me, but when bad stuff hit, did I ever ask questions! It took time for me to learn that dark times are important. I have always enjoyed the 'flowers' of life, but it took thorns to show me the beauty of God's comfort. You know, the Bible says that God comforts us when we're afflicted, and from His consolation we learn to comfort others."
Sandra sucked in her breath as she thought about the very thing her friend had tried to tell her. "I guess the truth is I don't want comfort. I've lost a baby and I'm angry with God."
Just then someone else walked in the shop. "Hey, Phil!" shouted the clerk to the balding, rotund man.
"My wife sent me in to get our usual Thanksgiving Special....12 thorny, long-stemmed stems!" laughed Phil as the clerk handed him a tissue-wrapped arrangement from the refrigerator.
"Those are for your wife?" asked Sandra incredulously. "Do you mind me asking why she wants something that looks like that?"
"No...I'm glad you asked," Phil replied. "Four years ago my wife and nearly divorced. After forty years, we were in a real mess, but with the Lord’s grace and guidance, we slogged through problem after problem.
He rescued our marriage. Jenny here (the clerk) told me she kept a vase of rose stems to remind her of what she learned from "thorny" times, and that was good enough for me. I took home some of those stems. My wife and I decided to label each one for a specific "problem" and give thanks for what that problem taught us."
As Phil paid the clerk, he said to Sandra, "I highly recommend the Special!"
"I don't know if I can be thankful for the thorns in my life."
Sandra said. "It's all too...fresh."
"Well," the clerk replied carefully, "my experience has shown me that thorns make roses more precious. We treasure God's providential care more during trouble than at any other time. Remember, it was a crown of thorns that Jesus wore so we might know His love. Don't resent the thorns."
Tears rolled down Sandra's cheeks. For the first time since the accident, she loosened her grip on resentment. "I'll take those twelve long-stemmed thorns, please," she managed to choke out.
"I hoped you would," said the clerk gently. "I'll have them ready in a minute."
"Thank you. What do I owe you?"
"Nothing. Nothing but a promise to allow God to heal your heart. The first year's arrangement is always on me." The clerk smiled and handed a card to Sandra. "I'll attach this card to your arrangement, but maybe you would like to read it first."
It read: "My God, I have never thanked You for my thorns. I have thanked you a thousand times for my roses, but never once for my thorns. Teach me the glory of the cross I bear; teach me the value of my thorns.
Show me that I have climbed closer to You along the path of pain.
Show me that, through my tears, the colours of Your rainbow look much more brilliant."
Praise Him for your roses; thank him for your thorns!
-- Author Unknown

Living Wisely

Wise Living:

Here’s an awesome thought!

Christians have access to the secrets of the universe.

No, believe it; we have at our finger tips, the key unlocking greater wisdom than Solomon.

Just take a moment to read Proverbs 3:1-10. (The Word is our key to wisdom.)

Right!!!

Wise living is power filled living.

Richard Schuller says:

Power thinkers are Creative thinkers - when left with nothing - you think of something new.

Power thinkers are Global thinkers - you see the small details as well as the 'Big Picture'.

Power thinkers are God thinkers - God-Speaking, God-Touching, through you.

Power thinkers are Empowered thinkers - you believe the best about others and yourself.

Power thinkers are Process thinkers - you say, "If it works, improve it!"

Power thinkers are Team thinkers - pulling together toward a common goal.

Power thinkers are Generosity thinkers - where can I give of my time, my talents, my tithe?

Power thinkers are Impact thinkers - you see beyond success to significance.

Power thinkers succeed at higher levels of thinking - you ask: How? Why? Why not?

Power thinkers are thankful thinkers - you count your many blessings one by one.

Power thinkers are Transforming thinkers - you break through barriers to find positive solutions.

Power thinkers are Reflective thinkers as well as Progressive thinkers you look back to the beginning to find the way to the future.

Compassion

Here’s the story of Tokichi Ishii as told by William Barclay.

A man who had sunk to the lowest depths of crime and degradation.
One would imagine that in him all fine feelings had been obliterated. Anyone who stood in his way, whether man, woman or child, was ruthlessly murdered. Finally, this bestial criminal was captured and put into prison under strong guard. There he awaited death.

He was visited in prison by two Canadian Christian women who tried to talk to him through the bars of his prison cell. He glowered at them like a savage animal and would make no reply. Defeated in their effort to speak with him, they gave him a Bible in his own tongue, which he flung across his cell in a paroxysm of rage. But when the ladies had left him, bored and having nothing else to do, he read it. Providentially he did not start at Genesis, nor did he hit on a brutal massacre or a revengeful Psalm.

He started with the story of the Crucifixion. When he came to the words of Christ on the Cross, “Father, forgive them for they know not what they do,” he stopped.

“I was stabbed,” he said afterwards, “as if pierced by a five-inch nail. Shall I call it the love of Christ? Shall I call it His compassion? I do not know what to call it. I only know that I believed, and that henceforth my heart was changed.”

Later, when the jailer came to lead him to the scaffold, they found, instead of a surly, brutish man, one with a great light upon his facer and a composure and serenity that surprised everyone.

In the last hours of his life he had been born again through reading the Bible.