Nehemia – Consoled By God

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Trust… what is trust, what does it mean to trust someone?   The dictionary defines trust as the  reliance on the integrity, strength, ability, surety, etc., of a person or thing; confidence.

If I look at this definition I can definitely understand why my son battles to trust people. As toddler of two he was left with his dad, free willingly, by his mom. Time and time again she disappointed him and broke his trust. Currently, he trusts only three people, His dad, his granny and his grandpa and that’s it.

I have cared for him as if he is my own, for nearly six years now, but still, he does not trust me. The smallest human error is blown completely out of proportion in him little mind. His trust issues are really a great stumbling block in his life.

But when I look at this definition again I can really not understand mankind’s reluctance to trust God. God is honest, He always keeps His promises. God is almighty, all the strength and power in the whole world is under His command. There is nothing wrong with the Universe as He made it, thus we can not doubt His ability, and He loves us so much that he sacrificed His on son for our sake.

The verse I want to give you today comes from:

Numbers 14:11

Yahweh said to Moses, How long will this people despise me? and how long will they not believe in me, for all the signs which I have worked among them?

My dearest friends, please leave your comments with regards to times that you put your trust in the Lord completely. Please share these moments with us, so that those people who have not yet tasted the sweetness of putting your trust in the Lord, may be inspired to have a taste.

Pray with Me:

Dear Lord and Heavenly Father

Lord help us to put our COMPLETE trust in you Lord. Lord, please help my son in his struggle with trust issues, Lord show him that He can trust you and that You will never disappoint him.

Lord let all the people whom you instruct to leave their testimony be willing, Lord speak to them, and ask them to share what you have done for them.

Amen.

In this time of great financial difficulties that so many of our families are familiar with, I want to talk to you about not allowing that financial difficulty to become a grave financial difficulty. If I think back to all my conversations this week, I can not recall a single one, that did not somehow point back to the economy and the problems that we are experiencing, it is a problem that is busy enveloping many South Africans and many people world wide.
Yesterday afternoon I went about my usual Mommy’s Taxi business, pick up the kids from school, dealing with the afternoon traffic, in the east of Pretoria. The kids and I were blessed with a joyfulness and a happiness that filled our hearts and filled our car. We were chatting and laughing in a very care free manner, when (almost on the beat of Shine from NewsBoys) we started noticing the other people in the other cars, they were so miserable. Their unhappiness was written all over their faces, they were grim and pale and for a second I saw the picture of a kitten who has been robbed of his milk, when I looked at them. In an attempt to try and see if it is just me who is seeing things, or if there was really a dark cloud hanging over the city, we started counting the amount of happy people in the traffic. In a stretch of road of 5 km, there was only 1 other person who was smiling, no that is an understatement, he was glowing!!!!
An no, he too did not drive a fancy car, you could see by the way her was dressed that he too was returning from work and that he too was tired, but that did not stop him fro being cheerful. My thoughts were interrupted by the announcer on the radio who read Mat. 6:24
“No one can serve two masters, for either he will hate the one, and love the other; or else he will hold to one, and despise the other. You can`t serve both God and Mammon.
And he pleaded with the people of South Africa to not become entangled in the web of Mammon, not to start serving Mammon, the god of money, in the midst of their financial crisis.
With this the light bulb here in my mind lit up, we are busy paying too much attention to Mammon, because of our crisis, we are busy falling into a groove of desperate chase in search of the things we want, but that we think we can not have.
My dear friend in the Lord Jesus Christ, I am not sitting here, an preach to you from the lap of luxury, I am also a mother and a wife, we have a child with special emotional needs, and therefore his schooling is very expensive. We also need to feed our children, we also need petrol and diesel for the farm,, and yes recently I had to choose between employment ad doing the Godly thing, and therefore I too am now, as my mother in law calls it slightly financially embarrassed, I do not have a fixed income anymore
But also in this I need to be thankful, for the Lord has freed up my time, so that He can once again own my time and not my employer. My time is now the Lord’s time and He too will then provide for me. He knows what my needs are, he knows what it is that I want from life, but all I need to do is reaffirm my trust in Him, by making those needs that I have known to Him, I must talk to Him, ask Him to provide me with what I need, in the same manner that my children ask me for what they need.
While you think about that, read Mat 6 again and then pray with me:
Our Heavenly Father, who is a Gracious and Loving Caregiver, Lord I lift my hands up unto you and Lord I ask that you will keep us from turning our attention away from you and onto Mammon, the money god. Lord let us understand clearly that money is nothing more and nothing less than a few pieces om paper, metal and plastic in our wallets. Lord you don’t need money to look after us. Lord you made this earth without spening a cent. Lord you are almighty, Lord you do not ask us for an entrance fee to come and see You. You gave us your Son, without charging us a cent, You saved us from eternal damnation, at Your own cost, Lord.
What I have, God gave me, He borrowed it to me, and I have to Use it to glorify his name en that is why I now plead with You Lord, please take over the finances of each and every family in South Africa, and Lord manage it Your way.
Amen.

As young girl in the Sesmyl Spruit NG congregation, a Sunday School Teacher told me the one day to always carry Jesus with me, like my favourite dol or blanket. I never really understood this concept. In my mind I kept on thinking, why is it that I have to carry Jesus with me if He is almighty and if He is present everywhere. In this manner I debated around this issue for many years. In actual fact for a long time I forgot about this little piece of truth. That was until the other day:

I was busy putting my 3 yr old to bed, we normally end our day with a Bible Reading and a Prayer. He was very heart sore since his best friend, (a little girl, whom he had been friends with since just before his first birthday) had discovered other little girls, who don’t play as rough or who don’t mess on her pretty pink dress. He was very lonely and did not want to return to school.

In an attempt to make him feel better, I told him that he never needs to feel guilty since Jesus is always with us, He is always in our hearts. We then read his Bible and prayed, and once we were finished, he asked me if Jesus will now climb down his throat and into his heart, so that He could go to school with him the next day.

The more I explained that Jesus did not need to climb down his throat to reach his heart, the more he looked at me as if I was from another planet. But the fact of the matter is, my son now goes to school with peace in his heart, and he is starting to speak to his Jesus on spontaneous basis.

That night God also made me aware again of His constant presence in my life. It is not like a nagging conscience and I don’t feel like a participant of Big Brother, but I do now have more patience with my children, I treat my Husband better, I do even the most mondain daily tasks around the house to the best of my ability because I know Jesus is there and He can see me. Because Jesus is constantly present in my day, He fills me with more of His love and patience and energy.

In the Bible God Promises us His Joy and Peace on Many occasions. Please read:
Acts 2:28, Romans 14:17 and Romans 15:13

Pray with me:
Dear Heavenly Father
Today I want to glorify your Name and thank you for the privaledge of living in Your presence. Thank you God that you will bless me with Your peace and joy. In the book of John, You command us to live in Your joy. Lord I want to ask you, please enable me to grab that joy and live in you presense every minute of every day.
Amen

Pressure is only a single L(ord) away from Plessure

Yesterday I spoke to you about my missed appointment with God. Today our appointment was for . Once again I was so excited that I could not contain myself. And true to the Nature of God as taught to us in the Scriptures, He did not disappoint me. His words just followed through me and His Holy presence filled our whole home, With his presence came a peace and joy that was astonishing. This peace and joy has been absent from my life for a very long time, but now the Lord has brought it back, and the manner in which he went about this was amazing.
The last couple of months the Lord in His gracious and subtle way, opened my eye to the detrimental effects of my busy and overfull earthly schedule had on my relationship with Him, wit my husband, my children and my family, and also the devastating effects on my health.

Typical of me, I was hard headed and blamed it all on fatigue. I tried every single remedy in the book for my exhaustion – tonics, vitamis, green tea, exercise, more sleep. But it was all in vain. Not even my 12 cups of coffee could keep me awake any longer.

Thank God the Holy Spirit did not give up on me. The voice of God was busy suggesting that maybe I am busy drowning in this ocean of exhaustion and pressure, because I am no longer there where God wants me. Despite my fatigue I was too scared to leave the familiar surroundings, the beach I had grown to love, to my own detriment I would not be able to leave on my own.

I was on my last legs and a terrible storm was mounting, when in the distance I saw Him approaching me in Hiss little boat. The storm clamed and He walked over to me, yes he walked on the water as a reminder of His great power. He did not only touch my broken soul, no my Lord and Comforter picked me up and carried me back to his boat. He healed and mended my broken soul.

Short before long, He took me to where He wants me to be. The beach was foreign and the trees and rocks unknown to me, but there is peace here, there is joy here, because the Lord wants me here.

I can today swim father and loner and stronger than ever before. But I can do this by the grace of God alone, and because I am following the current of His will.
My brother and sister in the Name of the Lord, if you are still stuck in that ocean of fatigue and exhaustion, please look unto the Lord and ask Him to reveal to you whether you are still busy with His plan for your life or not.

Please read Romans 6: 12 – 18 and then pray with me:

Lord God, today I come before you, to bring you my dairy and my busy schedule. Lord reorganize the activities and tasks within this schedule to suit Your will. Lord grace me with the ability to prioritise for the time to seek your Kingdom first.
Lord we all are aware of the strain and pressure that our Earthly schedules and dairies can put on us and our families, and Lord that is why I am pleading with you today, Lord take my schedule and remove form it all that keeps me away from you and fill my time with activities that will bring Glory and Praise unto your name God.
Amen

21 July 2008

This morning at 4:00 am, I had an appointment with God, I was so excited that I was awake as early as 3:26. But when my alarm sounded at 4, the last thing I wanted to do was get out of my warm bed. The Lord will speak to me while I lay here in y warm cozy bed I soothed my conscience, but as true as the Lord’s word, I fell asleep, only to awaken at 4:45. I knew I was too late, the total silence during which the Lord wanted to speak to me was gone, I would have to wait until next time.

A feeling of shame cam over me since I knew if I had an appointment with someone who was in flesh and blood, I would have been up by 3:30, I would have painted my face and brushed my teeth, I would have been ready in time. I kept on asking myself why it was that I could not show the Creator of all the universe the same respect.

How many times do we choose other things above God? How often do we not put him first? He has reminded me through my shame today of the verse in that commands us to first seek the Kingdom of God and in return He will provide in terms of our needs.

The Lord also reminded me of the fact that although we can give our hearts to Him once off, we need to decide to put Him first on a daily basis, if we are to serve him whole heartedly.

Pray with me today: “Father I am terribly ashamed that I did not keep tour appointment today, Lord please forgive me and help me to keep each and every appointment that you make wit me, so that I will not miss out on these precious moments with you.
Amen.”