Posts tagged ‘God’

September 1st, 2010

God’s will for my life

by Grae

I was listening to the song ‘I can only imagine’ today and it got me thinking about God’s will for my life. I know what I am doing with life now and I know what I am planning (to some extent) in the future, and I believe that is what God has planned for me but who knows what is next and what happens if I don’t like the idea of what God asks of me in the future!

If you’re a Christian reading this then hopefully you have thought similar things and seek God’s guidance on your life; if you’re not a Christian and reading this you might find it hard to understand what I am talking about, and I respect & understand that, I haven’t always been a Christian and wasn’t really brought up in a Christian household so letting someone other than me and my family influence was new!

It’s my understanding that the song ‘I can only imagine’ is about when we get to heaven and meet Jesus! Some Christians I know have struggled with the fact that we are in heaven for eternity .. which I get, but don’t worry about myself, eternity on earth is a long time, but eternity in heaven will be so different. Taking lines from the song

Surrounded by Your glory, what will my heart feel?
Will I dance for You Jesus or in awe of You be still?
Will I stand in Your presence or to my knees will I fall?
Will I sing hallelujah, will I be able to speak at all?

We don’t know what heaven will be like, but we do know that we will be in awe of our saviour and the price he paid for us to be there with him in heaven. When I sing these lines in worship I can just see Jesus saying with excitement ‘yes, we will dance, we will stand, we will sing’, it will be a celebration, a party!

But what does this have to do with God’s will for our lives? Fair point as that is what I have titled this! Sometimes I think the thought of letting God have an input means taking a step of faith and trusting him and if we have had people let us down in the past that is really hard to do but we have to remember, come to accept, acknowledge that God is the perfect Father and all he wants is the best for us.  Taking that step of faith each time little by little we get to see the amazingness of God and what he can do if we let him!

So, if you have got this far something has got your attention … do you know God? … do you need to let God in ? are you being challenged by God to let your life go in a direction you hadn’t really expected?  Whichever it is go for it, get some strong Christian friends to pray with you and support you and let God be involved in that part of your life too!

What do you think? would love to hear your thoughts! G (end of ramblings for now!)

October 28th, 2009

And We Said OK…

by Grae

I don’t know how much truth there is in this story as a whole, but these words really make you think about God and questioning him and why he does stuff and what we have chosen as a world and the consequences it has….worth a read..

In light of the many perversions and jokes we send to one another for a laugh, this is a little different: This is not intended to be a joke, it’s not funny, it’s intended to get you thinking.

Billy Graham’s daughter was interviewed on the Early Show and Jane Clayson asked her, ‘How could  God let something like this happen?’ (Regarding the attacks on September 11th).

Anne Graham gave an extremely profound and insightful response.  She said,

‘I believe God is deeply saddened by this, just as we are, but for years we’ve been telling God to get out of our schools, to get out of our government and to get out of our lives. And being the gentleman He is, I believe He has calmly backed out. How can we expect God to give us His blessing and His protection if we demand He leave us alone?

In the light of recent events . . . terrorist attacks, school shootings, etc, I think it started when Madeleine Murray O’Hare (she was murdered, her body found recently) complained she didn’t want prayer in our schools. And we said OK.

Then someone said, ‘You’d better not read the Bible in school . .  . the Bible says thou shalt not kill, thou shalt not steal and love your neighbour as yourself’. And we said OK.

The, Dr Benjamin Spock said we shouldn’t spank our children when they misbehave because their little personalities would be warped and we might damage their self-esteem (Dr Spock’s son committed suicide). We said an expert should know what he’s talking about. And we said OK.

Then someone said teachers and principals better not discipline our children when they misbehave. The school administrators said no faculty member in this school better touch a student when they misbehave because we don’t want any bad publicity, and we surely don’t want to be sued (there is a big difference between disciplining, touching, beating, smacking, humiliating, kicking etc). And we said OK.

Then someone said, ‘Let our daughters have abortions if they want and they won’t even have to tell their parents.’ And we said OK.

The some wise school board member said, ‘Since boys will be boys and they are going to do it anyway, let’s give our sons all the condoms they want so they can have all the fun they desire and we won’t have to tell their parents they got them at school’. And we said OK.

Then some of our top elected officials said, ‘It doesn’t matter what we do in private as long as we do our jobs’. Agreeing with them, we said it doesn’t matter to me what anyone, including the President, does in private as long as I have a job and the economy is good’. And we said OK.

Then someone said, ‘Let’s print magazines with pictures of nude women and call it wholesome, down-to-earth appreciation for the beauty of the female body.’ And we said OK.

And then someone else took that appreciation a step further and published pictures of nude children and then further again by making them available on the Internet. They are entitled to free speech. And we said OK.

Then the entertainment industry said, ‘Let us make TV shows and movies that promote profanity, violence and illicit sex. Let’s record music that encourages rape, drugs, murder, suicide and satanic themes. We said, ‘It’s just entertainment, it has no adverse effect, nobody takes it seriously anyway, so go right ahead.’

Now we are asking ourselves why our children have no conscience, why they don’t know right from wrong, and why it doesn’t bother them to kill strangers, their classmates and themselves.

Probably, if we think about it long and hard enough, we can figure it out. I think it has a great deal to do with ‘We reap what we sow’.

Funny how simple it is for people to trash God and then wonder why the world’s going to hell. Funny how we believe what the newspaper say, but question what the Bible says.
Funny how you can send ‘jokes’ through email and they spread like wildfire but when you are sending messages regarding the Lord, people think twice about sharing.
Funny how lewd, crude, vulgar, obscene articles pass freely through cyberspace, but public discussion of God is suppressed in the school and workplace.’

Are we laughing now?’

Be challenged by this all :)  Grae

August 22nd, 2009

Wastewatchers Holiday Club with Splash!

by Grae

Last week I helped at the local kids holiday club run by Splash (for Schools and Communities) and it was bDustbin Destructorsrilliant! I haven’t helped for about 4 years and it was good to be back.

Hard work and all that but very rewarding. It was fantastic to see how hungry kids are to know about God! I was leading the oldest group with someone called Rachel and in our group times we had some really deep discussions with questions that I would struggle to answer an adult on, let alone 11 year olds!

Our discussions about the bible story for that morning sparked talk on all different aspects of the Bible, Christianity and my faith as a whole, it was really challenging but awesome to have the opportunity to think about and have a go at answering the questions! I can’t say I got the answer across perfectly every time but hopefully I gave them something to think about!

Some examples of questions we got asked

  • What is hell like?  (direct and to the point don’t you think!)
  • Will my family go to heaven if I am a Christian and they aren’t?

Bring on next year!