Homeless

Image by -Rita-👩‍🍳 und 📷 mit ❤ from Pixabay

Jesus was homeless.

He said, “Foxes have dens and birds have nests, but the Son of Man has no place to lay his head.” (Luke 9:58 NIV.) Although we know Jesus was a carpenter by trade, there is no mention of Him doing carpentry once He started His ministry. So He was also technically unemployed. We know that others supported Him. “Joanna the wife of Chuza, the manager of Herod’s household; Susanna; and many others. These women were helping to support them out of their own means.” (Luke 8:3 NIV.) This is not shocking. It is the model for churches sending out missionaries even today.

Not only that, but Jesus asked the 72 to do the same. He sent them out, two by two, to heal the sick and tell them about the Kingdom of God. “Go!” He said, “I am sending you out like lambs among wolves. Do not take a purse or bag or sandals;” (Like 11:3-4 NIV)

When Jesus sent out the twelve, He gave them similar instructions. ““Do not get any gold or silver or copper to take with you in your belts— ¹⁰ no bag for the journey or extra shirt or sandals or a staff, for the worker is worth his keep.” (Matthew 10:9-10 NIV)

How scary is that! Can you imagine the reaction? Suppose two men came knocking at our door in dirty clothes with no money and wanted to tell us about the Kingdom of heaven. Would we welcome them in?

No wonder Jesus said He was sending them out as lambs among wolves! I am pretty sure that I would not have been prepared to go out on such a mission. Is that because I don’t trust Jesus or that I am not fully committed? I don’t know. I can only take comfort in the fact that He only selected the seventy two and not all His followers to go out in such a way. Others served Him in different ways, like the women who supported Him and His disciples and the man who lent Jesus his donkey and colt, or the family who prepared the upper room for the Passover celebration.

My Prayer

Lord Jesus, I call You, Lord, but is that really how I treat You? Being a Christian is much harder than I thought. Please forgive me when I ignore Your voice or allow fears and insecurities to paralyze me. I trust that You know what You are doing, You understand exactly who I am and You will make sure to lead me gently in the paths You wish me to take. Amen.

Washing dishes

My daughter’s dishwasher has broken. The technician said replacement parts are no longer available and she’s lucky she got more than ten years’ years use out of it. That dishwasher worked constantly – sometimes three times a day.

The children have all been assigned chores. The youngest, a six-year-old girl, had the task of emptying the dishwasher when needed – usually before online school. Yesterday, when I went over to help with their online lessons, I found her washing mounds of dishes, happily singing to herself. Many adults, me included, would not be singing when faced with a mountain of unexpected dishes. However, this little girl was very happy, singing as she worked (somewhat inexpertly.) As I listened, I realised she was singing her own made-up song and the repeated words were something along the lines of “I don’t know what to do when I go to school.”

The grandchildren are due to go back to school in just over a week. I thought my granddaughter was feeling anxious about going back to school and how things would be different after lockdown. I explained to her that she needn’t worry, her teacher would explain everything to her and help her adapt to the new way of doing things.

However, it turned out I was wrong. What was concerning her was how she would be able to wash the dishes and get ready for school in time. How would her Mom do without her? I did my best to reassure her that her Mom would make a plan and sort it out. However it set me to thinking.

I often wonder why God needs us to fulfill His mission of saving the world. He is so powerful, He could do a much better job than us bumbling human beings.

Yet the Bible tells us,

“For we are his workmanship, created in Christ Jesus for good works, which God prepared beforehand, that we should walk in them.” (Ephesians 2:10 KJV)

I think our loving heavenly Father chose to operate the way He has for our benefit and not for His necessity.

My granddaughter was so happy to be washing dishes because it made her feel an important part of the family. As the youngest of three children, she always tries to be able to do the things her older siblings do. She was helping the family in their time of crisis.

I think God chooses us to help in furthering His kingdom so that we may feel secure in His family and happy that we have been counted worthy of being given a task to do, no matter how insignificant or small.

Today I gave a Gideon’s pocket testament to a car guard. It won’t cause the long awaited revival; It won’t be something that will be shared with a thousand people; It won’t be anything I will remember in five years’ time. Nevertheless, it contributed in a tiny way to the family mission.

My Prayer:

Father God, Thank You that I am part of Your family. Please open my eyes to any ways I can further the family mission. Thank you. Amen.

God’s fingerprints

Sometimes the Lord orchestrates events so that looking back you can see His fingerprints. We are in the middle of such events.

Our adult children don’t go to the same church as we do. My husband is the son of a Methodist minister so for a long time we were all Methodists. My older son and daughter left first when they were late teenagers as the youth in the church dwindled. My husband and I joined a larger, non-denominational, missionary -orientated church more recently and our youngest son has linked up with the same young, relevant church as his sister.

I have been a helper at the recent Alpha course run by our church, Rosebank Union. I missed one Tuesday night when we went away during the school holidays to the warmer South Coast. The Monday evening we got back, my son’s car wouldn’t start. The battery was flat. He jump-started it to go to train a client and then had to have it jump-started on the way back again. On the Tuesday he decided it needed a good run so I suggested he take and fetch me from the Alpha course as it was a reasonable distance away.

While he was waiting to fetch me again, our group was chatting too much and going over time so we finished 15 minutes later than I had told him to fetch me. To pass the time, he read all the pamphlets in our church’s information stand. One of them was about upcoming missions, including one that caught his eye to a closed country to be involved with running winter sports and generally helping out the missionary couple that the church has recently sent there.

The upshot of it all, is that he is going on the mission. The organiser said he was an answer to prayer. He is the only male in a team of four and he is passionate about sport in general and is a sport scientist. The mission is in November which means that passports have to be quickly checked and applied for or renewed. My son had got his passport in 2002 to go on a cricket trip that year with his sports club and then used it again in 2004 for a school cricket tour to England. Theoretically it would have expired in 2012. However, when he checked, it turned out to be valid until 2019.

Then he remembered. We were robbed at gunpoint in 2009 when three men gained entrance to our property when we arrived home. They forced us to go into the house, disarm the alarm and open the safe. Among all the jewelry they stole were our three passports. We had to get replacements. That is why my son’s passport is still valid.   God can use even armed robbery for His purposes… and flat batteries.

This is not the end of the story. There are a number of obstacles to overcome. One is the fact that my son will probably have to take unpaid leave which means losing a third of his monthly salary. The other is the finance. He needs to find sponsors for the R20 000 that it will cost.. However, the God who left his fingerprints all over the previous events is not stopped by obstacles like these. We only have to look at the nativity story to realise that.

Think of the star. How many millions of years does it take to create a new star? Yet it appeared in the sky to people whose culture included interpretation of the heavens at exactly the right time.

Isn’t it interesting that Caesar Augustus chose exactly the right time to decree a census so that Mary would be sufficiently pregnant so the baby could be born in Bethlehem according to the prophecies? I could go on and on. Simeon was at the temple at the right time to see the new baby being dedicated. So many events had dovetailed according to Gods wonderful purpose.

Yet not all the events were good from a human point of view. Many baby boys were slaughtered. Because of Herod’s command, the young child, Jesus, had to flee to Egypt, again to fulfill prophesy. Sometimes things happen to us that are bad or even tragic.

God’s ways are often a mystery to us. Mostly we can’s see any good in the bad things that happen to us at the time. Often we can only look back in awe at what He has organised. Sometimes we might never see the purpose in our lifetime but I firmly believe “ that all things work together for good to them that love God, to them who are called according to his purpose.” Rom 8:28 (KJV)

How it all began

Waking the Dragon

I thought writing was my dream. I was wrong. After spending about 5 years writing two novels and a children’s book, sending e mails to hundreds of agents and publishers, giving the books to friends to read, even I had to realize that I was not a writer. At least not a fiction writer.

Sure I can write sermons. At a retreat about 13 years ago Rowan Rogers talked about unopened treasures packed away in boxes right beside us. An image came into my mind of a pair of golden lips and a golden pen. As a result I became a Local Preacher in the Methodist Church where I was inducted in 2006 after two years of studying and practice.

My children’s book, “The saddest Little Sugar Bowl in the World” was written particularly for children who were somehow “different”. I got a better response for that one but still nobody wanted to publish it. Finally I published 50 copies myself and then went from bookshop to bookshop trying to get somebody to sell them for me. I sold some at work but still have 20 copies left, lying abandoned in a pile.

It was like I had a tiny dragon in my hand who could breathe the fire of a message. He had wings that could take the written word far and wide but after years of trying hard and repeated failure, his puff just got weaker and weaker. Finally his fire was no more than green smoke rings and then died out altogether. Eventually he just gave up, folded his wings and went to sleep. I put him in my pocket and forgot about him.

Why did I sign up for a workshop and retreat called “My Story for His Glory”? I am not quite sure but it became increasingly obvious that my God wanted me there. Run by Joan Campbell and Mandy Hackland in the beautiful Good Shepherd Retreat Centre overlooking Hartebeestpoort Dam, it was exactly what it promised, both a workshop and a retreat.

During the workshop I leaned more of the craft and techniques. I discovered that maybe, just maybe, I could write fiction.

On Sunday the retreat aspect of the weekend was highlighted. The reading I chose for my quiet time was John 21. “Throw your net on the right side of the boat.” In other words, do things differently. At my feet I noticed the most unusual stick I have ever seen. It ended in a spiral. It was a different way to do stick. That was my message, “learn to paint off the canvas. Find new ways of doing things.”

In our little worship service, Mandy spoke about a gold pen. I knew it was a confirmation of my previous calling. I realized that writing wasn’t my dream. It was my ministry. God called me to write. I was anointed with everybody else to write for the Lord.

So, in a way, the weekend woke my dragon and rekindled his fire – only, it isn’t my dragon. It belongs to God. The gift is His and He will send it where He wants to use it.

What next? I don’t know. Do I rewrite my fiction novels? Write and publish more children’s books? Write a blog? Write devotions?

Only God can lead me and that will be one baby step at a time. Writing this post is one little step. I will get a notebook. I will write 5 lines a week. The rest is up to the Dragon Master.