Whatever He Says

By Belinda I'm starting the week with gratitude for "forgiveness." I'm grateful above all for God's forgiveness-- past and ongoing--that is a gift beyond comprehension. But right now I'm thinking of person to person forgiveness. On Friday morning I woke up "out of sync." I should have been confined to the bedroom and not let out until after sunset because overnight my hands and feet seem to have sprouted hair and long nails and my eyes glowed an eerie red. Well, if the state of people's hearts were visible on the outside, that would have been my appearance--The Creature from the Blue Lagoon--on steroids! At least people would have had fair warning and stayed clear. I was not fit for conversation and should have had my mouth firmly zippered shut. But...I ventured from the bedroom, and into the unsuspecting world with mouth fully engaged and in gear. The universe must have shuddered and whispered, "Here she comes. Batten down the hatch...

By Belinda  On Sunday morning the worship team sang the Chris Tomlin song, I Will Rise . The lyrics of the first verse resonated more deeply than ever as I thought about what I tried to begin explaining last Wednesday. There's a peace I've come to know Though my heart and flesh may fail There's an anchor for my soul I can say "It is well" Jesus has overcome And the grave is overwhelmed The victory is won He is risen from the dead And I will rise...  "The grave  is overwhelmed"...oh, how I love those words! The graveyard of "the law;" the dry bones and dust of  "the will" apart from his will. I recently began using The Valley of Vision , a collection of Puritan prayers, as a guide to meditation and devotion. It was recommended by my friend and sister in the Lord, Ann Voskamp , and from the moment I first opened its pages I loved that small, black leather bound book. So much so that it has become one of my greatest treas...

By Belinda  This is another "smattering," or crazy quilt day.. I lay in bed late, luxuriating in the knowledge that it was sabbath. No chores to do, no list to follow, not even a day of hospitality after church with last minute preparations to be made. Just a generous getting-ready-for-church time ahead. While in the bathroom, sipping on a steaming cup of delicious black coffee as I powdered my nose and lipsticked my lips, the phone rang.  "Did I wake you up?" It was my friend Frances. "I called at 8.30 and there was no answer," she went on with the urgency of a friend who "needs to talk." She told me of having a shadow week; a week of silence from God; of feeling adrift somehow and worst of all, knowing partly why; choices made. Late yesterday evening, she had driven home from work through dark night spun with finest diamonds. As they danced and sparkled in her headlights, she thought with regret of the diamonds God offers and what we trade for ...

By Belinda When God gives a vision and darkness follows, wait. Oswald Chambers, My Utmost for His Highest, January 20th Today My Utmost for His Highest spoke of the time after a vision being a time of shadow--the shadow of God's hand--when all we are to do is be still and listen. I welcomed that encouragement like a long distance runner welcomes a cold drink of water. After I wrote the post entitled Last Day   on Saturday, what I experienced was shadow; doubt and darkness. I had written in passion, faith and confidence--not in self, but in God. A friend responded with an affirming comment and I responded back, but right after doing so, I felt uneasy and started to question myself. Had I been too sure of what I wrote? Too brashly confident? The feeling lingered over the next few days, when all sorts of "old self" responses to people popped up in my heart. I didn't feel at all like somebody who had just had a "White Funeral" and Last Day. It was confu...

By Belinda Today in My Utmost for His Highest , I read about having a "White Funeral"--"a crisis of death"--and a "resurrection into the life of Jesus Christ." This is something I have been pondering and writing about a lot lately. It is as though God is determined to establish a rock solid understanding of this principle within me, and in everything I read, whether scriptures or the same devotionals I have read many times before, the obvious requirement and possibility of  this  gift and grace is leaping off every page and line. There is an absolute necessity of it if we are to experience Christ as both Saviour and Sanctifier, and now I believe that we should learn about it as the immediate next step after any decision to follow Christ, but I think that often we aren't taught, or don't get it if we are. It makes the step of baptism so clearly an outward demonstration of an inner reality. I think that many people could be baptised without ful...

Psalm 32:7 (New International Version) 7 You are my hiding place; you will protect me from trouble and surround me with songs of deliverance. Selah Love prodded. I resist the pull to old ways, I wrestle. But Jesus is defined by love. It is his very essence. And so I open my Bible to a passage I have lived in of late: 1 Corinthians 13. Today I read it wanting so much to be the love that I read of. After all, love that cannot be tested, is no love at all. Love... Is patient, where I can be so impatient. Is kind, and cares for the other person more than for self--another area in which I need to grow. Keeps no record of wrongs. When I feel accused I am tempted to rehearse past hurts. Always protects, always trusts, always hopes, always perseveres. I fight the urge to hide, but he is my hiding place (Psalm 32:7). How appropriate are the words at the end of 1 Corinthians 13 in verses 11-12: 11When I was a child, I talked like a child, I thought like a child, I reasoned like a child. When I b...

John 1:14 (New International Version) 14 The Word became flesh and made his dwelling among us. We have seen his glory, the glory of the One and Only, who came from the Father, full of grace and truth. A few nights ago, a dappled ivory moon hung luminous, large, and round in a clear evening sky. I thought of the same moon shining down an ocean away over England, where my mum, and brother Rob live. When I went there in October, it was to visit with them, but the time away was also spiritually refreshing. Mum and Rob live simply. I can be driven by materialism. Because I would have felt embarrassed at my natural selfishness being exposed in obvious contrast, I bought things for others and not so much myself, and felt better. Their lives have a quiet, regular rythm, where mine can be excessively active and short on sleep. I knitted and read and uncoiled my soul and felt better. I was really there to be with them, but my compulsive need to communicate with friends and the rest of the world,...

Jesus: please be, not just in my heart, but in my mind, my hands and my lips; even in the least obviously significant corners of my being. Baptise me; fill me, full of you Lord. I need Christ; not me and my ways, wisdom, or effort. I need his love to flow from the pores of my skin, and through my tongue and fingertips. The fruit of the Spirit is a natural result of him in me. I realize that I cannot afford to go one day without being before him and inviting him; begging him, to come and fill me up with his dear self. I am tempted to use the word "suddenly" and say that I suddenly have so much more clarity on all of this, but of course it hasn't been sudden, but a persistent seeking to understand over time. I have been a slow learner! Verses that previously puzzled or perplexed me and seemed impossible to live up to, now make sense. In fact, it is as exciting as seeing the world through a new pair of glasses. I can't live up to them, but he doesn't expect me to be ...

Isaiah 53:6 (New International Version) 6 We all, like sheep, have gone astray, each of us has turned to his own way; and the LORD has laid on him the iniquity of us all. A bunch of us are tackling the twelve week challenge of Focus on the Family's, The Truth Project at the moment. We are having some interesting discussions and wrestling with some counter-culture concepts. Sometimes it feels as if we are wrestling with each other; but it's all good! Our brains are being stretched, that's for sure. So yesterday we were immersed in a discussion about the nature of man; is it basically good, or bent towards sin? We talked about the difference between secular culture's premise that man is basically good and needs to "self actualize," and what Jesus taught; that it is actually in emptying ourselves of self that we are free: Matthew 10:39 (New International Version) 39 Whoever finds his life will lose it, and whoever loses his life for my sake will find it. Genesis ...

Hebrews 1:3 (New International Version) 3The Son is the radiance of God's glory and the exact representation of his being , sustaining all things by his powerful word. After he had provided purification for sins, he sat down at the right hand of the Majesty in heaven. Romans 8:29 (New International Version) 29For those God foreknew he also predestined to be conformed to the likeness of his Son , that he might be the firstborn among many brothers. Booster cables connect a dead battery with one fully charged and the car splutters to life, making the engine purr as the current flows. That's how it felt when these verses jumped out at me, brought to life by the current of the Holy Spirit. I caught a glimpse of a specific gripping truth as I put them together. If we are "conformed to his image," and he is "the radiance of God's glory and the exact representation of his being," then shouldn't we also be? Wow! Can you imagine? I love to watch people holding...

We sat across a table over lunch, Paul’s uncle John and I, catching up on news; he telling me of his recent missionary journeys to the Philippines and Nepal and India. At almost 79, he shows no sign of letting up on a schedule that would exhaust many younger men. He has just crossed thousands of miles in India, on overnight trains; teaching groups of pastors hungry for encouragement and sound biblical knowledge. “And you? What are you doing?” he asked, turning his attention to me. I told him what I was writing and what I had been thinking through lately about having been “in” Christ when he died; I, testing my thoughts and understanding before an older, wiser disciple. When we are wrestling through to truth, that is one of the tests; that and measuring what we think or someone tells us, against God’s Word. I often bounce things off Paul when I get excited about a principle or thought, and sometimes he suggests that maybe I should consider this, or that counterpoint or thought. It’s ...

Romans 7:18-19 NIV I know that nothing good lives in me, that is, in my sinful nature. For I have the desire to do what is good, but I cannot carry it out. For what I do is not the good I want to do; no, the evil I do not want to do—this I keep on doing. "Romans 7 ...I always read it in the past as though the apostle Paul was describing a present reality for himself. " I now see that Paul was not describing his present reality at all, but describing man in general when he struggles to live up to the law. The good news; the gospel, is that Christ died for our sins and our sin. Perhaps the description in Romans 7:18-19 seems to describe you, as it has me, but should it describe redeemed humankind? Lately, I think I've been mistaken in believing that. Isaiah 53:5 But he was pierced for our transgressions, he was crushed for our iniquities; the punishment that brought us peace was upon him, and by his wounds we are healed. Surely a new reality came into effect with the cross....

Since January I have been on The Marathon of Biblical Proportions; not a running marathon, but reading through the Bible, on a schedule with a group. Just as in a running marathon, we soon scattered into a flock. Some, like Paul, my beloved over-achiever, are ahead of schedule; and others, like me, are trailing behind in turtle fashion, stopping to admire the view along the journey. The main thing is that we all stay the course! To read through the whole Bible, cover to cover in a year, means reading an average of three chapters a day and our schedule has us reading them consecutively. This gives a perspective you don’t get when reading chapters separately. Now I’m reading the historical books of the Old Testament and enjoying the grander flow of story, but the same principle holds true for the letters of the New Testament, in which a thought develops over several chapters. Meditating on a few verses at a time holds blessings of its own, but reading in context helps to ensure integrity...

Romans 6:11 In the same way, count yourselves dead to sin but alive to God in Christ Jesus. I believe that to some degree we decide who we will be. Recently when I got two speeding tickets in quick succession, I decided that it was time to become a non speeder; I just didn’t do it anymore. Not long after deciding this, I was driving home from church on a Sunday morning with three friends who I had to drop off in a nearby town before going home. I needed to get home to finish preparing a big family dinner. A roast was in the oven and I was feeling under pressure and anxious about the timing of the meal. One of my friends commented on a car that passed us at a high speed. “Gee,” she said, “Look at him; he’s in such a hurry. We’re not even keeping the speed limit and he’s speeding past us.” I was shocked. I hadn’t realized that my foot was so heavy on the accelerator. This was the new me, after all; the one that didn’t speed. But there was a gap between “who” I was, and what I was doing. ...

“The Last Minute,” what would we do without it? If we are born with internal clocks, then mine must have been set 5 minutes late. I have to admit that this is not coincidence but a bad habit, made worse by the fact that I try to cram as much as possible into any space of time. Leaving one place for another is something I find hard and typically I find myself rushing to do “just one more thing” before leaving. Closely connected to this habit, is another; speeding. I didn’t think that I am a reckless driver, but shaving myself to the last minute meant that until recently, I usually drove under pressure. A couple of months ago, after maintaining a clean driving record for many years, I got two speeding tickets within one month! I faced the reality that I needed to make some changes. I made the decision to stop speeding; that I was no longer going to be a speeder. From then on, everything in my life adjusted to that decision. I calculated longer traveling times to get to places; added in a...