Hope

Hope - 1. To wish for something with expectation of its fulfilment.

2.  To have confidence; trust.

v.tr.

1. To look forward to with confidence or expectation

2. To expect and desire. 

n.

1. A wish or desire accompanied by confident expectation of its fulfilment.

2. Something that is hoped for or desired

Hope.  

I was thinking the other day about the season that I am in right now.  I call it a season because I know it will pass - it will soon pass.  But for now I am in a season of....  hope. I have a desire for something to change, I have something that I am hoping for with confident expectation that it will come to pass. 

In other words I am not satisfied with the way things are, but rather than wallow in what is right now - that thing that I cant change - i look forward confidently to a time when (I hope and desire that) things will be different.  

And I would rather live in hope than in hopelessness.  

I was thinking the other day about the term 'prodigal' .  And I supposed its meaning to be of a child who was wayward but had returned to his home and family - or is yet to return, confidently hoped for...with emphasis on the RETURNING.  

I wondered if it was linked to prodigy - an impressive or outstanding example of a particular quality - usually in terms of a child - 

or prodigious - impressive, marvellous, wonderful or amazing. (filled with HOPE)

so i looked up the word prodigal.  

I was surprised and taken aback by what i read.  It means none of that.  the word prodigal is as follows

prod·i·gal  

/ˈprädigəl/

Adjective Spending money or resources freely and recklessly; wastefully extravagant.

Noun A person who spends money in a recklessly extravagant way.

Synonyms adjective.   lavish - profuse - extravagant - wasteful - spendthrift noun.   spendthrift - waster - wastrel - spender - squanderer .   A wasteful spender, freely recklessly wastefully extravagant.   Imagine that. the thing that hit me was that all this time I presumed to know that prodigal meant one thing while really it meant another.   Imagine then if your story could change the meaning of a word or a phrase from something negative to something that inspires hope ... so much so that the original meaning is lost. .. The story of the prodigal son - a boy who at the know it all age of whatever, demands his inheritance to leave home and live as he pleases, rejecting his upbringing, his parents, his family and his responsibilities.  He recklessly wastefully and extravagantly spends the entire lot on parties and friends... good times, but when the money is gone, his friends abandon him and in need of food he winds up as a servant in a pig farm eating with the swine.  From there he thinks of how good the servants had it at his fathers home and wonders if he could be his fathers servant, they were treated better than this, and he goes home, hoping that his father will let him live as a servant in his home.   Obviously he had never been a parent, he had no idea the heart ache of a father or a mother for their 'lost' child.  He had no idea the sleepless nights spent wondering and worrying and praying and hoping.  He knew nothing of the sacrifices his parents had made of their own lives to allow him to take and do as he pleased.  He didn't see their tears, he didnt even think about whether they missed him every single day and he didn't know it was never about the money, it was always about him, whether he was OK.    How many times had his father watched in HOPE for his sons return?  While he was still far off his father saw him and ran to him, put a robe around him and a ring on his finger and had a feast in his honour - his long hoped for son had returned home.   What if your situation right now, that thing that you cannot change that thing that looks impossible that you have labelled hopeless - what if the thing you hope for with confident expectation of fulfilment is the very thing that brings new meaning to a word or a phrase or a season, so much so that the original meaning is lost and replaced by your experience.   Imagine - the word menacing to mean aiding and assisting             - the term busy body to mean caring and going the extra mile - helpful well you get the idea.  Turn your own test into a testimony - do not lose hope.   A friend communicated a story today about a man who always came into the place that she worked  grumpy and gruff and nobody could get a smile out of him no matter how hard they tried.  Yet she is lovely charming and persistent - a year later, he now stops in for a chat and says 'take care' when he leaves.  Persistence in doing good and not letting the current circumstances rule you bring about good results, just keep on doing good and doing right - what you sow you will reap.   be encouraged.  Turn your season of disappointment into a season of HOPE.  And never give up.

Transition

Phillipians 3:12 Not that I have already obtained all this, or have already arrived at my goal, but I press on to take hold of that for which Christ Jesus took hold of me. 13 Brothers and sisters, I do not consider myself yet to have taken hold of it. But one thing I do: Forgetting what is behind and straining toward what is ahead, 14 I press on toward the goal to win the prize for which God has called me heavenward in Christ Jesus

tran·si·tion [tran-zish-uhn-sish-] noun

1.movement, passage, or change from one position, state, stage, subject, concept, etc., to another; change: the transition from adolescence to adulthood.

2.Music.

a.a passing from one key to another; modulation.

b.a brief modulation; a modulation used in passing.

3. A period during childbirth that precedes the expulsive phase of labor

I am in transition. That period of time in between starting on a long awaited journey to a dream or a goal and seeing any results of my labour. It is deeply uncomfortable and until I recognised it as transition I heard myself saying regularly, I cant do this, I dont even want to do this... lets just go home, or back to bed, or on a long holiday.

But as I was walking yesterday, I heard the Holy Spirit whisper, 'its ok, this is just transition'.

Anyone who has ever experienced labour and childbirth will understand transition. It is the period of time - usually a short one - - a lull - in between the first stage of painful contractions and the second stage of impending birth of a much awaited baby. And in my case (having birthed 4 children) I recognised it each time when I would suddenly and irrationally suggest that I could not and would not do this any more, I would like to go home now please and start to move toward the door. 

That statement "I cant do this - I'm going home" always gets the midwifes attention, because they realise that you are right there... on the cusp, almost time to start pushing, and they skillfully and gently guide you through with gentle words of encouragement, or stronger words to keep you focused. Because during transition we often lose our focus.

On reading about transition (in child birth), the major emotional marker for this stage is GIVING UP. Have you lost focus and are you feeling like giving up on your dream or goal? 

Keep going...

This ONE thing I do....

Its a funny thing, we spend so much time thinking and dreaming and planning for a future in which we see dreams fulfilled, goals reached, lifestyle and relationships improved or feeling like we are contributing on a higher level or to a greater capacity - we set goals and we anticipate a prize. We set ministry and leadership goals. We set family and relationship goals. We even set goals for our health and fitness levels and we labour our way toward them. Then as we take those first steps in seeing the dreams become a reality, we forget the time chasm between the dream and the fulfillment of that dream. It is during this phase of transition, when we have started, but not yet seen the fruit of our labour that we are  tempted to give up.

When life gets hard and my dreams seem out of reach  I remember Joseph. He was the one in the bible who had the most incredible vivid dreams of his brothers wheat sheaths bowing to his and then the sun the moon and specifically eleven stars bowing to him..... A dream of greatness, of being in a position of rulership and authority... a dream despised by his brothers.

So they got rid of him. Sold him into slavery and for 13 years he is a slave and then a prisoner in a dungeon. So much for his dream. Then in ONE MOMENT Joseph came before the king to interpret his dream as he had done for the kings servants in the prison, and in that moment he was transferred out of the prison becoming 2nd in command of the entire land with the only person higher than him being Pharaoh himself.

I so love genesis 50:20 where Joseph says to his repentant brothers "You intended to harm me, but God intened it for GOOD to accomplish what is now being done, the saving of many lives".

It appears for Joseph that he did not sit back and say woe is me... wherever he was, whether a slave in Potiphars house or in the prison he prospered and was put in charge.  He used what was in his hand at the time, not waiting for the time to be right or the dream to be fulfilled before he started.  He started where he was.

We cannot see the future. But God can. We do not order our steps. God does. He has a plan and a future for us that is good and fills us with hope, but it doesnt mean that along the way there isnt hardship, imprisonment, slavery, undeserved treatment, misunderstanding, a loss of vision and the desire to give up.

If He has given you a dream and a vision then He will surely fulfill that in you, no matter what it looks like right now. Recognise transition. It is only for a while. Persevering produces good things in us and brings about the fulfillment of a dream.  Joseph was perfectly positioned to fulfill the dream that God gave him.  Would you dare to imagine that the stuff you are going through right now that is less than your ideal dream future, is positioning you perfectly for the dream God has planted in your heart? 

One other of my favourite verses (at the moment)  is in 2 Corinthians 7:8- 13 The message bible.  It talks about the work of God, that there was sorrow, though only for a while, and godly sorrow that unlike the sorrow of the world which produces death - godly sorrow produces in us good things....

Lets Read it....

The letter upset you, but only for a while. Now I’m glad—not that you were upset, but that you were jarred into turning things around. You let the distress bring you to God, not drive you from him. The result was all gain, no loss.

10 Distress that drives us to God does that. It turns us around. It gets us back in the way of salvation. We never regret that kind of pain. But those who let distress drive them away from God are full of regrets, end up on a deathbed of regrets.

11-13 And now, isn’t it wonderful all the ways in which this distress has goaded you closer to God? You’re more alive, more concerned, more sensitive, more reverent, more human, more passionate, more responsible. Looked at from any angle, you’ve come out of this with purity of heart. And that is what I was hoping for in the first place when I wrote the letter. My primary concern was not for the one who did the wrong or even the one wronged, but for you—that you would realize and act upon the deep, deep ties between us before God. That’s what happened—and we felt just great.

So persevere through the transition times in your life.  Whether it is building new friendship bases, starting a new job or career, changing your diet, moving to a new area.... and remember that perseverance builds character in us and a hope that does not disappoint.

Romans 5:3 And not only that, but we also glory in tribulations, knowing that tribulation produces perseverance; 4 and perseverance, character; and character, hope.5 Now hope does not disappoint, because the love of God has been poured out in our hearts by the Holy Spirit who was given to us.

.

start where you are

Its been a wee while since I last blogged.  Sometimes when we stop doing something that had been a regular part of our life or when we struggle to begin on a task we see as huge the thought of beginning can be overwhelming.  So it is with this.

Whether your goal is to get fit, or to start a new business, to see your life expand and grow or to make new friends, the beginning of it can be almost too much to think about let alone knowing where to start.

At the end of last year I resigned from a position that I had very much enjoyed and valued in order to take steps in a new direction and to begin a journey that we as a married couple with a family of 4 kids saw as a very positive enriching and right thing to do... something that would bring us all together on the same page and have us all batting for the same team,  our values aligned...

But this meant starting at the beginning of something else.

It meant leaving behind friendships and beginning new ones.

And yes it was and is overwhelming.  But in order to begin something new, you actually just have to begin.  Sometimes there is no starting note, no line, no markers and noone to tell you how to go about it.  So we just begin.  Where we are, with what we have in our hand.

And I realised that what I have is me.  I have a voice.  I have a smile.  I have a choice.  I can be an initiator.  I can start.

It is amazing how when you simply use what is in your hand how much God can expand that in a moment to be so much more.

And then the miracle.

With no job but a very strong conviction that I was on the right page and headed in the right direction I inquired about a certificate course in small business management with a view of starting a new business venture.  Excited we went to see the people who run the course.  But the course was full with many on a waiting list.....and the next available course also full...

I knew that this was my direction though and they gave me an interview the next day.  So with the course full and a full waiting list, I was offered  a place, and even better, a one to one mentored position, an accelerated pathway.... with course payment covered.

So it is in beginning that we begin.  Without seeing the whole road ahead, sometimes with just a hunch or a word or a thought or an idea.  We jump and and hope and pray, but mostly pray because God has it.  He has our future and this gives us our hope.

So with all the other things that are overwhelming right now, just remember, you can start here, right where you are, at the beginning and begin.

=)

Value

Value = The regard that something is held to deserve; the importance or preciousness of something.

The Millenial Generation: high speed internet, mobile smart phones and social media. With all this technology at our fingertips one thing is certain - anyone can become famous and it seems that being famous = great value.

There has been no other time like this, where we can take a photo or post a blog or twitter update and in moments it can be seen anywhere in the world, by anyone and everyone. And most people can get their 15 minutes of fame - Andy Warhol famously predicted that in the future everybody will be famous for 15 minutes - but in 1963 he changed that quote saying " I'm bored with that quote; now I say in 15 minutes everybody will be famous" - he did not know how accurate that statement was.

We can all publish instantly our own artwork, photography, books, tips, recipes, songs, videos... anything at all, without waiting for approval from publishers or record producers. Literally in 15 minutes or even less time everybody can be famous.

If I become famous do I become more valued or more valuable?

And it brings me to the question that has been underlying our whole existence and probably yours. Am I of value?

Isnt the biggest struggle of all of our lives how to fit in? Whether to try hang with the 'in' crowd. Being accepted. Our value in other peoples eyes.

If we place intrinsic value on being accepted, when we are not accepted we see ourselves of having little to no value.

If other peoples opinion of us dictates our opinion of ourselves we are going to find ourselves tossed about as people are fickle in their opinions.

If our own value and happiness depends on our looks, pretty soon we are going to disappoint ourselves as age takes its toll on our bodies and our faces.

If our value is based on what we earn, the house we live in and the car we drive we can find ourselves in debt over our heads just so that we can feel that we also have value because we live in a beautiful house and drive an expensive car.

If our skill in our profession is what brings value to us, what happens to our value when someone else is more skilled?

Maybe being a good person or a good parent brings us value... so what happens when we lose the plot for a moment and act out of character? We are no longer of value in our own eyes.

So our value and our opinion of ourselves and our happiness has to come from a source that is unchanging, immovable, and bigger than us.

It has to come from within so that it can dictate to the stuff around and about us and so that it can shine out of us.

A gem is of value because it is both rare and beautiful. How apt a description.

I believe that the only way we can truly value ourselves independently of anything that goes on in our life, of how we look, feel or how others see us is for us to be valued so deeply by someone whose value does not depend on anyone or anything else.

The bible says in John 3:16 that God SO LOVED the world (me and you) that he gave his one and only son (to die on a cross for us) that whoever believes in Him shall not perish but have ETERNAL LIFE.

Thats true value

I do not believe fame makes us valuable - if it did the people in Hollywood would be the most grounded and happy people on earth. Their marriages would be stable and there would be no divorce and no drug issues. Famous people usually find more emptiness than most would understand because they look to have it all but they feel they have nothing.

"and what do you benefit if you gain the whole world and yet forfeit your own soul? (Mark 8:36) Jesus.

Jesus actually answered our question of value and what is life all about when he stated "whoever desires to save his life will lose it, but whoever loses his life for My sake and the gospel’s will save it.36 For what will it profit a man if he gains the whole world, and loses his own soul? 37 Or what will a man give in exchange for his soul?"

The only road to happiness and finding the weight of our own value is to lose our life in giving it away in the service of others.

Our ultimate reward for this is not on this earth.

Its time to have an eternal perspective. A long term view of life. And to give ourselves away. Not seek value for ourselves but to see value in others. Jesus did not come to be serve but to serve. And we need to do the same.








  
  
 

Friends

Psalm 60 says that God is a father to the fatherless a defender of widows... He sets the lonely in families.

There are times when each of us feels lonely, and not just lonely but really alone.  Its a funny thing.  Even surrounded by friends we can feel alone. In the lonely times, we often reflect on our friendships. We may  wonder if we even have any real friends.  We may look back over our life and miss the friends that have moved away, the ones we enjoyed doing life with at a particular time. 
Any good psychologist will tell you that friendships are vital for wellbeing and even God says in Genesis it is not good for  a 'person' to be alone.  So what makes a good friendship?

William Arthur Ward writes “A true friend knows your weaknesses but shows you your strengths; feels your fears but fortifies your faith; sees your anxieties but frees your spirit; recognizes your disabilities but emphasizes your possibilities.”
So I ask myself "Am I a true friend?" Am I even a good friend? Do I encourage, fortify, bring vision?  I have always believed that if you want friends you have to be a friend and that often means making the first move, being the first to smile say hello and ask to spend time together.

There are times when our friendships are tested.  These tests that come either fortify the relationship or tear it apart.  I think the difference is our heart.  If we truly believe in our friendship, we weather the storms and become stronger and closer, we choose to forgive, we choose to turn the other cheek, we put aside jealousy.

I saw this posted on a friends facebook page.  It challenged me.

I challenge myself to honour my friends, to assume they are doing their best, to put myself in their shoes, to stop criticizing and expecting more than they can give, to accept who they are and love them like family and to help build them up and to recognize and celebrate their giftings. 

 "You use steel to sharpen steel and one friend sharpens another."

Let us not fall into a trap of self pity when we feel lonely or alone.  Lets remember the great friendships that we have or take the opportunity to cultivate new ones.   Relationships take work so start working on them today.

Have a blessed day.

spoiled for the ordinary

I wish I could write a blog about the beautiful flowers and trees and places I have been.  I admire people who can use words to paint a picture, pull out the minute detail that may have been overlooked had they not described them.  But for me, my heart always wants to go deeper.  I always want to know the why behind the what.  So in writing this blog you need to understand that there are many unpublished pages of thought spilled out like water onto a parched canvas of dusty earth, do I capture it or let it fall to the ground?

To open your thoughts to others is to make yourself vulnerable. To be judged.  Far better to remain silent and have people think you are a fool than to open your mouth and remove all doubt - is a famous quote.

But it is far to simple to describe the delicious fragrance of a flower or the softly beating wings of a butterfly, things of exquisite beauty.  I am allured by the danger of going deeper... my mind is intrigued with the inner workings of a clock (I once or twice took one completely apart to find out how it worked), the page source of a web entry (right click and you will see it), the programing of a computer.

Revelation,  that "ah ha - I get it" moment is what makes life interesting.  It is what makes us want to find out more about a person, that promise of more.  What we see in part, that we might know in full if we just look a little deeper. 

When I was in my very first high school assembly I heard somebody read these words "In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God. He was with God in the beginning. Through him all things were made; without him nothing was made that has been made. In him was life, and that life was the light of men. The light shines in the darkness, but the darkness has not understood it" - I felt as though someone had just handed me a puzzle, a combination lock, that if I could just hear that again and understand it, i might know something more than I knew already.  What was it they had read?  was it shakespear? It took me a long time to find it and an even longer time to find out what it might have meant. 

We are all on a journey.  Some people really enjoy journeys and others prefer destinations.  I went on holiday with some very good friends once.  I am not a morning person and was a bit miserable at 4am, until my good friend told me, its not about the destination, its about the journey.  It changed my whole outlook.  We had fun the entire 22 hour drive and every stop along the way.  

Life really is about the journey.  

I cant remember accurately the quote or who said it, but it is something like this.  Once a man has tasted of heaven, he is forever spoiled for the ordinary, for forever after he will walk looking at the sky...... 

It implies he has been changed, he has seen something that he now longs to know more of, that he cannot live the same life he once used to live, he has been changed. Changed by the journey. 

morning musings - I love the road

I love the road.  There is something about a long stretch of open road that gives me a sense of freedom and adventure.  Like a breath of fresh air, it is easy to leave behind all of the tensions of everyday life when I hit the open road, I could drive for hours.On many occasions I have.

I used to like to drive past all the familiar sites and onto the unfamiliar, to try and get lost and then re-trace my path back to where I had come from.  To feel the freedom of not knowing and then the rising panic of thinking I may actually be lost as I try to navigate my way back and then finally catch a glimpse of a tree, a bend, a fence - my way home.That flood of relief. 

Before I could drive I would try to get lost in other ways.  I would catch a tram home from school from a familiar stop and then travel on from where I should have gotten off, let it take me off the path of what I knew, to a place I had never been.  Once I did get quite lost.  I had to retrace my path and hop on and off trams as they took a different route.  There was no safety of a mobile phone or gps, no facebook, twitter or instagram to capture the moment or dialogue with an unknown audience. 

As a child I would run down to the river at the very end of our street and then walk and run along the banks until they narrowed and I had to scramble over branches and thru thick scrub to follow the river to its destination which I could never reach.  I would dream of floating down it on a raft.  One day my accomplice in crime and I found a raft.  It was left over from one of the raft races held at the river each year and had caught in the trees nearby.  The river was high and fast due to recent rains and flooding but children do not often see danger, not me anyway, I just saw adventure.  In trying to reach the raft I had to climb along a thick branch of an overhanging gum tree.  Its end with me on it dipped into the fast flowing river.  With my friend cheering me on I got my feet onto the raft but it suddenly seemed unstable and less of an adventure... more like foolishness. I realised too late how cold and fast the river was as it tried to drag me off the branch - hanging on waist deep in water, being pulled down stream.  It took some struggling to lift my sodden wet fully clothed body back onto the branch.  We walked home leaving a track of wet muddy prints all the way up the road - 2 blocks and a terrific story that we could not tell our parents.  I snuck in the laundry door and put my wet clothes in the washing machine.My parents were none the wiser.

So why this thirst for adventure in the ordinary of life? I think in some way each one of us wants to do something different, to stand out, to leave our mark, to have an effect. In all of my wanderings I was role playing.  No longer just an ordinary kid, not just one of the crowd.  Perhaps this sense of adventure was put there in order for us to search.  To find the buried treasure in life.

 Maybe Ecclesiastes 3:11 can shed a light on this when it says ..." He has also set eternity in the human heart; yet no one can fathom what God has done from beginning to end."

It is one of my favourite passages. And it describes a search that began for me I am sure when I was born. 

 I read a quote once that hit a chord and has stuck with me ever since. 

"Two roads diverged in a wood, and I—I took the one less traveled by, And that has made all the difference."

Here is the work in its entirety. 

Robert Frost (1874–1963).  Mountain Interval.  1920.

1. The Road Not Taken

TWO roads diverged in a yellow wood,
And sorry I could not travel both
And be one traveler, long I stood
And looked down one as far as I could
To where it bent in the undergrowth;	5
Then took the other, as just as fair,
And having perhaps the better claim,
Because it was grassy and wanted wear;
Though as for that the passing there
Had worn them really about the same,	10
And both that morning equally lay
In leaves no step had trodden black.
Oh, I kept the first for another day!
Yet knowing how way leads on to way,
I doubted if I should ever come back.	15
I shall be telling this with a sigh
Somewhere ages and ages hence:
Two roads diverged in a wood, and I—
I took the one less traveled by,
And that has made all the difference

  -  Morning Musings -