One night I dreamed a dream.
As I was walking along the beach with my Lord.
Across the dark sky flashed scenes from my life.
For each scene, I noticed two sets of footprints in the sand,
One belonging to me and one to my Lord.
Does it scare you to think about demons roaming around and controlling people? What do you think of hexes and spells and spiritualism? Even when we know it is all around us, we can become complacent and ignore it. But if anyone, even the greatest skeptic, saw Satan laid bare in front of us and the work he was doing, we would be spurred on to really find our salvation and rest in Christ.
When I hear about demon possession, I get pretty scared. Satan and his demons should most definitely never be underestimated. They are a fearsome thing. In our own power, we are no match for them. But recently when it came close to me and my family, it really sobered me.
What sobered me was my ignorance, oblivious to all the signs and how I had been affected by it. I had not comprehended how real and near it was to me. I was not prepared for what impact it might have on me or my family by knowing and being near someone who was possessed. Most importantly I was in no way equipped to deal with it. This experience totally brought me to my knees.
‘Submit therefore to God. Resist the devil and he will flee from you.’ James 4:7
And yet so often we give the devil a foothold in our minds – a way in to our psyche. It may be hatefulness. It may be unforgiveness, jealousy, pride. It may even be games.
When we recognise these workings around us and we see how we can become entangled in the lies and deception that Satan and his demons want us to believe, we see how damaging it can be. People are hurt, relationships are tainted or broken and the effects can go on long past us.
‘Put on the full armor of God, so that you can take your stand against the devil’s schemes.’ Ephesians 4:11
But thank our good Lord for His mercy and grace to protect us. We can’t do this alone. On our own, we are no match for a demon. This has helped me find prayer partners. The Bible says:
‘For where two or three are gathered in my name, there I [Jesus] am among them.’ Matthew 18:20
We are stronger together with others and with Jesus – that’s why we have church.
by: Bronwyn
No this is not about sticking to a diet or being faithful to a gym program or even trying to kick a bad habit. It is forgiving.
Am I the only one who finds forgiveness one of the hardest things in the world? Sure it’s easy when they come to you and ask for forgiveness. It’s easy when they are sorry and you know they won’t do it again. It’s easy when you know that you won’t get hurt again. It’s easy when they make reparations for the wrong they have done.
But what if those people don’t know that you are hurt? Or worse, those people who don’t care that you are hurt?
How easy is it to forgive knowing that they don’t care about their forgiveness and are going to hurt you again? What if there is nothing they can do to make it better?
I looked up the word forgive and its derivatives in the Bible and it is mentioned 118 times. The word mercy appears 276 times. This doesn’t include forbearing, clearing the guilty, blotting out sin etc. Peter asked Jesus how many times we should forgive someone and Jesus said 77 or 70 x 7 times (depending on translation). With seven being the number for God, perfection and completeness it begs the comparison that we should forgive like God: perfectly and completely.
To be like God?? How on earth can we achieve this impossible task? I think that change like this is gradual. We are changed from bit by bit, from glory to glory (2 Cor 3:18), the more we focus on God. In fact the more we focus on God, meditate on His Word, admire the radiance of His Glory the more we will be changed. Bit by bit by bit. Focusing on God lifts us up to Him and then our perspective on ourselves, the world and the one who wronged us will change.
In Matthew 18:21-35 Jesus tells us about the unforgiving servant. The servant who owed a massive, impossible debt is miraculously granted release. This same servant turns around and hits up someone who owes him a few thousand dollars (or equivalent of 3 months pay). When he asks for more time the servant throws this fellow debtor in jail.
When we see God as He truly is, we see ourselves as we truly are – totally indebted to God. We see that God loves us so unconditionally. And when we let this love totally overwhelm us and enrich us we can love more like Him and we can be truly free to forgive.
by: Bronwyn
Over the past few weeks I have noticed moths flying around the kitchen and pantry. I had been swatting them down when I could reach them and been pretty happy with myself when I got them. Then I started noticing the cocoons attached to the sides of some of my containers, and upon closer inspection, webbing in the dry powdery contents. Then I looked at a container of buckwheat and beans that I hadn’t opened in a while and to my disgust I found that inside the container there was not only webbing from the cocoon but actual moths that had hatched and were flying around trapped inside! How had it gotten to this?
I did a quick wikihow search and thus began the 8-step purge while Darrell kept my son out of mischief. First I had to throw out everything in my pantry that was flour, sugar, nuts, seeds, dried fruit, or anything that had any sign of the moths at any life-stage. That included anything that even looked like eggs. It was bagged and put out in the trash immediately (which went out that night since apparently it shouldn’t even be too close to the house).
Anything that looked clean but was still a likely target went into the freezer. All the containers were scrubbed in hot soapy water with a toothbrush and left to dry completely. The shelves, doors and hinges were scrubbed as well, then sprayed with vinegar and tea tree oil. The whole surrounding region and any cracks or crevices were sprayed with bug spray and pantry moth traps were set. Then the whole area left to air for 36 hours.
All the remaining items (bottles and cans) were inspected closely and sprayed with vinegar and tea tree oil for posterity.
Finally my pantry was looking incredibly clean (and empty) and the tension from the ordeal oozed away as I realised that the my kitchen and home were contaminant-free. But it was a somewhat guarded sense of relief as this was not the first time this had happened. And if the comments in the wikihow section were anything to go by, the moths would probably come back again.
Often moth eggs are in the flour and dry goods you buy and you don’t even realise it. Sometimes they are on the packaging. Some people recommend putting everything you buy in the freezer for a week before you shelve it so that any eggs inside will die.
I couldn’t help but think how similar this is to my life. Sometimes a couple of sins flit around. I smack them down and then continue on. But in reality those visible sins are often the metamorphosis of some tiny egg of a sin deep in my pantry. Who knows how they creep in. Perhaps it’s the lyric in a song or an ad in a magazine. It is often all wrapped up in life’s daily routines and slips in undetected. And if it goes unchecked it could hatch into a niggling worm of discontent that eventually metamorphoses into outbursts of anger and a broken relationship. Or perhaps a bit of stress and dissatisfaction leading to greed to fill the void.
Then the situation comes to a head and the only thing that will help is a complete surrender and overhaul by our Cleanser and Healer. After that, to keep things under control, I need to let Him examine my heart daily and keep the ‘moth traps’ set.
I may have lost hundreds of dollars worth of dry goods but a bad attitude could make me lose a lot more. Hopefully I have learned more than just a lesson on pantry cleanliness and will be more careful about the state of the storehouse in my heart – keep me in your prayers!
by: Bronwyn
I think this sounds right
Have you ever sat a multiple choice test where you weren’t sure of the correct answer? You re-read all the options and then thought, I think ‘C’ sounds most correct.
When I taught English to Cambodian high schoolers I was trying to explain why their sentences were incorrect. Since English is my first language, I speak it fluently but do not always understand why I say things in a certain way. So the best I explanation I could come up with at the time was: ‘it just sounds wrong when you write it this way. This way sounds better.’
Or perhaps you are going somewhere you have been before but you aren’t entirely sure of the way. And as you walk or drive along you think, ‘hmm this way feels right.’
What is it that gives us this impression of ‘right’? And how do we ensure that our impressions actually are correct? So often we put the wrong answer down on a test or we give incorrect grammatical advice or end up lost because our inner sense of right is misplaced.
In the case of the test, if we didn’t learn the material correctly then incorrect options will sound correct to our minds. If I learned to speak English incorrectly then I will likely teach others to speak incorrectly. And depending on how well I know the route to a destination will determine how easily I get there! In each case it is a matter of knowing the right way. To add complexity to this, there are degrees of knowing and with each degree of knowing comes increasing chances of getting it right.
And so it would seem with our life choices – which way seems right? What path feels right to you?
These are often questions we pose to ourselves and to others who are at a crossroads. Should I make this purchase or that? Should I go abroad to gain more experience or stay in my company to gain a promotion? Should I marry this person or keep looking? Should we have children? How should we raise them? The problem is if we don’t have any concept of ‘right’ then really anything could seem or feel right at any given point in time. And we may be faced with the question: ‘do I trust my feelings?’
God provides us with an avenue to know the right way. He illustrates a purpose for our existence through the Bible and in it are visions, mission statements, directions, examples to follow (and not to follow), descriptions, pictures and in some cases, explicit instructions. Just as the textbook and the test questions are not duplicates of each other, so with life the text and the choices given demand an applicable knowledge of one to answer the other. And so the more familiar we are with God and His way, the more correct our feelings about what is the right way will be.
Some people call it ‘feeding on God’s word’, others may call it ‘quiet time’, ‘devotion’ or ‘Bible study’. It doesn’t matter what name you give it, becoming familiar with the Bible is the best way to know God and His thoughts. As Albert Einstein said, ‘I want to know His [God’s] thoughts. The rest are details.’
by: Bronwyn
I am one of the extremely blessed ones who didn’t have the struggle of becoming pregnant. I don’t have any angsty stories of months or years of trying or going to fertility clinics. For some reason God just made it happen. I know that this child is a gift from heaven.
And I knew when I had received the gift. One day I just felt different. It was an odd awareness that there was something inside me that was new.
We didn’t test until about week 8-9. I had been procrastinating since the pharmacist wasn’t on my way to anywhere and it would mean a special trip to pick up a test – besides.. I already knew I was pregnant! But after my supervisor at work asked me if I was I decided it was time to know definitively and actually do something about it.
So what is it like for me?
I felt nauseous and vomited about 6 times. One time I remember just lying on the floor against the wall to keep my head up because it felt worse when I lay flat. I couldn’t vomit and I couldn’t eat. I just felt this feeling of wanting to throw up but not quite. Then when I finally did throw up I didn’t feel a whole lot better. It was dreadful and I felt a deep sympathy for those who experience this day in and day out for months. I also threw up on the way home in the car. I managed to hold it in with one hand while the other hand steered into a pub’s carpark. I threw the door open and let it all out all over the ground.
There is one thing about vomiting that does ‘release the valve’ on the nausea somewhat but it does leave you feeling exhausted and the awful taste in your throat takes a long time to go away.
Since this was not a big issue for me I think the most noticeable thing early on was the fatigue and low mood. I have been anaemic and that fatigue does not compare to this. You wake up, feel tired. Go to work and want to sleep. Come home and want to sleep. Then sleep all night and want to sleep some more. And then I read on the net that I should sleep at work. I am not sure who actually wrote those articles but they definitely don’t work in most ordinary work places. It was really quite incredible. I went to gym classes and couldn’t keep up. Normally I could be there for 1-2hrs. But half an hour was really killing me.
And then I got sick and couldn’t shake it. My nose was blocked and runny and I had become a first class mucous producing machine. Then my nose kept bleeding and I kept blowing blood out of my nose. (Don’t worry, all of these symptoms were mentioned in the book What to Expect When You’re Expecting – a good read for those in my category)
But if you asked me what was I suffering with the pregnancy now? The main thing is ITCHINESS. I have almost scratched my skin off. And its not always polite to say where! Apparently when the skin stretches it gets itchy and some of it is just down to hormones.
Moodiness is another awful factor to deal with. It is really easy to get mad these days. Doesn’t take much to trip the wire! Poor Darrell.. he has really taken a beating.
But apart from all this ‘sufferance’ that I (and other expecting mothers) endure. I cannot believe that inside me there is a real live person growing. And when we first saw our little one on the screen at the ultrasound appointment I started crying. It was dancing and waving its little arm and leg buds. I have an actual person inside. It is so incredible and makes me feel so blessed and amazed. I don’t feel like I deserve this but nevertheless here we are: parents in the making.
Never so humbled. Never so blessed.