PRAYERFUL PONDERIINGS: BE STILL

BE STILL

I Am! Your Saviour!
I’ll help you to heal
I’ll give you a love
To forgive and to kneel

I heard when you screamed
Declaring your doom
Come sit with Me where
Your strife has no room

I’ve been there, remember
I came to your place
I dwelled with your sin
I lived with disgrace

Now it’s your turn
Please come visit Me
Come to My place
Just sit and be

I died for your freedom
Your pain to release
I’ll give you strength
Comfort and peace

I have what you need
My ways may seem odd
Just Be Still ... and know
That I Am God …

PRAYERFUL PONDERING: COMMUNION

Dear Jesus

We want to be worthy to commune with You and with each other.
Take us on a journey to know and love You more!

When we take the broken bread
we accept YOUR brokenness
and receive healing and wholeness
for OUR brokenness.

As we drink from the cup
We receive YOUR forgiving and healing love
into our souls and bodies.

Lord
You were wounded
You were broken
So that You can heal us

We want to give You all our broken pieces of our lives
And ask that you pull them all together
And make us whole

We want to know You more
We want to love You more
Lord, make us like You

Amen

PRAYERFUL PONDERINGS: STAY HERE AND WATCH WITH ME

Jesus took Peter, James and John, and He began to be filled with anguish and deep distress. He told them, "My soul is crushed with grief to the point of death. Stay here and watch with me."

Matthew 26:37-38 (NLT)

In Gethsemane, Jesus was scared, sad and hurting. He knew He was about to face the greatest pain of His life and He needed the loving support of His friends. But they failed Him … right when He needed them most.

Are you aware of what your friends need from you? Do you make yourself available when they reach out to you? Are you aware of what you need from them or do you prefer to go through tough times alone? Hmmmm … Understanding that even Jesus needed/wanted to reach out for support from His friends when He was stressed – was one of the triggers that played a role in making me take a long, deep, prayerful look at my own independent nature.

Dear Lord
Again and again, I continue to learn from Your example. Help me to be aware of when the best loving support I could offer someone is just my presence. Help me to also recognize when I need to reach out and not be alone when I am struggling. Thank you for Your never ending presence in my life.
Amen

PRAYERFUL PONDERINGS: DARE TO BE LOVED

God didn't go to all the trouble of sending his Son to point an accusing finger, telling the world how bad it was. He came to help, to put the world right again. Soooo .. .. if it was not even Jesus’ job to judge us, what makes us think we have the right to tell anybody else how bad they are!?! I don’t know about you, but the more of my own sinfulness that God reveals to me, I have become VERY meek about wanting to take on Gods job of judgment.

Unconditional Love. Can YOU give it? Are YOU able to show “love-without-judgment” to someone, even when you know their true condition? Or are you more interested in pointing out their faults and wrong choices to them. Jesus promoted unconditional love as the number one thing to do! The moment we judge someone, we could be responsible for limiting their growth. Wow – now THAT is a guilty charge that I don’t want to be convicted of! When we love and accept someone “just-as-they-are”, we free them (and ourselves) from the guilt that judgment brings.

So … you think that is a tough ask? Well it’s actually the easy part! I find it much easier to accept someone else’s faults, than revealing my own. And yet, I too NEED to be loved unconditionally. People are only able to love the parts of me that I am brave enough to reveal. However it’s the parts of me that I am too scared/ashamed to reveal, are the parts that NEED to experience unconditional love! I can never expect to experience unconditional love, unless I am brave enough to reveal all my “conditions”.

Dear Lord
Thank you for being the ultimate example of unconditional love and for making it possible through your Spirit, to love others no matter what their conditions are. Help us to see others through Your eyes and to recognise their sins as not being an indication of how much they need our judgment, but how much they need You! Help us to be Your love to others. But Lord, we know it doesn’t stop there. Please fill us with Your strength to be bold and honest enough to reveal our own ‘conditions’ to others so that we too are not limited by our own, or others judgments of us. Lord, we give you permission to expose what dwells within us that prevents us from being free. Free to give AND receive unconditional love.
Father we love You!
Amen

TENACIOUS SURRENDER

Have you ever had days (or weeks!) when you are feeling torn between two worlds?!? I have been in that kind of limbo recently. It’s not a bad place to be … it’s just a different place than where I am used to functioning. I have had deep inner peace about letting go control of my future, yet that peace causes an unavoidable inner conflict. I am excited that I can be at peace about living with the unknown, yet something deep inside me was isn’t quite feeling secure about letting go of my past. There are plenty of possible outcomes floating around in my head that I could grab but something is begging me not to. I am so content to just sit at Jesus’ feet until He beckons me to “go forth”, and yet at the same time every muscle in my body is ready to pounce with gusto into my future! I feel like Mary AND Martha in one package. Yesterday at work, I even struggled to answer the phone correctly! I had to spend a couple of hours “babysitting” the reception desk and was expected to answer the phone with a cheery, “Good afternoon .. Adventist Media Centre … Janine speaking …”. But I was so used to saying something different when I answered my usual work phone, that sometimes no words came when they should have while my brain stopped, to manually try and push away the words that wanted to automatically pop out of my mouth. It seemed such a simple task … and yet my brain did NOT want to let go of its ingrained habit of how it had become accustomed to answering my own phone.

With one particular phone call I stumbled over my formal greeting as it inevitably became a tangle of misplaced syllables that were a mixture of both greetings. Yes, I was definitely feeling … very … ummm … lysdexic! But hey … at least I managed to get my name right! The chatty gentleman had a little laugh and then took great pleasure to inform me that my name consists of two German words. Ja (YES) and nine (NO)! Ok, he took poetic license with the spelling of nein … but nonetheless … I instantly connected it to how I was already feeling. Suddenly it was so clear to me! I was a Yin Yan symbol with arms, legs and somewhat unfortunately at that moment - a mouth! YES – NO! BLACK – WHITE! OLD –NEW! KNOWN – UNKNOWN! MARY – MARTHA! GUILTY – INNOCENT! PAST – FUTURE! CONTROL – SURRENDER … Etc etc. I burst out laughing at him, and then thanked him profusely! He was a tad curious and said he wasn’t sure what I was thanking him for, so I proceeded to tell him that he may have saved me from years of therapy, as he had just uncovered the reason for my “inner conflict”! We laughed together and he assured me he would send me his fee.

As God has grown me, I have found each step of my growth to be like the little tantrums my brain decided to throw at me when I forced it into answering the phone a new way. My brain doesn’t want to jump tracks without fighting hard to keep me functioning in the safe, familiar way it had become accustomed to. My mind ‘logically’ knows the reasons for making changes in my life … but my mind also fights to keep things status quo. It’s easy to operate in the ‘ruts’ our brains are used to functioning in. It’s like running on auto-pilot where our minds follow its usual pre-programmed path and life-as-usual happens, whether smooth or bumpy, it’s familiar. For me to make changes in my life I have to switch off the auto-pilot and begin to manually and consciously manoeuvre myself through previously uncharted territory. My mind can understand why I need to change but my mind also panics when it is forced to venture beyond its previous fences, or should I say “defences”.

Just as my brain did NOT make it easy for me to learn a new ‘phone greeting’, nor does my brain make it easy for me to learn new ways of behaving! My mind would much rather function in it’s deeply ingrained ruts of answering the phone in my usual manner, and that is why it struggled to respond appropriately when I suddenly forced it down a new route. Aha! … my mind has also at times, failed to respond appropriately and has caused me to do unexpected things while I am learning new ways of behaving and reacting! Yes, when faced with ‘new territory’ on the spur of the moment, I have been known to freeze when I should have done something; To go quiet when I should have spoken; To do things that can be humiliating and extremely humbling. And it has even caused me to do things that have been totally wrong!

Growing … goes hand in hand with living midst the tension that comes with changing old habits. Yet our minds fight to stay in their ruts of familiarity, even if those ruts are damaging us! I still laugh when I think of my YES/NO name! Because I WANT to surrender and my heart says, “Yes, do it!” And yet my brain screams “No, stay where I know it is familiar!” So I have to FIGHT to achieve surrender! That thought alone makes me feel like a living oxymoron. Ok ok … all the ‘moron’ jokes aside … it’s my new aim in life to not only let go of my control, but to vigorously force it away whenever it resurfaces. My mind can argue and throw tantrums all it likes to try and keep me functioning in familiar territory … but I am determined to let God continue to change me. I am determined to live for His glory! I am determined to live His will – His way – His timing for me. I am determined to fight for my surrender. I am determined to live my new motto:

“TENACIOUS SURRENDER!”

WELCOME

Whether it is your desire to give or receive …
Your PRAYERFUL PONDERING will provide
a precious presence in this place!