Pauseforamoment

I’m sure all the exciting people are out and about doing exciting things on this Spring-Saturday evening, but we are at home, both with laptops poised on our laps and the tv going in the background. My husband set up wireless internet today, and it is nice being in here playing online together. We’re kind of watching Cars, and waiting for The Bill tonight (a leftover love from my time in London). Each of us has a bowl of vanilla rice pudding (this great Donna Hay recipe – about a thousand calories a bite, but oh-so-good).

You know what?

We love this kind of thing. Chilling, enjoying each other, some nice food and the quiet and peace of home. This is one of our favourite places to be. There is a delightful sense of peace, too, in the fact that this is a long weekend, and we have three days off together. Nice.

This morning we drove up into the hills with my mother, and hiked along the Bibu1m@n Track for three or four hours, so I’m sure the effects of the pudding have been negated. The flowers were blooming like crazy, as they are wont to do in the springtime, and the air was fresh and clean. I feel pleasantly weary. We capped off the day with a BBQ by the river, with mum and my nephews in tow.

It occurs to me that these sweet, uncomplicated days are the best. Taking time to enjoy the beauty of the natural world, some good, hard exercise, a lot of sunshine, good food and quiet activities to end the evening. Finding joy in simplicity makes happiness less complicated.

Another bowl of that that pudding won’t go astray, either.

Just a minor vent.

I turned on the tv while I was having lunch, and flicked over to see what Oprah was saying today. She had on some lady who has written some New Age book on how to have a successful life.”You can create a new future blah blah blah…. speak out only positves blah blah…the universe is always listening to you so it is very important not to speak out negatives about yourself or your life blah… you are sowing seeds into your future blah-de-blah blah.” (Minus the blah part. I put that in myself.)

You know what bugs me?

All this talk is a complete rip-off from the bible. They’ve copied it. What she is saying is actually true, but not totally Truth.

The bible says things like, “There’s life and death in the power of the tongue”.

This is exactly the kind of thing she is talking about, except it is twisted slightly and includes that ‘universe’ crap. If we speak out negatives, we are speaking out death which of course will affect us. If we speak out positives, that is what we will reap. Think about it.

“I’m getting a cold.”

“I haven’t been sick for a while. I think I might be coming down with something.”

“That always happens to me.”

“I’m so unlucky”.

These words are not life giving. They are negatives. We are told that life and death resides in the power of the tongue. What are we speaking out? What does our mind dwell on and think about? The truth of God’s word? Or something else?

We are also told, “Let the words of my mouth and the meditations of my heart be pleasing to you, oh Lord. ” I’m sure it is not pleasing to the Father if we dwell and meditate on sickness and negative things. The bible totally coins meditation. It is mentioned several times. We are told to let the Word dwell in our hearts and minds, let it be a life-giving, transforming force. What happens?

The New Agers take meditation and make it into something slightly different. As a result, most christians think meditation is of the devil. We are scared of it. We wonder if we are turning to the other side. What is a beautiful, holy, spiritual thing created by God to allow us to be transformed by the Word has been snatched away and distorted and they think they invented it.

I’m not having a go at New Agers. Sometimes (ducking, here) they are more in touch with spiritual things than christians. They just have a distorted version of the truth. When you leave God out of it, it becomes a New Age practice. The devil has just manipulated something that was originally designed for christians and made it seem like the original is evil and wrong as well. We are missing out on so much because these wiles.

So many people who don’t know the Lord are hungry to feed their spirits, hungry for some kind of truth in their lives. They’ve been sucked into a semi-truth (one that is making a lot of people very rich), and distorted the original, great truths in the Word, which were designed to draw us closer to God and help us be changed from glory to glory. Makes me cross.

My heart is so full at the moment with all the Lord has been doing in us. It goes without saying that we had an amazing time on so many levels. I feel so honoured that God has allowed us to be a part of these people’s lives. Like nothing else they have caused me to look beyond my Western materialism* and Western Christianity to see a bigger picture about the nature of God’s love and Who He is. I am in awe of this Father that we serve.

I know that I have been evasive about what we have gone through over the last few years, and I still don’t feel right about sharing it all. I’m sure some have figured it out and that is ok. I just know that out of deep pain comes deep deliverance and seeing the Father work out a high and painful calling. It is often through suffering that we learn obedience and trust, and it is all worth it if we allow the work to mould us into His image. I know that all things work together for good for those who are called according to His purpose. It is a special thing if these words move from just being words to becoming manifest in our hearts and lives. It is a process becoming the Word not just proclaiming the word.

On some deep level the Lord has worked a healing in me. I know I still have a long way to go, but something started last week as I reached out and ministered to others, and I want to allow Him to finish this work. I had to step out, once again, into preaching and teaching and He met me where I was. I know that He imparted something through me into the Cambodians – not through my strength but all His. With obedience comes great fulfillment.

Though they are just normal people like you and I, with the usual struggles and hopes and dreams and desires, the Cambodians bring something special to my heart. I love that they live a life of prayer, not in a religious way, but in a natural, heartfelt way, out of the overflow of gratitude and honour to their Father. They will pray anywhere and at any time.

Their worship is just beautiful. Even the children light up with joy as the music starts, and it doesn’t take much to get everyone dancing and singing. They worship with abandonment, not caring about sound so much but about throwing out praise from every pore to a Father who has rescued them. There are no conditions to their worship.

They have smiles that light up the world. Every time we came to the church (where a number of families live, too) they would smile until I thought their faces would split. All the children come running and they greet you with such enthusiasm. One feels like the most important person on earth. When we left, they stood by the airport window (only travellers allowed inside) and moved along as we went through the check-in process (lots of different stations), smiling and waving each time we caught their eyes, and finally, waved until we were upstairs, just out of sight. Everyone who could came to wave goodbye, on a motorbike or a tuk-tuk or on a bike. They ooze love.

They are generous – with time, with love, with kindness, with food. They are incredibly grateful for anything we give.

We were quite busy and I believed we achieved some good things in terms of growing the church and its believers. Once I found my groove, I absolutely loved bringing the word to them. We shared the teaching load and covered all kinds of areas, including sonship, authority, team work, building the house of God, serving and so on. We had the opportunity to pray for several sick people, and I can’t think of one person who wasn’t healed. My God is awesome.

One very special blessing was being able to spend nine days with my husband. We became best friends, again, and such a deep, deep bond was formed. I cherish these precious memories we share. We had so much fun in Singapore, too. He laid down his loathing for shopping and spent hours with me in this activity. He is my hero! I miss him terribly today as he is back at work.

I know there will still be some processing of our time away over the next few days. I can feel the pressure to allow a sense of ‘let-down’ to dominate right now, as we ease back into our normal lives, and I am guarding my heart against this. I am praying that the Father will bring this work to completion, and that it will all be to His glory.

He is good and very good.

* I do hold the opinion that we are not more holy the less we have. I see nothing wrong with having nice things and a nice home, but I do see something wrong with these things holding more value for us than God and people.