The Sheep and The Goats

God’s Thoughts to Me

For I was hungry, and you fed me, I was thirsty, and you gave me a drink, I was a stranger, and you invited me into your home. I was naked, and you gave me clothing. I was sick and you cared for me. I was in prison and you visited me … Lord, when did we ever see you hungry and feed you? … I tell you the truth, when you did it to one of the least of these my brothers and sisters, you were doing it to me! (Matthew 25:35-40, NLT).

But when you give to someone in need, don’t let your left hand know what your right hand is doing. Give your gifts in private, and your Father who sees everything, will reward you (Matthew 6:3-4, NLT).

True Generous Love

When my earthly Pappa passed away 8 years ago, he left me a legacy I would never exchange for all the riches of the world.

He had a humble burial, the way he preferred, actually insisted on. His grave is adorned only with an uncut rock from my brother’s farm and a few succulents.

On the rock is a small copper plate engraved with his name, date of birth and death, and the words,”And the greatest of these is love”.

My father was a humble man who taught me much about my heavenly Pappa.

He had the means to be quite rich, but he wasn’t! He didn’t preach with words, neither with visible deeds of charity.

Actually, I don’t think he knew what he was doing anyway. He and my late mother had generous hearts for the naked, the poor, the hungry and the sick.

Prisoners in Zimbabwe

But I could see a regular pattern emerging from his life like a sweet fragrance.

Many people whose lives were quite broken, not only physically, emotionally, financially, but also in many other small ways, were quite transformed and much better off once their paths have crossed his.

They had sort of more direction and purpose in life and usually they started to know our heavenly Pappa in a new way once they allowed Him to touch them through my father’s life.

He showed me what true love really is without saying a single word!

He definitely had no repetoire of “good” religious deeds that he will one day be able to present to his heavenly Pappa like many would as our Lord told us,”On judgement day many will say to me, ‘Lord! Lord! We prophesied in your name and cast out demons in your name and performed many miracles in your name'(Matthew 7:22)”.

I have the suspicion that, according to the world’s standards, he was not even a very good steward of his money.

But then, his left hand had not the slightest clue what his right hand was doing.

Oh, and he had such a wonderful sense of humor! He could tease us endlessly, yet, with so much love and compassion that it was like a fresh, peculiar breeze in a world fiiled with greed and seriousness!

He was a highly intelligent and educated man, but to him, it was of no importance. And he knew suffering and sorrow, for he lost his wife when he had us three naughty, impossible kids of respectively nine, six and three years old.

I know that when one day the great Shepherd separates the sheep from the goats, my father will be so surprised to be amongst the front sheep for he wouldn’t have the slightest idea why he is so blessed. (Matthew 25:32-33).

He will be so surprised to be granted a place at his Pappa’s right hand … that special place of honor for he will NOT KNOW what he has done to receive such love!

Dear Ones, this is the legacy my father left me … the legacy and footprints I would love to walk in.

Much love xx

Mia

I am linking-up with

The Ageless Beauty of Music

God’s Thoughts to Me

If I ride the wings of the morning, if I dwell by the farthest oceans, even there your hand will guide me, and your strength will support me (Psalm 139:9-10, NLT).

Oh, that I had wings like a dove; then I would fly away and rest! I would fly far away to the quiet of the wilderness (Psalm 55:6-7, NLT).

Wings of A Dove

King David was a songwriter/musician/poet par excellence. Even from boyhood as a shepherd, he composed the most beautiful psalms, singing of the majesty, the grandeur, the excellence and, above all, the love and compassion of His Pappa God.

The God who is not only his Pappa, but also yours and mine.

Were he to be alive in the 18th century, he would have been ranked with a Beethoven. Or, in the 17th century, a Handel who wrote “The Messiah”.

In the fraction of time I live and am familiar with, King David, the musician, would have been a favorite of mine along with a Freddy Mercury or a Neil Diamond. In my mind these two guys are incredible musicians!

But King David knew a secret about His Pappa that modern man is totally oblivious to … a secret that seems lost to so many … our total inability to capture the beauty of the Creator of everything, in, well, in about anything.

We have lost this wonder amongst the avenues of rules and programs upon another set of religious rules and programs. We have all but lost the wonder of flying away on the wings of the morning.

King David’s hymnody is filled with hyperbole, trying to capture someting bigger than what his limited mind was capable of, trying to give words to the magnificence of our Heavenly Father. But he knew that words were feeble carriers of such wonder and greatness.

I can almost feel his ardour when he wrote Psalm 139, searching for the biggest of big his mind could fathom to bring glory to his Pappa. “Even if”, shows a bit of his frustration with his human limitations.

Psalm 55:6 describes his longing, actually, his hunger, to fly away on the wings of a dove to there where he could forever just be in the Presence of the Love of his life, for he was surrounded by the storms of hatred and violence of his enemies.

So often I share that same desperate longing to just escape to the quiet of the wilderness where it is just my Pappa and me.

My heart yearns with King David’s to saddle up the wings of the morning and gallop away to the ends of the oceans trying to live in the unimaginable, intimate closeness of this Presence.

In his days the ends of the seas must have seemed like the ultimate leap into the unknown for they were still unaware then that the world is round.

Oh, the beauty of his love, for trusting his Pappa’s hand to guide him in the darkest of dark should he ever be so overwhelmed by the splendour of his King that he would try to hide.

I think he must have experienced such a deep revelation of his feebleness as a human apart from his God to entertain thoughts of hiding from our Pappa.

Our smallness against all that  He is … all the power and splendour contained in “THE GREAT I AM”, takes my breath away and at times makes me want to hide too, but I have found His right Hand lifting me up in my brokenness, enveloping me in His love.

Even though King David admitted that,”Such knowledge is too wonderful for me, to great for me to understand! (Psalm 139:6), the conclusion he comes to in this ode of admiration, is the overwhelming love of our Pappa!

He is our God who knows of all our sorrows and heartache … a Pappa that does not belittle our feeble efforts to bring Him glory … a Pappa who does not laugh at  our volatile emotions of love and admiration … a Pappa who does not consider our pain and suffering as something insignificant.

He is a Pappa who collects all your tears like precious pearls and stores them in a jar marked with your name.

King David found the joy of knowing how to revel and delight in his King’s Presence … the secret of experiencing Him … the secret of Living in His Loving Embrace.

Much love xx

Mia

I have the honor of linking-up with

Songs the World Sings

God’s Thoughts to Me

To what can I compare this generation? It is like children playing a game in the public square. They complain to their friends, “We played wedding songs, and you didn’t dance, so we played funeral songs, and you didn’t mourn” (Matthew 11:16-17, NLT).

Prisons of Boxes

Pain and exhaustion greet me every morning when I arise to the gift of a new day our Lord has made, a day to rejoice and to be glad in Him.

I am enveloped and embraced by a debillitating chronic disease, Fm/CFS. According to the clever people, this illness has disabled my whole nervous system and not much is working the way it should!

Sometimes, when my bird friends welcome the new day with a beautiful song, their joyful singing cause a sensory overload in my body and pain washes over me like the waves of the sea, breaking on the sand … wave upon wave upon wave of excruciating pain.

When the frolicking rays of the sun invite me to come and play this game called life, I have to seek shade and darkness for their brightness pierce my body … stabbing … cutting … wounding, and the result, more pain!

My mind is encamped by another Fibro friend, Mr Fog! This  guy steals my thoughts and words like a thief in the night;  for this one truly is invisible!

But this box has another side … the only side visible to the world. It is beautifully wrapped in colorful gift wrap. It is decorated with satin ribbons and perky bows of lace … a frivilous box fiiled with jokes and tears.

But this is a facade … a heartbreaking, lying facade. It tells another story the world chooses to believe and adds tons upon tons of heartache. For it causes a short-circuit, overburdening an already disabled nervous system.

The world mostly finds it easier to label this illness as a monster in the mind; a psychological monster.

But this time the pain cuts much deeper than flesh … it cripples the heart and the soul. This monster has the ability to inflict pain where it hurts the most.

Yet, our Pappa God, in His divine wisdom, knew that I was held captive, floating aimlessly in another prison … the prison called “The Ways of The World”. The prison warden of this jail was a detestable master of telling lies.

He overwhelmed me with  neatly wrapped boxes of systems, rules and laws. Political systems … economical systems … social systems … systems of morality … but … the most dangerous of all;  religious systems, laws and regulations.

Systems and laws forcing the  common folk  to hold their tongues and not query the status quo.

The maestros of these songs want to play wedding songs for their followers to dance … or funeral songs for them to cry. They love a charade of play-acting and role-playing with them as the directors of activities.

They call the shots, but are seldom happy with our performance for we can never measure up to their demands.

We are damned if we do … and damned if we don’t … So the games go on and on and on in a never ending circle of performance.

And I danced and mourned and cried and performed until the blessed day arrived when my Pappa released me from that unbearable burden … that prison of pretense … of trying to please the world and the directors of its ways.

Our Pappa took away my ability to mourn and dance and perform on the lyrics of the songs the world sings. My feet and my heart ached from  all the useless striving on the dance floor of life.

He freed my heart and spirit from the prison of this world and gave me citizenship in heaven.

He showed me the absolute futility of trying to do what only He can do and which He does with excellence, saving me and His creation from the chains of sin, death, chaos and destruction.

He wiped away all my tears, healed my broken heart and whispered love-filled words to my soul. His song of love, joy and peace opened a new world to my understanding.

He opened all the worldly boxes imprisoning me, freed me and gathered me into His rest … into His life … into His Loving Embrace.

Much love XX

Mia

Linking-up with

The Genesis of Morality

God’s Thought to Me

As the Scripture say,”No one is righteous, not even one. No one is truly wise, no one is seeking God (Romans 3:10, NLT).

The Lord looks down from heaven on the entire human race; He looks to see if anyone is truly wise, if anyone seeks God (Psalm 14:2-3, NLT).

A Kingdom Beyond

C.S. Lewis wrote in his classic, Mere Christianity, “Christianity seems at first to be all about morality, all about duties and rules and guilt and virtue, yet it leads you on, OUT of all that, into something beyond … Everyone there is filled with what we should call goodness as a mirror is filled with light… They do not call it anything … They are too busy looking at the source from which it comes.”

The Chronicles of Narnia, also the work of Mr Lewis, gives us a small peek into that something beyond, a Kingdom of Love and Light … the Kingdom of our Lord Jesus!

In 1963 the song, Little Boxes, was released and caused quite a stir. It is a political satire, telling the story of suburbia. But veiled between the lines, is the story of conformist middle-class attitudes.

This reminds me so much of the conformist attitudes and thoughts of the adherents of religion. We love to have all our religious rules, structures, programs and behaviours neatly worked out, all packed, sealed and stacked in little boxes.

Artifacts from Ur of the Chaldeans

For some peculiar reason we seem to be afraid to leave our little boxes of religion behind, to leave the prosperity of our Ur of the Chaldeans and to move on to our Canaan … to the Sabbath of rest.

We shy away from uncertainty and rather prefer a false man-made system of security, in place of the only unshakable certainty found in our Lord Jesus. For many years I have wandered in the Lost World of Religion and these words of Mr Lewis would have seemed like blasphemy to me.

Religious morality, or shall I call it correct conduct, was the cornerstone of my temple of beliefs. My security was built on the quicksand of a performance driven salvation and I was drowning rapidly!

Morality offered me a neat stack of little boxes, telling me which one to open for the correct behaviour or to fulfill a need. The only problem though, was that they were all made of “ticky-tacky” and they all looked just the same. The same program, methods or conventions, the only difference being the color.

There are green ones, blue ones, pink ones and yellow ones, but in the end, they are all just the same-old, same-old with a different wrapping.

Granted, that was the way I have been taught by almost every religious orginization I attended, but I always longed for something more.

What I found in every congregation I was part of, was just their own set of neatly stacked boxes, all containing their own set of rules, wrapped in their own brand of wrapping paper.

To be accepted, I only had to squeeze myself into the confines of their own tailor-made range of box sizes. By nature I am quite skinny, but believe me, that was quite a tight fit!

“Longing” is not a strong enough word to describe the yearning, that consuming craving in my heart … a longing that could not be satisfied by any kind of good behavior … according to my estimation.

There was not a single little box that I could open that contained the love of our Heavenly Father, the only kind of love that could satisfy my heart, there where deep cries out to deep (Psalm 42:7)! They all contained death … no life … no Jesus.

I realized that I had been traveling around the same moutain long enough and needed to press on further (Genesis 2:3). Going around another time was only delaying the inevitable.

So I decided this year to open all the different little religious boxes I have cherished for such a long time and to start throwing out the religious clutter.

The rules of morality were always the criteria for how I needed to behave. And I was drowning … drowning because of a lack of love … the true love of our Lord Jesus.

They all offered only a broken cistern that could hold no water and definitely not the Living Water of Life. Going back to Eden, we see the first lie whispered to the human race, resulted in the genesis of morality.

Before Pappa God led Adam and Eve into the first Sabbath, He created everything they would need for their sustenance. He knew the way He created them would render them unable to determine even one correct thought about what good and evil really were for there is no autonomous good and evil apart from Him.

He warned them to stay away from such folly and that eating the fruit of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil would result in their death.

This one forbidden meal separated them from the Presence of their Pappa and since He is Life, they subsequently started to die, not just spiritually, but also emotionally and physically for they were seperated from the Sustenance that upholds all life.

Pappa is not at all surprised by our stupidity. He promised us that He will destroy the wisdom of the wise! (1 Corinthians 1:19). And if I want to be honest, for a long time, I was part of the gallery of the wise.

True wisdom is the common sense to seek Him, our Creator, Sustainer, Provider … our everything. Solomon told us in the Proverbs, “The fear of the Lord is the beginning of wisdom. And the knowledge of the Holy One is understanding” (Proverbs 9:10).

The whole creation suffered as a result of this terrible foul revolt, for Adam was given the responsibilty to look after Pappa’s creation (Genesis 1:28).

It was His gift to us. And today we all suffer because the world we know, is slowly, but surely dying! We all groan as we wait for our Pappa to make all things new.

With my next post I want to explore the deception of morality, what it is and is not, and why it is the biggest joke Satan has ever pulled on man.

Much love xx

Mia

With joy, linking-up with Mindy.

Linking-up with The Weekend Brew. Thank you Barbie!

Also with Charlotte at Spiritual Sundays.

The Art of Encouragement

God’s Thoughts to Me

After the Lord has finished speaking to Job, He said to Eliphaz, the Temanite,”I am angry with you and your two friends, for you have not spoken accurately about me as my servant Job has” (Job 42:7, NLT).

So encourage each other and build each other up, just as you are already doing (1 Thessalonians 5:11, NLT).

For when we ourselves are comforted, we will certainly comfort you. Then you can patiently endure the same things we suffer (2 Corinthians 1:6, NLT).

Freely You Have Received, Freely Give

Encouraging is an art, a beautuful fine art. Only the Creator of all things … the lover of our souls, can paint encouragement on the painful canvas of a broken heart … a heart bogged down with sorrow. Only He can transform the blacks, greys and browns of a desolate heart into a rainbow of colors from His palette of love.

For far too many years I care to remember , I was wrapped in a cold, rough blanket of insecurity, imprisoned in a dungeon of unworthiness. I was desperately trying to escape this prison of darkness. Like the deer that pants for water, my heart panted for unconditional love, acceptance and encouragement (Psalm 42:1).

But I was ignorant of our Pappa’s economy of “freely you have received, freely give” ( Matthew 10:8). It seemed to me at best like an enigma, and at worst, total foolishness.

I knew only one modus operandi … earning, earning, earning! After all, this is the way of the world. My fellow black South African countrymen have a saying that nothing is for “mahala”, meaning nothing is for free.

For a long time encouraging and loving others was a law written on the stone tablets of my heart … a list of “thou-shalt” and “thou-shalt-not”. I had the bad habit of sticking my nose in wherever I thought I could still the hunger in my heart … there where people needed arms to hug and ears to listen and hear! I was technically a bit slow, actually, stone deaf in heading James’ good advice to be quick to listen and slow to speak (James 1:19).

I reminded myself of Job’s friends. Discovering the meaning of their names, gave me a much better understanding of their harmful comfort and encouragement. “Bildad” means “the Lord has loved”, “Eliphaz” means “God his strength”, and “Elihu” means “my God is He”.

They were deceived into believing that they could be all those beautiful blessings of our Pappa to poor Job and obviously talked much too much. I have to give them credit for their silence during the first week!!

I was not loving those I tried to comfort and encourage … I was serving my own insecurities and quest for love. I wanted to earn their admiration and God’s favor, but  I didn’t realize it at the time.

Like Job’s famous, or shall I say notorious, friends, I was under the illusion that I could be to them: the Lord-who-loves, the Lord-who-is-their strength, the Lord-who-is-He in their suffering. I had to repent and ask our Heavenly Teacher to teach me His ways, for just like Eliphaz, Bildad and Elihu, I have not spoken accurately of our Pappa!

He gracefully brought me to a desert place … a place where illness left me unable to look after even the basic needs of my body. I was completely dependent on others. And my family still believed the most famous diagnosis of all times for my illness, “The-all-in-your-head Syndrome”. I never knew that one could have so much excruciating pain, be so exhausted and not die, and that from imagination.

But Pappa called me gently to return to Him, assuring me that He would lead me through my barren wilderness (Jeremiah 2:6) and that He would make my sins as white as snow and as wool (Isaiah1:18).

There in the wilderness He enabled me to drink deeply, freely from the Rock of all Ages. He patiently taught me that true encouragement, comfort and love cannot come from cisterns that can hold no water. No, I needed to become an empty vessel for Him to love and encourage others from the abundance of the overflow of my heart.

Today I am grateful that He enabled me through suffering to comfort and encourage others with the comfort I have received from His Hand as I was resting in His Loving Embrace. I can give freely for I have received freely from the abundance of His love.

Much love xx

Mia

I am linking-up with

 

Ek Theos

Gods Thought’s to Me

Create in me a pure heart, o God, and renew a steadfast spirit within me (Psalm 51:10, NIV).

A Man after God’s own Heart

Psalm 51 is a beautiful prayer of a man who loved his Heavenly Father passionately. Even though King David was overwhelmed by his own sin, he never ran away from his Pappa. He knew the only thing he could do was to return with a broken, contrite spirit . He was convinced that he would not be despised by his Pappa. He was far from perfect and he knew it. And God knew too! Yet, He was called a man after God’s own Heart! He even had the honor of having his name recorded in the “Hall of Faith” (Hebrews 11).

A while ago I read of this “hall” being called,”The Hall of Rogues”. Quite descriptive! Part of the reason, I believe, for this honor of being called a man after God’s own heart, was his genuine, passionate love for his Pappa.

After he was confronted by Nathan for his adultery with Bathsheba and consequent murder of Uriah, David was in a bad place … a haunted, dark, forsaken place … a place where no human has been designed and created to live. We were created first and foremost to love and enjoy our Creator. Yet, amidst all his sin and even spiritual adultery, King David never for a moment doubted God’s love for him. He didn’t just believe mentally … he knew, literally KNEW, that he was loved unconditionally.

His sin could never cause Pappa to stop loving him, for God is love and He never changes. He loves us, Ek Theos, out of Himself … out of His character of love!

For a long time I used to read the MRST, Mia’s Religious Striving Translation. According to this translation, Psalm 51:10 read something along these lines,”Lord, since you have forgiven my sins, please supply ME with unlimited supplies of Your power to create in me a clean heart. Please, make it sort of a double portion of power, for I also need to strive endlessly to achieve a steadfast, quiet spirit”. What a delicious recipe for a disastrous, spiritual catastrophe. Unlike King David, I was unable to believe that my Pappa loved me unconditionally even though I tried my utmost. And I told Him so! He had to take control of that “believing” side of my life too and create in me a clean heart infused with faith upon faith upon faith as a free gift.

No amount of trying on my part could produce even an ounce of faith. One thing that I had the common sense to do though, was to be honest with my Pappa and today I realized that honesty was the first few kernels of mustard seed faith.

I cried out to Him, humbly beseeching Him to help my unbelief, for I truly believed. It sounds like a contradiction of terms and in many ways it is. But in Pappa’s economy this is the kind of faith that earns you place in the Hall of Faithless Rogues, the Hebrews’ “Hall of Faith”. Yes, His economy is truly different than the world’s and on His stock exchange we can only trade with our brokenness, sin, unbelief and all the rags of our efforts. This is truly a sign of blessedness! Much love xx Mia

Today I have the honor of linking-up with the ladies at Emily Wierenga’s Imperfect Prose. You can join us at http://www.emilywierenga.com/

I am joyfully linking-up with Laura and the Ladies at  Faith Filled Friday. Come for a visit at http://www.missionalwomen.com/faith-filled-fridays.html.

Linking-up with Charlotte and the girls at Spiritual Sundays at http://bloggerspirit.blogspot.com/.

Also with dear Barbie and the Weekend Brew at http://myfreshlybrewedlife.com/ .

And Rich Faith Rising

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The Slave King

God’s Thoughts to Me

But when the right time came, God sent His Son, born of a woman, subject to the law. God sent Him to buy freedom for us who were slaves to the law, so that He could adopt us as His very own children. (Galatians 4:4-5, NLT)

So Christ has truly set us free. Now make sure that you stay free, and don’t get tied up in slavery to the law. (Galatians 5:1, NLT)

Born Free

The 1966 British film, Born Free, tells the story of a real-life couple, George and Joy Adams, who raised the lion cub, Elsa, and then released her into the wilderness of Kenya. When our Pappa God gives us His life through the new spiritual birth into His Kingdom of Light, we become like Elsa … we are born free from the slavery to this world and its ways, especially its extremely deceptive religous ways. Hallelujah!!

An enigma to me has always been the fact that our Savior King was born as a slave. As far as my faulty, limited and worldly human mind could perceive, I could not see that He was a slave to anyone. Yet, Pappa is not a man that He should lie. (Numbers 23:19)

As I was pondering that question in my mind this week, Pappa revealed to my heart the beauty of this divine birth. I don’t think we would ever be able to understand what our Pappa God gave up to become one of us … a slave to the law … a slave to sin … a curse on our behalf.

Yet, He was the only human who ever was able to keep the whole law … lock, stock and barrel. But best of all is His complete fulfillment of the royal Law of Love!

I was under the impression that our Lord had a good advantage over us mere mortals with Him being God and all. Not so, for not once did He walk according to His own ways or in His own power (John 5:17). Not one miracle was performed in His capacity as God. Yes, His whole life was lived in complete trust in our Pappa to be all in and through Him … the way we are supposed to live.

In order to enable us with His indwelling Life of Victory, He walked and lived every single moment of His earthly sojourn completely dependent upon and trusting the power of our Pappa as His only source of spiritual life. He lived from every word that proceeded from His Pappa’s mouth.

At Lazarus’ grave our Lord Jesus showed us this when He prayed that beautiful, confident prayer, “Father, thank you for hearing me. You always hear me, but I said it out loud for the sake of all these people standing here, so that they will believe you sent Me” (John 11:41, NLT).

As we allow our Lord Jesus to live His resurrected life in and through us, we come to realize that He became a slave to fulfill the law … to break its power over us, for we all are slaves to sin and death through our physical birth. It is not an option … it just is the way it is!!

Being the second Adam, the only man after Adam who failed miserably, who had the ability to choose independance, He victoriously overcame the power of sin and self, completely dependant on His Father. Through His dependant victory, He enabled us and made it possible for us to live in Him, in His life, in His Kingdom of heaven, of love, joy and peace.

He reconciled Himself to the whole world, hoping and desiring that not one of us would be lost, but that we all would come to Him to receive His gift of life and be reconciled to Him.

It came as a shock to me that our heavenly Father does not require or ask our obedience, for He knows that even if we want to obey Him, we truly are incapable of doing so (Romans 7:14). The greatest gift we can ever give our Pappa … actually, the only gift, is our heart, our life and our love … fully convinced that He loves us with an everlasting love, allowing Him to change us from the inside out.

It is for freedom that Christ has set us free. It is our responsibility to stay free and not get tied up again under the yoke of slavery to the law (Galatians 5:1).

Dear Ones, I want to wish you all a blessed God-filled Christmas when we celebrate not only our Savior’s birth, but also the gift He came to bring … a life fully surrendered and reconciled to our Pappa. Let us allow Him to live His victorious, resurrected eternal life in and through us.

Much love XX

Mia

I am linking up again with dear Jane at Monday Morning Meditation (girlmeetspaper.com). Thank you Jane! Please, join us at http://girlmeetspaper.com/

I also have the honor of linking-up with a wonderful group of ladies at Fresh  Brewed Sundays.

Thank you dear Barbie.

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Frost and Sunflowers

God’s Thoughts to Me

He spreads the snow like wool and scatters the frost like ashes. He hurls down His hail like pebbles. Who can withstand His icy blast? He sends His word and melts them; He stirs up His breezes, and the waters flow. (Psalm 147:16-18, NIV)

Thawing in His Love

Oh, the beauty and joy of frolicking in the snow with complete abandon, creating snow angels and building big, chubby, potbellied snowmen with carrot noses, is truly a delightful gift from the storehouse of heaven.

Yet, another good heavenly gift I reluctantly accept and endure, is the beautiful flowers of feathery frost. Somehow I seem unable to see and appreciate their other-worldly, ethereal beauty!

While snow and frost are both formed from atmospheric vapor, snow crystals form on suspended dust particles high in the air, and frost, near the ground on just any flat surface like windowpanes and blades of grass. Their microscopic anatomy brings glory to our Heavenly Father’s attention to individuality and detail, for every single crystal, snow and frost, has a different shape and form; sort of their fingerprints from a Pappa of diversity.

Just like our Pappa truly has no favorites (James 2:1) and honors our individuality by giving each one of His children their own set of fingerprints, He also honors His creation. It’s diversity and beauty speak of a God who never overlooks a leper, a prostitute, a drunkard or glutton, or even a naked man possesed by a legion of demons, His children enveloped by the coldest winter frost of life.

Frost can be a killer by destroying whole crops during a severe winter season. I always contributed this to the extreme cold. Not so! The edges of frost crystals are needle-sharp. It destroys and damages any surface it settles on by cutting, slicing and stabbing like a knife. Truly, any surface, including my heart!

Ice crystals following the veining of a dead leaf

Before I walked with our Pappa God, I used to deal with the frosty winters of life in a very wordly, fleshly kind of way. Whenever the frost crystals of dissappointment, heart ache and sorrow, the pain of unfulfilled dreams and the whole enchilada settled on the surface of my fleshly, ground-dwelling soul, I would groan and moan, sulk and mope, indignantly blaming everything and everybody for my uncomfortable indisposition. So completely human! Truth be told, I even had the audacity to blame our Pappa at times!!

I am ashamed to admit that I even praised Him profusely, thanking Him for my discomfort and suffering. Yet, my heart, full of hypocrisy, seethed inside, frostbitten by anger and resentment, bemoaning the unfairness of life. Secretly, I kept both my eyes on heaven, fully expecting our Pappa to reward my valiant efforts of praising Him amidst my hard circumstances by making all the bad stuff dissapear. Of course, that never happened! Our Pappa in His wisdom, blessed me with even harder trials and tribulations, for He cannot be manipulated! So, the blame-game kept marching on, keeping me imprisoned and chained to that monstrous jailer, self-pity.

I am grateful to our Pappa for bringing me to the end of myself by allowing Fm/ME to stop me right in my tracks.

I vividly recall one morning in the early morning hours. I was suffering from insomnia (a Fm/ME symptomn) and this was the fifth day without sleeping a wink! Totally exhausted and with a body wracked with pain, I was at the end of my tether and endurace. I raised my voice one more time and, with an honest, sincere heart, I praised my Pappa, telling Him that I trust Him, regardless; no strings attached.

Our heavenly Father immediately reached down and gathered me into His Loving Embrace. For a few hours my heart was soaring high in the sky where the snowflakes dwell. The Spirit of our Lord Jesus was the wind beneath my wings.

Our Pappa taught me a valuable lesson. When my heart is imprisoned by the feathery fingers of frost, I must look at sunflowers and learn. A sunflower’s eyes always follow the sun. It basks in its warmth and care, praising our Pappa with it’s incredible beauty.

I have learned to never take the eyes of my heart off Jesus, the Son of all comfort, warmth and love. I have learned to look full in His wonderous face, assured that the warmth of His love will melt all those frozen tears in my heart and transform them into a bubbling stream of joy and delight, to the glory and praise of our Pappa.

Dear Ones, I am fully aware that at times it seems as if the frost-filled winters of life never seem to end. They seem to transform our weary hearts into flowers of cold, feathery frost. But at times like these we need to keep our spiritual eyes fixed on the Son, basking in the warmth of His never-ending love. This also has come to pass, not to stay!

Much love, blessings and peace to you!

Mia

I’m linking up with Amber Haines again with gratitude and joy. Other “abstractions-on-the-frost” can be found at http://therunamuck.com/2012/11/12/an-abstraction-on-the-frost/

http://www.focbonline.com/

Quiet Waters

God’s Thoughts to Me

The Lord is my shepherd , I shall not be in want. He makes me lie down in green pastures, He leads me beside quiet waters, He restores my soul. (Psalm 23:1-3, NIV)

A Love Letter to Pappa

Dear Pappa

Today of all days I cannot think straight for a whole bunch of Fibrofroggies have invaded my mind, frolicking to their hearts delight, causing havoc with my thoughts. Remember, Pappa, today is the day I was planning to join the Friday community over at Lisa-Jo’s.  But you have chosen to lead me to a special, quiet place. That special place in your heart where it is just you and me.

Well, you are my Pappa and the Provider of all my needs. Therefore I will not huff and puff, striving to find words from my treasure chest of words and thoughts. All my words and thoughts seem to be having a good time of fun and play with those critters from Fibroland! I would rather rest in your presence, waiting for your still quiet voice to comfort me with tons and tons of love, compassion, kindness and grace!

I know you don’t mind if my song is without words, for you hear my quiet heart whispering to you. I love you deep from the bottom of my heart where the not even a single froggie can spoil our love.

Pappa, my five minutes have run out and I have to close now. You know that you are my life, my love, my world; actually my everything.

Lots of hugs and kisses to you. XXXXXXXXX

Your daughter

Mia

Today I am linking up with Lisa-Jo and many dear ladies at The Gypsy Mama (http://lisajobaker.com/category/five-minute-friday/) where we write for five minutes flat on a topic without editing. I love this!! For those who want to know where my froggy friends come from; they are visitors from the land of FM/ CFS. When they come to visit, which is quite often, I just rest in our  Pappa’s Loving Embrace, allowing Him to comfort me with His quiet breeze of grace.

How does our Pappa God comfort you when life deals you a hard blow? I would love to hear from you.

With much love.

Mia

A Sweating, Striving Sweater

God’s Thoughts to Me

But as I looked at everything I had worked to accomplish, it was all so meaningless – like chasing the wind. (Ecclesiastes 2:11, NLT)

“Everything is meaningless,” says the Teacher, “completely meaningless! What do people get for all their hard work under the sun?” (Ecclesiastes 1:2-3, NLT)

The Futility of Striving

Solomon was a great man of divine wisdom. His words in Ecclesiastes show the depth of his wisdom when he acknowleded that all his striving and sweating caused him a severe case of burnout. A burnout caused by his relentless efforts in building his search for fulfillment, meaning and happiness on the wrong foundations: the shaky foundations of the world’s riches, values and ways.

Another foundation, much more subtle and dangerous, I have found myself building on, trying to find meaning in life, was religion. The etymology of the word “religion” shows that it is derived from the Latin word “religare”, a word aligned to the root word “religio”, meaning “to tie back” or “to bind up”.

During Paul’s visit to Athens, he noticed their numerous idols. Not to offend any god, they even had an idol to “an unknown god”. He told them,”Men of Athens, I notice that you are very RELIGIOUS in every way…” (Acts 17:22) The Greek word he used was “deisidaimon”, “deisi” meaning “to fear or respect” and “daimon”, demon!! Paul was actually likening religion to the worshipping of and paying respect to demons! To be totally honest, that frightened me to such a degree that I knew I was standing at the crossroads of my life and I knew I had to choose.

I realized I was swallowing all the lies the father of religion was feeding me, like Eve did in the Garden of Eden. Our Pappa gently showed me that my mind was veiled, darkened and wandering far from the abundant life our Lord Jesus longed to give me, free of charge! Before my Pappa gave sight to my blind spiritual eyes, I was striving and sweating, trying to cover my spiritual cold and nakedness with the fig leaves of religion.

I was knitting a sweater with a wide variety of religious knitting yarn: church attendance, giving to the poor, serving, Bible reading, praying and some more. My sweater closely resembled Joseph’s colorful coat. Instead of providing spiritual warmth and life, this sweater only birthed another sweater, me!! I was perspiring profusely trying to earn everything in life, especially love, worth and acceptance.

My late father once remarked that I always seemed to be chasing after love and he was spot-on with his words. I was completely baffled and left in the dark, for I had no idea why I acted this way. Was it because my earthly father’s love was the only love I had ever experienced without any strings attached or because my biological mother passed away when I was only 3 years old?

I suppose I will never know the answer, but I do know that from a young age the sweet Holy Spirit has been drawing me into the source of all love, compassion, grace, kindness and mercy, the abundant Life of our Lord Jesus.

What joy the day when our Lord Jesus started to free me from all the chains that were keeping me captive. He also revealed to me the true meaning of His words,”I came that you might have life, and have it more abundantly” (John 10:10), because to me it meant something along these lines, “For I came that you might have religion and have it more abundantly, to practise it more faithfully and committedly, defending it with all your might and behaving more morally!”.

What joy when our Lord took me by the hand and showed me a better way, a long walk to freedom, freedom from all this striving, sweating; freedom from the dark, futile road of self-effort and fear. Our Pappa promises us that there is no fear in love for His perfect love casts out all fear. ( 1 John 4:18).

I want to pay tribute to all those dear saints from the past who in the face of extreme opposition and persecution  refused to accept another gospel which was not a gospel at all (Galatians 1:6-7). Saints like Paul and many others who preferred to be beaten with rods, to be shipwrecked, fed to lions, to go hungry, cold and without sleep, rather than to bow the knee before the idol of religion.

Thank you, Amber, and all you dear Ones for allowing me to share the freedom, love, joy and abundant life of our Lord Jesus with you for a short while along my journey of life.

Hugs and blessings

Mia

I’m linking up with Amber Haines again with gratitude and joy. Other  “abstracts on the sweater” can be found here http://therunamuck.com/2012/11/05/an-abstraction-on-the-sweater/.

www.focbonline.com