Tag Archives: Devotional

If Not This, Then Something Better

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At the moment I am going through the rounds of applying for a new job. It is a tedious as it is time consuming. The thing is: every now and again, I see the job that I really like the look of. I can’t help but get my hopes up and pray, Lord is it this one? Is this the one that you have for me. Sometimes I think I pray that, just because I want to have a permanent job, and a little more certainty about the future, because working through agencies is a pretty unstable way to live. Continue reading →

Three Things

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Try harder. Do better. Don’t be so stupid.

These are the words I tell myself.

Over and over again every single day.

I don’t know about you, but often it feels like I’m about three steps behind every one else, just trying to play catch up.

But on top of that I can also be lazy, I know I could try better. (I think most of us do.) So we try to criticize and nag ourselves into submission, and only end up feeling about a hundred times worse.

Stop worrying, Care less. Don’t take yourself so seriously.

This is the advise should take.

These words sound like good advise, don’t they? At least, they’re definitely words that I need to hear! But, in my experience, they’re definitely a lot harder to put into practice.

I mean, how are we supposed to stop worrying when there is just so much stuff to worry about? Sometimes I start to relax, and then I remember that there is just so much that I need to be stressed about, that I make myself start worrying again!

I know I shouldn’t compare, but when other people’s lives are so much better how can I not. And anyway, if I didn’t compare, how else would I know just how badly I was failing.

We can try and try and take this advise, but unfortunately, on our own, it’s simply impossible advice.

You’re chosen. You’re loved. You don’t need to worry.

This is what I really need to know.

If we don’t understand that we are chosen, and truly loved. We are never going to be able to take that advice. We will never be able to relax and just be.

The only way to break free from worry is to know the peace that we have in the knowledge that it’s all in God’s hands.

The only way we can let go of comparison and feel like we are enough is in knowing just how much God loves us.

We could never work hard enough or be good enough to make God love us. Instead he freely chooses to, just as we are.

Emotions of Easter: Guilt

Posted in Emotions of Easter, Uncategorized by

IMG_0597-0It’s almost impossible to put into words the greatness of what Jesus did for us on that first Good Friday. I know that I definitely am unable to do it justice. However I start to explain it, it somehow feels weak in comparison to the power of what Jesus has done for us.

As I was reading about Jesus crucifixion, one of the things that struck me were the actions of some of the disciples leading up to it. A lot of people had a lot to feel guilty that day, not only Judas, but the other disciples as well.

Peter had a lot to regret, not only had he denied knowing Jesus. He had also fallen asleep, along with James and John, when he was supposed to be watching over him.

Imagine how the three of them must have felt, when just a short while later, Judas approached to have Jesus arrested. This was the last chance they had to spend time with Jesus, before his death, and they had just blown it!

Imagine how they must have felt when he was sent to be crucified, knowing the suffering that he was going through, and realising they didn’t take their last opportunity to support him.

Imagine how they must have felt as he was dying, realising just how badly they had let him down.

Looking at the cross, it’s sometimes hard to remember that we share in that same guilt. That it’s our sin that put Jesus on the cross. Like the disciples, we have taken our eyes off Jesus, we have been selfish and we haven’t trusted him when we should have.

When we look at the cross this Good Friday it should convict us, we should feel guilty about the things that we have done. If we don’t feel this way, our faith must be very shallow indeed. After all Jesus took the punishment that we deserved to endure, and that is not fair.

But Jesus did it because he loves us.

We should take time to reflect on our guilt and shame, because without it, the cross is meaningless. Without it we would never be able to understand just how much Jesus loves us.

We shouldn’t stay in that place of guilt though. We have been forgiven from all the things we have done to put Jesus on the cross. We can open our hands and let go of them. The disciples were given another chance when Jesus came back to life again. And so are we.

Journey Through Holy Week: Amazement

Posted in Emotions of Easter, Motivational, Uncategorized by

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Sometimes I read things in the bible that seem just plain weird. Like they don’t make any sense at all.

That happened to me last night. I was reading about how, the day after Jesus rode into Jerusalem, he walked back into town. On the way he started to feel hungry, and saw a fig tree. The only problem was that the fig tree was all fur coat and no knickers. (Or in this case all leaf and no fruit.) Jesus then rebuked the tree, saying it would never bear fruit again. The tree then shrivelled up and died.

This was not the part that didn’t make sense to me though. It was in the next line, which reads: The disciples were amazed.

Now, the disciples had been following Jesus for a long time. They had seen him heal the blind and lame, feed thousands with couple of fish and a few loaves of bread. They had even seen him raise the dead! But when they saw him make a tree shrivel up they were amazed.

In comparison to raising the dead, making a tree shrivel up doesn’t seem  that impressive. If I were one of the disciples I would have been asking Jesus for a better miracle!

Actually I think I do that in my own life as well.

I think that we all do. We can look at the things that God has done in our life in the past, and get angry and wonder why he isn’t blessing us like that anymore.

When actually he is still blessing us. We have just lost the wonder of it. Like an old married couple who no longer have anything to say to each other, we have let the spark in our relationship with God grow dim.

Or maybe you see what God is doing in somebody else’s life and get jealous, and question why God isn’t working in your life in the exact same way.

When he is blessing you just as much, just in a different way to your friends.

This week lets not lose the amazement of what Jesus has done in our lives.

 

 

When Hope Feels Lost

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Do you ever feel like your life is just a mess. Like there are pieces of you spread all over the place. Like a smashed vase, there’s spilt water and shattered ceramic and shredded flowers. And you just don’t know where to begin to put it back together again. Let alone how to get into a place where you would be proud to show it off, or  give it as a gift.

You try to super glue it back together, but the cracks are still there, and the water pours back out. You try and gather back up the water and pour it into another container, but it’s impossible to pick back up, and the flowers are still a mess.

Trapped by broken relationships, or guilt from past you are stuck. In a place where you can’t move forward and you definitely can’t go back.

You know there is no way of sorting out this mess on your own. There is no hope of getting back what you once had, there is no chance left. It feels like you are too far gone.

When our lives are a mess, when it feels like there is no hope left and we have gone too far; even then God is still devising ways to bring us back to him.

Maybe he needed to push you over the edge so you would fall into his arms.

It doesn’t matter how broken you are; how far from him you have run, or what you have done. He’s running towards you as well. This is not the end of the story, it is just the end of a chapter.

Turn the page, run to him, and he will restore you.

Like water spilled on the ground, which cannot be recovered, so we must die. But that is not what God desires; rather, he devises ways so that a banished person does not remain banished from him. (2 Samuel 14:14)