Trust in the Lord with all thine heart; and lean not unto thine own understanding. In all thy ways acknowledge him, and he shall direct thy paths”
(Proverbs 3: 5 – 6 KJV)
Recently I was with my family in the Food Court of a busy Mall when I had quite a nasty fall and as I did, a chair that was behind me crashed on to my head. I was stunned for a second and when I opened my eyes a man was kneeling beside me and in a very gentle voice was asking me questions, slowly and clearly, assuring me he was an off-duty fireman, trained as a first responder. His calm voice and confident manner calmed my anxious daughters and his wife handed my daughter a pack of Kleenex to stem the blood flowing from a cut on my head. This man’s confident handling of the whole situation was exactly what our whole family needed. That man was in the right place at the right time to use his skills to help another.
No broken bones, just a sore bump on the head was the good outcome
I was thinking back to the verse in Proverbs 3 which tells us to allow the Lord to direct our paths and I always thought that meant it was for 
our benefit to help us make big decisions in life. My fall that day gave me a whole different perspective as to what the verse meant. Those who love the Lord need to ask the Lord to direct where they should be, so we can be his hands at a moment’s notice, to be used by the Holy Spirit to comfort, encourage perhaps even rescue someone in need.
We had a beautiful example of this in one of our church Bible studies, when one of the ladies shared, she suddenly felt the Lord was asking her to check on a friend who she knew had been depressed and when she went to the friend’s apartment, her friend had taken an overdose of her medication. The lady had been in the right place at the right time and was able to take her friend to the hospital and possibly saved her life.
When we are willing to be available for the Lord to use, we will be certainly in the right place, if we start the day concentrating upon what pleases us that day, we may miss the beautiful opportunity of being used as a vessel of the Holy Spirit.
Ecclesiastes has a beautiful passage reminding us of the importance of being available for each other and when the director of operations is the Lord we will be truly blessed for being in the right place at the right time.
“Two are better than one, because they have a good return for their work. If one falls down, his friend can help him up. But pity the man who falls and has no one to help him up! Also, if two lie down together, they will keep warm. But how can one keep warm alone?” (Ecclesiastes 4: 9 – 11)
This horrific headline blazed forth from our morning newspaper, informing us of a terrible tragedy that had taken place between a bus load of young hockey players and a truck. The truck had slammed into the bus carrying the players to a hockey game on a country road in Saskatchewan in Canada. The radio confirmed the story with the frightful details that 15 were dead and the others taken to hospital, some with life threatening injuries. The enormity of grasping the grief, sorrow, pain of loved ones hearing this news, was overwhelming.
One of the powerful messages also heard in that gathering of the town drowning in grief, was to everybody listening. Nobody can struggle through this pain by themselves. Everybody involved needs to be surrounded by loving caring friends who can offer practical help, support, a shoulder to cry on. When we read what Paul was saying to the Corinthians, we can see that those who have received comfort from God are the best helpers to pass on that comfort to others, sharing his love and compassion with those who are hurting. Then they will be able to hear the Lord say;
Some friends and I were discussing how some of our husbands seem to be oblivious to the cost of buying everyday necessities and my husband probably topped the list. Since retiring he frequently accompanies me while doing the weekly grocery shopping and when we reach the check out, I am surprised to see in my buggy, several items not on my list, and when I question him as to how expensive they were, he looks at me in bewilderment, as of course actually checking the labels to see the price had not even occurred to him. At the same time, he is the most generous man I have ever come across, so I pay for his crazy shopping and hold my tongue. (Sometimes!)
Now not all those who were watching were impressed with her generosity and Judas Iscariot immediately began complaining about the waste of money, but as John tells us he had been helping himself from the common money bag.
Jesus tells this story he asks his listeners as to which traveller was a neighbour to the one beset upon by the robbers and of course they must reply.
A few weeks ago, I had a refreshing of my spirit from a message from a faithful servant of the Lord. Lots of much more talented writers than me have written about the discouragement, often referred to as, “writer’s block” that writers experience. Mine was even worse than just not being able to write on a subject, I began to doubt if I should be writing at all! I felt I was failing the Lord somehow by not glorifying him through my weekly blog. I thought I should stop.
All of us mothers have heard many of them
covenants with some specific humans and then with all the children of Israel, but unfortunately, they blithely promised to keep their side, but failed miserably to follow through.
As we approach, Easter, we can echo the words of John Newton’s beautiful hymn as we realise what amazing grace set us free
Our church is currently exploring the deeper meaning of the Communion service and what it means in our spiritual walk and how what Jesus is teaching us, can spill into our daily lives.
And of course, with his disciples with whom he eats the last supper and gives us a beautiful example of how we can remember him.
very applicable for me to hear during a difficult week I was struggling through, in which I needed a friend to spend time with me, and when a friend appeared with listening ears, it made me think again how much we need each other and how important it is to be aware when someone we know is hurting or frightened, can be comforted just by us being with them
Proverbs has several verses about the importance of true friends and emphasises the joy of close friendship. When we follow Jesus and give our lives over to him, we become part of the family of God and our friendship for others becomes a deep and close relationship;
Not only does Jesus call us his friends he reminds us to stay close to him and remain in his love so that his joy will fill us and make us complete so when any frightened or troubled person needs comfort we can become that somebody with skin on, filled with his joy and love
Being still is not something that is encouraged in today’s society, in fact the exact opposite is promoted. There is a frenzy among young people to keep moving at any cost, several of them wearing special bracelets to record how many steps they take every day and they seem to spend their waking hours constantly checking to see if they have accomplished the required steps! I was discussing this with one of my friends and she sent me a fascinating poem, written in the late 18th century by a W.H. Davies, called Stand and Stare. Here are a few lines from the poem
Of course, exercise is important, but if we become obsessed with it and have no time to be quiet and literally stop and stare, we may miss that small soft voice;
Sometimes even the needs of others can intrude upon our time of being still before the Lord and of course Jesus loved the crowds deeply, but he knew that resting would restore his human body to allow him to continue his teaching. We need to remember this in our own lives.
We are studying the gospel of John in our Women’s Bible study at our church and using an in-depth study guide to really absorb the wonderful truths found there. For our first study we were asked to learn the verse in Chapter 20 where John explicitly tells his readers and of course us, the whole purpose he had in writing down these words. John 20: 31 tells us that life in Jesus’ name is what he wants us all to totally take to heart.
This last week, our whole family have been struggling with a problem involving a member of our extended family and I began to be overwhelmed with worrying about this situation and the effect it was having on some of our members. I felt powerless to help in any concrete way, then one morning during this week my husband opened our Bible study and read the heading for the day, “Praising Though Problems” I immediately realised the Lord was showing us exactly where we were to expend our energy, not on worrying, but praising!
God Speaking 