God the Father Almighty, Maker of Heaven and Earth
I typed out some quotes from some books today at work and the book, which happens to be the title of this blog, is written by a fella with the surname of Thielicke. I liked one of the quotes so much that i thought i would blog it.
"But if I know of him who lovingly seeks me and whose heart is moved by everything that fills my thoughts and concerns me, then I can talk with this great Heart. I know that every word reaches him, and that none of the joys and problems which I confide to him will be lost, even though they are often very modest joys and very small problems."
This is the big 50th blog. Hurrah, celebrate?! Party poppers, balloons, music, fun, friends and junk food yayyyyyyyy.....sounds just like primary school, radical!!!!!
I actually want to blog about my weekend though. It was pretty fun and just great really.
I somehow managed to get myself involved with a SAGALA camp. Salvos have this program sort of like scouts and girl guides and brownies called SAGALA. The girls are called sunbeams and moonbeams and lads are called legionaires. It's so similar it's a rip off hahaha....they earn badges and find good deeds to do for people. Just great!
So yea, i went to this camp. But not for the whole weekend as a SAGALA leader just as a 'special guest' kind of leader. On the Saturday.....actually, let me tell you what happened on the Friday night...
Well, i was wearing flip-floppy things (not thongs, coz thongs are rubber and you wear those when you're tent-camping) that had wooden soles and it was slippery so i lacked grip. Seconds after i was thinking how horrible it would be to take a fall after numerous near misses, sure enough, before i knew it i found myself face planting the garden and looking up at the people i was walking with. Humiliated i picked myself up, took off my shoes and hobbled away with them. So now i have a shiner of a massive bruise on my kneecap, it's good to have something to show, it makes the humiliation somewhat worthwhile. Back to Saturday....
So Saturday the deal was that the kids had been organised into groups of about 20. Throughout the day, they were involved in a round robin kind of thing. Our round robin station was a bible teaching program that we'd set up as a smelly, dirty backyard shed (for those international people, like the Russian guest we had, that's like a garage/storeroom with all your garden tools in it) and it was great. It did get a little repetitive because we had to do it 5 times during the day but the kids LOVED it, they really got into it. We sang songs (with actions!), we played games, we learnt about the prodigal son through drama (with a few alternative endings "do you think that's what really happened??" "NOOOOOOOO!!!!" - kids, gotta love 'em!), we watched a dvd with the REAL ending to the story, we learnt a bible verse - WITH TOOLS! We read stories, played more games and sang more songs. WOW! The greatest thing was that even though we did it 5 times during the day, every new session brought new blessings as different kids milled in and out. Their enthusiasm, their energy and their openness wasn't just 'a kid thing', it was from God. The blessing i received was watching them laughing and smiling (even the 'too cool for school' boys) and getting into it, it was seeing them pray and the desire to know God and the 'i'm-going-to-wet-my-pants' enthusiasm to be chosen to have a crack at the memory verse on their own. They were groovers!
So i went home, actually to lyxxy's place, and we played skip-bo hehehe....memories of hospital....and ALMOST got around to playing nightmare (something about maggots mooj?)....then i drove myself and Dina home and nearly fell asleep at the wheel....yep, fun times!
Beach season has started once again as the beach becomes a more increasingly popular place to be. As the suns rays hot up on the eastern shores of Australia so the dire need for sunscreen and aeroguard are in demand. Wow, that was poetic, wasn't it?!
Well anyway....
Last night i went to the beach with 3 of my very good friends. During the summer this is a routine thing that some of us from the Earlwood Salvos like to engage in. If you've never been to the beach at night, you really MUST do it!! It's the most serene, most beautiful thing you could ever experience, especially when you get real close to the water like i did last night. God's presence overflows and you can almost hear his whispers and feel him breathing....if you think this is poetic and romantic and wishy washy - IT IS!!! It's the best candle lit dinner for two God ever threw!!! Hey (Dina) that rhymes!!!
I always feel completely surrounded by God when i'm at the beach at night and it amplifies his mysteriousness in a way that just gives me the greatest goosebumps and surge of adrenalin....can you imagine a sea of violent waves and a pitch black nightsky sprinkled with twinkling stars AND THEN Jesus returning in all his fullest glory on a cloud.....WOAHHHHH.....well i can. When i'm at the beach at night my imagination just goes absolutely flippin' WILD!!!!
I've said this in many a blog before but my friends are just the greatest, i love them all to death!!! They are the kookiest, craziest people on this planet earth and i LOVE them for it!!! When you're trying to be kissed by another girl (Elyse, don't EVER try and kiss me again, you're freakin' me out man?!) it's just not a nice thing and as much as kicking sand in people's faces is not a very nice, Christian thing to do (MATTHEW?!), the delight i received from watching Matt chasing Elyse and then Dina along the beach trying to kick sand in their faces was so awesome. They were laughing their heads off while trying to pick their feet out of the sand at an insane pace, covering their faces and tripping over along the way it was the best sign of happiness (well sort of in a crazy way) i've ever seen, i coulda stayed watching them forever, just to be continually in a 'happy place' (ha! that phrase always makes me think of Happy Gilmore!). It was a nice change from karaoke as well.
Then we left the beach of happy things and went home, it was late and i was tired so it didn't enthrall me greatly, but the others seemed to continue to laugh a lot and have good times. Some people get the most amusement out of the smallest things! Things like flicking round jubey things off windscreens with the wipers while driving along and throwing cha cha's out the window at specific items/targets such as wheely bins. Matt you're truly an oddball, I saw the reaction you had when you hit the bin - SCORE!!!!! You know what they say, small things amuse small minds...but however tired i seemed to be, i woke up a little when i wasn't the target of matt's gear changing for once, it's funny when it's other people!!!
If Matt is shotgun (in the front seat), apart from putting your wipers and your hazards on, he has this habit of subtley putting your car into the neutral position and leaving it until you figure out by the loud revving sound of your engine and the fact that your car doesn't go anywhere, what he's done. Once you rev the engine hard enough and remain stationary, he is GREATLY amused by your lack of observance of what he's done. It's the most irratating thing when you're the driver but when you're witnessing it - ok, i give it to him - it's funny. Small things amuse small minds.
And finally it is amusing to see someone driving at a speed of 40 km's an hour, avoiding the speed cameras when the speed is usually 70km's an hour and getting completely frustrated that other drivers are overtaking her, cursing them with words of 'i hope you get a ticket!'.
putt..putt..putt..putt..
It was a good night out and Elyse, it was a good drive home too. Thanks for the inspiration. And little beach, i will see you again, sometime in the future, stay cool!
UPDATE: Just so you all know God hasn't challenged me to get a tattoo ahahaha, i know you were all wondering that. You know that feeling that you get when you're sorting through stuff and you sleep on it, hoping it will be ok the next day and you're making a big fuss out of nothing and the next morning you wake up only to find that it wasn't all a really bad dream and that the issues are still there to deal with and in fact haven't gone away? Yea well I had that feeling this morning about the stuff that God's been laying on my heart. Just thought i'd share that hahaha.....i know....it means nothing to you. _______________________________________________________
I hate it when i don't have a fascinating name for my blog and this blog had the MOST fascinating name of all but then i realised KT stole it. I was gonna name it something along the lines of it doesn't just rain but it pours but yea, she took it first!
So anyway....
In this last week God has been challenging me on two things. I aint gonna say what those two things are because i'm really not sure of them myself and i wanna do alot more praying about 'em and confirming that it's true; from God before i act on anything or say anything that might be a falicy (a lie). But yea, he has been challenging me and it's kinda been a wake up call sort of as well.
Coz see, i haven't been reading my bible on the way in on the train these days, nor have i even been devoting alot of my time to God and as much as i am feeling lazy i am hating it as well. I just haven't had the motivation or inspiration to do it and i've HATED it because i LOVE reading the bible and i LOVE talking to God (most of the time it's one-sided) and it's really sucked not being able to get into the swing of things in my walk with God, other than on a Sunday and in my committments.
Soooooooooo, that's my confession for the week/month......i'm just being honest........
But this week, like i've said half a million times, he's kinda stepped outta the shadows and sorta whooped me in the face.......and i'm like, 'whoah nelly, hello there, where'd you spring from?"..... and as much as it's surprised me and, in a way, shocked me, it's sooooooooo good!!!
For the very first time in my WHOLE life (quarter of a century), i have encountered a revival with God without attending a conference or a big God pep talk thing. I have re-encountered him ON MY OWN and through my own circumstancse and that has given me a new energy and a new inspiration and i can't get enough of him, i want to fight harder, i want him to have as much of me as possible, i want him to work through me, i want to make a difference in the lives around me, i want to see people hungering for Jesus and a relationship with him and i want to die doing it.
These two things God has challenged me about and spoken to me about are stuff i always said, 'no way, nuh-uh, not on your life!' stuff i have considered, yes, and played around with in my head, yes, but never really asked God what he thought about it, never really let him tell me what to do......i guess he got bored of waiting for me to realise it, i dunno.....but he's challenging me with stuff he's kinda literally throwing it at me and saying, 'ya know, maybe you should look more into this stuff, maybe it's waht iiiiii wnat you to do!' i keep praying about it though, i wanna keep aligning it with the scripture, aligning it with other people, aligning it with other stuff i see and hear before i get ahead of myself but most of all i wanna know if it's God's truth that he has set in my heart and not just something i'm making up in my head.
Because it sure as hell aint tink stuff, know what i'm sayin', you wouldn't catch me doing these things if ya life depended on it, these things are just not my style and that's why i wanna know if this is truly from God and as someone once reminded me, it's not about me. It's not about anything i want, it's not about the things that are peachy and fence-sitting, it's about God, the whole shebang! There's no in between and it's not about if i'm happy or not because ultimately i'm gonna be happy if i'm pleasing my Christ, who'd die for me - who DID die for me - wow, unworthy!
Anyway i'm trying to sustain this God encounter for as long as God will possibly allow me to. I'm expecting HUGE, GREAT things at schoolies and i'm expecting more personal challenges and praying that God uses me in amazing ways. USE ME, HAVE ALL OF ME, KEEP ME PASSIONATE AND CONVICTED!!!!! i am so ever lucky for this encounter with God, the timing is perfect, why wouldn't it be, it's from God himself!!!!
A short drought, a short thirsting and hungering but it doesn't just rain - it pours when you encounter God, he equips you, he nourishes you, he LOVES you and NEVER forsakes you. He knows WHAT you need, WHEN you need it and i am soooooo grateful for a caring God like that.
