Go Till It BURNS!

While I love sports, exercise and being physically active, I have to admit that it's not exactly the thing that comes as naturally as breathing for me, and it's been a real challenge to do this regularly since having my children, juggling work and ministry!  Obviously I love the physical health benefits of sports and exercise once I have done it, but I am also loving the spiritual and mental benefits that I get from getting off my couch and just doing it, as Nike would say.

One lesson that I am slowly learning is to push myself till it burns!  Many times when I exercise, I settle for the fact that "hey, I got out there and did it" or I just keep to the number of reps that I have on the chart/plan, or only run for the amount of time or distance that I did before.  I don't even think about how much further I could actually push myself to do more than I did the week or day before, but just kind of slip into this auto-robot mode of exercise.  But lately I have been growing in my consciousness to PUSH TILL IT BURNS, and not settle for the fact that I've done it!  I am slowly pushing myself that much further, little by little, inch by inch and fighting every thought in my mind that tries to justify me not pushing further and that it's ok to settle.

Then I got to thinking about how SPIRITUALLY it's the same thing.  For many of us, we would probably just settle for the fact that "hey, I went to church on Sunday" or "I went to the monthly women's meeting in May" or "I've got my tithes/offerings on direct debit".  And not realise that we are actually NOT pushing ourselves to go beyond the autopilot of Christianity and following Christ.  Things have been made so convenient in our lives in the 21st century, that often we can become quite unconscious of our spiritual journey in God, to the point that we actually become unconscious of GOD HIMSELF and we don't even know it!  God moves on but we don't have a clue because we've just got our Christianity on autopilot and think we're going to make our destination without knowing that the REAL PILOT changed course and parachuted off our plane!!  What if God wanted me to pray longer with more depth and fervour?  What if God wanted me to give more money?  What if God wanted me to increase my commitment to a ministry?  What if God wanted me to give up my own hobbies or even church activities and spend quality investment time with my husband and children?  But I'm oblivious to His desires because I'm on autopilot with my spiritual routine and plan, and not actually engaging with the real pilot.

It's not enough for us to just go through the motions of Christianity unconsciously, and thus fool ourselves that we're ok.  God is not fooled, and we certainly don't want to hear Him say "Away from me I never knew you" when we try to bring up all our autopilot Christian works and justifications on that day.

Just as I have to give my physical muscles a real workout, we have really got to give our spiritual muscles a REAL workout EVERY TIME and go until it burns!  We've got to pursue GOD UNTIL HE BURNS IN US!  We've got to pray until we sense the burning of His Spirit in our spirit.  We've got to devour His Word until it is permanently burnt into the depths of our spirit and soul; until everything in our being CRAVES THE WORD OF GOD and we know we cannot live without it (real daily bread!).  We've got to fast and hunger for God until it burns!  No longer can we be on autopilot and think that our lives will change, or that we will have any kind of true impact on our world for Jesus Christ.

Let's discipline our minds, discipline our hearts, discipline our emotions, discipline our bodies and become true DISCIPLES of Christ who will change the world as Jesus' original 12 did in their day. It's time to GO TILL IT BURNS!

DON’T DOUBT, DON’T FEAR!

Something that I have discovered in life is that doubt and fear are often our biggest enemies and sabotage to fulfilling God’s purpose.

I am reminded of the account of the prophet Elijah who obeyed God’s word and repaired His altar on Mt Carmel.  God moved so powerfully and the fire of the Lord came down and consumed the burnt sacrifice, the wood, the stones, the dust and licked up all the water in the trench!  When the people saw this, they fell on their faces crying out that the Lord is God.  On that mountain that day, the people had such a MASSIVE REVELATION of who God was and were so empowered by HIM and what took place that they immediately annihilated all of the 450 false prophets of Baal. (1 Kings 18:20 – 40)

This story of Elijah’s victory on Mt Carmel depicts the victories God gives us in our lives.  Many times God will bring us to a place where we truly ENCOUNTER HIM and the veil is taken off our eyes to see Him for who He really is – a Father of love, our refuge, our strength, our salvation and our Deliverer. We begin to see His immense, unconditional love for us, and His plan and purpose for our existence here on earth.  At this REVELATION of Him, we are empowered to supernaturally kill off all the “false prophets” and their numerous LIES in our lives – like the lies about our self worth, the lies about not being loved, the lies about our identity, the lies about other people, the lies that our sins are too evil to ever be forgiven!

When God gives you the victory, don’t do what Elijah did and run and hide in fear from Jezebel (the enemy) after the victory on Mt Carmel that day.  Don’t doubt God and His power that gave you the victory and delivered you from the “false prophets” in your life.  Don’t doubt His victory in your life! Don’t fear when the familiar voices of the false prophets begin to echo in your ears again.  Don’t go back to dig up the dead false prophets!  Don’t go back to their domain!  HAVE FAITH IN GOD and the victory He has given you!  BELIEVE in His awesome power that has set you free!  DON’T LOOK BACK!!  Don’t allow doubt and fear rob you of your future and God’s purpose for you.  SUPER-GLUE YOUR EYES on Jesus by meditating on His Word and rehearsing the TRUTH of his Word over and over and over and over again in your heart, mind and actions!  You will deal blow after blow to the enemies of doubt and fear in your life by training yourself in the truth of God’s Word, submitting and obeying to His truth.  By doing these things you will kill off the lies of the “false prophets”!

Let truth and faith be your new companions as you fulfill God’s purpose.

Life's insights

Life is such a wonderful gift with so many lessons great and small in even the seemingly mundane things that may look as though there is no significance in them, but then when you look closer, you see a whole lot of profound and practical insights to help you through this journey of life. This blog is a celebration of life. 

Going back o Brisbane...

WE have begun in our hearts and minds to make the journey back to Brisbane from our new home in Tonga! I can't believe that it has only been a year since we moved here, because so much has happened in such a short span of time. These pictures here are of my children's school in Tonga - I am so very proud of them adjusting to school life here. It has been challenging and extremely different for them, that is for sure. But somehow I think they will each cherish and miss their time spent living in Tonga. I know I will.....

Neighbourhood Watch TONGA...

It's after 3 in the morning and I'm blogging! Can't sleep. :)
We arrived back from our holiday in NZ about 3 weeks ago, only to find out that someone had stolen our stereo, satellite tv tuner and a few other odd bits and pieces that were in our lounge room.
A couple of days ago, we were robbed for the second time and this time it was my cellphone that was stolen. After midnight tonight, some of our neighbours called out to my husband over the fence and through our kitchen window wanting to talk to him. He went over and spoke to the family who told him that they have just found out who has been stealing from us! One of our neighbours, a young boy/youth has been breaking into our house and taking things from our lounge, the rooms and even tried to steal our car stereo while we were away on holiday! All this they realised when he came over to their house looking for a nokia phone charger to charge his phone that "his sister sent him from NZ"!!! When they put the phone on the charger, they were shocked to see Cyrus' face smiling at them on the screensaver, and realised that this guy had just stolen it from our house! About half an hour after THAT conversation, one of the brothers of this family dropped by to tell David the whole story saying how this guy has been bragging about stealing from us. But this family and some of the young boys from our other neighbours didn't feel right about it, especially as David is a man of God and they believe that curses may come upon them for their friend doing this! They then disappeared into the night and came back 10 minutes later with some of our goods, saying that they know where this boy stashes his stolen goods.
Tomorrow David is going with these boys to the police to get our stereo, phone and anything else back, and bring this young man to justice.

Stay tuned for more updates on our neighbourhood watch saga's..... :)

My life in Tonga

It's been three weeks today since we arrived back to Tonga from our holiday break in NZ. Two weeks away from returning, I think I was a little apprehensive and unsure of what to expect of myself on coming back to Tonga. But I'm happy to say that it's been nothing but positive, exciting and adventurous! I think God really had to give me a new heart for the nation and to readjust my whole perspective on us being here and even His purpose for sending us here in the first place. 2010 felt like a marathon year on so many different levels for me, that I had to do a whole lot of soul searching over the holiday break. BUT.... having done that, all I can say is that it's good to be back and that I'm as ready as I'll ever be to finish the task at hand.

Praise the Women!

I was recently blessed to go on a quick short trip to NZ this last week to sort out some things for my husband's campaign. On the plane back to Tonga, I had time to reflect on the short trip and this feeling of praise, honour and enormous gratefulness welled up in my heart for the many wonderful women I had met on the trip who had helped tremendously in getting things done for this campaign. Without them, it would be sheer hard slog and labour!

This feeling then overflowed to encompass all the women I know and have met, many who do so much behind the scenes and may not be in the frontline, yet without their tireless work, support, commitment, dedication and loyalty..... much of what is seen on the frontline would not be possible!

So this blog is simply to say.... PRAISE THE WOMEN - because without all of us, it would be a boring, harder-slog world..... and probably an emptier world as reproduction would be pretty darn impossible!!!

And all the men say..... AMEN! LOL.