Beware: May contain nuts!

Before I set the timer on today’s prompt word, I am going to tell you a little something about myself – a sort of confession perhaps, but one which has amused me about my processing.

I am often amused and bemused about the differing and convoluted ways that my mind organises itself!

Today, I did something rather unusual. I decided last night that it would make sense to use the scaffolding to paint the stonework around the upstairs windows, which looked like they had not been painted since the original Victorian windows were installed!

It is a job I had never done before, but I used my brain and some advice from a B&Q shop-assistant and bought some suitable masonry paint, a good brush and some sand-paper…

This morning, in a dull, cold January, I climbed the scaffolding in my extra-layered overalls, and began to scrape away the moss and lichen, sand, wash, and then paint the arches and sills of the three big windows.

Four hours later, frozen to the bone, I cleaned the brush and work-station and came home to warm up.

I decided I then needed to do another rare thing – to immerse my cold aching body in a hot bath. I could probably count only a dozen baths I have taken in ten years, but in case you think my confession is that I don’t wash, let me reassure you that I usually take showers.

(This is due to speed, as I think I my three speed-settings are ‘day-dream’, ‘Dawn-speed’, and ‘hurried’).

As it is Friday, I thought I would first open the laptop to see what today’s FMF prompt word is and then go and cogitate in the bath. I took a candle and a book and began to think…

I didn’t read the book, but I think I could have written several chapters of a book about ‘FAKE’. I began with ‘fake it till you make it’, explored the trust aspect of the shepherd boy David when he faced Goliath and compared him with Gideon. I decided that the key was WHO we trust, but the thoughts span around my mind, coming and going like a rainbow, and, because writing and water do not go well together, I came out again two hours later with even less of an idea than before.

What I did come away with, was the title!

And I think I want to talk about the fake-self and trust.

Every Friday, I join an online Christian writing community, Five Minute Friday. We are given a one-word prompt and write – unscripted, unedited, pure free-write – for 5 minutes. The prompt this week is FAKE.

Go:

What my mind believes and what my heart believes, are not the same thing.

My mind believes the word of God. And I believe in the almighty power of God. As a Christian, I also believe that I am a ‘new creation’; that the ‘old is gone and the new has come’. I believe I am forgiven, healed, cherished and set-apart. I believe I have ‘a purpose and a hope and a future’.

But hidden in my heart is a different identity made of a great many lies. The little me that was wounded believes she is slow, stupid, rubbish. She believes that there is something wrong with her and it is her fault. It must be her fault, because God does not make mistakes. Little me believed the lies that she was told by those on whom she had to depend. She also made up some lies to make sense of the pain she was experiencing.

When I go to church and to work, people want to see me being strong in faith and successful and believing the word of God, which I do; but if inside I am falling apart and feeling devastated, does the Lord want me to present a fake image of myself with a totally-sorted identity?

I don’t think so.

Jesus says that he is the way, the truth and the life. He says that the truth shall set us free. Jesus wants me to be free of the lies that my little heart believed all those years ago.

He wants me to confess and bring those pains and lies to the cross, where His healing is.

He wants to break and reverse those lies, those fake identities one-by-one-by-one until I am free.

He wants me to partner with Him in being honest about my heart and allowing Him to transform the lies into the truth of who He made me to be.

He wants me to be rid of the fake identity in my heart and rid of my fake identity in the market place.

Jesus is on this journey with me – with Him and with some loving Christian friends and sound teaching, Jesus is setting me free to be the person He created me to be. It is not about who I am and what I can do, it is about Him. My belief and faith and trust are in Him, not me.

He has the power to demolish the fake and transform with his glorious truth.

End (Sorry, but even that took 10 minutes and I see lots of red wiggly lines!)

image of heart torn and damaged, but sewn and sticky-plastered in own strength

PLEASE:

If there is a lie that your heart believes about yourself, ask Jesus when and where the first wound was that tempted little you to believe that about yourself. Confess it and share it with a trusted Christian friend or Christian counselor. Come out of agreement with that lie and ask Jesus what the truth is. Repeat his truth over and over. Take captive that old lie every time it speaks out and remind your heart of the truth.

PS: I’m very happy that I painted the stonework. I have learned some new skills. I’m quite sure I would have forever regretted missing the opportunity had I ignored the thought!

Will you receive?

one hand receiving from another

Jesus says, “Come to me, all you who are weary and burdened, and I will give you rest,”

What will you do to receive the rest He wants to give you?

Will you come to Him?

The truth is very simple.

Satan uses deception and lies to steal from you and keep you fearful, confused and trapped.

The truth is that God is not mad with you.

God is not punishing you.

The truth is that God loves you and wants you to be free.

He has already done, through Jesus’ death on the cross and His resurrection to the throne-room of God, EVERYTHING necessary for your forgiveness, healing and freedom.

He did it ALL on the cross.

It is FINISHED.

There is one simple response from you needed to receive all of this.

You have to come and receive it.

You have to believe Him, ask and receive – and all His promises are already YES and AMEN because of Jesus.

He desires that you will simply believe and receive what He has done for you.

Put out your hands in faith and receive therefore His Rest, His Peace, His forgiveness, His healing, His Love, His Joy, His Freedom, His Hope and all the countless blessings from the Love of Almighty God, available to EVERYBODY who believes, asks and receives.

It is simple and beautiful Truth.

John 20:21-23

Again he said, “Peace be with you. As the Father has sent me, so I am sending you.”

Then he breathed on them and said, “Receive the Holy Spirit.

If you forgive anyone’s sins, they are forgiven. If you do not forgive them, they are not forgiven.”

Every Friday, I join an online Christian writing community, Five Minute Friday. We are given a one-word prompt and write – unscripted, unedited, pure free-write – for 5 minutes. The prompt this week is RECEIVE.

What have you witnessed?

FMF: Witness

If you heard my sister and I describe our childhoods, you would have no idea that we lived in the same homes, with the same parents!

If we wrote our life-stories, they would look very different.

When a friend and I took a day out to the sea-side, weeks later we reminisced over our outing. He described the arcades, the cars, the picnic I bought and the train time-table; but I remembered the beach, the seaside town streets, the wind on the pier and the hunt for a public toilet that cost me 20p.

If we had written our account of the day, they would have been very different.

What we witnessed were specific aspects of the day.

I am often amazed at this phenomenon – how two individuals together can seem to see completely different things and sometimes have almost opposing perspectives on the same event.

We see it, hear it, taste it, smell it and feel it through our own personal senses and we interpret the whole experience according to our personal understanding and preferences.

Where I’m going with this is, being a lover of stories, I often encounter scenes where witnesses are called upon to ‘tell the whole truth and nothing but the truth, so help me God’ but the account they say they witnessed often looks only vaguely like the one shown in the story.

Every witness has their own perspective.

The witness may not be lying, but they are only telling the part that they witnessed and remember.

The gospels are like this too.

Reading the four gospel accounts of major events in the life of Jesus, we see the different focus and perspectives of the four writers. We also see the stories told for the interest of the particular audience they were addressing.

At Christmas I particularly like to read Luke’s account. He was not an eye-witness of the events leading to the birth of Jesus, but he told the stories handed down by those who were eye-witnesses.

I particularly like the focus on the prophecies of the angel Gabriel and the prophetic praise of Elizabeth, Mary and Zechariah.

We are obviously not witnesses to the birth and death of our Lord Jesus, but we have each witnessed the saving grace of Jesus in our lives.

You may not thing your story is very exciting, but you are an eye-witness to the transforming power of God in your life.

Your story is a unique perspective on the character, beauty and power of God and yours is the story that you need to tell.

Only you can tell your story, for the glory of God.

You are His witness in the world in which He has placed you, for such a time, and such a purpose, as this.

Image of witness’s hand swearing oath on Bible

What are you looking for?

What are you looking for? Do you know? Do you know what you want? What you believe? Do you know what is good and bad? What is true and right, or wrong? Does it change from day to day?

Don’t worry, I’m not going to test or trick you.

I was thinking about questioning and doubt. About its presence, its bad reputation and its value. How does doubt and questioning make you feel?

I like to be safe and to be right and sure. Don’t you? So unknowing, doubt, insecurity – such shifting sands make us feel out of control, vulnerable, insecure – and to avoid this we seek information to bolster our understanding… to know, to be certain… and for our faith – in whatever it may be – to be unswerving and strong. This may be about the basic routines of our day, for example, or our health report, our whereabouts and location when on the move, our plans and preparations for a big event, our political persuasions and support come polling day, our financial safety-nets for retirement, maybe actual insurance policies and guarantees and often our meta-physical persuasions or beliefs and our raison d’etre.

We want assurance, insurance and reassurance again.

I think of adventure quests and heroes in story-books and on film – dangerous quests to find truth, or treasure and for valour and honour – life threatening, self-sacrificing endurance, seeking, for that which is right and true. The stuff that makes heroes. The big questions – the meaning of life and all that. It seems to be part of the heroic side of our nature – to seek wisdom, seek truth at whatever the cost. The Bible is full of such wisdom too – exhortations to seek and find the lost coin, the lost sheep, the ‘pearl of great price’, which cost him all he had. To ‘Get wisdom. Though it cost all you have, get understanding.’  (PROVERBS 4:7) And Solomon’s asking for just wisdom over every other treasure… and so many other examples. Wisdom and truth are seen as great treasure.

When my children were young, they would frequently complain that they had lost something important and had ‘searched everywhere’! I would smile and ask them to look again and this time to actually take their hands out of their pockets and use them to look underneath the piles of stuff!

Because if it were visible, they wouldn’t have lost it!

To seek knowledge, understanding and truth often means to go digging! It means to turn everything upside down, turn it out, get our hands dirty… it means to disrupt our comfort, camp for a while in unknowing, in the unfamiliar and in doubt. It means ‘living from a suitcase’ in questioning and a vulnerable state of being unsure, not at home and not in control. We may have to disrupt and abandon all else… Sometimes it means to admit to ‘not know’ something and occasionally it means to discover that we were partially or fully misinformed, or misunderstood, and to humbly learn…

But we are promised that if we keep on seeking we will find; if we keep on knocking, the door will be opened; and if we keep on asking, we will be answered. We are promised that if we seek Him first, then He will be found and all other things will be given to us as well. Our needs will be met. It is a constant process that we will not come to the end of in this life on earth, and maybe it will continue throughout eternity. I do hope so!

But beware. Be humble. If we seek the truth, we must be prepared to adapt, readjust, enlarge our tent and maybe change our mind. There will be change. When we find what was lost, or find revelation and truth and wisdom, we are forever changed! We have to change, for growth is change. We have to be prepared to expand our limited thinking if we want to seek truth. New wine goes in new wine-skins.

Some say “What is truth?” They say that there are many truths – for each of us, our own truth. Some say that we find what we are looking for, and that we each find something different. Some say there is but one truth. Jesus says that He is “the way, the truth and the life”. Whatever the truth is, we are encouraged to seek it. It is not something to fear, but it is something to make space for, to humble ourselves to receive. For His ways are not our ways. His ways are higher and above and beyond all we could ever fathom or imagine… But trust Him. Life is constant growth and constant change. We will never know everything in this short life on earth, but we should not be afraid to learn new things.

We are invited to seek wisdom, to seek understanding, to seek growth, truth and life.

What an adventure!