I really love the phrase, ‘Hold the Line’.  I’ve read it a lot over the last few weeks especially regarding the NHS compulsory vaccine case. Whatever we all think about this and there will be many different opinions, the NHS staff went all out to make their voices heard, they held their line, and they won. ‘Hold the line ‘gives a sense of togetherness, camaraderie and, ‘we’re in this together!’

Now, sometimes, ‘holding the line’ can feel like this:

When life is glorious, you’ve got your devotional times sorted and you feel like you’re on a direct line to Jesus, eating healthily is going brilliantly, the scales are going in the right direction, the kids are good, husband’s good, cat’s good, job’s good and so on! ‘hold the line?’ what line??

Other times ‘holding the line’ can feel like:

When the opposite of the meadow is happening – chocolate’s going down by the bucketload, cat’s being sick, kids are being sick and the washing machine is on the blink! You don’t even know where your Bible is! Life is hectic!

The everyday line, the daily challenges of life that we all have to face. Sometimes, they are our own to bare and at other times, we meant to carry one another’s burdens. 

In Galatians 6: 2- 5, we read:

Bear one another’s burdens, and so fulfill the law of Christ. For if anyone thinks he is something, when he is nothing, he deceives himself. For each will have to bear his own load.

When you first read those verses, they seem like a contradiction, ‘Bear one another’s burdens’, ‘bear his own load’ which is it? Well, it’s both. We all have things that are ours to carry – our backpack, if you like. These are your responsibilities that you can’t hand on to anyone else. For example, if you’ve got kids in school, it’s your job to make their packed lunches, you don’t ring a friend to do that do you? It’s part of your job description. 

And there are times when the burdens are to be shared with others. When what we’re going through, needs our mates to help. 

Then there are other lines, the ‘What would Jesus think’ lines. How we speak, what we read, what we watch, what habits we form, how we spend our time?

I want to suggest to us then that we have many lines in our lives and ask the question, how often do your/my lines drop below how Jesus would want us to live our lives?  I want to hold better lines and I trust you do too. 

Let’s imagine we have a line for the various parts of our lives

Is it possible to get to the end of each day and ask ourselves the question, how did I do with my lines today?

My attitude line; My health line; My time line; My Patience line; My giving line; My depression line; My anxiety line etc.

We have so many lines in our lives and our aim should be to get them as straight as we can. 

If you feel like some or even all of your lines are like are wonky, pick one to work on, if you need help, phone a friend! Find someone who you can be accountable to. Our aim in life should be to become more like Jesus every day! Staying close to Him gives you more of a chance of that. If you never spend time with him, your lines will be wonky! You might be content with wonky, but if you’re not, pick a wonky line and determine to get it straight. 

Until next time,

Dx

 

At our connect group this week, we were talking about what we like to have for breakfast! Small talk before diving into Isaiah and, when you’re studying Isaiah, light chat is needed, right?

It was so interesting how different we are! Some liked soggy cereal, others, crunchy, some put water and milk on their cereal, others didn’t have breakfast – one person, who shall remain nameless (haha!)  admitted to having a chocolate bar for breakfast that morning. Yummy! Shredded wheat was a hit with one or two whereas others said it tasted like cardboard!

Diverse cereal choices from a group of 8 women!

I’d already kind of decided where my blog would go this week and this chat helped me.

Cereal choices don’t matter when it comes to life in the Kingdom – when we quote the scripture – ‘Acknowledge Him in all your ways and He will direct your paths’ I don’t think God is really interested in what cereal you eat, although He would be if what we’re eating is doing our body damage, but that’s another blog!

What does matter though is what kind of character we are. This does matter, really.

When I did my BA in theology, one of the discussions we had was what was most important in the life of a leader. The lecturer put a list of qualities (all important) on the board, one of which was ‘charisma’ and another was ‘character’. There were others, but these are the two that I remember because I was the only student who put character above charisma which was quite alarming. Charisma is important, for sure, but it is possible to have charisma without character which is never a good mix!

The question I want to pose today is, are you a ‘cactus plant’ or an ‘aloe vera’ plant? No offence to the real cactus plants! I don’t think they need any explanation, but just in case! – Cacti are spikey and you can’t get close to them without getting hurt, Aloe Vera is a miracle plant that can heal many things!

We are living in a world where confusion is reigning in so many areas – Covid; vaccinations; parties; Gender; wars; government; police; church; it seems to me like confusion is shouting so loud right now especially into the younger generation. And, if ever there was a time for truth to scream the loudest, it’s now! We have the truth. We have light. We have boundaries which I think most people want and need. Confusion is blurry, there are no lines where confusion is.

I once worked in a school as the receptionist and many teachers used to check with me what the mood of another staff member was before they would go into that office! If it was a bad mood, they would avoid her!

Back in the day (think Pride and Prejudice) society knew what was what, I’m sure the ‘rules’ were broken, but by and large everyone knew, for example, the rules of courtship, there were procedures to follow – there was a waiting and a patience before the wedding day that was magical, that final kiss between Mr Darcy and Elizabeth Bennett! (If you know, you know!) was so special because for those who’ve watched it, watched their journey from their first frosty meeting to the church on their wedding day.

It would be ridiculous to think that we would ever go back to the upstairs, downstairs kind of world, but the way I see it, the more that we have moved away from the Genesis mandate, (Genesis 2:24) the more confusing this world has become. Take a moment to think about what wouldn’t be in our world if we’d stuck to it. Here’s two things to set you off – pornography and human trafficking – the absence of just those two things would be transforming for the world wouldn’t they?

Back to the plants! IF we want to change the world around us, Christians have a responsibility to be Aloe Vera not cacti. Can you change your plant species? If you want to, yes you can! Pray and ask a friend to point out any ‘cactus spikes’ that might be in you.

Until next time

D xx

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

We’ve all heard the question and maybe asked it, ‘Does my bum look big in this?’ Any man worth his salt would tell you the truth at this point, but the problem is whether or not the truth is really wanted! When a question like that is asked, the question bearer has to seriously ask ‘do I want the truth or am I looking for a compliment even if it’s not the truth?’

The Bible says, ‘Speaking the truth in love, we will grow up in all things’ (Eph 4:15)
Having the truth told to you is no easy thing – no-one wants their weak points pointed out because it’s an intrusion into areas of life that can be sensitive. Body odour, bad breath, sharp tongue, lack of patience, to name just a few! Who wants to broach such subjects? You are likely to suffer backlash and you may even lose a friend either permanently or for a time…. Speaking the truth can be risky business! BUT if we want to grow up in ALL things, we need someone in our lives who will be bold enough to tell us the truth whatever the reaction. If we want to be the best we can be, then we have to realise that there are things in our lives called blind spots – things that everyone else can see, and we can’t, hence the reason they are called blind spots!

So, here is the question: Who tells you the truth? Have you got anyone? Or, did someone try it once but, because of your reaction, backed off and has never done it since! Have you got someone in your life who is ‘allowed’ to tell you stuff that may sting a little but, if they are right, and if you will listen and take it on board, then you take a step closer to being a better person.

It must be stressed that the person who tells you the truth must be a person who loves you and also wants the best for you. It CANNOT be a person who just wants to be mean and continually point out your faults! Who wants that?

Everyone needs a coach – their job is to help you get good things into your life and bad things out! If you haven’t got one, get one!

And, if you’re not sure you want the truth, think twice before you ask, ‘does my bum look big in this!’

Feel free to share! Until next time, D x

I’m no gardener and my knowledge of anything to do with the garden is limited to say the least, but what I do know is, the ground in which one plants, is very important.

One of the stories that Jesus told his listeners was about seeds and ground. If you want to read it in the Bible, you will find it in Matthew (New Testament) chapter 13 verses 1-9. Picture this, Jesus came out of his house and sat beside the sea, beautiful. He didn’t need a pulpit, a whiteboard, a powerpoint, a mic – he simply sat beside the sea to talk to the people.

The story goes, a sower went out to sow seed, some of the seed fell along the path and the birds came and devoured the seed; some fell on rocky ground where it didn’t have much soil, so the seed sprang up very quickly, but because there wasn’t much soil, when the sun rose, it withered the plants because they had no root; other seed fell amongst thorns but the thorns grew and strangled the plants; finally, some seed fell on good soil and produced grain, a 100, 60 and 30 fold.

What was Jesus on about? Thankfully, he gives the explanation a little further on in the chapter – verses 18-23.

The seed is the Word of the Kingdom, i.e. what God is saying to people. The path represents people who don’t understand that word and the birds represent the evil one who steals the word from the hearts of said path! Rocky ground is people who receive the Kingdom words straight away with joy, yet they have no root so when life gets tough, they walk away from the very words that gave them life. The thorns are those who get overwhelmed by the cares of the world and their life is un-fruitful and the good soil are those who hear the word, understand it and bear fruit.

The question for all of us this week then is, how’s your ground? How would you describe yourself today? Pathy, rocky, thorny or goody?Are you confused? Do you have no roots? Are you overwhelmed by the cares of the world? Or is your ground, watered and ready to receive Kingdom words?

If you need a shift of ground and that could be something like listening to different voices or forgiving someone that’s hurt you or letting go of bitterness and anxiety or getting back into community with your church family. A whole host of things could be stopping you from leading a fruitful life, but I’m confident that if we’re prepared to get the gardening gloves on, get the rake and the hoe and go to work on our ground, things will turn around.

In a world where lies are being exposed almost hourly, let’s celebrate, that as followers of Christ, we have access to the one and ONLY truth and it behoves us to make our garden good and ready to receive the Words of the Kingdom and to make sure that those words go deep down and form roots that cannot be shaken.

Happy gardening!

D x

One of my favourite parables (stories that Jesus told) is the one about two builders of houses. It’s believed by scholars that the two houses were next to each other and were affected by the same storm. If this is correct, then it makes the illustration even more powerful when you transfer it to the days in which we are living in right now.

It’s fair to say that leading a church through the last 2 years has been very challenging.

March 2020 brought the first lock down – the good one as I heard it once described and totally understood that description. Everyone went with it, no one really knew what was happening. Peoples’ lives changed practically overnight. Everything and everyone went on line. Schools, churches, keep fit classes and so on. We were told to stay at home. Wow. Hard to believe we lived through that – but we did.

Fear was launched at our nation and, indeed the world. The media, scientists, politicians bombarded us with graphs, facts, figures and predictions that were enough to send us all into retreat and ‘stop the world, we want to get off’ mode. Whatever your thoughts on what’s been going on, there is no doubt now that so much of it has been false data, even today I read of a doctor in America who has admitted he himself falsified data. The Why is yet unknown, but I’m sure it will be uncovered either in a movie (haha) or when we get to heaven! Either way, the truth will come out. I have much compassion for those who have lost their lives because of Covid and I include in those, people who have lost jobs, businesses, the mental health issues, the children who weren’t in school and so were missed by social services and were brutally killed, those who have died because of missed cancer diagnosis and the list goes on. There have and will continue to be many lives affected negatively because of Covid 19 and not just the disease.

There’s a lot of work to do and the church has a good chance of helping, but the church can only help from a position of strength. If the church is in retreat how can it advance the gospel? As soon as we were allowed, we were back in our church, gathering together, worshipping and hearing the Word of God together. Nothing can compare with that. Sadly, according to a Twitter poll by Andrew Wilson at the end of August 2021 asking Christians to guess how many of their congregations had returned to church was answered by 902 churches in the UK giving an overall average of about 55%. That’s tragic. Let’s hope it goes up in 2022. I don’t believe the devil was the instigator of the pandemic, but he’s not asleep and can only be rubbing his hands together at such stats! Come on church – we’re supposed to be the light of the world.

For those of us who are Christians, we have incredible access to the mind of Christ. From the start of the Covid crisis, John and I were determined to stand on the word of God as the ultimate truth, the only unchanging truth. I have no desire to leave this earth yet, but I said many times, for me personally, what’s the ‘worst’ that can happen, I die and wake up in paradise. That’s the believer’s reality. This earth is temporal. Don’t know if you ever meditate on heaven, but you should try it some time. If you know Jesus, one day you will live there for eternity. Wow.

So, what about now? What are you building on? Back to the story! There were two men, two houses , two foundations, one storm and two outcomes! The one built his house on sand – what could that look like for us today? Maybe building on unhealthy choices, guilt, un-forgiveness, bitterness, lack of prayer, Bible and church attendance or too much chocolate! 🙂 If you build your life on such things, when the storm comes you are going to struggle to keep your house up!

Build on THE ROCK – Prayer, Bible, Church attendance (this is vital for me – happy to talk further about it if you’d like to know why) good choices, forgiveness etc. When your storms come, your house will stand firm.

In the house building trade, of which I know nothing except to say, foundation building isn’t seen, it takes work, time and much digging down, but when the foundation is set, the houses go up quickly . It’s the same in our lives, build what can’t been seen in order to grow into what can be seen and that should be lights shining brightly in a world that has lost its way.

Love D x

It’s New Years Eve 2021 and it’s been 8 months since I last wrote a blog! I can hardly believe that! As my teachers, in days gone by, would have said ‘could do better!’ I would agree!

I love to write, but the business of life gets in the way, and I’m making a commitment to do more writing this year. You can hold me to account if you like!

The New Year usually sees us setting goals, planning things like holidays and maybe making a decision that this new year is going to be better than the one just gone. I don’t know who will read this so I don’t know what 2021 was like for you. At a guess, I can say, it was full of ups and downs, disappointments, joys, struggles and successes.

That’s life, right?

I imagine that almost every person is making a decision to eat better and move more, (why do we do it to ourselves??) We tell ourselves, ‘On Monday’ ‘After Christmas’ ‘after the holiday’ and so it goes on! To those of you who have this mastered, I salute you!

This year’s a nightmare though isn’t it? No-one wants to start anything on New Years day, so we’ll start on the 2nd, but hang on, there’s a bank holiday on the 3rd (whoever started anything on a bank holiday?) the 4th it is then! Hahahaha! We’re mad aren’t we!

In all seriousness though, whatever you choose to do for your health goals this year , if you need to, just remember to make small changes. Don’t start something that will overwhelm you by January 11th!

The more I go on and the more I hear about peoples’ lives, the more I come to realise that most, if not all, things are down to the choices that we make. If you want a better 2022, look in the mirror and start there. If you’re a Christian reading this, remember that you have the same spirit that raised Christ from the dead living in you!! We are powerful in Him. Don’t let anything negative hang around your life. It has no place there. We have the power to overcome every obstacle. I fully believe it.

Two new things for me this year are that I have just joined an orchestra! I played the oboe in secondary school, picked it up again last year and found a local orchestra. I’m really excited about this – disclaimer though, I haven’t been yet, but I’m hoping it’s going to be a great addition to my life and get me to meet people who don’t know what I know about Jesus yet!

I am also a minster in training!! (If you know me, you probably can’t believe that sentence!) it’s true and there is a story – of course there’s a story – I’ll write about it soon. I’m excited about 2022 and all that is in store. Above all, I want to get closer to Jesus, He is the only fully reliable truth out there. I will continue to build on the rock that is HIM and on THAT rock, I will be safe and secure in whatever comes in 2022!

Happy New year to you and yours!

D xx

“Don’t react – act” I try to live by this, but in this day of email, Facebook, Instagram, Twitter, Whatsapp, Telegram, Messenger, tic tok (not a clue about this, but I do know it’s a big thing!) it’s so easy, when something grinds, to get your fingers working on the keyboard to make your point with exclamation marks!!!

I almost did this today, so close, but I decided to blog instead because only those who want to read it, will.

It seems to me that communication is regarded as unimportant (to some) today. Here are some things that I think should be cancelled!

Thumbs up emoji

Now, before you get a bit twitchy if you use the thumbs up emoji, let me explain. If you’ve had a long conversation with someone that’s come to an end, one of you may do the sign off and thumbs up is more than appropriate. What isn’t, in my opinion, is when you pour your heart out and take 5 minutes to write a message and the reply is the thumbs up emoji! Has it ever happened to you? It’s not nice is it?

Not answering emails or messages

I ALWAYS reply to messages, usually quickly too. If you’re reading this and I didn’t reply to you, it is honestly because I either never got it or it slipped past me, if you know me well, you’ll know that I do reply. It seems, even when you get to the top of the ladder, that it’s OK not to reply. When you don’t get a reply from someone, it makes you feel unimportant. I feel like writing some times and saying ‘hey, I have a gift of some money for you’ just to see if that would get a response. How do you get to the top of your game and still have that trait? Someone needs to coach you if you’re in that place. You should never think you’re too important to reply to someone who has taken the time the time write to you.

Salutation

I try and start all my messages with at least ‘hi’ and, most times, I use the person’s name and I’ll sign off with either my name or an emoji (not the thumbs up one! Hahaha).  If you chat to someone a lot then this isn’t as important, but when you haven’t talked to someone for ages and you’re discussing something that’s a big deal to you, at least consider the other person. Do you remember learning how to write letters at school? There were correct salutations depending on who you were writing to. Using a pen or an old typewriter meant you took much more time to write and your thinking went into it. You didn’t want to have to start again with either ink or a typewriter. Tipex looked terrible and didn’t really do a good job especially for me as I didn’t have the patience to wait for it to dry! I’m not suggesting we go back to those days, although I still use a pen and paper in certain situations, I’m just saying maybe we need to think more about what the person receiving our message will feel after they’ve read it. Read before you click send.

Maybe because communication is so easy now, we’ve lost the skill.  I pray that I will never get too busy to reply properly to every communication that comes my way. As my teacher would write often, ‘could do better’ If necessary, let’s do better at communication.

“Excuses excuses…..”

Have you ever said those words either to yourself or to someone else? I’m sure you have.

I’m reading an excellent book at the moment called, ‘Chase the Lion’ author – Mark Batterson. I highly recommend it. I highlight and write stuff down every time I pick it up.

He bases it on a fabulous Bible verse that I remember from a  book I had as a child! It wasn’t one of the ‘favourite’ Sunday school bible stories, but I wish it had have been!

It’s found in 2 Samuel 23:20

“And Benaiah the son of Jehoiada was a valiant man of Kabzeel, a doer of great deeds. He struck down two Ariel of Moab. He also went down and struck down a lion in a pit on a day when snow had fallen.”

It’s one of those verses that you could easily read past without much thought, but as you read Mark’s book, every time he mentions Benaiah, you have to shake your head at amazement of that one thing he did!

Picture a 500lb (35 stone) lion…. I’ve seen many in the flesh, not behind bars in a zoo, but out in the savannah of Africa! They are formidable creatures, they are the king of the jungle. What would you do if you were face to face? Lions can run 35mph, their roar can be heard 5 miles away.

What would I do, what would you do? I can say with 100% certainty that I wouldn’t have chased it, it would have chased me and had me for lunch! Not Benaiah! It was snowing, he could follow the lions paw prints, he went into the pit with the lion! He didn’t chuck a spear at it from a distance – he chased it down into a pit! When I get to heaven, I think I’ll ask to see the video recording of this! It doesn’t say how the lion was killed, just that Benaiah won the fight!

That’s not all Benaiah achieved, he also struck down an Egyptian with the Egyptian’s own spear. He ran to him, snatched his spear and killed him with it. (2 Samuel 23:21)

Benaiah was one of King David’s 3 mighty men and he went on to become the commander in chief of Israel’s army when the crown passed from David to Solomon. (1 Kings 2:35)

What does Benaiah have to do with us? I think, for me, he makes me look at my life and wonder where I may have allowed fear of the lions in? We’ve all faced the lion of Covid for over a year now. How have you responded? We know it’s a serious disease and it has taken lives although, by the governments own admission, not as many as we were first told, but that’s another story. It has caused chaos in the world for sure.

From day one, I was never scared of Covid. I know the enemy tried to plant fear in me, especially when we were re-opening as a church, but, for my own life, I was secure. Why? Because if I had died (no desire to die I hasten to add!), but if I had, the incredible, awesome (in its fullest sense) amazing, eternal truth is, I would have woken up in a paradise that I can’t even begin to imagine! (John 3:16) So, I’m confused as to why, at the time of writing, (April 2021) some churches are still not open and so many Christians are not back in church. So many, it seems, are in retreat of the lion and not enough are chasing the lion into the pit.

In Damascus, there is a church lead by Brother Edwards. His congregants walk down sniper alley just to worship together!

Will we have to change the lyrics to some of our victory songs? E.g. you have delivered me from all fear (except for Covid) Tongue in cheek, but you get my point.

Some people may never go back to church simply because the online version has become the new normal and so much easier than getting out of the house on a Sunday morning. However good that has been, especially in the early days of Covid, it cannot in any way compare to all being together in one place and having the shared experience of worship, the word and the Holy Spirit within each one of us. The gathered church should be a place of equipping, encouraging, worshipping, learning, developing kids, youth and adults in preparation to go into the world making disciples, teaching them to obey everything Jesus commanded. You can’t achieve this on line, in my opinion.

In Damascus, there is a church lead by Brother Edwards. His congregants walk down sniper alley just to worship together!

I’ve purposely written that sentence again…. Because there goes any excuses we have.

I think it’s time that churches open the doors again and created to be the safest places for anyone to go. Our God is the Lion of Judah and is more than capable of protecting His children.

In Damascus, there is a church lead by Brother Edwards. His congregants walk down sniper alley just to worship together!

D x

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Saturday 25th April – day 33 of first lock down

Acts 2:42 is a great verse and one that I talk about a lot. It says this:

“And they devoted themselves to the apostles’ teaching and the fellowship, to the breaking of bread and prayer”

Key words being, ‘they devoted themselves’ it was all on the believers to devote themselves to what was on offer. In other words, it takes effort to grow a life in God. If you are a professional athlete, the work that has to go into winning medals is staggering. I had a look at a typical training schedule for someone training for the 100 metres (around 10 seconds of a race)

An easy training day: – 8am – 6 mile run;

3pm – 2 hour spin class;

9am – 5 mile run

A hard training day: – 5.30am -80 minute swim

10am – 1 hour swim

3pm – Bike intervals – 90 mins

Wow! That makes me sweat just reading it! Athletes know about devotion to a task.

Another great scripture is in 1 Timothy 4:6-10

“If you put these things before the brothers, you will be a good servant of Christ Jesus, being trained in the words of the faith and of the good doctrine that you have followed. 7 Have nothing to do with irreverent, silly myths. Rather train yourself for godliness; 8 for while bodily training is of some value, godliness is of value in every way, as it holds promise for the present life and also for the life to come. 9 The saying is trustworthy and deserving of full acceptance. 10 For to this end we toil and strive, because we have our hope set on the living God, who is the Saviour of all people, especially of those who believe.”

Train yourself for godliness – train yourself – but not just for this life, but for the one to come! When I first read that, it got my attention. Won’t we all be the same once we get to heaven? This suggests not, this suggests that I need to train myself on earth as it will hold promise for the life to come. You see, it’s me that’s going to heaven – I won’t turn into someone else when I get there. There are rewards in heaven for the lives we live on earth.

Devote yourself, train yourself. It goes back to building your life on the rock doesn’t it. When you build on rock, you’re giving yourself THE best chance of winning when a storm hits!

So, during this lock down, we all have a great chance to become wiser. We train our bodies so that we don’t get wider! Haha! Plus we can devote ourselves to prayer, teaching, breaking of bread – I know we can’t do the fellowship part right now!

Think about your kitchen. Some times, I have a mad clean out. I get to the back of the cupboards and inevitably find a jar of pickles that went out of date last century! Everything gets pulled out, shelves get cleaned, the in date stuff gets put back. When it’s done, it feels great! Let me suggest doing that with your life. Search and see if there is anything lurking in the ‘back of a cupboard’ that you need to ditch. Set time aside every day to sit with God. Devote yourself, train yourself and you’ll be ready for any storm!

After thought – 28th November 2020

Here we are coming to the end of yet another lock down, although if you’re in tier 3, it doesn’t really feel like we’re coming out! At least we can begin to do our Christmas shopping, if you haven’t already! Could we ever have imagined on the 25th April when we talked about the above, that we would still be here 7 months later! The above message hasn’t changed. And I trust you are still training and devoting yourself. I hope you are reading your Bible, I hope you are going to church, I hope you’re getting wiser and not wider.

Since the 25th April, John and I have been busy working on a website. You will find all kinds of things there but I wanted to bring your attention to last weeks podcast because we spoke about storing up treasures in heaven which fits nicely into what is written in this blog. The link is below and the link for our website is below that.

Don’t let anything get on top of you, get on top of it!

See you next time, D x

Podcast link

 https://anchor.fm/deb-bullock/episodes/Store-up-your-treasure-in-heaven-emsj6q)

Website link

https://www.this-is-us.org/