GLASSES!

My girls have all loved to play dress ups over the years, especially when they're little.

One of the favourite objects in our dressing up boxes has been glasses.   For some reason, glasses of all shapes and colours just can't be parted with when it comes time to donate to charity and make room for bigger dress ups.   

I was praying in the early hours this morning, and the Lord showed me a picture of glasses,  of all shapes and sizes.   I remembered that I had a photo of one of the girls dressed up with glasses.  Turned out I had quite a few, more than is pictured here.  

Why do we love glasses so much?   Is it because they change and colour the way we see things around us?   Does it give us a place to hide?   Does it give us a fresh and interesting perspective on ordinary things?   Does it give us a new way of looking at ourselves?   I suspect it's all that and more.

The Lord reminded me this morning that we often look at and receive messages through the glasses that we put on as children and adolescents, though not for dressing up purposes. 

The things that happen to us when we're young, and our responses to them, impact our lives from that point on.  I'm reminded that when we're young and vulnerable and impressionable, we often form images and ideas based on the messages received from the 'big people' in our lives.  

Obviously, the big people are our parents, but also others like siblings and other relatives, friends, teachers, pastors, employers, etc. 

Those images and ideas that are formed then become our 'truth', our way of measuring everything that comes after it, our reference points, our way of seeing things.   We often live life with our peculiar glasses on, unable to see life as it was meant to be seen, unable to receive different messages and truths now, because we're still wearing the same glasses, still using the same filters, still believing the same things - about ourselves, about others, about God.    Have our glasses actually damaged, and not helped, our vision?  

Yesterday, I listened to a rather powerful sermon, interjected by a couple of powerful and challenging prayers, which we were encouraged to speak out, that really reminded me that we often believe lies, for a very long time, and live out of those lies that we've believed, often unknowingly.    Those lies, those beliefs and the associated pain and anger and dysfunction, can keep us in a place of immaturity, a place of stagnancy, of slowly dying, instead of growing in relationship with Him and others.  

So, my challenge to you, and to myself is this:

Are you wearing glasses that affect how you see things and how you receive messages?   Can you give God those glasses, those filters, even if you can't see them or recognise how cracked they are?   Can you let it go and ask His truth to shine into those dark places of the past that poison the now?  It's a big ask and it's scary.    But God will pick up the pieces and strengthen you to move forward, if you'll let Him.   

I really believe it's time to let go - of the lies, the pain, the unforgiveness - and the glasses!!

I'll leave you with a verse that has challenged us and changed us this week.  

For the eyes of the Lord range throughout the earth to strengthen those whose hearts are fully committed to Him.   2 Chronicles 16:9

Staying on the Road!

This is our road, the one that I've slid along too many times these past few weeks.   It's not a path, as such, but it's a road God has used to teach me some things about staying on the path He sets for us.    This road has ruts in it and when it's wet, you better stay in those ruts, because otherwise you go sliding all over the road and end up in the drain.    The roads with ruts are actually better than the ones without, because at least there is something keeping you on the crest of the road and not sliding sideways towards the drain.   My path might not be straight, but I do like to stay on the road!   

I do not look forward to driving on this road when it's wet.    My husband does this stuff for a living and doesn't mind it;  young people we've had here have found it fun and challenging and exciting.  Not me.  I just want an easy drive and a quick one.   I don't want to struggle or suffer or be challenged and I don't like sliding sideways - fast or slow!   

Sometimes the path God chooses for us, or perhaps we've inadvertently chosen for ourselves, is a lot like this road.  It doesn't feel like a good place to be, or fun, or the right fit for us, or comfortable, or helpful.     And it's hard to stay on that path, even though we know it's where God has us right now.   

And it's hard to keep steering and keep moving forward on that path, because it's difficult and tedious and tiring and sometimes all-consuming.   It takes all our emotional and mental energy to just keep moving forward, albeit ever so slowly and not give up or turn back.   You can't turn around on our road - you're stuck, which is probably just as well, 'cause it's taught me to keep going!  You either keep poking along and eventually get there, or get bogged trying, or you give up and sit in the middle of the road, which makes the journey that much harder, because once your vehicle has lost its momentum, however tedious and slow that is, it is very hard to get going again. 

Of course, driving on a road for 30-40 minutes in these conditions is different to being on a difficult path for months or even years at a time, but I've done that too and some things feel much the same to me.   It's hard and depressing and you can dread it the whole way through, with your hands stuck so tight to the wheel you have to peel them off at the end.   Or you can relax just a little, but keep steering, keep moving, keep going forward while you keep trusting and submitting your ways to His, keep acknowledging Him, and keep believing that He cares, He's there, He's working on it, He's helping in real ways, unseen ways.  

In all your ways submit to Him, and He will make your paths straight.   Proverbs 3:6.

Linking up at Five Minute Friday, a party of writers who write on a given prompt every Friday.  Today's prompt word is 'path'. 

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Wisdom from Nana Nell the Great

 

This past week, we’ve had the privilege of hosting Stephen’s grandmother, and parents, but after his parents, left, his nearly 90 year old ‘Nana Nell’ stayed on for a couple of days before we drove her up to one of her daughters to stay with.

One night after dinner, I thought I should take the opportunity to ask what her top ten household and parenting tips were, as one day, sad as that will be, she won’t be around to ask, and I would regret having not asked her.   Nana Nell raised 5 children, who in turn have given her 18 grandchildren and 34 great grandchildren.  During the 2^nd Word War she worked in Sydney at a Home for unwanted children, and thought she knew all about children, but when she had her own, and was with them 24hrs a day without pay, she realised she knew nothing about being a mother, and so went for prayer from the minister’s wife.  From that day she made it her mission in life to  be a great mother, and is now the one others go to for wisdom. 

So here they are, just as she thought of them, top ten tips and a few funnies to boot.

(Hey, and I don’t do all these, all the time, but I hope there is something in here that you can hold onto, and just because you can’t get these all done, doesn’t make you any less of a good Mum.)

1.  Make your bed as soon as you get out of it.  Turn around at your door and survey a neat room before you leave.  

2. Pick up any washing and take it to the laundry or hang it up.

3. Whatever you cook is for the whole family.

4. Whatever job you don’t like, get it over with first.

5. When you sort dirty washing, go through everyone’s pockets.   (She told us a funny story of how her boarders would always leave money in their dirty pockets and she would always return it, but one day she announced she would keep any more money found.  Suddenly there was never any money in their pockets.)

6. Have the house tidy for your husband, including yourself.  My husband told me later he really appreciated the effort I put in.

7. Praise the children for what they’ve done right during the day, and if they’ve made a mistake, just say ‘I’m disappointed about such and such’ then leave the matter alone. 

8. Tidy the kitchen together after dinner and spend time with your children before bed. It’s important your children have happy memories.  We would always work together to clean the kitchen and sing.

9. Teach your children to come in with a smile.

10.  Take a bucket into a room and put everything that doesn’t belong in that room in the bucket, straighten up the room and then distribute the things in the bucket so you aren’t making ten trips to and from that room. 

Nana also told us a story of the worst punishment she ever dealt out:

One day they had gone to visit another family after church, with her brand new big, fashionable hat, which she left on the front seat of her car.   Unbeknownst to her the children played hide and seek in the car and squished her hat, and in great annoyance she declared that there would be no singing on the way home in the car, at which all the children were devastated.

When her eldest daughter Robyn, got her very first pay check two years later, the first thing she bought was a big beautiful hat for her Mum.

 

Is there someone in your life who has wisdom to share with you?  Who would you regret not asking if one day they were suddenly not around to share with you anymore?   I’d love to hear if anyone interviews an older family member or friend to share some good ‘Titus 2 Wisdom’ of the older women mentoring the younger.

 

Linking up at: www.arabahjoy.com

 

Living a Slower God Life

I've always been one to try and do more, perhaps we all do, because supposedly being more productive, will somehow make us more fulfilled and happier or perhaps more spiritual depending on the more.   Everywhere we are bombarded with more and more things to do, to try, habits to learn.    We can't fit it all in right now though. 

Just recently I've come to be content in my current life, and happy to sit and not try to do more, because often God is in the slower.  It's not wrong to be busy or have a full life, but it isn't helpful to be condemned because we want to be doing things that can't possibly fit right now, or could fit but wouldn't fit with our life values.

Yesterday was a day when I was in a hurry and I'd actually been extremely productive, and thrilled with productivity, even though it was merely accomplishing the few things on my list.   Until I had looked through every skeric of paperwork and discovered that the sticker for my husband's licence with our change of address on it was no where to be found and we would both have to go down to the traffic office and sort out our situation and try to get a replacement.

We were in that office for over half an hour in line, and then on the way back home every light turned red.  Stephen had work to do at home that was going to be tricky to fit in with the way our schedule was looking but I asked him to just let me run into the post office for a minute so that I wouldn't have to go back out when we got home. 

He decided we should all go into the post office, and then we should also check out the op shop next door, and when we walked out we ran into one of his old workmates who really needed to speak to him, and couldn't find his number.

"We just had to slow down, or we would have missed him."  Stephen said on our way home, and then our schedule re arranged itself, with cancellations for the next day that would allow us to fit everything for the week in.

God was in the slower, not the dashing madness. 

My day doesn't look like much when I write it down on paper:  Wednesday 15th July

Erin and I woke up and ate our cereal and then tiptoed down to check on Mum and the girls, still sleeping at 7:30am.  Then a muddle of showers, buttered toast, sweeping the floor, swishing benches, tipping milk on the floor, and losing my keys.

Running late to Mainly Music, where we dance and sang and chatted deeper than usual, a shopping trip to Aldi's  and dark chocolate on the way home, cook and eat lunch while Stephen is on the phone trying to sort out a botched order, put a tired baby to bed, and sit to pray over business plans. 

Reading a quick few pages of Nothing Hidden Tool booklet for Love After Marriage, then the toddler wakes up and check facebook.   Take her downstairs to hit the ball in the squash court and say hi to the lady whose come to clean the church and she shares how she's been exploring the countryside and picking a different town a week to visit.  She went to one town and developed a dreadful tooth and earache and went in search of panadol but after she walked into a shop with Christian music playing it left.   Then the toddler tipped a cup of milk on the kitchen floor and I took her outside to bounce crazy, hair and tutu fluffing, while I mused and pulled the weeds in the church yard.

Now she's watching Wiggles while I type.  It's nearly 4pm and I still need to get the clothes in from the line and print a few things before we go out to visit a friend at 6pm. 

On paper it's not life changing, but for many it's just life and God is meeting me here and you too, it's about finding the joy in it all.  Would you like the printable below I created after studying every reference to joy in the Bible?  Click over here, What is Joy Really?

Linking up at:

Bearing the Right Fruit in the Right Season

 

 

I was thinking the other day about how we try to do so many things at once, as if we could manage it all, and have you ever noticed how fruit trees start off with small harvests before becoming a bumper bearer?  Sometimes God gives us the grace to manage many things at once and other times, we’ve got to lay things down.  Sometimes if we’ve been through a particularly dry time in our lives, the tree can only keep alive by not bearing beautiful fruit at that time.

And can you imagine an orange tree that tried to hold onto last season’s fruit, in this season?  The fruit is all shrivelled brown and mouldy, it’s better for it to drop off the tree, than for the tree to try to hold onto it. 

When we persist in holding onto things that are not in the right timing for us to bear as fruit, there is no life in it, everything is a struggle.  And we can’t hurry into the things that are on our hearts for next season, but are still budding.  The only way to grow our fruit better is to dig around our roots, by digging into the Word and watering our souls with thankfulness and praise, to spend rich time with God so that the fruit can grow bigger, better and tastier.

I can’t keep teaching Sunday School now in this new season, and try though I would to hold onto it, my fruit was getting mouldy.  In this new season, I know I’m going to be starting a dance school, but I’m slowly budding, studying, learning. 

Is there anything God is challenging you to lay down before it gets mouldy?   Sometimes He asks us to keep doing things that are a struggle, but other times it is a struggle because it isn’t time.   I’m learning what it means to abide.   I’ve shared before about Bearing Fruit When You Have a Baby and what times of pruning look like, in winter when God is asking you to lay more and more down and retreat into Him. 

Then in spring you have wonderful ideas for new things, and things are just falling into your lap, your life is budding, but then comes the hard work of growing those buds into real fruit that others can enjoy, and finally sharing with others in autumn, before we retreat back into God and lay down last seasons harvest so we can have a new one.

In Season is a beautiful book by Wayne Jacobsen, explaining from his perspective of growing up in a vineyard what different seasons in our lives look like.  He explains what it takes in the natural to look after a vineyard and then parallels that with our spiritual lives.







Linking up at: Thriving Thursdays 

When God Wants to Splash Your Day

(I wrote this post much earlier this year, and it's been sitting in my drafts waiting, and as I look forward to the new year, I'm praying hard that God would take me back to my first love that I had when I was 14 and newly learning about Him after my trip to PNG that changed my life.  Maybe this will help you pause a moment in this mad crazy race towards Christmas as you dash through busy shopping centres, to stop for the one He has placed in front of you.)

I learnt a lesson yesterday. I was wandering through a shopping centre, different to the one I normally trot along to for my grocery shopping.  For months I’ve been asking God to talk to me, help me hear from him better, to highlight people to me that need Him, that are ready and open for an encouraging word from Him. 

Yesterday He did.  She was this little old lady sitting on a bench waiting for someone, and I felt a little nudge to go talk to her. ‘Nah,’ I thought, ‘that can’t be God, I don’t know what to say or do or anything.’  But I’m actually pretty sure it was.  As I was walking to Lifeline, I kept feeling like I should go back and talk to her, and I knew in my spirit the moment she walked away, and sure enough when I looked, she was then gone.

I’ve repented, yes, and do you know what that means?  Next time I need to do something about it.  Now that I know what that nudge looks like, feels like.   Because repenting means to turn away from and not do it again.   Not miss that opportunity again, to have something crazy and interesting to turn an ordinary day into a moment.

I mean, she was an old lady with a walking stick, what could she possibly have done to hurt me?  There are people everyday preaching the Gospel at real risk.  I don’t know what I was supposed to talk to her about, and the worst she could have done was refused to speak to me or told me to leave.

I’ve been thinking about this, and some options for next time; because there will be one.  There are always people in need of love. I’ve come up with some ideas to help us both for next time.

You could: sit down next to her and look as though you also were waiting for someone, make small talk and see where it goes until God gives you something to say.

Give her a pre-written card with an encouraging word inside, that you carry in your handbag.

If she was injured; just offer to pray for her. I’ve done this before and seen incredible results.

Any other ideas?

I’ve been reading Bill Hybels’ book, Just Walk Across the Room, and listening to a cd set by another pastor from the same church, challenging us that, our just walking across the room and talking to someone could change a destiny.  It’s full of stories, testimonies and amazing encounters, but unless we actually step out and do it, we will never know what could have happened.

Sometimes I look at life like one of those ‘Choose Your Own Adventure’ books that were popular in the late 90s.  You read a page and it gave you a choice of your next step.  Turn to page 128 if you do such and such, or 87 if you decide not to.  It completely changes your direction. 

Could I have redirected her eternity?  I pray that I am so Compelled by Love, that I can’t help but spill it out on everyone nearby and that I am prompted to obey. 

I once thought that only baby Christians needed a revelation of God’s love, and that if we just got more a grip on the Fear of the Lord, we’d be better behaved.  (Have I ever mentioned pride goes before a fall?)  I spent the next 12 months learning just how much we all need a revelation of God’s love, and how when I’d fallen flat on my face, deep in the grip of fear that came blazing like headlights, it was only perfect love that could cast out fear. 

 

Why we Made Chocolate Cake in Sunday School

Have you ever made a cake without putting in all the ingredients?   Left one out perhaps or substituted for something else? 

I decided we should make a chocolate cake for Sunday School, which would not only double as morning tea (heaps more interesting than the biscuits I normally give them) but also be the focal point of our lesson.

I compared my recipe for the cake, to the book of Proverbs as a recipe book for our cake.

Long story short: if you leave ingredients out of your cake it will flop.  If you leave the wisdom of Proverbs out of your life, it too will flop. 

We started off with the chocolate cake and then moved onto a couple of other games, as I compared Proverbs to a road rule book. 

God has a plan for your life.  Each of your days is written in His book.  God's plan for our life called our destiny, which comes from the word, destination.  What is a destination?

There are more ways than one to a destination.   We all have a journey to go on with God.

What is a good path for me is very different to God's path for you.  Just like I go a different way home than you do, because our houses are in different places, His plan for my life is different to yours.
God has different plans for each of us, but there are some things that will help us, like road rules help us get home so that we don't crash into out cars on our way.  Proverbs is like a book of road rules that help us get home to Heaven, at the end of our lives.

Have you ever played a game where you have to roll the dice and try and get from the beginning to the end but there are booby traps and mud holes along the way?  Sometimes there are great treasure troves as well.  Life is a bit like playing snake and ladders.  Listening to God and loving people is like going up a ladder but being mean and ignoring God will cause us to slide down a snake. 


After sharing this with the children we then played snakes and ladders and also this game that I made at a Chrysalis weekend with my table mates.    

Linking up at Thriving Thursday

Zombie Stopping Prayer

Recently Stephen and his workmate were standing on the roof of a 6 metre high industrial sized shed, when his mate asked, “If there was like a zombie or a lion, up here about to eat us, would you take your chances fighting them off, or would you jump?”

After thinking about it for a bit, Stephen replied, “Neither, I’d just pray.” 

“No, seriously, would you jump or fight.”

Stephen responded again that he would just pray.

“But you wouldn’t have time to pray, and what’s that going to do anyway?”

“What, how long does it take to say ‘help, God!  The only reason you say it’s not going to do anything is because you don’t know the power of prayer.”   

The workmate didn’t respond, so Stephen thought he would share a personal experience, like the time he was in Israel, in a park late at night praying with a friend, and they were mugged.  The two muggers had Stephen’s friend by the cuff of his shirt, fist drawn back, ready to strike him and the friend simply said, “Leave me alone in Jesus Name.”   The mugger’s arm froze and he couldn’t move it forward or backward.  Frustrated he yelled to his accomplice to grab the knife and the accomplice froze and couldn’t move.  After realising they couldn’t do anything, they let Stephen and his mate go.  

At this point in the story, Stephen’s workmate with his eyes wide, said “I don’t know what to say.”

“Well, you asked me what I’d do, I would pray.”

Seriously, though, have you ever wondered why this generation

is currently so obsessed by zombies and vampires?

Here's a thoughtful article to ponder.

And if you disagree, perhaps you could pray this prayer:

God if it's my problem, show me,

and if it's their problem, show them. 

(Want a printable?) 

Thanks

linking up at: Thriving Thursdays

How to Pray for . . . Everything

God save them.  It’s a heart cry. A hard cry because you can’t. save. Them.

Time is ticking by and on that greeting card, the monthly mewsletter, you want desperately to write something meaningful because you know they don’t have much time left.   Every tick is another minute gone and you want to see them in heaven, really you do.  You want to declare that they will become a mighty man or woman of God and not miss their destiny, but somehow you feel as if they already have.  God only knows, and I can’t judge, I didn’t live their life.

I want to pray for them more regularly, and more faithfully cause my prayers are what is going to make the difference.                        
                    

I’ve assigned a different day to family I want to pray for, because my husband has such a large extended family, this makes it easier to remember.  Another way is to associate days with meetings, eg, on Tuesday I pray for our elders, because we have an elder’s meeting, Thursday, other pastors in the city because we have a big prayer meeting, Sundays, the other pastors in our church etc.
I've now also tacked this up on the dresser next to our bed and I'm finding I get a lot more praying done that way because I'm often lying in bed nursing the baby as it is the best place for her to not get distracted. 

One other thing I find handy, is a list of prayer points pinned up to pray over people.  There are a number of ‘How to Pray for Your’ . . . husband, kids, neighbour etc out there.  Just google.  I have these pinned up in my wardrobe, and I even asked my husband to write a list of things he wants prayer for so that I can be more specific, or how about re-reading any prophetic words you have received and taking prayer points from those to pray over yourself/family?

Bless the people around you. God I bless such and such to know you!  To know Your purpose and intentions for their life and declare.  Words are so powerful. 

Declare: I declare that ‘insert name’ will become a mighty man/woman of God, and not miss their destiny.  Free printable here. Maybe even put up a list of names to insert, next to it.  

How do you pray for your relatives?  Do you have lists, prayer calendars, and scriptures printed out and about to pray over them?  

One thing I really want to pray over Erin that I find some prayer calendars miss in their long list of virtues, is that she would be a worshipper.  While other kids might be colouring in under pews I feel it's important she be worshipping God, lost in His presence.      I loved watching her on Sunday hands raised quite lost while we were singing You're Beautiful by Phil Wickham. 
What is the most important virtue to you to pray over your children?
  

 

Linking up at:

Bearing Fruit With a Baby

It’s a year to bear fruit and I’m sitting here staring at that great visual.  The top of my bookshelf, the FAITH, the us, our kiss, the LOVE, the woman under the tree nursing her baby, and it’s not such a small one.  It’s about the size of mine, nearly one and needing the nurture more now than ever.   

They told me life would change when I had a baby and I knew it would, but for four months it didn’t really.  She was too small to move, and I could do nearly everything I could before.  The meetings, the ministry, the prayer rooms for hours, the Sunday School, the youth group for the teenage girls that I had taught in the highschools and who had stared at my rounding belly growing fuller each week.  Those girls who had promised and begged for baby-sitting rights.

Slowly it all started to change, and I struggled to keep up.  I knew I had to lay stuff down, but I struggled against the pruning.  I was surely bearing fruit, but all my opportunities started getting snipped away, because now she could move and talk and crawl away and wouldn’t keep quietly sleeping through each meeting. 

My sister had made me the wire tree for Christmas.  She said it was a prophetic gift and this was the year for bearing fruit.    I had asked Stephen only days before Christmas to make me a wire tree, but he didn’t have time, but my sister did, and she who didn’t know my request, had it whispered in her ear by God.  I tried so hard for the first half of the year to keep up.  Keep up with meetings and the friends who could be so busy without a baby.    I tried to grow fruit and grew frustration. 

I set goals that I met and then couldn’t and got frustrated and wondered why my baby couldn’t just be ‘normal’ and settle into a routine. Not while her Mummy was busy dashing here there and everywhere. 

This week my mother and father in law came visiting after a family funeral.  It was his birthday so they bought us a vacuum cleaner, and they cleaned my house and called it a holiday.   My windows, my floor, my sink all sparkling clean and at the round table we sat to talk, and I asked him what it meant to bear fruit, and he, who has struggled with burn out and not doing enough for God,  said that it meant first there had to be a pruning of the activities that were no longer bearing fruit so that I could focus on the areas that were.

Thank you father in law; that one sentence has freed me to do what I need to do.  To spend time in the Word, to journal and hear God’s heart, and to write down the revelation for everyone.  To not try anymore to bear fruit but to water my soul so that it can and to grow my baby into a girl who is in love with her Heavenly Daddy because her mummy is, and little girls copy their mummies. 

It’s my year of Hope and Growth, of understanding that life is a journey and I’m learning I can’t make all my dreams and desires happen instantly.   

Linking up at: Thriving Thursday

Sunday School Secrets: Heaven

Welcome to our first little bit of Sunday School Secrets, where we get to come together and share our ideas and inspirations for teaching our little and yet very important students some very foundational life lessons. 

I’m not sure about you, but I would rather sit down and come up with a lesson from scratch than follow a book. Actually, I’m not sure about that.  Perhaps I would like to follow a book but none of the books I’ve tried other than Eyes that See and Ears that Hear have really worked.  

My students don’t seem to be the type that want to sit still and write in a book and match words together or find them in word searches.  It all needs to be a bit more interactive than that. 

Recently I introduced the concept of a Sunday School Board, where we pin our lesson up and then carry it out and hang it up on the wall where everyone coming downstairs after the service can’t help but see it, and sometimes the kids even pull them over and do a ‘presentation’ and, I’m amazed actually recite the lesson nearly perfectly.  (If you are despairing that the children in your class aren’t learning anything, get them to give the adults a presentation, you’ll *hopefully* be amazed.) The children love arranging it on the board, pinning it on and then showing the adults.

So for the past two weeks we have done a lesson on heaven.  I’ve got the picture here of our board and I’ll just go through and explain what we did. 

First I cut out the letters H E A V E N at home and brought them in, and because we had mainly girls that day, they decorated them with glue and beads, while I read to them out of ‘Revealing Heaven II’ by Kat Kerr.

There are quite a few books about these days of children or adults who have either died and gone to heaven and come back to life, or been in a serious accident and had an experience of heaven whilst in a coma, or simply had dreams or visions about heaven.    So the pictures I used were illustrations out of the fore mentioned book that the author herself had drawn.  

When I was a youngster and asked questions about heaven I don’t remember getting many solid answers other than that I would go there when I die.   I wanted to inspire these kids with some stories of heaven and then use it as a platform to share the salvation message.

I specifically read to them about the baby nursery in heaven where aborted or miscarried babies go, about the mansions God is preparing for us and about our pets who have died.

Then I asked some questions.  Who can go to heaven, where is it, how do we get then and when? And in there I slipped the salvation message to these children. 

Where – somewhere in out of space God has prepared a place.  (Dad used to sing that to me). 

How- through Jesus who died on the cross for our sins, and Stephen explained this more in depth with this little illustration on the chalkboard. 

(In the beginning God created the earth and we were straight on our way to Heaven, but then sin came in and we fell and we were straight on our way to Hell, but then God sent Jesus to die on the cross and bridge the gap.  Now we have a choice to walk with Jesus or keep going on our own to hell)

When – either when we die, or sometimes God might choose to give us a dream or vision.

Who – Those who ask Jesus to be the boss of their hearts and say sorry for the bad stuff they’ve done. 

So what else is on our board? 

The bits hanging off the bottom are part of a Psalty song ‘Heaven is a wonderful place, filled with glory and grace, I want to see my Saviour’s face because Heaven is a wonderful place’

A little prayer ‘I want to be heaven minded, like you God’.   This is actually a part of a Bethel song from their album ‘Be Lifted High’.  At one stage I was listening to this album every morning as part of my quiet time and particularly that song and I found that I was seeing things differently than before.

 

"I want to be heaven minded"

 

The next week we chatted about how we are three parts, body, soul and spirit, which was actually building on/reviewing a previous lesson.

Our body is our physical part, our soul is our mind, will and emotions and our spirit is the part of us that connects to God and goes up to heaven when we die where we get a new body.

We coloured in a couple of pictures that I just found on the internet, about Jesus being our strong tower, and how He is the door.

Oh and yes, both weeks we did touch briefly on hell and who goes there and why.  It’s a tricky one because I didn’t want to scare their little socks off because when I’ve read books about hell I’ve had nightmares for months, but I did want to make sure that they understood that heaven isn’t the only place people go after death. 

So what are your Sunday School Secrets?  Please link up below :)
 

 

An InLinkz Link-up

What Shapes Your Perspective?

by Kath

What shapes our perspectives - of ourselves? 

The people we live with.    When we're little and as we grow through the teenage years into adulthood, what shapes our perspective of ourselves is family.      Our father and mother, and siblings and others, reflect back to us worth, direction, values, confidence,  beauty, identity, etc, etc.  

Families are great.   God designed them to be a humidicrib of love and affirmation and nurture and enabling and encouragement and growth and safety and strength.  

 

But, what if that isn't the case?   What had the potential for power and faith and strength has just as much potential for great damage and disablement.  

Sometimes, the two go together.   Our family can enable us in one area, and disable us in another.    Families are the structures that either hem us in or allow us room to grow.

Are we disabled and insecure and unsure of ourselves because of our family's reflections of our worth?

So, how is YOUR perspective?   

Is your perspective about you the same as God's perspective?   Or is your perspective about you still being shaped by what your family say, think, feel about you?   Where your family and God agree, then you are doubly blessed.   But what if your family didn't/don't reflect back to you the worth you have?   What if your perspective is limited by the small perspective your family had or has of itself?  Do you need to get out of the city centre and see it and yourself from a bigger perspective?   

Psalm 139:13-18

Oh yes, You shaped me first inside, then out; You formed me in my mother’s womb.
I thank You, High God—You’re breathtaking!  Body and soul, I am marvellously made!
I worship in adoration—what a creation!  You know me inside and out,
You know every bone in my body; You know exactly how I was made, bit by bit,
how I was sculpted from nothing into something.
Like an open book, You watched me grow from conception to birth;
all the stages of my life were spread out before You,
The days of my life all prepared before I’d even lived one day.

17-22 Your thoughts—how rare, how beautiful!   God, I’ll never comprehend them!
I couldn’t even begin to count them - any more than I could count the sand of the sea.
Oh, let me rise in the morning and live always with You!

Linking up over at . . .

When Bikkies and Tea Meet Your Destiny

 

Thanks to Laura for use of this photo.

Check out her Etsy shop. 

by Lizzy

We all want a little bit more from life, rather like we’d prefer a chocolate cream biscuit to dunk in our coffee rather than just a plain. It’s likely though that the chocolate biscuit, be it an Oreo or an Aussie Tim Tam, costs a bit more than the plain version. In life it costs a bit more time and effort to have the chocolate cream version, but then it’s more satisfying too. You may have thought we were going to spend our time chatting about cosy things like cups of coffee, tea and yummy biscuits, but sorry you were wrong.

This is about living life in the shivery cold of the deep end. I actually like the shallow end, I can splash around a bit, it’s usually just a wee bit warmer than the deep end, and I have my feet firmly on the ground, or I can find it again pretty fast if I lose it. I never actually learnt to swim properly and I still don’t like going beyond my depth, or jumping off the diving board. It’s easy to trot through life doing the normal, but if we stepped off and bomb dived, the ripples would effect other people too, maybe even the splash.

I’ve been developing my prophetic gift, and you know what? You have one too. Yes, you do!

Prophecy is just encouraging someone about their future from God’s perspective, and all you have to do to get that, is sit down and ask him. Ready to take a step and make a splash? It really will change someone’s life. I did this last week, and the people in question didn’t think it was weird or strange, they were deeply encouraged.

Sit down, and take the top 3 people in your facebook, twitter or e-mail feed. Write down their names and pray for them like you’d want someone to pray for you. Then write down in a card what you prayed for them. Explain why you’re sending it, address it, seal the envelope with a lick and a kiss and POST. Chocolate and cream doesn’t have to be fattening, just fulfilling.

Sunday School Secrets: A Declaration For You

Welcome to Sunday School Secrets, a fortnightly link up where we can share our Sunday School ideas and revelations.
 

Sometimes we know all too well that 'The tongue has the power of life and death' Proverbs 18:21, and other times we forget.  So let's be intentional about using it for its full positive effect.  This declaration comes from 'Revealing Heaven II' by Kat Kerr, and the font I've used is from Vanessa.

We have been using this declaration in our Sunday School and teaching the children to bless each other by speaking it out using their friend's name, even the adults have gotten on board.

On Mother's day I gave out little cards with quotes from Lisa-Jo's Surprised by Motherhood on the front and inside cover, and with this quote and all the names of the kids I  our church around it.


 

An InLinkz Link-up

Bringing Eternity Closer to Those Clutching at Straws

by Lizzy

It seems everywhere you turn these days there are reminders that life is but a moment. I have been cutting up a scrapbooking magazine for some pictures and I have found so many little tags and captions designed to capture the moment. ‘Remember the moment’, ‘Live fully, laugh heartily, relax daily, love completely, enjoy the journey’, ‘I am so thankful’, ‘Cherish: to treat with affection and tenderness: Hold Dear’. ‘Sometimes you will never know the true value of a moment until it becomes a memory.’ ‘Life is not measured by the number of breaths we take, but by the moments that take our breath away.’

Even driving past the corner store, written on their blackboard was the phrase: ‘There are seven days in a week, someday is not one of them.’ And I’m glad, honestly I am that there are so many reminders that we are not here forever, but I really hope it makes people stop and think, what’s next?

After their life here, that hopefully they enjoy, are thankful for, cherish, live fully, where are they going next? Do they have an assurance of the next step if they were to die tomorrow? Do the people around us somehow understand that time as we know it is nearing the midnight hour? Do they understand perhaps sometimes better than we that the end times are near, and they are clutching at every moment, longing to enjoy it but not sure how in the middle of crisis and argument and heartache?

I asked God for an awareness of this reality perhaps a year or two ago, I asked Him to ‘break my heart for what breaks yours’ as the line goes in a popular Hillsong tune, and He did. For a little while there it seemed that I even had a little courage to do something about it. To step out and pray for someone hobbling around the supermarket, to follow the prompting of a night dream and meet someone at the corner pub and tell them Hope.

Until fear came barging down the middle of the road, headlights blinding and I stood trapped in that fierce blaze, stunned and sidelined because suddenly it didn’t seem like my little bit could ever be enough, to actually save someone from a dark eternity. It took a while, nearly 12 long months to realise that it was a lie, because Christ is enough for me, and for them and for everyone, and I’m ready to step out again, because I’m realising more than ever, that time is short. So will you pray for me, for courage and boldness and I’ll pray for you too, and perhaps together we can fulfil the destiny we have here on earth to share the Good News?

Destiny GPS

by Lizzy

In Sunday School last week we discussed our destiny, and I want to compare it to a GPS. Perhaps you will find these notes useful for your Sunday school or youth group, and these notes are going to pave the way for our bigger series on destiny, because really that’s why we want to get the most out of life. With all the choices and things we could fit into our day, we are trying to find out what is the most important, what we really want from life and where we really want to end up.

When life just seems to be a collection of facebook statuses and twitter tweets, that are all pointing in varied directions, sit back for a minute and write down your dreams and desires; because Goals Inspire Faith

What is a GPS? When you are in the car what does it show you? The quickest route or the longest route . What does the GPS do when you decide to go a different way than what it wants? Does it spend the whole time directing you back to the best route? God is our GPS, our God Positioning System. He has a best route for us, but sometimes we are stubborn and really want to go our own way.

There are more ways than one to a destination. We all have a journey to go on with God, and He knows the best route. What is a good path for me is very different to God’s path for you. Just like I go a different way home than you do, because our houses are in different places, God has different plans for each of us, but there are some things that will help us, like road rules help us get home so that we don’t crash into other cars. Proverbs is full of these road rules.

An example of our different journeys would be, if God wants me to be a writer and I decide to be a doctor and help everyone in Africa and chase after that, I will have a lack of peace and fulfilment because I’m not in God’s plan, but that might be His plan for you.

I have a friend who decided to go back to University, complete year 10 and study different languages so he could go to another country and translate the Bible. Wonderful plan, but he was becoming depressed and struggling badly with his studies until he discovered that though the concept was wonderful it wasn’t God’s plan and he switched to science studies. Have you ever played a board game where you have to roll the dice and try and get from the beginning to the end but there are booby traps and mud holes along the way? Sometimes there are great treasure troves as well. Life is a bit like playing snakes and ladders, but listening to God’s voice will help us avoid the snakes and find the ladders.

(Photo Credits to Shelly Neideck)