blog ~ faith ~ family ~ heartlife
The woman described in Proverbs 31 brings anything and everything between motivation and interest to sighs and groans of loathing. This will depend on the age and season of the woman and her experience of marriage and family – but mainly it will depend on the way she has perceived the passage to have been taught. This little offering of mine is to share some thoughts as I see the chapter in question…
Continue reading ““That” woman!”
Here’s a “Choose Your own Post Script” to a famous story…
The next day after all the partygoers had feasted and danced at the celebration, they began to gather at the city gates to discuss the events of the previous. There were many opinions expressed and many left shaking their heads.
Continue reading ““Choose Your own Post Script””
A young friend, new to the Bible asked for help understanding the context of the story of The Good Samaritan… here’s what I wrote for her interspersed with the story itself
Continue reading “A story, some snobs and a Samaritan”
I once met a mum I knew at the shops whose teenage son was wearing a T shirt with an image I’d have liked to paint ball. My brain went into meltdown and I hurried my little people by as quickly as I could.
Continue reading “Judgement – don’t be like Sam”
Sometimes I wish Jesus had said more. Those red lettered words in the Bible really don’t seem to take up that much space. But I suppose that God figured it was enough, and in combination with it being a Living word and the help of the Holy Spirit it really is enough. (But I still often wish there was more 🤔)
Continue reading “Knowing who to listen to”
I give myself cause to laugh or groan with a sense of “I can’t believe I did thatness” every single day.
Continue reading “Names of God and typos”
“Sowing judgement for judgement” is a phrase a friend used in conversation many years ago. It’s one I’ve thought of a great many times since then – when I either watch or find myself in situations where that is the temptation. You know the ones… Where instead of going a distance beside the other, to discover what they think and why, we arc against something and often never are aware that all we’ve done is mirror judgement back. Love when what seems like a throwaway comment impacts both thought and action so deeply.
When I was a young teen, the topic of the second coming/the rapture/the tribulation/end of days was a hot and common topic in the church. It does still come up, but much less than years ago and mostly I think viewed with suspicion and there-goes-a-fruit-loop-ism these days. Suspicion is good if it makes you look for Bible truth, and so is there-goes-a-fruit-loop-ism for the same reason, but mostly I think it’s I’m-havening-a-nice-life-don’t-interrupt-me-ism or maybe a case of no-one-ever-told-me-Jesus-is-coming-back-ism. Or maybe fear.
Continue reading “Trumpet sounds”
I know there is good anger. Right anger. Necessary anger.
BUT ~ Anger is a common and quick false friend. This kind is a deceiver, a weight and a fog.
It obscures vision, weights thought in one’s favour, and justifies more action in anger.
Always? No, but probably more often than we care to admit.
Get out of the cloud – look clearly.
Smash the fake scales – judge fairly.
Build ~ don’t rip.
It’s not such a simple question!
A number of years ago I did a book display at a super ‘conservative’ Christian rally. I’d recently spent a number of years prior to that in a Pentecostal church but I’d attended the same rallies by the same conservative group as a small child with my parents. I stood there awash in The Fathers love and a sense of His presence and joy with the memory of being a toddler in that very auditorium and I knew the same joy I felt in the Pentecostal style worship was because it was the same Holy Spirit who was in each place. Neither set of beliefs governing style had everything right, but the Holy Spirit, by God’s grace, was present in both. He was there when I was a toddler in that auditorium, He was there in the Pentecostal church and He was there again that night.
Continue reading “To judge or not to judge?”