Bradley Jones Out Loud

Church Sign "All welcome...do not disturb"

2011-08-30T04:58:00.000-07:00

We have some warped ideas of church, that its either for weirdo's. Or we have to dress a certain way, act a certain way before we can go to church.

I was chatting to someone at the skate park the other day, and they said “its only kooks that get saved” In others words people that cant really skate or the weird people in society” Part of me was like yeah I suppose you right…

I have always seen that as a bad thing, But rather through the love of God I am starting to see it as a compliment. That people notice that God’s love is for anyone. It is not exclusive. Jesus says “A healthy person does not go to the doctor, but rather the sick”

Does the world look at our church and our actions and go “All is really welcome there” Rather than just a sign that hangs on our door…

God so loved the world – There is nothing exclusive about a world embracing love. Our love very often becomes restricted to those we like, those part of our friendship group. To those that will not require lots of energy or our money.

We love the lovely, the lovable, and the loving but that is not agape love, that is not the love of God.

When we limit church to certain people it's about us, when we open it up it's about God

The love of God love is wide enough to welcome the unfortunate in large numbers.

I go to church because I love God, I love his people, I love interacting, I love that church is where I can go and not have to wear a mask, not have to have money in my wallet, not have to have everything in order. Its about loving God...

If I throw apple at Vicky...

2011-07-09T00:21:00.001-07:00

If I come home everyday and throw an apple at Vicky, that is not going to help our relationship grow. If we take advantage of the grace God has given us by just living our lives for ourselves. It’s not going to help grow the relationship. It’s just going to make it about you. Here is the simple truth, God loves you so much that he wants to be in a real relationship with you, but you are not the end of God’s plan. God wants you to be part of his plan, not be the plan. We don’t like that. We want to be the final credits in the movie, get the last line in a fight. God says you are the intro to what I am wanting to do. The great news is I want to include you in it.

Why do we pray?

2011-06-25T23:19:00.000-07:00

Why do we pray?? Prayer is vitally important and a crucial part of a relationship with God. But why do we pray? When you first prayed why was it? We get told we must prayer when we get saved or even to get saved. It’s a way of communicating with God. Building a relationship. There are lots of awesome analogies and thoughts behind prayer. But the simple question is why do we pray? Do we believe God is in control and can change things? That if we are growing in a relationship with him we can pray inline with what His will is and become part of it.

I think we have lost the sight of the power of prayer and have just made it part of our daily Christian to do list. Pray = TICK! We have lost all passion in prayer because we focus on prayer and not the person to whom we pray and the awesome power and sovereignty that is God.

On the road again

2011-05-11T10:37:00.001-07:00

Just sitting here with my beautiful wife waiting for the time to go by so we can catch our flight. Can't help but think how much time we waste just waiting. If only we would dance while we wait, or maybe engage a stranger for an exchange of stories past. Maybe hold hands and think of old times gone by.

My fear is we sit waiting for so long we never get around to doing anything and we settle or nothing.

Don't ever settle, love those people in your life an enjoy every moment.

- Posted using BlogPress from my iPhone

Reminder about your invitation from Bradley Jones

2011-05-09T13:33:00.001-07:00

2011-05-03T00:03:00.001-07:00

I like to make candles

2011-04-14T03:46:00.001-07:00

Because he is the Lord – Paul speaks in Romans 9: 20 “But who are you, o man, to talk back to God? Shall what is formed say to him who formed it “why did you make me like this?”

I once went to a candle decorating place and made a candle for my mom. My skill level in fine art and candle making leave lots to be desired. However unique my candle was, does it have any right to say to me “Why did you make me with so many odd colors, and a splash of pink?” Does the candle have a right to question the purpose I have for it? I think that candle still sits on my Moms dresser in her room.

God has created us, given us everything we need to achieve his purposes and plans he has for us. Ephesians 2: 10 “For we are his workmanship, created in Christ Jesus for good works, which God prepared beforehand, that we should walk in them” God made us, and he loves us and he is perfect. The God of the universe, the creator of everything took some time to make you. He does not lack the skill level that I did in making candles. He has made you perfect for the plan he has for you.

The devil made me do it...

2011-04-07T04:31:00.000-07:00

My mom used to love to do crafts and a type of fabric paint. I remember many an afternoon where the family would sit down and draw their names and a spider or a unicorn on our pillowcases. For the record, mine was the spider.

Needless to say after many years of fabric painting and the invention of laminating pictures, our walls in our rooms where filled with random pictures. Some of cartoons and others of random flowers in a field. I remember I had one of this little hot stuff devil character with a pitch fork that had a saying next too it “The devil made me do it”

I wonder how much of what I did as a child, and still do today is with the mind set that “The devil made me do it?” That I don’t take responsibility for my own selfishness, I don’t take seriously my own inward focused attitude. My attitude that serves to protect myself and no one else. To make everything about me?

I am scared of responsibility which is rooted in the fear or not being good enough. We worry so much that we will be found out we are frauds or fakes that we blame others, or shift focus onto other things instead of taking responsibility.

Yes the devil might influence us, or lead us into temptation sometimes. But we need to realize we are our own worst enemies when we live self centered lives and worry more about out bottom line than about God’s bottom line.

Walking in the dark

2011-03-29T03:26:00.000-07:00

The other night I had to go to the bathroom and I could not see where I was going and I stood on Seth’s shark that made a loud noise. Almost as loud as me stumbling my way though the dark. Luckily no one woke up. The point is though, the longer I stayed in the dark the more my eyes adjusted and the more I could see, the more I could start to convince myself and my brain I was in the light, rather than the dark. The more and more we justify the darkness in our lives, the more and more we will start to convince ourselves its actually light.

The more we will justify selfish behavior and let it go unchecked in our lives. We need to hold our actions up to the light of the word of God and the Holy spirit. Not the world. Just because something is culturally permissible does not make it what is best for us.

It is all about the "I"

2011-03-08T04:05:00.000-08:00

When I was growing up I was always looking for something, I always wanted to fit in. I always wanted to be accepted. Be loved. I looked in the world, I looked to my friends but they could not give me what I needed because it was not their place. I looked to skateboarding, and I felt accepted as long as I was skating and landing tricks. But when I was not skating I still felt empty. I looked for acceptance in girls but they could not find it for themselves so how where they suppose to share it with me. I looked for it in drinking but only found it while I was drinking. Once I finished I would just be left with a headache and still searching for something. Some where to fit in.

The problem was with all the I’s. I made it about me, about everything I wanted and needed. I lived a life with the ideas of what can I get. That I wanted too be the center of the world, the center of my life. The sad thing was though I could not even fix things in my own life, how was I going to fix the world if I was actually the center.

One day through my search, Jesus found me and said these words “You can love me, because I first loved you” Jesus was accepting me for who I was. I did not have too put anything in too feel loved, to feel like I fitted in. The he had made me who I am for a reason, and everything I need to be who God was calling me to be I have already been given.

My life was changed because of what Jesus had done, not because of who I was and what I could do or not do. It was all about Jesus. I still find myself sometimes making it about the I, instead of Jesus and his love. God is gracious and loving and gently puts me back on the path of ultimate acceptance and love. That as he works through me I am able to share his love with others.

Jesus loves me, even though my “I” attitude is the root cause of the worlds issues. It is because of Jesus dying and taking the place of the “I” that I am able to know his love and peace and acceptance. Without his love I would know no real love.

Fireworks, Forts, and Tears

2011-02-17T02:41:00.000-08:00

When I was younger and fireworks where not fully illegal. My brother and I spent all the money we had saved selling plants on weekends buying crackers and storing them up till we had the biggest stock pile ever. Getting ready for battle against the world with our crackers we built ourselves a little fort and barricaded ourselves in. We had little windows to throw crackers out. I am not sure but am almost certain we got dressed up for the occasion. We had big dreams for our fort and the joy that was going to come out of it. So here we are in our little fort waiting for some unsuspecting victim to come around the corner so we can attack and release the full force of our army.

So around the corner comes my dad, we threw a cracker or five in his general direction, he quickly disappeared and came back with him own selection of crackers. He lit his little jumping jack (those where the little crackers that shot some flames and spun round), It was small in comparison to our army of fireworks we had spent weeks building up and counting. So my dad threw his cracker threw our window and into the bucket of supplies. Needless to say the bucket burst into flames and explosions like popcorn in a pot. It was a fantastic site, although when the smoke cleared and the excitement had passed. I was left with no crackers and crying.

Such a small cracker had destroyed my stock pile, it had taken my dreams of world domination and reduced it too sulpher. That is the power of the tongue. It might be said in jest, or done as a response to something else. But we need to know it has the power to destroy and penetrate strong holds and break down stockpiles. To ruin dreams. It has the power to take down walls we have built up against attack. The tongue as powerful as it is, is even smaller in its attack, is as small as an ant, it can get in anywhere. And sometimes only comes out weeks later, or even years and has a continual effect on us.

How are we using our tongues, are we using it too break down people, to get ahead in our own lives. To break others down so we can feel better about ourselves instead of seeking God and finding ourselves in him.

Let us never underestimate the power of a single small word.

They stole Wolverine

2011-02-07T03:58:00.000-08:00

A while back I was given a copy of the movie “Wolverine Orgins” It was excellent quality although copied (I am not discussing the right to own copied material right now” Not a big fan of owning stolen stuff, but alas… I was excited too see the movie as I have a fondness for Wolverine.

So on checking out the movie, the quality was good and all was going along nicely, But towards the end it turned out the movie was stolen before they could finish editing it, before they could edit out the green screens and the ropes. It basically ruined the whole movie, the whole plot was foiled due to the lack of context and scenery. The actors were just running around with ropes tied on them in a green room. Not very enjoyable at all, perhaps God was laughing at me due to the partaking in stolen property?

This has made me think. The bible is very similar to the end of that movie. When we don’t look at the context of the scripture, when we don’t unpack it more we are left with just a few ropes which very often don’t make sense…

So the moral of this blog, is don’t accept stolen property, don’t take the bible out of context, it will feel like someone is trying to control you with ropes like a puppet rather.

Factory Shop Church

2011-01-25T22:11:00.000-08:00

Living in Jeffreys Bay I am constantly surrounded by factory shops, and I know of lots of people that come to J-Bay just to come to the shops, never mind the beautiful beaches and good waves. There is an allure; something that is called factory shop, regardless of if it actually meets the requirements of a factory shop. Like being cheaper than a normal shop.

The family and I are up in Joburg for a little bit, and everywhere we drive it seems that on every corner there is a factory shop. Despite knowing the signs it's nothing more than a lie to get people's attention to stop and have a look around. Something inside me just wants to stop every time. I mean, we were driving down the one road, and saw a sign that said “Factory Shop”. No details of what it would be offering. It took all my energy to not continue down the road towards the mysterious factory shop.

My point in all this rambling is if you want to grow your church, just call it a factory shop church. For some unknown reason people will just show up with a desire to spend money ☺ So you can double you attendance and tithes by simply changing the name. And who said post modernism is dead?

Fireworks in Church

2011-01-23T21:41:00.000-08:00

Last night I heard a good sermon regarding the Holy Spirit and His works not always being spectacular and dealing lots with our character. It was Good, and one of the statements the Pastor used was "People want to see fireworks in church" So out of that comes this blog, and its been on my heart for a while. So took it as a sign from God to share it :)

If we want too see fireworks in church, best we get the fire marshal
saved! We all have dreams and hope for what type of church we want. So
many people what fancy lights and awesome things, with church pews
filled to the roof like some taxi's on a Monday morning but they are
not prepared to do the ground work to get there. Everyone wants the
result of a devoted life without devotion. We want to be thin and fit
without the diet and exercise.

We want fireworks without taking the responsibility of sharing our
personal faith with those around us. We want God too move in our lives
while we act as if he does not exist.

What do you desire, then asked what does God desires for you and are
they linking up? What do you desire and what do you need too devote
devotion too?

Let's stop just dreaming and grow up a little.

Its inside, not on top

2011-01-05T01:48:00.000-08:00

Christmas was an awesome time with the family. It was Seth’s first Christmas. So when it came to opening presents you can imagine our excitement and joy that our little boy was going to get to open some stuff and play with his rather noisy present from his grand parents.

So we placed him in the middle of his gifts, only to have him try crawl away. Eventually we coaxed him into the present directions, when he got to them he just proceeded to play with the packaging, no matter how much we put the presents in his hand, he just wanted to chew the paper and throw the boxes.

How much of our lives are consumed with outside appearance, going for things that look good, chasing external pleasures rather than stopping long enough to look inside and see what really matters… HEART.

Why do we put so much worth in things that fade, and so little in things that last and give meaning and worth. I watched Ellen show and LL COOL J was on it and he said “Man makes the money, money does not make the man” If only we would live that and not sing that.

My God fits into a box

2010-12-14T23:30:00.000-08:00

Recently I bought myself a new bible, the ESV study bible. It came it a lovely box and inside the box was a beautiful leather bound book of life, truth, love, hurt and pain. Exciting stuff I tell you.

I was chatting to my friend about when life plans change and when things don’t always work out according to our plans. Even when we think God has told us otherwise. So often we loose site of the mysteries of God and his will and awesomeness and try to impose our will and understanding on situations. We feel hurt by the current circumstances so therefore it has to be someone else to blame, rather than our own misunderstandings or personal pride to say “maybe I didn’t hear right”

So many people want the God that fits into the box the bible came in, rather than the God the bible speaks about. The God that inspired the word of God. The God that knows no limits.

What in your life needs to be revisited and given a fresh pair of eyes, perhaps a deep breath and a sigh of relief that things worked out the way they did. Perhaps a prayer to God for saying thanks for the bigger picture even when I was against it.

Time does not answer all questions, it just puts in into perspective.

Stop pushing me, I need petrol!

2010-12-14T05:14:00.000-08:00

Yesterday I was on the way to fetch Vicky, when at the stop street there was this lady's car that had broken down. For my story sake, let's say she ran out of petrol. On the other side of the stop street was a petrol station. She was so close to getting what she needed... what she wanted. As I was pulling over to help (modest much) this very large CHROME MAGNUM individual came running across the road from the direction of the garage. He came from the same side the lady wanted to go, and with one hand started to push the car backwards, even though the old lady still had her foot on the brakes. He started pushing the car away from where the lady wanted to go, simply because he did not ask where she wanted to go. He assumed what she needed rather than asked a simple question.

He pushed her away from what she wanted. How many times do we push people away from what they need, simply because we don’t ask questions? We don’t ask the hard questions about what is really going on.

Christmas Time Charity = Bad idea?

2010-12-10T01:04:00.000-08:00

Christmas cannot be the only time we help people, people’s needs at Christmas are no different to their needs the rest of the year. If we are to show God’s love to these people, is it a true reflection if it is only once a year? Or an everyday account of grace and love and relationship. When we show God in acts of once off love, rather than through relationship. It shows that God is not a father of constant love, rather the God of once off acts of love and abandonment!No different from their earthly fathers.

If we are the only Jesus some people will ever see... what reflection are we?

Gym today or never!

2010-12-08T23:24:00.000-08:00

I have been thinking about the word “active” a lot lately, with getting older and eating hamburgers as much as I do. I have been thinking I must be more active, maybe start to go to gym, start running, skate more. All of these things are activities that require action to do, while thinking of them makes me feel good, without obedience it falls away to nothing more than just thoughts! Without active obedience we are all just talk and thought rather than action! What do we need to be obedient in? What is God calling us to act upon not just think upon? We think thinking upon it is the same as doing it. Especially when it comes to God. My belly pouch says otherwise to that train of thought and lack of logic :)

It is unfortunate that I ran over your cat, it was in my way

2010-12-03T02:45:00.000-08:00

I am sorry but…

How many times have we said sorry but… I can’t help but get the feeling that when we say sorry and then give excuses we are trying to excuse our actions rather than accept responsibility for it. If we will not accept fault or responsibility then actually are we truly sorry?

Sorry I ran over your cat, but… it ran in front of me. We are now shifting blame to the dead cat, saying we are sorry because it’s the politically correct thing to do. However we don’t really mean it, we just don’t want to feel shame. It is about us again, justification is the rooted in pride. We view our actions as more important and with more value than people around us.

I think apologies need to have no pride attached. I messed up and am truly sorry. If not then don’t say sorry. Just simply say, it is unfortunate that I ran over your cat, it was in my way.

Let us rather be honest than superficial!

Proudness is a word...

2010-12-03T00:30:00.000-08:00

My son crawled today for the first time in his life, and I was lucky enough to witness it. There is a sort of overwhelming joy that comes upon a person when are so filled with ‘proudness’ That it is difficult to explain.

I wonder though if God sometimes looks down on us with the same ‘proudness’ as I do with my boy. I love my son unconditionally and always, but surely ‘proudness’ is based in response to an action. Are we making God proud of our actions or does he get sad like I get for Seth when the dogs won’t come near him. All he wants to do is drool on them.

My concern is while we are not saved by works, surely there is something in us that wants to make God proud of us? A motivating factor in our lives perhaps?

Perhaps we are more concern with ourselves than with God and therefore by default don’t have to care what he think…

I hope and prayer my heart is never that hardened to the joy of God.

Why learn from your mistakes?

2010-11-26T03:53:00.000-08:00

If Seth is about to touch the hot stove, and I say no… There is a danger if he does not listen he is going to get burned. While I tend to say a lot of the time, well it will only happen once! That attitude of learn from your mistakes is not full of compassion, love and grace.

What I mean by that is, far to many of us have the attitude that people must learn from their own mistakes, rather than heed the guidance of others gone before them. SO we say stuff like its okay to experiment with that, or date that person, or have another drink. What we are saying is that they themselves are God, and they are in charge of their own lives, that they live for themselves. The problem with that is if you say you must learn for yourself, I ask you “have you ever been run over by a 18 wheeler truck? My mom once parked on my foot, but I don’t think that counts. How can you tell me getting hit by a truck is wrong and will cause pain if you have not experienced it?

It is based on the amount of physical damage we will incur, but when it comes to other things of this world we take lightly the implications of psychological hurt and emotional pain and baggage people incur. I am not saying we run out of church and go start telling people how to live, if you came into my house and started bossing me around about telling me how to raise my child, I will feed you too my pig. However, when my sister tells us things and helps us she is sharing her knowledge in love, and she has experience. We do not need to make the same mistakes. It is the relationship which we are called to develop and grow with the people around us that makes sharing in love and grace possible. My plea is that we don’t allow the people in our lives to live mistakes they don’t have to. That we will share with love and respect the works of God in our lives.

Your Grace really is enough

2010-11-11T04:44:00.000-08:00

As human being do we ever get it right, we say things like “one day I will get it right” or “as soon as I get”, We assume in time we will natural become better like a fine bottle of wine! Or as soon as we get that bottle life will be okay…

The fact remains the only day we will get it right is the day we accept Christ, every other day we will still not get it right, but we will try, and for every day we fail we have grace…

Without grace we have nothing to hang our hats on, with grace we have the cross to hang our hats on…

With or without grace I am not going to get it right, with grace and faith, I am put right…

Old people talk a lot...

2010-11-11T04:04:00.000-08:00

I was just speaking to a friend about when old people grab you and just chat to you for an hour on the most random stuff ever… From where rivers used to flow to their time spent in Rhodesia before it become Zimbabwe.

He was complaining about how much time it waste and they are annoying and irritating, I was saying it is not that bad, and one day we will be able to do it to the next generation, so those very young that have stumbled across this blog… be warned, I am coming for you!!!

However on further introspection of our conversation the conclusion was this… That the one hour we give to them is worth more to them than it is costing us for that hour. SO take a deep breathe, accept the cup of tea and who knows you might learn something. If you don’t at least you will be gathering useless information to share with some unwilling bystander as you grow older.

Some pics of my Garden :)

2010-11-09T00:09:00.000-08:00

So I have worked hard through the last few years to get my garden growing nice, So I have decided to load some pics!

Unrealistic Expectations

2010-11-09T00:01:00.000-08:00

I consider myself to be a reasonable nice guy, accepting of most people other than lazy people. Lazy people really get me mad. My problem there is my domestic garden gentleman does not work hard enough, but now I am torn by my beliefs to give him a chance and employ him. So month after month he comes and does not do much but gets paid, so I am feeding the perpetual cycle of laziness. To be fair he does work hard, perhaps I have unrealistic expectations for him.

Perhaps I am my own worst enemy, I don't know when to shelve expectation or when to enforce it. Most of my ramblings come today from a pod cast I just listened too. You think people would think, but most people just recite garbage, talk rubbish and expect to get paid...

Chesterton once was asked to write a paper on what is wrong with the world today, and his reply was simple:

"I AM"

We are our own worst enemies yet to still insist on living for ourselves...

In the same boat

2010-11-03T23:41:00.000-07:00

The phrase in the same boat has always been a firm favourite of mine, some how I find solace in the fact that I am not the only one going through something! That others out there have the same struggles and same issues I have, while I can find comfort, however warped the reasoning is for it! I should never allow comfort to turn into apathy and acceptance for the condition of man!

What I wanted to mention was a word for new fathers actually. When we find strangers or acquaintance in the same boat it okay, but for some unknown reason when it is our wives we tend to get angry! Maybe based on pride, or some unrealistic expectations we have!

My challenge is this, when you are tired because baby has not slept, chances are so is she!

When we stressed out about the little one being sick, so is she!

I could go on with my examples: but my point is, you are in the same boat together, be aware where your feelings are coming from, most likely lack of sleep! Communicate! Don't put her in her own boat, she will just drift away! Grab a paddle (what I mean is word of God) and your lady and lead her to the shore!

Exception to the general rule

2010-11-02T00:17:00.000-07:00

So the general rule for parents is don't let your child sleep in your bed! It creates a bad habit that you will not want if you wish to ever have more babies or some hope of romance under the covers!

Every now and then you get the situation that calls for a bending of rules like sickness!

The other night is the new exception, take for example: you are extremely tired and are slipping in and out of consciousness as you hear the screams of your child demanding a bottle! You manage to stumble out of bed keeping little to no balance like a new born deer. You manage to make the bottle with your eyes wide shut!

You return it to the baby and he is content for now! Having just learnt to hold the bottle you don't have a peace about leaving him, but rather an overwhelming joy! You slip into bed and immediately find yourself asleep (not sure you can find yourself sleeping).

But then baby starts to cry as he has dropped his bottle, this goes on for a while... you pick it up, fall back asleep and he drops it again, stumbling across the room you place it back in his little hands hoping this time he has drank enough to make it light enough to hold.

You slip back into your sleep only to awake moments later to the screams of said child. Up you jump and at first glance through your hazy one eyed attempt of parenthood all appears normal, on closer inspection you find your baby is a magician and has some how managed to open his bottle with his feet, pouring the milk EVERYWHERE, your child is freezing and his mattress is soaked through that you could ring it out and have biscuit with it!

It is safe to say after changing baby and calming them down you can place them in bed with you!

Then comes your fear of rolling over or moving in your sleep! but that's for another time!

How can we worship what we don't know...

2010-10-25T06:09:00.000-07:00

My friend and I were waiting in the cue to get inside, the cue went around the corner and as we where getting closer and closer to getting inside we where talking rubbish and saying how stoked we where to be watching famous bands. We went past this alley and looked down it and saw the best Millencolin sweater we have ever seen. This guy was wearing it who looked a little funny as far as we where concerned. We joked about jumping him and stealing his sweater. The queue moved on and we forgot about the whole thing, until the band started and behold before us was the funny guy in his sweater rocking out for the band playing guitar. We laughed, but looking back cant help but wonder if we had known more about the band, had more of an understanding and knowledge of who they where, who that guy was. Would we have run down the alley like fans asking him to sign our chest or for a stand of hair so something thing like that?

I can’t help but feel that it’s the same with God, when we become Christians we are told to worship this ‘person’ and give them all we are but we know little or even nothing about Him. The more we know about something the easier it is to worship that thing, we don’t worship bands that we just hear, we buy the cd, or illegally download it and listen to it and develop a love for it. The more that love grows the more our desire to know more about the band grows and we start doing google searches and stuff.

The more we start to love God the more we desire to know more about him, the more we know about him makes it easier to worship him. The responsibility rests on us though to get to know God. We can get to know him through the life of Jesus. The bible is a crucial key in understanding the way Jesus lived, and how we should be living. But it also highlights the character of God which makes our worship easier. It shows worship as more than just singing songs

He might be the only reason that I dont get into heaven!

2010-09-27T03:25:00.000-07:00

Do you have one person in your life, that no matter how much you try you can't be nice to them? You make fun of them? Or they make you so angry you want to punch them?

I would consider myself a relatively nice guy, friendly, caring, however sometimes there is just that one person. I am left wondering how am I ever going to show the love of Jesus to this person if I cant even look at them.

I think the answer is simple, the same way Jesus showed his love to me, the same way Jesus forgave all the stupid lame things I have done and turned them into Grace!

SO BASICALLY JUST STOP IT! PLAY NICE AND SHOW GODS LOVE! TO EVERYONE!!!

Angry at nothing...

2010-09-21T00:24:00.000-07:00

Have you ever been upset for nothing? Felt so much emotion based on nothing! When I say nothing I don't actually mean nothing, it's the same as when you ask someone what is wrong and they say "I don't know". If we are honest we know exactly what is wrong, we just don't want to admit it. We think if we ignore stuff it will go away. When we admit things, we need to deal with things, so let's rather ignore things!

I was having a conversation the other day with a "friend", it seems we both tend to get angry sometimes at the thought of prayer. Not towards God or anything but just at prayer. On chatting about it, the reason we came up with was and on thinking about it a bit more, the reason we say, "I don't know", is because we are ashamed to admit to our sins. Rather ignore than take responsibility and deal. I DON"T WANT TO GROW UP.

Sin being acted outside of the way we where created to live. Basically living selfishly.

When we allow sin to grow in our lives and accept sin and justify it through saying stuff like "all have sinned" we allow it to consume us and to grow in us!

I am not saying we will never sin and will be perfect! I am saying we need to grow up, get help, take responsibility for our actions, realize we are not as strong as we think we are and that we are created for community!!!

JUST STOP IT!!!

Faithless Prayers

2010-09-15T23:25:00.000-07:00

Phillip Yancey once wrote "If there is no room for doubt there is no room for faith"

I read verses like James 1: 7 saying I must not have doubts when I ask God things? obviously according to his will.

So the question then I suppose... is...

Do I need faith in my prayers if it is in line with what God wants for me?

My faith is in the person to whom the prayer is directed at! Not in my prayer at all...

My first thoughts of Fatherhood

2010-09-13T00:14:00.000-07:00

So my baby boy is almost 6 months. I would love to sit here and type and tell you I have it all figured out. That things have always been smooth sailing. But that would be a lie and according to Homer Simpson "Lies make baby Jesus cry".

However, a couple of tips...

1. Make sure you communicate with your wife, don't assume she understands you or that she knows what you want or are thinking.

2. Make sure you prayer together as a family, as children grow it will be good for them to see that it is God who gives us strength to be parents and husband and wife.

3. Love every moment, take loads of pictures cause they grow so fast.

4. One of the hardest things is to identify your emotions and triggers and where they are coming from before lashing out... most likely lack of sleep

5. Suck it up, you are a Parent Now, you have a job to do, to love and to care and to nurture them to the best of your ability and then some and them some more and then some...

Lastly a short story, before Seth was born I read up on baby stuff, asked questions and found out as much info as I could. To sum it all up this is what I came home to in my head with our first baby boy.

"Your baby cannot regulate its own body temperature so you have to do it, if he is too hot its bad, if he is too cold its bad" Basically you need to stay awake with a temperature gauge!

So basically good luck!

Is God Boring

2010-09-09T22:54:00.000-07:00

If a man goes to church in the woods and there is no one else there is it still boring?

I struggle with the concept (while my son struggles to sleep) that God is boring, Fair enough he can come across a little arrogant, but if u made everything then by definition of being God you would just be God. Not a little arrogant!

Back to my thought though, Chesterton once said something along the lines of 'I pity the man that thinks himself God, that god can not even fix his own life, let alone the world" I think it is that man that in the church is boring!

The challenge is to get off Gods throne and let God be God! Chesterton again said that "Christianity has not been tried and left wanting, it has been found difficult and left untried"

My fear for so many of us is that we are too apathetic in our relationship with God, that we just sit and wallow in our own pity and lives instead of living in Jesus "life and life to the fullest"

I cannot sit idly by as Jesus calls us to action in love, no matter how comfortable my bed is.

JUST STOP IT

I littered today

2010-09-09T04:27:00.000-07:00

For my own justification purposes, I hate littering. When I see a person litter from their car I promptly blow my hooter. I often pick up other peoples litter. I feel if we cannot take responsible for this world then who will?

Today I drew money and was putting the money away when a gust of wind came and blew the slip out of my hand, I gave a little waddle after it in the attempts I would be able to catch it. Perhaps if it was a R20 I would have made it a sprint. As I watched it blow away I truly felt bad. I could have caught it though but I was lazy. I could go on and blame my child for not sleeping very much last night, or the brandering for the ceiling I am putting in after work. Or my wife for not making enough coffee this morning.

Challenge is don't let your convictions fall to the way side because you are lazy...

JUST STOP IT...

Failed...

2010-09-09T00:20:00.000-07:00

Have you ever had one of those moments where you know without a shadow of a doubt that God was prompting you to do something? The other day I was at the garage visiting friends that run the place! I ordered a cup of coffee and got two delicious muffins, (I know they where both delicious because I ate both instead of listening to GOD)

This great muffin coffee special is only R12 :) winner deal! So I was walking to the sitting area outside the garage deciding what muffin to eat first, Choc Chip or Caramel Chip. A very nice dilemma to have I might add.

SO continuing my work I noticed an individual that was not as fortunate as I to have two muffins and a warm cup of Coffee. Right away without question I knew I was meant to give my one muffin away! Sadly I quickly looked the other way, ducked out of sight in hopes my heart with follow my actions and hide.

I wish I could say I shared my muffins that day, but I didn't... why because I am selfish. I want the best for me and like to look out for me! I don't have a problem giving away my clothes or money or anything really, just not my chocolate and sweets!

The other day I did share my chocolate with a friend and I didn't feel good about it at all. I knew I was doing the right thing but it didnt feel right, do you ever have this feeling?

So my challenge to myself is to be more like Jesus in all aspects of my life. I always say if you are giving and its not costing you anything, then it does not count! I need to give over to God and his children that which is most precious to me... my chocolate...

My question for you then is this... what are you holding onto that you shouldn't...

I dated a girl...

2010-02-15T01:30:00.000-08:00

I dated this girl when I was about 16 or so, we landed up dating for 4 years, it was one of those first love kind of things, or at least what we knew love to be and as far as that went, we loved each other. Her dad didn’t return that love at all and he really didn’t like me much and I wasn’t really allowed over at her house. The only two times I actually did crack an invite, was once to her Grandparents house for Sunday lunch. In those days I was wearing very low pants, and trying to find my way in the fashion world. I made it through most of the day, a little bit of small talk, I was super nervous the whole day. Some how it landed up with just the granddad, the dad and me in the lounge. I thought it would be a great time to get out of there, and the ladies had just started too do the dishes, so I thought “Let me jump up quick and go help them”. Little did I know my trust worthy belt had broken and as I jumped up in front of these two men my pants came falling down and not just to my knees all the way to my ankles. Needless to say looking back this is quite funny, but in the moment all I could do was grab my pants and run out. The other time I was over at her house during the day when her dad was suppose to be at work. He came home quick and I had to hide in the bathroom. But as fate would have it he needed to go to the bathroom and I got caught. He was trying to open the bathroom door and I was trying to push it shut. Was not a good day for me, but through it all we continued to date. It got really difficult the more and more we grew as Christians, because we knew we should be honouring her dads wishes but at the same time we loved each other and wanted to be together. I still remember the one-day we broke up because of the issues it was causing. The next day I felt as if I was Abraham. For those of you who don’t know who he is I will give you a quick run down else read the full story in Genesis 22. In a nutshell, God tells Abraham he is going to have a son, and it takes forever for the son too be born, everything in Gods time I suppose. When the son gets older, God decides Abraham must show his love for God by sacrificing his son on this mountain. So Abraham takes his son Isaac and leads him to the mountain, his son the ever inquisitive child is asking all sorts of questions like why am I carry all this wood if we don’t even have a lamb. Abraham reassures him that God will supply it. So up they go, they get to the spot where the sacrifice is going to take place, Abraham grabs Isaac and through tears and screaming ties him to the alter and picks up an axe to kill Isaac. As the axe is coming down to end him this angel calls out and says STOP! Now that is good timing, a little too close for Isaac I am sure, but Gods timing always has reasoning behind it. So anyway stuck in the bush is this little lamb that came out of nowhere, so Abraham and Isaac having a father son moment and kill the lamb, Isaac very happy about that. God was testing Abraham to see his commitment to him and how far he was willing to go. So this is who I felt like and needless to say by lunch time this girl and me where back together. We spoke to lots of people who all had different opinions and no matter how much we broke up because it was the right thing to do we never stayed apart. Looking back I think it was because although we had an idea of what was right we never really believed it for ourselves. We where living for each other and ourselves. Although we loved God and wanted to please him we felt the requirements were too much right then and there.

We never took ownership of our own faith; we just lived through the peoples around us faith. We where trying to be Christians but instead of worshipping Jesus we where worshipping each other. We did not take the call on our lives seriously. Instead we tried to feed off other people’s relationships with God and not develop our own.

The reason I think there is so many people that say they have tired Christianity and it didn’t work for them is that they tried someone else’s version of it. If Jesus is a personal God then we all should have our own relationship with him. In the same way if a friend and me dated the same girl, although she is the same, we are different and we will not share the same relationship with her. Just like in dating though there are things that will cross over for all relationships there is things that apply to all of us with our relationship with Jesus. There are black and whites, things that won’t change, but I think if we are honest and get into the bible and God’s calling for our lives there is a lot of grey. We must just be careful not to teach or preach grey as black and white, or to use grey as an excuse to get more grace! Taking ownership of your faith means asking questions about it and seeking out the answers.

How can we worship what we don't know

2010-02-14T23:00:00.000-08:00

When I had just arrived in London, my friend was there on holiday having a good time. He organized for us to go see a band called Millencolin, my friend really loved the band, I knew then pretty well and too this day it was one of the best shows I had ever been too. Perhaps it was because it was my first show aboard, when we arrived at the show there was every type of person you can imagine, I had never seen so many punks and rockers in one place in my whole life, during the day in London you just saw ‘normal’ people and in the evening these people came out to play, maybe they where afraid of the sun or something. All I know is I loved it. It was one of the best sights I had seen up too that point in my life.

My friend and I were waiting in the cue to get inside, the cue went around the corner and as we where getting closer and closer to getting inside we where talking rubbish and saying how stoked we where to be watching famous bands. We went past this alley and looked down it and saw the best Millencolin sweater we have ever seen. This guy was wearing it who looked a little funny as far as we where concerned. We joked about jumping him and stealing his sweater. The cue moved on and we forgot about the whole thing, until the band started and behold before us was the funny guy in his sweater rocking out for the band playing guitar. We laughed, but looking back cant help but wonder if we had known more about the band, had more of an understanding and knowledge of who they where, who that guy was. Would we have run down the alley like fans asking him to sign our chest or for a stand of hair so something thing like that?

I can’t help but feel that it’s the same with God, when we become Christians we are told to worship this ‘person’ and give them all we are but we know little or even nothing about Him. The more we know about something the easier it is to worship that thing, we don’t worship bands that we just hear, we buy the cd, or illegally download it and listen to it and develop a love for it. The more that love grows the more our desire to know more about the band grows and we start doing google searches and stuff.

The more we start to love God the more we desire to know more about him, the more we know about him makes it easier to worship him. The responsibility rests on us though to get to know God. We can get to know him through the life of Jesus. The bible is a crucial key in understanding the way Jesus lived, and how we should be living. But it also highlights the character of God which makes our worship easier. It shows worship as more than just singing songs

A lot of people say they don’t believe in the bible? I want to know what they don’t believe? It is easy to say you don’t believe in something you know nothing about. But in order to fully say you don’t believe something you need to know about it. What don’t you believe in the bible? The same is true though about those of us that believe in the bible. What do you we believe about the bible? Why do we believe that? Are we pushing ourselves to know more about the bible?

Open my eyes God!!!

2010-02-07T23:04:00.000-08:00

Once back when I was 18 I had borrow my moms car, she had just gotten it back from the garage where it had just had a major service. It cost loads of money and also gave issues so she was always a bit reluctant to let me or my brother use her car, but of course with our puppy dogs eyes and boyish charm we always got to use it. It also always broke down with one of us using it. More of a coincidence than anything else really, my car was this old black beetle. I loved the car because it was my first car and got it super cheap because my cousin owed my dad some money and was selling his car so I landed up getting the car. I was stoked and my friend Alan and I would spend endless hours working on the car and making it cool. Or at least what we thought was cool. One night we took the car out to the movies, it was the middle of winter and that’s when we figured out the vents in the car don’t close, we where freezing and our last resort was to put my girlfriends jersey (she left it in the car, this never happened again after that night). In the dashboard through where the radio should be. We had the radio in the cubby-hole, as it was easier to install there. So we shuffled the jersey in nice and tight and it was working well until it decided to rain. As it was raining we needed to use the windscreen wipers, it was only drizzling so nothing too bad. When we got to the movie place to meet everyone including my girlfriend, she sent me a message to say “please bring my jersey out the car. So I went to grab it only to find that the windscreen wipers had tangled up the jersey and it had gotten caught that I couldn’t get it out and it ended up getting ripped and broken. It is funny how we all have gaps in our lives that we try fill with whatever we find laying around and appealing? It always goes back to having a God space inside of each of us that we just try fill with whatever is around whether girls, booze, or even sports.

So this night it was raining and cold so I got to use my mom’s car for legitimate reasons. I cant remember where me and Alan where going, but we where going out none the less. When I got to his house the rain had stopped and the roads where slightly wet, just wet enough for some fun. So Alan gets into the car and we reverse out of his drive way, as we are going backwards I quickly throw the car into first and do a wheel spin, however the wheel spin is cut short because the car just cuts out. My heart starts to race and I start thinking up excuses to why the car just stopped working. We manage to get the car under some trees outside of Alan’s house. The rain starts to pour down again and Alan and me are just stuck there in silence. Rain is dripping through the trees and falling on the windscreen. Then it was almost simultaneously that we thought back to Sunday’s church service about prayer and how this guy prayed to God and he got a wife. We both thought wow, what we are asking for is way easier than that. So I prayed for us something along the lines of “Father God, we love you and just want you too fix the car, we wont wheel spin again and will try be better people”. I thought it was a good prayer, we where bargaining with God, giving him what he wanted to hear and in return we would get our small miracle. At that moment our faith was huge, I mean it was either faith or the wrath of mom. After the amen we tried to start the car and to our surprise it didn’t start. No what, we almost felt a little betrayed by the whole deal, we had done our part, had faith and prayed a sincere prey and nothing. We felt cheated out of a miracle and also new the trouble that awaited us because of the unanswered prayer. After a while it stopped raining and we figured that God would answer our prayers if we met him half way, so Alan jumps out the car and starts to push, we try a few times and Alan can’t feel his arms anymore. I just feel the sinking feeling of surrender coming over me. I have nothing left to try, its time to face the consequences and phone my mom. Just before I do that though I pop the bonnet in the hope I can see what the problem is. Even though I have no real clue, I thought 5 more minutes won’t hurt. The whole time everything is going on I am still praying in my head asking God for help. When I pop the bonnet and look inside I notice that the box for the airflow straight into the engine has come off. So I clip it back on and away we go. Turns out the guys that services the car didn’t put it on properly. Seems God did answer my prayers but the way he wanted to answer them not the way I wanted them answered. He gave me the insight into the problem and I had to go and fix it. I think a lot of times we sit by and want God to fix everything and do everything for us. But if God has answered our prayers the way we wanted him too. We would not have developed a dependence on him, we would have properly in all honestly developed big heads because God answered our prayers on our terms, instead he taught us everything in his time. Everything his way, we don’t always have to understand that but the more we know the easier it becomes.

Fear of Praying

2010-02-03T01:41:00.000-08:00

I don’t know about you but I have always been afraid to prayer out loud, and I have not even really been sure how to pray when I prayer by myself. I went to Sunday school a couple of times and all the prayers I heard literally made no sense to me. They people praying used big words, prayed for what felt like forever and left me feeling like I would never be able to prey due to the fact I can’t even think of the words they use, let alone pronounce them.

When I was in grade one, and they still allowed you to prey in schools, I had my first run in with the law so to speak, I was sent to the office in tears. I was sent not for punching anyone, or for back chatting. But rather when we closed in prayer and the teacher said AMEN, I promptly followed by saying AMEN, AMEN, AMEN, AMEN, AMEN, AMEN. To which the teacher jumped up, ripped me off the ground and threw me outside and sent me to the office. I was in tears, crying myself to the office, taking the long way around of course, I was distraught not stupid. I could not understand what I did wrong, and to this day I still don’t really know, I was honestly not being disrespectful, I just didn’t know any better. No one had taught me anything about prayer. AMEN AMEN AMEN was all I could do to express myself to God as a child.

Following on from that experience I became very weary of prayer, like if I did not do it properly I would get in trouble, and thrown out again, maybe even thrown out of heaven. I thought I would be better off taking my chances not praying at all than upsetting God through the wrong prayers.

Prayer becomes easier the more you do it, but what in our head stops us from praying.

Firstly I think it all ties up with our understand of who God is and who we are in him. It is easy to pour your heart out to someone you know without a shadow of a doubt that they love you no matter what. This is two fold because it means us taking the time to find out whom Jesus is.

The idea of prayer is that we as finite humans can communicate with an infinite being God, basically meaning we can chat with God that lives outside of time and space that we know. Our Motive is very important when we prayer, do we prayer so the people around us can hear and go WOW, that was great or do we prayer for an audience of one, Prayer is about God… not the people around us! We need to exclude others and ourselves as the reason for prayer…

We must not trust in the prayer but rather the person to whom we are praying… If you run to someone for help screaming, “help friend playing fell off roof” is the person going to say… hold on that was not the correct way to form that sentence. In the same way God wants to hear our hearts, not our intellect.

Prayer should be honest… it is an important thing that praying is sharing your heart and being honest with God about what is going on in your life! Psalms shows true prayer, we should prayer with our heart and not our heads.

We need to have faith that God will answer our prayers; it says in the word that God is gracious and generous and if we ask in accordance to his will for our lives we shall receive! Are we in line with Gods will??? Must remember sometimes God says no or answers in his own way or a way we didn’t want him to answer so we ignore it and say God never speaks to me… you know when God is speaking…

Faith that God hears us…

It is a dependence on God, submitting to him and his work in your life… our prayers should be in the impossible, praying in such a way that if God doesn’t step in our prayers will be useless!

How to Sell books

2010-01-27T23:11:00.000-08:00

Good deeds and noble lives sell books, it is almost as if God gifts people with the ability to write books once they lay down there lives for the true teachings of Jesus and go out full hearted for him and make a difference and get people saved. What happens to those of us that are stuck trying to do the best we can for Jesus but all it seems to add up too is heartache and day light robbery. There was this guy, I could tell you his name but I forget it. Not an uncommon thing for me, I know remembering someone’s name is meant to give them more worth and allow them to feel at ease and more sociable accepted, but I really suck at remember names. I can tell you what Vicky had a fanta orange and nachos on our first date but not the name of the restaurant. So here is this guy, he kept coming to our house to look for work or money. I would also chat with him and listen to his long stories about nothing, ironically it would always be during a meal or when Vicky and I settled in for a movie. So I landed up giving this guy some work, chatting with him. Giving him some of my clothes and really being what I felt was Jesus to the guy. Let me just make this statement though, if as Christians our giving does not actually cost us anything it is not really giving. It cost me nothing to give away the old clothes at the back of my wardrobe that I never wear, actually it gains more wardrobe space so I have more place to put my new clothes I can now buy. We are called to share all we have, so when someone asked you for your shirt, give him or her the one you are wearing. That will cost you something. I have a friend that is a missionary and has been for 15 years. The other day we where talking about money and how we survive. He said that we (missionaries) live off other people’s exposable income. That is true, but a sad truth. If we call ourselves Christians we should be sharing all we have, this is hard when you have a family and between you and God you need to come to terms with that. So this guy kept coming back week after week and I really didn’t have any more money for him but I would make him a sandwich and we would chat, or he would tell me more stories. This went on for months until the one day we had friends visiting and Vicky worked half day so we could go to the Dutch Cheese factory just down the road. This guy saw us leaving and decided to break in, and steal my computer and camera and a whole bunch of my clothes. He tired to steal our cheese but thought it more appropriate to just leave it out on the counter to defrost. The friends all staying with us had all their laptops and ipods in the lounge but the guy left everyone else’s things and stole just mine. Does this mean that we stop being Jesus because of one bad experience? Or does is mean we judge everyone one that needs help? To fear everyone stops us from being Jesus to anyone. We cannot fear based on stereotypes or even previous experiences. Each individual is an individual regardless of colour or social standing.

God has a unique plan and purpose for you life. If you act outside that will it will suck, the same as have you ever used something for a purpose other than it was intended? A skateboard is made to land on its wheels. What happens when it lands upside down and you are on top of it? You eat it and it sucks and it hurts. Is the skateboard mean? Or did you not use it properly?

Once there was a bunch of us on a skating trip; we were having fun and messing around. We went down to the beach to have some time with God as a group and on the way (where? there, back?) we found some trolleys. So we threw some groms in them and started pushing them into each other and playing bumper cars. It was all fun and games until myself and Chad decided to climb into them and got our older stronger friends to stand 50 meters apart and run full speed into each other. Needless to say it was not a pretty sight; an old lady watching starting crying as Chad and I lay motionless on the floor. When we did move I spat out 3 broken teeth and Chad later went to hospital to get his head glued close. Needless to say trolleys are made for shopping not bumper bashing, unless it's to get to the front of the queue.

Fear Drives US...

2010-01-27T01:24:00.000-08:00

I went through to PE to watch my friend's band play. There is something about musicians that can make the rest of us feel somewhat inadequate; they are these larger than life personalities that just attract the girls and fame. We are just drawn to stand in awe of them. As if something inside us was made to worship things that are bigger than us. We are almost genetically made with a worship hole inside each of us; we can fill it with whatever we want as long as we fill it, but most of the time those worship items only keep us entertained as long as we are giving of ourselves to the cause. Skating gives me great acceptance and makes me feel sweet cool as long as I am skating, but the stoke of a trick only last so long. If I want to feel that rush, indulge in making something worthy of praise, I need to give it its worth by making the effort and putting into it. God does not need me to give Him his worth, He is God regardless of what I put in or not and he remains worthy of praise regardless of if I put something in or not. He offers acceptance regardless of if I am making the effort.

I have never wanted to be a musician really; I suppose I knew from before I could walk that I was tone deaf and musically challenged. I love singing though, and when I was much younger than today I would sometimes find myself attending worship services on Friday nights at our church. There would also be this “cool” youth band that would play and we would sing along. I remember one night when the vibe was getting to be the slow emotional tug at our hearts deal. But all I wanted to do was sing, so I was standing there singing at the top of my voice expressing all I had to God. Before I could get swept away in the Spirit I got shouted at for making noise; the noise referring to my singing that did not quite fit into the ‘church etiquette’ of the eve. I felt betrayed and heartbroken that I got in trouble for wanting to shout my love for God out. Persecuted for my faith; a bit dramatic now but that’s how I felt as a young lad. It was more my stubbornness and bad attitude that kept me coming back to change ‘church etiquette’ by water bombing the Valentine's dinner eve or having a fist fight in front of the pastor's wife’s car, with her headlights acting like spot lights. I would like to think I won that fight, but don’t even think I got in one punch and I ended up with a bloody and swollen lip. The guy also had a broken finger. The finger was broken before the fight even started, so I can't take the credit for that even, so technically I lost a fight to a one-armed bandit.

I think song writing is one of the few professions that you actually get paid to bare your heart and soul, and maybe that’s what draws us to singers so magnetically; they seem to live what we feel. They seem to have this identity about themselves that actually they can sleep at night with who they are. They leave us feeling rather numb in our own skins, longing for more.

Who we are always seems so important to all we ask. How we see ourselves affects how we interact with each other. We see ourselves as greater than others, or perhaps less than others. Very seldom do we see ourselves as equals to each other. Equals in how we are created, and more importantly who created us. If we are all created in the image of God, then surely we share a commonality inside each of us. If God is the ultimate of beings, a Chuck Norris meets supernatural meets superhero meets Rambo, that would be the dominant gene with in us. That our selfish nature that causes others and ourselves pain is not what should be characterising us and others. Or impacting how we see each other, but we should follow in Mother Theresa’s words that everyone is Jesus and we ought to love them as that.

At the bands evening me and my lovely wife were walking in the street, when we saw four guys walking towards us; in the nicest way, they looked like trouble. My wife got a bit anxious and grabbed her bag a little bit tighter and asked if we could go back. I, the ever caring husband, reassured her that she was being silly and everything was okay, already having assessed the situation that there were only four of them and they were much smaller than me and if I hit the biggest guy first we might be okay. After they walked by and nothing happened and the tension drifted away because of the beautiful surroundings we found ourselves in, I could not help but wonder why we as individuals are so instinctively inclined to think the worst of people. To live in fear of everyone, a fear that stops us from loving people like they were Jesus. Fair enough, some of our fears are real, and living in South Africa in today’s times there are definitely things we need to take into account, especially having a wife. However, I think we are sold lies about the people around us by the evilness inside us and the devil sells us these fears.

Why am I Evil

2010-01-25T21:57:00.000-08:00

I remember being around 19; I was a leader for a holiday bible club that was going on at our church. In the evenings we had sessions for all the leaders. There was this guest speaker who spoke on something. I'm not really sure what it was but it had something to do with Jesus and us as individuals; that no matter who is on this earth, if I was the only person on this whole planet Jesus would still have given his life for me. Up until this point I had been a Christian for a while. Fair enough, I didn’t burn my non-Christian music like all the other kids but I kept trying to win God's love though, kept trying to do things, be someone I was not just so God would be happy with me. I had all these images of myself from growing up; I didn’t even want to be with me, why would this God want to take me as I am?

Growing up I was not the smartest kid; I was kept back in pre-primary because I could not speak properly, well its wrong for me too say I could not speak properly, more I could not speak English properly or any other of the 11 official languages of South Africa. I had somehow along life’s path developed my own language that only my twin sister could understand. Unfortunately for her she was kept back too in order to help me out. The plus side was I never had to do my own homework for most of primary school I just copied my sisters. It might explain the A’s I was getting or I was just really good at maths. A friend of the family used to cut our hair for cheap. Basically my hair looked like the lady stuck a pot on my head and cut it. My dad after working for the man as a health inspector wearing suit and tie for 24 years semi-retired as a landscaper, who sold plants on weekends outside the local shopping centre. My brother and I used to help out. Needless to say I was a prime target to get picked on and made fun of at school. I started to believe what the world was telling me, rather than listening to my heart that was crying out, "There must be something more!"

The night of the holiday bible club, I realized something amazing: that God loves me for me, that I am good enough for Him; that in fact I did not need to do anything for that love, it was just there. And because of that love I wanted to do as much as I could for God. The same love that makes me not want to cheat on my wife is the same love that keeps me wanting to do the best for my relationship with God.

The fullness of a relationship with God can only be enjoyed when we start to act out of love and do things God wants us to do out of love. Just as I can enjoy a safe and love-filled marriage because I am faithful, the same applies to God and me. I can enjoy a full relationship with God. That does not mean I don’t mess up; it would be a lie to say that I don’t think other girls are hot. (Hot or not, another thing I don’t understand but will look at later; totally not the way God sees it). In the same way I don’t always do what God wants me to do. Does that mean I throw in the towel and go chasing after girls and forget God and my wife? Never. I refocus my eyes on the prize; the prize is coming home to my wife everyday, the prize is being who God wants me to be. I realize how I am made, where I was born are all part of God’s plan for my life. My parents might not have planned me, but God knew exactly when and where I was coming. He also knows where he wants me to be going. The question is: am I going to listen? I don’t have a problem understanding who Jesus was and is, the problem comes in asking who am I meant to be in response to this knowledge of Jesus. How is this supposed to impact my life? If I believe He is who He claimed to be, then I hold that as a belief. If my actions are not aligning themselves with what I believe, I am going to be a very sad individual. Chesterton once wrote that he feels pity for a man that thinks he is his own God, simply because what a miserable small god that is; it cannot even fix one life let alone a world.

Jesus came to restore our lives but the problem is some of us have good lives and don’t need Jesus; he will just mess up our lives, ask too much or something lame. Chesterton wrote “the ideals of Christianity have not been tried and found wanting, but rather found difficult and left untried”. We seem to live in a world where people are more spiritual than ever, but their spirituality is based more on what they want it too be than anything of any real substance.

If I think negatively then negative things will happen, so basically the church is not to be blamed for doing nothing during apartheid then; it is the peoples fault for thinking it into reality. Give me a break. Surely there has to be depth to spirituality that has an impact on our life’s. Is there not something inside us that pushes us towards doing good? A moral law embedded within us?

When I was younger, I had a friend called Peter; he is a really good guy who had a big heart for people and really wants to make a difference in this world. He is one of the most gifted people at serving others I know and really extends all he is towards others, a lot of time too the detriment of his petrol. Anyway, one day before we became good friends my brother and I walked down to his house to see the door slightly open. We then without hesitation ran through the door, looked around and decided to steal his Christmas tree. We got all the way to the top of the street before he even realized what was happening. We knew straight away we were wrong in our actions. No one had to tell us. He didn’t have to come running up the street screaming ‘STOP’ you are being “EVIL’ for us to realize that.

When kids are growing up, no one teaches them to steal cookies or to lie either though; we are born with this desire to do wrong according to these laws we find within us. Our spirits are literally torn inside us; doing wrong we know is wrong and we do it even if we don’t want to do it. When we do it, then this thing inside us makes us feel bad for doing it. It really feels like a lame deal if there is not something more in all of this. Spirituality has to impact our lives. If God is real he has to impact our lives. If not, let's rather figure out how to switch off this thing inside us that makes us feel guilty for doing wrong things and enjoy a selfish life.

Who are we

2010-01-25T03:49:00.000-08:00

“I can live for two months on a good compliment”

I must have been about 12 years old when I got my first compliment, or at least the first one I can remember. Where else should it come from but my mom? I grew up in a family with 3 other siblings. It was fun most days; we could play teenage mutant ninja turtles and not be short any turtles. With so many mouths to feed, clothing was more a "wear what’s going" option, rather than a label option. I remember two clothes shopping trips; the first one was to MR PRICE (it has since become much more acceptable to wear clothes from there now, perhaps after our modelling of it). Anyway, they had a range of cloths called Powerhouse, which was basically an overgrown bulldog with arms and legs doing gym stuff. Of course, with such a great idea for clothing came the great price; we landed up getting matching green and grey tracksuits. Funny, though, the place I got most mocked for my sleek gym attire was youth group and namely from the leaders who had this rock star persona that everyone who was deemed worthy aspired too; this just added to my inner turmoil about being good enough for people, especially the holier-than-thou church folk.

The second shopping excursion was purely a gift from above. We were all out grocery shopping one day when we came across this table in the middle of the shop sky high with t-shirts. The cost was literally a few rands. My dad is the type of guy who loves to find deals and bargains; I am very much my father’s child. So he went mad and bought about 30 shirts for us. The problem was they were all white, with American football teams on the front and fitted the exact opposite of Egyptian cotton. Needless to say, I wore what looked to be the same top for the next 5 years of my life. Due to it being such a great deal, my parents even bought them going up in sizes so we would be okay for the next while. Looking back I am thankful for the deal and the love of my parents. I don’t wish the clothes where different but rather that people would have responded differently too them. Maybe I am just too idealistic in my approach to humanity, but hope is all we have sometimes. My hope and dream is that we will one day have a world in which appearance doesn’t matter, especially in the church. I have a friend who is on a year of your life program through this church. The church is doing such an amazing job in the community and really such a Christian witness and presence. However, my friend was told that in order for people to take him seriously he would need to look the part. Some random in the church actually booked him a hair appointment and said if he cuts his hair they would buy him some clothes too. While this makes me laugh out loud it also breaks my heart. We live in a world with all types of people, who cares what we look like? Its fine to dress nice and have a neat hair cut if that is what you want to do. But don’t enforce that on someone and don’t link appearance with acceptance; especially not in church.

Back to my compliment: I found a pair of my dad’s old jeans, they were a light, almost white blue, with a high waist and tight around my buttocks area! They felt very uncomfortable, but when I showed my mom she said these exact words: “It makes your bum look nice.” They instantly became my favourite pants, even if nobody else liked them.

People love compliments, but mostly superficial compliments. "You look nice today", or "I love that dress!" Boys don’t really like to be complimented on their dresses, but you get the point!

It’s the compliments that reflect on our character that we find hard to accept; it almost makes us feel uneasy! I have sat in many a team building exercise where people go around and encourage and say positive stuff about the other people in the room. To me, this always seems to take forever; more because of the awkwardness of everyone. When we hear positive things about us we struggle to accept them because we know the real us, we know the true us that tries to sleep at night, rather than this great person everyone is talking about. Character compliments reflect how people see us, not how we see ourselves. Perhaps that is the problem.

Self-image is a big thing to most people; we inherently don’t feel good enough about who we are, we wish we could change things about us, where we were born, and even sometimes our parents. Society has a unique way of putting people down in order to elevate themselves. The only way we can feel better is to rip off our friends, but truthfully they feel the same as we do inside, so it’s a vicious circle that never seems to end. If we are honest we seem to have a desire in us that wants us to be better than others. Our parents push us to be the best we can be in sports and academics, teaches reward the smarter kids with treats, it seems all of society push to separate us into classes. The thing is though there is nothing wrong with someone being better than you at something or smarter. That is part of being an individual and how God made you for his plan and purpose on earth. However because our abilities are different does not make us any less or any more important. We are all equals at heart. God is calling us to equality. This creates a type of battle within us that makes us develop a head strong Christianity that is apart form our hearts and what God is requiring of us.

ASKING QUESTIONS

2010-01-22T01:57:00.000-08:00

When I think of growing up, we where told like any children what to do by our parents, whenever questioned they would respond with one of the following, and I am sure you can relate, either from hearing it or even putting it in your very own parents quick response handbook. The phrases being “because I said so” or “as long as you live under my roof you will do as I say” or some other variation of that. While that is all part of growing up it almost instills within us a fear of asking questions, or challenging the status quo. I think back to math’s class and it was not a very welcomed thing to ask questions if you did not understand, either you where ridiculed by your peers or the teacher. If you didn’t get it the first time you had to just pretend like you knew what you where doing.

From growing up and heading into church, we tend to take that mentality with us, that it is wrong to ask questions, if you don’t understand, then the problem is with you, not the preachers or the bible. As like in math’s class you land up failing. Failing to fulfill the purpose God has for you, this is just one of the reasons I am putting forward and by no means am I shifting the blame to someone else, but rather helping you understand perhaps why we are so afraid to come to God with questions. Sometimes we fail at school because we are just plain old lazy.

The church has grown up in an era where children are seen and not heard, they are not meant to ask questions. We have taken that attitude with our relationship with God the father and have just taken everything at face value instead of asking questions for the fear it is not allowed.

In the bible Jesus gets asked lots of questions, in the book of Mark Jesus speaks of his death for the third time. But his close followers called the disciples do nothing. Makes me wonder exactly what the disciples did with these insights to the future? I mean if I told you the winning number of the lotto would you go and get the ticket? But in Luke we get a special insight that they did not understand any of these things; the meaning of the words where hidden, like if I just went 7 21 36 87 and walked out you would not know those are the winning lotto numbers. The words where hidden from them. Perhaps because they would have tied Jesus up and stopped him from going to Jerusalem? Or maybe Jesus wanted the disciples to start to take ownership of things and ask him more questions, instead they start worrying and arguing about who is going to be the most. Who is going to be the greatest after Jesus, totally missing the point of what Jesus was trying to teach them. If we look at the majority of Jesus stories he told, they didn’t make sense out right. A lot of times the disciples had to come to Jesus and seek him and ask more questions about what it is he meant or to get a deeper understanding. It also says in Mark 9: 33 that they where afraid to ask him? How many times do our fears stop us from coming closer to God? From asking questions?

If we are all honest we all have questions for God, and I think a lot of the time we are told its wrong to questions God. That we must just believe everything hook line and sinker without actually taking ownership of it. If we stand for nothing we will fall for anything. That means if I don’t know why I believe something, it I haven’t wrestled with it I am properly not going to risk anything for it. In the Old Testament there is a story about a guy called Jacob, in short one night he has a wresting match with an angel, some people say it could have actually been God he wrested with. Either way Jacob has questions for God and wrestled all through the night. As a result from seeking God his hip was thrown out of joint and he was left with a limp. This is not too say that it was wrong of Jacob to ask thinks of God, but rather when we start to ask God questions it will start to have an impact on how we live. Martin Luther once said that there is nothing worth killing for but plenty worth dying for. That statement can only come out of knowing what you believe. I can tell people why I think drinking coke is bad, but when it comes down to it and there is choice is coke or water they will go with the coke. Not because they hate me, least I hope not, but rather because they don’t believe what I believe. They have not asked the questions that I have asked to bring about my dislike for coke.

There is another story in the Old Testament of a guy called Job, he basically looses everything and has warts and boils and is not a happy guy at all. He calls out to God with questions but his friends tell him too shut up, as if asking God questions are wrong. God goes on not really to answer Job’s questions but rather to ask Job a few questions. Do we realize that if God is a personal God and if we can ask Him questions, then he can ask us questions? When we ask questions and get an answer, regardless of what that answer is we then become accountable for the answer, in the same way as if I get study and go for lessons to get my drivers license I then become accountable by law for how I drive. We become accountable for the answers we receive to act them out, and we are also accountable for the answers we give back to God.

Asking questions is cool if its asked for the right reasons, but if we can ask God stuff, he can ask us stuff…

The story begins - A piece of semi fiction

2010-01-21T01:39:00.000-08:00

I remember the first time I ever noticed a girl… I thought I was going to die, I felt all shy and stupid and literally thought I was going to die… did I mention I thought I was going to die… every time this girl walked past me or said hi my stomach would do back flips and I couldn’t figure out why… I hardly slept and all that my thoughts consisted of was this girl… her name was Mandy… she was a little blonde girl with green eyes and a beautiful smile… she was the first time I thought there might actually be a God in this world, she was an angel… at least to me she was an angel! Until I saw that she had a boyfriend she quickly turned into the devil! I remember I couldn’t eat, all I could think of was her kissing some other guy… I swore never to fall in love again… what did I know I was 12… and I thought love meant bring your mom her slippers when she asked for them, and if you didn’t the result was a wooden spoon across you bottom… I did break many a wooden spoon in my younger years and developed a rather unrealistic view and understanding of relationship.

The joys of writing to myself is that there is no patterns to be followed, I can write my stories as they come and as they go… some with depth others without even a clue to where I was or how old I was or am… I have always felt as if no one fully understands me… perhaps this is the case even within my self, my heart and brain often don’t match up with what is going on around me… my heart knows what it wants and what it cannot tolerate yet my brain allows it all around me due to a fear of being even more rejected by a society that has a inbred dislike for me…

I have grown up in the same house my whole life, with the same two parents up until now! I have often day dreamed about what it must have been like to be able to say I have moved constantly, I have seen so many movies that glorify the kids that always move, and they face so much trials and issues they overcome, plus it gives them an excuse to be rebels because they just blame it on their parents! I don’t know if I am the only one, but I often thought what if my parents got divorced? Am I a bad person for thinking that if they get divorced I would get more attention from people! I would actually get some attention… Do I crave more attention that most people or is this normal, am I the only one that day dreams of heart ache just because I know it is always followed by attention. I mean am I happy with who I am?

When I was about 12 I would guess, I am going to blame the girl for this one, the girl remember I told you about Mandy the devil girl with a boyfriend! I like this blame shifting… maybe I can even blame my parents for never moving and creating a safe haven, that never allowed me to see more of what houses have to offer… anyway when I was twelve there was a party at my house… I remember as if it was yesterday I was allowed one beer, allowed or stole is just semantics, it was along time ago, I felt as if I was the king of the world, while all the other kids where in the room watching cartoons (I have never had a love for cartoons really, maybe from a childhood experience, who knows). So there I was this 12 year old man hidden in the drive way behind my moms beaten up old car, I know you thinking white trash but give me a break I was only 12! And yes it was a black label, the irony is quite thick. Well there I was in all my glory sipping on this beer thinking to myself this is the worst tasting rubbish in the world (young and naive, I would come to treasure the sweet taste of said drink in my later teens), I never want to be able to drink more than one. So as I carried on drinking (I am only 12 and very impressionable and I felt like I am sure you all feel, drinking mean you are mature and all grown up and all we ever want is to grow up for some unnatural reason, looking back I wish I stayed younger for longer, that I watched more cartoons with the other kids. Back to hiding in the dark with my beer, as I was sipping away my uncle walked past and said something that I have never been able to forget, he said that “I was trouble and would never amount to anything”… I remember feeling as if my whole world was crashing down around me, my heart felt shattered, as if someone shot it out with a shotgun, something died inside me that night. I lost love and belief in myself. I wonder if people understand the power of words, the power they carry over people! Yes its funny sometimes when you say the things you do, but do you realize every actions has a reaction and how sever those actions can be.

To be continued…

The apple that burned down the room

2008-12-05T22:13:00.000-08:00

When I was in primary school, don’t actually know how old I was properly around 12, my parents threw a party, for which back in the day they where famous for. I come from a big extended family and in the days that everyone was talking too each other we would have friends and family over for any occasion we could. We had dress ups, Halloween parties where the whole house would be turned into a giant cave with hot ice bellowing out of the giant caldrons (before smoke machine days) and my dad dressed like a mummy popping out of the make shift coffin (since we didn’t actually have a real one) as people walked in through the candle lit drive way. Needless to say it was always fun and full of people, the one year going back to when I was twelve wasn’t a dress up or anything but it was cool, my cousin who was a DJ at the time had bought all his stuff around, spit braai was on and everyone was getting along having a good time, as the party started to die down in the early hours of the morning and some people left, and some people just slept where they could,

There was a group of us that stayed up in the outside room, If I recall it was my cousin the DJ, a family friend called Phillip (A quite Afrikaans farmer from Britz) and of course me. We stayed up all night talking rubbish and messing around, there was one 2l coke left from the party that we where saving for some unknown reason. Just one of those things. Phillip was in charge of the coke, and he lay reading his comic book all quietly and reserved while we decided to have some fun. We had for an unknown reason yet again had an one apple with us and some thinners. So my brother pours some thinners over the apple and I light it in the sink, it was cool to say the least. It went up in a ball of flames but it was short lived with very little flame much to our disappointment. So we decide to do it again, only this time my brothers hand is a bit heavy and the thinners goes everywhere over the sink, I am thinking it cant be that bad can it. Wrong again, the whole sink went up in a huge flame, forget the apple trapped inside there somewhere. Phillip jumped so high I thought he was going to hit the roof, he grabs the sacred coke and starts throwing it onto the flames, by this time my cousin is grabbing all his DJ equipment that just happens to be positioned right next too the inferno. I run out side to get the dogs bowl of water and start throwing it on the fire to make it go out. By this time as in slow motion the kitchen lights turn on and my mom starts to make tea and coffee for the ever awakening quest, little does she know there is black smoke bellowing out of the outside room, the roof is black, the chrome finish of the taps are no longer existent. So there we stood among the debris with no coke, laughing a little that we where still alive and certain of impending doom. When the smoked cleared we decided to tell our apple story and to our surprise it went down fairly well. Perhaps it was the fact that it was sunrise, or that they hadn’t actually seen the damage yet, we survived to live another day.

Silent Screams

2008-11-19T02:35:00.000-08:00

Falling on my knees in anger

Calling out for help

But I heard no answer

My screams deafened me to it all

Flat on my face at the thoughts of all

I have lost and gained

Unworthy of it all but not worthless in it

I called but heard no answer

Silenced by my own stupidity

Where is the answer i want,

Is it different to the answer i need?

I will go on to trust in you

I cant carry this anymore

I give it all to you, hatred and love

When I call I will listen

You hold the answers to the questions

I haven't asked yet

My purpose found in your heart

i am a boy

2008-10-22T23:43:00.000-07:00

I am a boy in the middle of a mountain range living in a cave, although the cave has most more luxuries than most houses, like mattresses and running water and it was only for one night on a retreat. I found myself at 27 years old exploring the surrounding mountains all alone with my stick jumping from rock to rock not thinking of the perils that could await me. Perhaps a big snake, or even a loose rock that will send me bellowing down the mountain side to my death or at least a sprained ankle. Perhaps so server I would be left there with no cell phone signal all alone to be destroyed and eaten by giant baboons.

How did I find myself exploring such wonderful surroundings with all this head knowledge of the dangers that await me. Off I went wondering cheerfully and excitedly from rock to rock, the answer was simple, I was exploring from my heart. I was looking for something greater than myself and was not worried what my head was telling me. I am a boy craving adventure. It struck me though that as I was wondering head down and smile on how often we loose the passion for our relationship with God because we allow our head to do the leading. Imagine I listened to my head and allowed it to stop my heart from going out on this adventure. My heart would become dead with despair and boredom. How true of our relationship with God, we live from our heads and not our hearts. Our hearts are very seldom used anymore, we loose the it that makes us alive and instead go on living good safe “Christian” lives instead of living the life we are called too.

In my wonderful adventure I found myself getting o so wonderfully and joyously lost, at times so lost I had no idea how to get back to the cave. But I was living from my heart, so all I had to do was find the biggest rock and up I would climb and I would be able to see my way again. Again God revealed to me that when we live from our hearts sometimes it might feel like we getting overwhelmed by things and that is when we need to stand on top of his word, for his word is a lamp unto our path. God will continue to show you the direction to where you need to go if you live from your heart.

When we live a head sort of Christianity we loose out on the adventures God has for us. Sure you can still can to heaven being a head sort of Christian but when we start too live as heart centered Christians and by heart I mean a God centered heart full of passion and compassion then we start to bring heaven to earth and start to live a life worthy of living.

Pray for cars and it will rain

2008-10-08T00:45:00.000-07:00

So this night it was raining and cold so I got to use my mom’s car for legitimate reasons. I cant remember where me and Alan where going, but we where going out none the less. When I got to his house the rain had stopped and the roads where slightly wet, just wet enough for some fun. So Alan gets into the car and we reverse out of his drive way, as we are going backwards I quickly throw the car into first and do a wheel spin, however the wheel spin is cut short because the car just cuts out. My heart starts to race and I start thinking up excuses to why the car just stopped working. We manage to get the car under some trees outside of Alan’s house. The rain starts to pour down again and Alan and me are just stuck there in silence. Rain is dripping through the trees and falling on the windscreen. Then it was almost simultaneously that we thought back to Sunday’s church service about prayer and how this guy prayed to God and he got a wife. We both thought wow, what we are asking for is way easier than that.

So I preyed for us something along the lines of “Father God, we love you and just want you too fix the car, we wont wheel spin again and will try be better people”. I thought it was a good prayer, we where bargaining with God, giving him what he wanted to hear and in return we would get our small miracle. At that moment our faith was huge, I mean it was either faith or the wrath of mom. After the amen we tried to start the car and to our surprise it didn’t start. No what, we almost felt a little betrayed by the whole deal, we had done our part, had faith and prayed a sincere prey and nothing. We felt cheated out of a miracle and also new the trouble that awaited us because of the unanswered prayer. After a while it stopped raining and we figured that God would answer our prayers if we met him half way, so Alan jumps out the car and starts to push, we try a few times and Alan can’t feel his arms anymore. I just feel the sinking feeling of surrender coming over me. I have nothing left to try, its time to face the consequences and phone my mom. Just before I do that though I pop the bonnet in the hope I can see what the problem is. Even though I have no real clue, I thought 5 more minutes won’t hurt. The whole time everything is going on I am still praying in my head asking God for help. When I pop the bonnet and look inside I notice that the box for the airflow straight into the engine has come off. So I clip it back on and away we go. Turns out the guys that services the car didn’t put it on properly.

Seems God did answer my prayers but the way he wanted to answer them not the way I wanted them answered. He gave me the insight into the problem and I had to go and fix it. I think a lot of times we sit by and want God to fix everything and do everything for us. But if God has answered our prayers the way we wanted him too. We would not have developed a dependence on him, we would have properly in all honestly developed big heads because God answered our prayers on our terms, instead he taught us everything in his time. Everything his way, we don’t always have to understand that but the more we know the easier it becomes.

Good deeds suck sometimes

2008-10-05T23:50:00.000-07:00

So here is this guy, he kept coming to our house to look for work or money. I would also chat with him and listen to his long stories about nothing, ironically it would always be during a meal or when Vicky and I settled in for a movie. So I landed up giving this guy some work, chatting with him. Giving him some of my clothes and really being what I felt was Jesus to the guy. Let me just make this statement though, if as Christians our giving does not actually cost us anything it is not really giving. It cost me nothing to give away the old clothes at the back of my wardrobe that I never wear, actually it gains more wardrobe space so I have more place to put my new clothes I can now buy. We are called to share all we have, so when someone asked you for your shirt, give him or her the one you are wearing.

That will cost you something. I have a friend that is a missionary and has been for 15 years. The other day we where talking about money and how we survive. He said that we (missionaries) live off other people’s exposable income. That is true, but a sad truth. If we call ourselves Christians we should be sharing all we have, this is hard when you have a family and between you and God you need to come to terms with that. So this guy kept coming back week after week and I really didn’t have any more money for him but I would make him a sandwich and we would chat, or he would tell me more stories. This went on for months until the one day we had friends visiting and Vicky worked half day so we could go to the Dutch Cheese factory just down the road. This guy saw us leaving and decided to break in, and steal my computer and camera and a whole bunch of my clothes. He tired to steal our cheese but thought it more appropriate to just leave it out on the counter to defrost. The friends all staying with us had all their laptops and ipods in the lounge but the guy left everyone else’s things and stole just mine. Does this mean that we stop being Jesus because of one bad experience? Or does is mean we judge everyone that needs help? To fear everyone stops us from being Jesus to anyone. We cannot fear based on stereotypes or even previous experiences. Each individual is an individual regardless of colour or social standing.

Why do we believe we believe what we believe?

2008-10-01T01:12:00.000-07:00

One night in London a friend and I headed down to Covent Gardens for skate, or to scout for girls or just to get out, cant really remember. I do however remember that my friend was telling me stories about how if you can to a place just before closing they sometimes gave you free stuff. Like any normal individual how could I believe him without actually experiencing it for myself? And further more free stuff was at hand. So we looked around for a possible target and ended up going to this pizza place, the fact that is was pizza was a bonus. The real reason we went there was because there was a cute girl working behind the till.

My friend was quite the charmer and landed up speaking to her for a while, needless to say we got two slices of pizza for free. Maybe because it was the policy maybe because it was because my friend was a hotty, either way free stuff.

As we walked out of the pizza place with our new found treasures this guy came up to us. He could not have been much older than us. Asking for some money or food, as from the above story and us hassling for food, we had no money but we did have food. After some conviction and sadness we decided to part with our pizza, after all it didn’t really cost us anything anyway. As my friend was handing his pizza over to the guy he mentioned it was a bacon and banana pizza, still not sure why. But the guy responded by say “I don’t eat meat” but before he could finish his sentence he stopped half way and took the pizza and began to pick the meat off. I don’t know if you have even had meat on something and tried to take it off, you cant really get it all off. Why was this guy a vegetarian?

Personally I think as a society we just believe things because they are the in things to believe, we don’t know why we believe things. If we stand for nothing we will fall for anything. I not picking on vegetarians here, I am asking a serious question, what makes a man go against what he believes and even practices to some extent? Some may say hunger; I would rather like to suggest that rather not knowing why we believe things is the leading cause for us giving up and not standing up for what we believe. If I believe in Jesus and don’t know why, I will be willing to call myself a Christian but when it comes down to acting out Jesus in everyday life I will rather give up, because I haven’t dealt with the questions as to why I believe in Jesus.

Thank you Love

2008-09-29T00:08:00.000-07:00

Just wanted to say I love you

Many times I find myself wondering what it means to be married to you,

Wondering how did I get so lucky, How come I get to wake up next to you each day,

How come I get to kiss you whenever I want and hold your hand on our walks.

I don't know why I get to be so lucky, just wanted you to know that I know I am lucky and that I love you lots and lots :)

I know its not always easy, and I know its not always fun. But I would go through those moments forever and a day because I know that the goodness and joy that flows out of those moments is where we are meant to be. Being so closely intwined that the soul of your foot fits into mine.

Come rain or shine, you stuck with me,

come stars and sunrise its you and only you

Thank you for being my lady wife :)

Knowing what we know

2008-09-26T00:02:00.000-07:00

Below is an intro to a little project I am working on! Called Saved by Chocolate Cake

When I was 18 I went to work in London for what was meant to be 4 years and ended up being 6 months which is another story all together. After a few weeks there and finding a cool job as a chef in a wine bar and getting settled in the staff accommodation, a room about 2 meters by 4 meters with a window that only opened 10 cm, to some that might sound big but too me it was tiny. But I was on my own and I was stoked, it was my first place away from the comforts of sunny South Africa. When I started to get dirty looks I realized it was time I did some washing. After visiting the local shop to get some washing supplies I gathered my things and headed down into the basement. I felt like somewhat of a hero, there is a strange sense that comes over you when you know you are on your own and about to do something for the first time. As I stood looking at all the machines and wondering to myself what to do. I remember I kept thinking a hot girl was going to come do her washing and we would become friends and life would be great. Never happened, instead in my excited state I continued to throw my clothes into the machine, throw in some washing powder and there I sat. I noticed some other machines had clothes in but the owners where not really phased to leave them unattended. They obviously weren't from South Africa; I wouldn't even turn around away from my washing, let alone leave it in the room alone. Although again I found myself wondering if in fact I left the room and returned later that day if my clothes would be dry and all nicely folded and clean by some washing fairy. Anyway, after entertaining my thoughts for close to an hour I wondered how much longer this was going to take, burger king breakfast finished at 10.30 you know. I walked closer to the machine to find that there was no water anywhere? Everything was dry with white powder all over it. It didn't take me long after that to figure out that the tumble dryer is for drying clothes and not washing clothes. I felt rather stupid in that moment. But was I really stupid? I mean how was I suppose to have know the difference, I have grown up in a family where if you didn't really know what you were doing you could ask and someone would show you or tell you. If you couldn’t find something you could ask, you just had to make sure you had looked hard before asking.

It is kind of like that with our walk with Jesus, we become Christians and have no idea about anything, we think we are doing the right load of washing when it turns out we just spinning hot air. It is almost forced on us that we should know what we are doing, but how are we to know with out people guiding us and helping us along the way. After all isn't this about community? I hope that the next few pages will help you too open up your eyes to the wonders of God, the goodness of who he is and who we are to him.

So often we are sold a chocolate cake Christianity, where they attract us with sweets and food, and while we there we stumble upon this person called Jesus. But that’s almost where it ends, the chocolate cake runs out and we are left with all these questions, not really knowing anything and expected to act a certain way and do things a certain way without actually understanding it.

Freedom

2008-05-21T22:39:00.000-07:00

With great power comes great responsibility… Spider Man

Freedom is a great power… the desire for personal freedom had lead to wars to fights in the home… Everyone ones to be free…

What is freedom??

Gal 5:1 Freedom is what we have---Christ has set us free! Stand, then, as free people, and do not allow yourselves to become slaves again.

This does not mean that we will never sin and mess up, the bible is clear that all have sinned and fallen short of the Glory of God, what it means is that sin no longer has power over us! Christ has set us free from the consequences of our sins eternally… We still need to face earthly consequences though… if I sleep with my girlfriend, and my friend sleeps with his girlfriend and gets her pregnant… we are both sinners and need to ask forgiveness but our earthly consequences are different…

The more we seek freedom on our own the more enslaved we become to ourselves… we need someone that can set us truly free…

Paul warns us later in Galatians

Gal 5:13 As for you, my friends, you were called to be free. But do not let this freedom become an excuse for letting your physical desires control you. Instead, let love make you serve one another.

Why do we fight so hard for freedom just to give it away to something else… our physically desires… we say we are free but how can we be free if our lives are dictated to us by the things we do… by having to be drunk to have fun? By only feeling love in sex… by putting others down so we can feel better about ourselves!

Paul warns us against these things and says Christ has paid the ultimate price, we are free… that freedom is found in Christ! It comes from being content in Christ, trusting that where you are placed, God can use you and wants to use you…

Gal 5:16 What I say is this: let the Spirit direct your lives, and you will not satisfy the desires of the human nature.

Keep your eyes above… even if you walk into a tree, at least you will know where the tree came from…

John 3:30 He must become more important while I become less important."

Heb 12:2 Let us keep our eyes fixed on Jesus, on whom our faith depends from beginning to end

Vespa Road Trips

2008-05-21T04:34:00.000-07:00

I have an VLB 150 Vespa sprint Veloce 1976! She is my beauty! She needs lots of cosmetic work but the engine runs like a dream! The only problem I am currently having is I cannot get the wheel but off to change the brake pads and check out the wheel! Other than that she still starts beautifully! Goes like a dream, my top speed is 96km a hour, but can't really average that! That is more of a down hill go getter! The pic is of my most recent road trip to Humansdorp! It was so much fun, it was just me and the open road! Granted I didn't go too far, seeing as I headed out from Jeffrey's bay!

My friend just bought himself a scooter, so really hoping to be doing some longer road trips with him, as soon as I can get the nut off!

Does God want us to be happy

2008-05-21T03:57:00.000-07:00

A friend of mine recently wrote that "God is more concerned with our Character than he is with our Happiness" I have not stopped thinking about it since I read it!

First read leaves you going wow, yes God wants me to be the best little Jesus I can be and because of that I need to go through hardship to develop me! I need to shout along side James and rejoice when I face trails and tribulations because my faith will see me through! My faith in God, my faith that requires me to believe God has my best intentions at heart! Even if what is best is not always fun!

An example will be school, very few people enjoy studying for test! So it is fair to say in general studying is not fun (unless you have a hot study partner :) ), It is in your best interest for your own future that you study hard and get good marks!

However, perhaps God does care for our happiness and that happiness is directly tied into our character and relationship with him! It is a happiness that transcends understanding and general happiness! it is an inner joy that comes from trials and tribulations knowing that you are becoming more like the person Jesus wants you to be!

Soon Photos will line these walls

2008-05-14T04:04:00.001-07:00

You consume so much of my thought,

Before my eyes are opened you are there,

As they close to sleep, before my head hits the pillow

It’s you I am dreaming of.

Captivated by all you are,

Waking up next to you is more than words can express

Finding you next to me seems all it’s meant to be,

Yet with each day that passes it grows even more.

Loving the place we have next to each other,

The untraveled road that lays ahead,

The unseen sunsets, the untold memories

The still photos taken in our heads,

The real photos that will soon line the walls

Past roads that have led us here,

Roads that have made us who we are

Roads we can’t change and roads we accept

For it’s made us exactly who we are for this exact time,

No other roads or no other choices would have made us for this moment,

All we are, we are now for each other, distant memories of everything behind

Just a future of our memories, just a future of our lives, just everything and more.

Thomas could have been Jesus

2008-05-13T23:50:00.000-07:00

The other day I was in church and there was this black guy at the back on the side, looking homeless and dirty! (The church I was in is mostly white middle class people) so he did stick out quite a bit! However no one seemed to think much of him or give him a second look! I could not help this stirring inside me that "what you did to the least of them you did unto me" So after much debating of what could happen if I go speak to the guy, after the service I went and said hi, His name was Thomas, and was interested in church and God! I didn't really chat long, but I found out he has been coming for a few weeks! Made me think though if anyone had ever spoken to him, or what if it was really Jesus! What if everyday we drive past Jesus on the side of the road and do nothing about it, just drive straight on by, you just never say hello to him...

However the other day I drove past an elderly lady in the rain and just continued driving... so I guess I back to square one... but the cool thing is I am more aware about people around me... the question is what will I do about it? Don't think you are off the hook, what are you doing to do about it???