Embracing Life’s Disruptions

Health is Wealth

As an adult who is rarely sick, I recently had a hard time embracing a 6-week illness, with pleading prayers to God to make me well quickly.  I had religiously taken my multi-vitamins and minerals, with immune booster properties, so when the first symptoms arrived, I believed, like always, that my famous Scottish ‘Hot Toddy’ would nip it in the bud and that would be it. 

However, no matter what I tried, and believe me, I tried everything, it just seemed to get worse.  From a simple cold, to full-blown flu, to bronchial asthma, to bronchitis to laryngitis, it continued to morph. 

After 2 doctors’ visits, and countless medicines, including antibiotics, penicillin, and a nebulizer, I was still far from well.  I even tried all the herbal, natural combinations that my well-meaning family and friends suggested. I was desperate to get better!

Obviously, I had everyone praying in agreement with me for healing, with myself taking communion every night and declaring my healing, but still, God chose to make me wait, which got me to the point of asking why.

This all happened when our tax season had just started and the work that I do was not able to be paused, which left me with two choices, either to work from home or increase my backlog. I stoically chose the first option, which I believe might have delayed my healing.

I had been sensing in my spirit to slow down, but I continued to work full-steam ahead, and I believe now that when your body or God tells you to rest, you must obey!  If you don’t, He will, like Psalms 23 says, bring you to green pastures, and for me, this was through an unexpected, unexplained, unfair and lengthy illness, where I was forced to put my life on pause and rest if I wanted to be restored to wellness.

During this season of ill health, I was so focused on getting better, instead of focusing on God and trusting Him for my healing, which I realise also delayed it. Sometimes we can get so caught up in trying to rush God, that we lose sight of why He has allowed it in the first place.   It was only when a sermon at my Church reminded me that we are to embrace life’s disruptions, that I started to fully rest and accept my fate.

I have learned that, although I still trust doctors, in most cases, they are only treating the symptoms and not the root cause of our illnesses.  I have also learned to listen when I need to rest and embrace life’s disruptions instead of wrestling with them. There is a great peace to discover, when you put your life on pause and rest, both physically and mentally, when it is needed, and allow God to fully refresh and restore you back to health.

So, next time I am faced with the sudden disruption of illness, I will drink lots of water, eat nutritiously well, rest often, and continue to pray, trusting only in God for my healing.  For I have learned that health truly is our greatest blessing, for without it, you cannot enjoy any of His others!

Feeding our Faith with Prayer

The difference between to pray and a prayer is that pray is a means of addressing God, but prayer is the two-way conversation that we have with Him.  In other words, to pray is a verb, but prayer is a noun, a sacred thing.

As Christians, we are called to pray and there are many reasons to do so, but sadly, we only seem to do it earnestly when in need.  Prayer should be our first response, not our emergency back-up when nothing else seems to work.

We should pray before the event, over the event and through the event, and not just after the event.  Although God knows our needs before we even have to ask them, He desires our interaction of being alone with Him. He wants us to commune with Him, to converse with Him, to vent with Him and to seek His presence earnestly and early.

There is something special and powerful when we make the choice and sacrifice to start our day early, alone and in a quiet place, to get into the presence of God in prayer. There is much rest, replenishment and wisdom to be found in this secret place, which sets up our attitude for the day correctly, to face whatever lays ahead.  

When we study Jesus’s example of prayer, we can clearly see the awesome benefits and miraculous results of time spent with His Father.  Unlike ourselves, it should not be a rushed quick request chat, but a lengthy, sometimes overnight time of seeking and listening.

Our prayers are a time of memorial and for remembrance – to remember the person and His faithfulness and to remind God of His promises towards us. It’s like a court case where we get to go before the Righteous Judge with our advocate Jesus and our counselor the Holy Spirit, and plead our case for His ruling, to make our requests and supplications known.

Many of us when faced with adversary, either isolate or talk to anyone who will listen, when instead our prayer time should be when we turn to God for His advice and opinion on the situation, and then wait to hear it, either for Him to speak to our hearts, or through His Word.  When we spend time in prayer, I like to imagine God lays His hands on us to bless us with the touch of His anointing, for there is nothing more powerful than having felt His touch after spending time in His presence.

When we develop a posture of prayer, either with our hands together, eyes closed, or on our knees or with our hands up in praise, it is like a tap that opens up to pour out the filling of the Holy Spirit into our lives, our minds and our hearts.

When we prayer regularly, constantly, consistently and persistently, it fuels our faith and grows our belief, so that every doubt, worry, fear or temptation is destroyed.  It is the power that gives us our Spiritual strength to face our stormy situations with a nevertheless, overcoming faith.

If you are facing a situation with no answers or a scary future, I challenge you today to get serious about prayer and see how God can transform the situation; if not the problem itself, then definitely ourselves to deal with it.  Our breakthrough will come when we stop asking God to remove the problem and start asking Him to help us to get through it.

Just like our muscles need exercise, and how we say Grace before we eat to bless the food to our bodies, we need to exercise our faith with prayer so that God can bless our day.

In conclusion, I leave you with this simple acrostic for prayer –

P = Praise God for who He is and for His faithfulness
R = Repent of your attitude, sin or lack of faith and unbelief, and ask for His forgiveness
A = Ask God for His help, for answers, for whatever you are needing
Y = Yield and submit to whatever is God’s will for your life and for your situation
E = Empty your mind of all your worries, concerns, doubts or what makes you confused
R = Rest in God’s presence and be replenished and restored

 

 

 

How to Start a Revival

When we think of the word revival, we imagine some supernatural impartation from God, but what if I told you that revival begins with us? The word revival means ‘an improvement in the condition or strength of someone or something; or an instance of something becoming popular, active, or important again.

Revival begins when God’s church come into agreement with the promises of the Bible in a unified yes and Amen. Amen is not just the end of a prayer, but it is the beginning of the declaration we are agreeing to.

In Mark 2:1-12 we read of ‘some’ faithful, expectant men (some Bible versions say 4 men) who pushed through the resistance to what they believed. It is the story of the paralyzed man being lowed down to Jesus from the roof, when the crowds would not let them through to Him. In other words, they pushed through and made a plan to reach their goal, Jesus.

Sadly, it is often the crowds in church that are ignoring the real needs of man, and are choosing to rather focus on themselves and their ‘elite’ members, instead of seeing the missed miracles all around them.

If we are ever going to start a revival, we need to stop looking inside and start looking outside, to where the broken and the lost are. Church is not meant to be a museum for the righteous, but a hospital for those who need God's healing. We need to be reaching far, raising up and releasing wide the people of God’s kingdom.

God’s revival power is linked to His heart, and that is for the people who are broken and need His restoration. When we decide to make ourselves available and pick up the heart of Jesus, that is when we will become carriers of revival and see His Church thrive and flourish.

We need to start pushing and breaking through our barriers, stop looking at our limits and start tearing off those ceilings in our lives, to get to where God’s grace is. Our barriers to revival are the crowds, the ceilings and the critics.

We need to be willing to get our hands dirty, to make sacrifices and go fetch the people to bring them to where Jesus is. By that, I don’t necessarily mean to bring them TO church, but to become the Church and bring Jesus to them.

We need to become people who are known for our love, our care, our concern and our kindness towards others, and not for our judgement and criticism of those we decide don’t measure up to who we think qualifies to become members of God’s Church.

We need to stop expecting an eternal response from God, and start becoming the carriers of God’s revival. Yes, we read of many testimonies of revival where it sounds like it began with just prayer, but we skip the part of how their prayers for others, mirrored their actions towards them. We cannot just stay in our safe, sanitized homes and pray for revival - we need to become the hands and feet of God and carry these people to the feet of Jesus. We need to start seeing the miracles that are right in front of us.

In this story of the paralyzed man that was lowed down through the roof to Jesus to receive his healing, notice what Jesus said. It was because of their faith that the paralyzed man was healed. We have the potential to become the cause and carriers of healing to others, through our faith, expressed through our prayers AND actions and start a revival that is so needed.

We need to counsel others with hope and give them access to the heart and love of God. Just like Jesus broke through the ceiling of heaven to get to us, the nobodies of earth, we need to break through our own barriers to get to those on the outside in order to bring them in. We need to ask God to revive us with His fire, so that WE can become the catalysts of revival; not just for our church building, but for His Church, the body of His Kingdom.

(Based on a sermon by Gabe Philips of Life Changers Church - Milnerton, Cape Town, South Africa) https://www.youtube.com/watch?app=desktop&v=YRTsx41d1Bw

Song: Revival, Featuring Kim Walker-Smith, Album: Soulfire Revolution, Year 2013 - https://youtu.be/EiJJd3ISqSE

South Africa's Beacon of Hope

Move One Million - Unity for Change

If you are South African or have a love for our country, and have not yet heard about the “Move One Million” initiative, then I strongly suggest you get yourself acquainted…

Saturday, the 5th of September 2020, was a turning point for our country, the first of many wide-scale events since the movement was launched in July. On this day, masses gathered together, both locally and abroad, to spread hope and raise awareness for this movement that is fighting for the heart and soul of South Africa.

As I braved the freezing, cold and windy Cape Town weather with my waterproof posters, my South African flag, with my mask, ribbon and sanitizer in hand, I joined the West Coast group that gathered in a human chain, maintaining our social distance, along the beachfront, starting from Table View, through to Bloubergstrand and further towards Melkbosstrand. I had been praying that despite the anger of many, that the gatherings would remain peaceful. I also prayed that the threatening rain would hold off and not deter people from joining, and both prayers were graciously answered!

The exciting atmosphere and mood were electrifying and inspiring, to say the least, and reminded me of the emotions we all felt when Nelson Mandela was made President! Complete strangers, unified with a purpose of raising awareness of our many different causes to spread the message of hope for our country, that although we are broken, we are not yet beaten.

We sang and cheered joyfully, dancing in unison with some professional dancers, to the popular ‘Jerusalema’ song. We even played our National Anthem and many other South African favourite songs, filling us all with pride for our Rainbow Nation. There was even a Minister who lead us in prayer for our country, expressing the anointing on the life of the founder of Move one Million and the popular #ImStaying initiative, Jarette Petzer.

As a prayer warrior for our country, President and government, I see this movement as an answer to all of our prayers. As a returnee to South Africa, I am passionate about finding solutions to our country’s problems, instead of just complaining about them, or becoming complacent.

Many Christians might believe that we should not protest and that all we can do is pray, but I disagree. The Bible clearly calls us to shine the light on the truth, to fight peacefully for justice and to spread hope, which is what I believe this movement stands for. They are finding tangible solutions to our many problems and putting pressure on the Government to have the corrupt officials held accountable, and for the many crimes, murders and evils that have gone on long enough, stopped once and for all. We are making a stand for change and we are spreading hope that you no longer need to exit in fear and emigrate. And to those South Africans who already have left, who are still supporting us from your new 'home away from home', we welcomely await your return with open arms, once our country has been restored to the dream that Nelson Mandela envisioned for us.

There is great strength when people unite as one, and although some may think this is just a white movement, it is not. Neither is it a political party or an anti-ANC campaign. We are merely calling on ALL South Africans who are feeling despair about the state of our country and who need their hope restored for a better future, to come on board, to add their voice and be counted. One of the many posters that spoke of the promises the government has not delivered on, says it all – “In 1994 my parents were sold a dream. Today I am here for my refund.”

For me, it’s not about counting the numbers or if we agree with everyone’s causes or the over-zealous Whatsapp or Telegram moderators, or the lack of response to our many questions and comments – it’s about uniting as one with a sole purpose of saving our country. One thing this movement has taught me is that there can still be unity in diversity.

Evil remains when people choose to be silent. Nothing will change without action, and now that we have an International following and attention, we have a better chance of achieving success. To the many leaders, field representatives and my fellow supporters, thank you for your participation and to all the car hooters who cheered us on, thank you for your acknowledging support. So, let us go forth and prosper, as we unite our country with a message of hope, peace, love and kindness.  If you are still skeptical, I hope you will consider joining the next gathering on the 24th October, to discover for yourself and have your hope stirred. Join the movement's Facebook group below to find out more...

https://www.facebook.com/MoveOneMillion/

Knowing the End

As a foodie and huge fan of the ‘Master Chef’ TV series, I have enjoyed discovering new recipes for my husband and I to try. The recent series that we have enjoyed watching in South Africa however, was not aired in the correct chronological order, which meant we discovered who the winner was before the end of the series. This occurred when one of the current participants, a blind woman by the name of Christine Hà, was introduced in a previously aired series as the Master Chef winner. This came as a huge surprise to me, as if you had told me that a blind person would have won this cooking show, I would never have believed you for a second! But foresight and revelation are marvelous things…

Although some might find it a huge let-down to know the end of a story before it happens, much like reading a book, I found great comfort in it. I knew that even if she was voted off in one episode, that somewhere in a future episode, she would be given the opportunity to come back and win back a place, or how else would she have won...

This is a lot like having faith. So often we pray for things, without having that assurance that somewhere down the line, God will and does answer that prayer. Having this assurance gives us the inspiration to thank and praise Him for it before it happens, knowing that in His timing, what we pray for will surely come to pass. It may not always be to our recipe, but we know that it will be according to His will for our lives. You could say that the reward of faith is being able to see what you are believing for.

This revelation is particularly important when you are holding onto a dream. I particularly like the way the judges always ask the Master Chef contestants if they will be the winner. I believe that if you can see it in your mind’s eye and maintain a positive attitude to see your dream come true, it can surely happen. On the flip side, when you carry fear or doubt, it creates a negative effect in blocking God’s blessings of having your dream realised. I’m not sure if anyone else will agree with me, but I like to think that when we partner with God by having positive faith for something, He is then able to make it happen for us. Having said that, I do know that if we have been positive and our dreams don’t happen, we must still praise God and accept that He has a good reason for not allowing it, or has something even better planned for us.

So, as you consider your prayer needs for today, may I challenge you to change your perspective to see that what you are praying for has already been answered in the future. The Bible tells us in Philippians 4:6, that we are to come to God in pray and petition, with thanksgiving, when we present our requests to Him. Therefore, consider it already answered and rejoice in it, knowing that holding onto hope for something, is having an assurance in our faith of that we believe God can and will see it to pass.