All posts by Lynne

Faith, Five Minute Friday

Empty but still full

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You are reading a Five Minute Friday word prompt. This is hosted by Kate Motaung and is where a group of people write about a given word for that week. This week the word is “empty”. // marks what I wrote in 5 minutes.

//Why celebrate Jesus dying on a cross? Dying in such a humiliating way…

He was stripped…

He was whipped…

He was mocked…

He was tortured…

He was scorned…

…And He was hung on a cross and left to die.

Why celebrate such a barbaric death? We celebrate it because we know that two days later He will have conquered all of this. He will come back to life, leaving that tomb empty.

That wonderful feeling of Him conquering death leaves myself no longer feeling empty like that tomb was. // It’s only been in the week leading up to Good Friday have I felt that something has been filling up inside me.

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I look at what Jesus went through…every whip He felt beating on His back…each nail that was pierced into His skin. He did that for the people who scorned Him…

…The Priests that crucified Him…

…for Judas who betrayed Him…

…the person who hung on the cross next to Him…

…for me…

…and for you.

That empty tomb is a sign that we no longer need to feel empty. We can all be full in the knowledge that Jesus is alive and that we have His abundant grace always filling us up.

Faith, Five Minute Friday

How much is enough?

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You are reading a Five Minute Friday word prompt. This is hosted by Kate Motaung and is where a group of people write about a given word for that week. This week the word is “enough”. // marks what I wrote in 5 minutes.

//I am what I am. What you see is what you get. This is my “northern way” and what I often tell people. Usually it’s because I don’t want them to judge me for anything with what they see in front of them.

I want to look tough on the outside and like nothing bothers me. But deep down I am thinking “am I enough? Is what you see in front of you enough?” I put on an act as though I am enough, and that I wouldn’t care less if you didn’t think I was.

But deep down I am scared to show you the real me. Because I am scared that the real me is not enough. The real me that is sensitive deep down and that I cling on to what other people say because it matters to me. The real me that is exhausted with looking for people’s approval just so that I feel enough.//

Isaiah 43:4
“Since you’re precious in my sight and honored, and because I love you, I’m giving up people in your place, and nations in exchange for your life.”

Do you know what I try and cling onto though, as a Christian? (Notice I said try…because I often fail at this!) Because of Jesus and what He has done for me…

I. Am. Enough.

When I ask God if He loves me and how much He loves me, I am always reminded of this answer that was penned by someone else…

I asked Jesus, ‘How much do you love me?’ And Jesus said, ‘This much.’ Then He stretched out His arms and died.  Unknown

I pray for each and every person reading this, as we approach Easter, that we remember the reason why we are enough.

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Faith, Trust

Trusting In God To Define Our Path

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You are reading a Five Minute Friday word prompt. This is hosted by Kate Motaung and is where a group of people write about a given word for that week. This week the word is “define”.

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To define is to give something its true meaning, which would hopefully make it more clearer for you. Hopefully! Defining something also creates boundaries, something that is clearly set out.

Sometimes we do this with our walk with God. We want God to clearly define the path that we walk on. We want Him to specify exactly what our lives mean, where are we heading to and how we are going to get there.

“Trust in the Lord with all your heart, and lean not on your own understanding; in all your ways acknowledge Him, and He shall direct your paths.” – Proverbs 3:5

God doesn’t always clearly define what we are to be doing on this earth though. Well, He doesn’t define it in the way that we want Him to, and waiting around for things to become just that little bit clearer is really hard.

However, if we trust in what God is going to do for us, and not trust in our own thoughts and feelings (which often mislead us down the wrong path anyway) then He will define what our path is to be.

Five Minute Friday

You’ve Got A Friend In Me

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You are reading a Five Minute Friday word prompt. This is hosted by Kate Motaung and is where a group of people write about a given word for that week. This week the word is “friend”.

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I guess most of us have probably watched Toy Story and heard of the song “You’ve Got a Friend in Me”. It has been sung at various points in all three of the Toy Story films.

The most poignant time that the song was used though was when Woody saw the episode of Woody’s Roundup in Toy Story 2. It showed the puppet Woody singing this song, which was directed towards the younger audience. Whilst he was singing, a small child is shown hugging the puppet. When Woody sees this, he had a revelation that his main reason for being made was to be there for a child. As well as being a friend to a child, he also realised that he could be a friend to the person that he envied the most – Buzz Lightyear.

What if this was applied to us in every day life though? We all need a friend, don’t we? We all need someone to “round us up” when the going gets tough. We need someone who is going to be by our side.

Do you want to know one sure way to find a friend? Be a friend to someone else first. Why don’t you say to someone today, “You’ve got a friend in me”? You never know that you may end up having a friendship that will never die.

Faith

What do you do if you don’t feel God?

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I am sooooo not good at this Christianity lark! I keep stuffing it up. Wouldn’t it just be easier just to do this all on my own anyway? I mean, how hard is it…This life business? Seriously? Why do I need God in my life? There are plenty of people out there that seem to get on just fine without Him, and yet I struggle. I don’t really feel Him that much anyway, so I might as well be on my own…

“Oh my word”, I can hear you say! Are you shocked that I am writing this? Should I be writing this? I mean, aren’t us Christians meant to show how easy life is once we have Jesus in our lives?

Or, are you nodding your head, with your hands in the air saying “yeah, me too, I getchya!” Are you one of these people that’s been there, done that and got the holes in your jeans for the amount of times that you’ve been on your knees begging for His mercy to start over again?

Do you know what though? Yeah, life isn’t easy. In fact, life is damn hard at times! So hard that it goes through my mind if all this is worth it one day. All the struggles we have in life…

death…

illness…

money…

kids…

…just to name a few! I’m sure that you could add a few more to the list.

Wouldn’t it be nice though if life was just that little bit easier? Answer me honestly. When you’re going through each day in pain and not knowing what is causing it…or you barely have the energy to play with your kids properly…or you are worried about when the next pay check is going to come in and whether you have enough to get you through the next day.

Wouldn’t it be nice if all this would just go away? Is God really here anyway in all of our struggles? When I am facing these hard seasons, this is what I honestly think. How can God let me go through the situations that I experience. Does He really care about me?

A friend recently gave me some encouragement at a time when I needed it…at a time when I still need it…

“I just want to encourage you that just because you are in a hard season right now, it doesn’t mean God is absent. God’s love “feels” more intimate when things are going well, that’s true, but our circumstances aren’t an indicator for God’s love in the same way our feelings aren’t always telling us the truth.”

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I want to encourage you right now too, just like I was encouraged. In answer to my question, “what do you do if you don’t feel God?” Hang in there.

If you feel like your faith is fading, God is there and He will remain faithful towards you. Although we may change our commitment towards Him from time to time, His commitment to us will never change.