Turn Around

We watched as a long HGV somehow made the tight corner down the unpaved, rutted track that leads to the back of beyond. After awhile, we watched it re-emerge: somehow it must have turned on the cattle tracks. It headed past our house and on down the narrow, paved road. 

A skilful driver doing something I would have thought impossible. 

We all make mistakes. Take wrong turns. Struggle to return to the best way for us to go. Maybe even despair that we can never get back.

‘Tell God what you need, and thank him for all he has done. Then you will experience God’s peace, which exceeds anything we can understand. His peace will guard your hearts and minds as you live in Christ Jesus.’

He can help turn us around. That is the better way. A way that offers joy and peace and hope.

Revival

Just about everyone I know is harried and pressed for time. Anxious and rushing from one demand to another. Never reaching the bottom of their ‘to-do’ list.

Tired. Thirsty. Dragging our feet. Needing revival.

Yet, I read something yesterday from someone I know, written a few years back, voicing a concern that the term revival is negative because it implies someone or something (eg the church) is near death.  

Well, I look around and that’s exactly what I see. People and institutions dragging their feet through each day, each task, anxious and harried. If not near death, certainly near fainting. 

Revival conjures pictures of people falling under the power of God, being overwhelmed by his love and goodness, perhaps doing odd things or suddenly prophesying. God is unpredictable and his times of refreshing may not look like our times of refreshing. Where we might envision a spa day or a beach holiday, he might envision a simple coming of his Holy Spirit upon the life or lives of human beings. Satisfying longings we don’t even know we have. 

Revival brings refreshing that is lasting, the water of life that springs up unto eternal life and never runs out. A spa day or a collapse on the beach might relax the mind and body for a day or two, but rarely carries on through the busy life as tasks are resumed. 

God’s peace, his strength, his love, carry on through all that comes our way in this world. Jesus said that we would have trouble and problems in this world, and he was right. But he went on to encourage us by declaring that we should take heart because he has overcome the world.

How? Not just in his resurrection and our going to be with him forever on our death, but in our daily walk. In whatever comes our way today. He has overcome. If we remain in him, he certainly remains in us, reviving our spirits, minds and bodies as we trust in him.

Needs moment-by-moment commitment to remain in him until we are habituated to live and walk in the power of the Holy Spirit. Refreshed. Restored. Revived.

Glass Half Full

Life’s events can sometimes seem to overtake us, with worries multiplying like rabbits and responsibilities weighing us down. 

Perspective, my dad used to advise. Keep it all in perspective.

Two people can look at the same situation and one sees a half-empty glass while the other sees a half-full glass. Who are you?

The Bible gives good counsel on how to look at life. ‘Don’t worry about anything,’ Paul wrote. ‘Instead, pray about everything. Tell God what you need, and thank him for all he has done.’

Thank him for all he has done. What a liberating action that is, because as you mentally revise all he has done, your faith for the future rises and the half-empty glass begins to look half full. 

And what happens when you thank him for all he has done?

‘Then you will experience God’s peace, which exceeds anything we can understand. His peace will guard your hearts and minds as you live in Christ Jesus.’ 

Those verses from chapter 4 of Philippians are among my Bible favourites. They are so encouraging, and as you begin to discipline yourself to practice the advice, you find your mood and outlook lifting and the whole perspective shifts. 

You can move from feeling like a victim of life’s circumstances to feeling like a victor, not on your own but with Jesus standing in there with you. 

After you’ve thanked God for everything you can think of (takes a long time if you’re serious about this, and is pretty humbling to recognise so much blessing in your life), Paul goes on to advise what your mind should focus on, and it isn’t your past, or your worries, or the future. It’s on good things, true, honourable, right and pure and lovely – thinking about excellent things raises your perspective another degree or ten.

My glass is more than half full. How about yours?