Faith or Fear

Beginning of a new year. Thoughts begin to coalesce around resolutions, or at the very least, a few goals and aims for 2014.

You too?

We all face a choice. Step into the new year full of courage and faith, trusting in God, or creep into it apprehensive of what each day might bring.

It sounds like a no-brainer. Who wants to creep through life half-alive? And yet that is the choice we so often make, unconsciously perhaps.

So for me, I'm going to deliberately put my hand into the hand of Jesus every morning and prayerfully step out in faith.

There is no room for fear in love. Perfect love drives fear away, and Jesus is that perfect love.

Everything Beautiful

Walking Dusty this morning, I was thinking of a dear friend of mine whose family has been torn apart by division. A family of many broken hearts. My friend is a lovely praying believer and it just doesn’t seem fair.

But then I thought of God’s promise, that he makes everything beautiful in its time. It may not happen in our time. She may never know the reconciliation for which she longs, during this lifetime. But in the course of eternity, she will be given the vision to see the beauty which God has salvaged and created from times of the most incomprehensible pain. 

I know she will see the beauty, in time, but I’m not sure if everyone in the broken family will appreciate it, because of the choices they make. Because I’ve still been thinking about the way we think, the things we choose to think about, and how those thought patterns become engraved in the physical routings of our brains so that we eventually do have the mind of Christ, or the opposite. If we consistently resist making choices which lead our thoughts upwards, and instead choose to dwell on the ugly, the evil, the seamy side of life, then our minds become dark and closed. We are unable to even perceive the possibility of things being as God has ordained, because we have grooves in our minds which lead everywhere else but to God. 

Another dear friend once painted a calligraphy for me which is of a verse from Paul’s letter to the Philippians, in which he counsels his readers to train their minds to think about things of beauty and life and light. I’m beginning to appreciate the holistic cohesion of mind, body and spirit, and see the importance of that advice even more clearly.

May your day be filled with encouraging thoughts and positive feelings, so that little by little, yours becomes the mind of Christ. It is an offer open to us all.

Choices

We live in a self-indulgent world, and it is so easy to give in to the temptation to reward ourselves in many little and big ways. 

Last night I sank down onto the couch and picked up the iPad. I checked my emails. I had a game of Sudoku – good exercise for the brain. I scrolled through my apps. 

I opened one Robbie had put there. A site from his church in California with the most recent sermons and worship. I was surprised at the number of talks I could listen to, or music I could join in with. I clicked on one of the talks and sat for 50 minutes being refreshed and fed with challenging ideas.

I could have easily wasted those 50 minutes watching mindless telly. I was tired (when am I not tired these days?) and could have justified just slobbing out on the sofa. 

But for some reason I listened, was stimulated to thought, challenged to look deeper into some of the ideas, challenged to think more about my views and faith.

Choices are all around each of us every day. That is one of the privileges of living in the affluent west. We actually have opportunity; we actually have free time. It’s so easy to squander it.

I awoke this morning with a fresh determination to use my time wisely. It’s limited and one day it will run out, and I don’t want to regret time spent on useless, time-wasting activities.

Today I want to make the right choices.