Wednesday 15 June 2016
God take us back!
God take us
back,
2 the place we began the simple pursuit
of nothing but You
The innocence of a heart in Your hands …
oh God take us back,The innocence of a heart in Your hands …
to an unswerving faith
in the power of Your name
A heart beating for Your kingdom to reign,
a church that is known for Your presence again
Thursday 9 June 2016
Broken hallelujah's
How many of our relationships are in ruins… perhaps it is your marriage- once a solid fortress, but now only the ruins of a once safe place. Maybe its your relationship with your children…. Or even worse… your relationship with Jesus.
Hopefully, for a split second, I caught your attention and with it came the realization I was actually talking to you.
“Still a song of adoration will rise up from these ruins “
With my love and my sadness I come before You Lord. May heart’s in thousand pieces, maybe even more. Yet I trust in this moment. You are with me somehow, and You have always been faithful. So Lord even now when all that I can sing is a broken hallelujah, when my only offering is shattered praise, still a song of adoration will rise up from these ruins and I will worship You and give You thanks. You have given me much more than I deserve - How could I doubt Your goodness, Your wisdom, Your grace?
Lord hear my heart at this painful place, when all I can sing is a broken hallelujah when my only offering is shattered praise … UNTILL I rise up from these ruins
Friday 3 June 2016
KEEP ON keeping on
A wife’s prayers for her husband have a far greater effect on
him than anyone else’s, even his mother’s. A mother’s prayers for her child are
certainly fervent. But when a man marries, he leaves his father and mother and
becomes one with his wife (Matthew 19:5). They are a team, one unit, unified in
spirit. The strength of a man and wife joined together in God’s sight is far
greater than the sum of the strengths of each of the two individuals.
That’s because the Holy Spirit unites them and gives added power to their
prayers.
This oneness gives us a power that the enemy doesn’t like.
That’s why he devises ways to weaken it. He gives us whatever we will fall for,
whether it be low self-esteem, pride, the need to be right, miscommunication,
or the bowing to our own selfish desires. He will tell you lies like, “Nothing
will ever change.” “Your failures are irreparable.” “There’s no hope for
reconciliation.” “You’d be happier with someone else.” He’ll tell you whatever
you will believe, because he knows if he can get you to believe it, there is no
future for your marriage. If you believe enough lies, your heart will
eventually be hardened against God’s truth.
In every broken marriage, there is at least one person whose
heart is hard against God. When a heart becomes hard, there is no vision from
God’s perspective. When we’re miserable in a marriage, we feel that anything
will be an improvement over what we’re experiencing. But we don’t see the whole
picture. We only see the way it is, not the way God wants it to become. When we
pray, however, our hearts become soft toward God and we get a vision. We see
there is hope. We have faith
that He will restore all that has been devoured, destroyed, and eaten away from
the marriage. “I will restore to you the years that the swarming locust has
eaten” (Joel 2:25). We can trust Him to take away the pain, hopelessness,
hardness, and unforgiveness. We are able to envision His ability to resurrect
love and life from the deadest of places.
We each have to decide if you
want your marriage to work, and if we want it badly enough to do whatever is
necessary, within healthy parameters, to see it happen. We have to believe the part
of your relationship that has been eaten away by pain, indifference, and
selfishness can be restored. We
have to trust that what has swarmed over us, such as abuse, death
of a child, infidelity, poverty, loss, catastrophic illness, or accident, can
be relieved of its death grip. We
have to determine that everything consuming us and our spouse, such as
workaholism, alcoholism, drug abuse, or depression, can be destroyed, We have
to know that whatever has crept into our relationship so silently and
stealthily as to not even be perceived as a threat until it is clearly present
— such as making idols of our career, our dreams, our kids, or our selfish
desires — can be removed. We have to trust that God is big enough to accomplish
all this and more.
If you wake up one morning with a stranger in your bed and it’s
your husband (or wife), if you experience a silent withdrawal from one
another’s lives that severs all emotional connection, if you sense a relentless
draining away of love and hope, if your relationship is in so bottomless a pit
of hurt and anger that every day sends you deeper into despair, if every word
spoken drives a wedge further between you until it becomes an impenetrable
barrier keeping you miles apart, be
assured that none of the above is God’s will for your marriage. God’s
will is to break down all these barriers and lift you out of that pit. He can
heal the wounds and put love back in your heart. Nothing and no one else can.
But you have to rise up and say, “Lord, I pray for an end to this conflict and
a breaking of the hold strife has on us. Take away the hurt and the armor we’ve
put up to protect ourselves. Lift us out of the pit of unforgiveness. Speak
through us so that our words reflect Your love, peace, and reconciliation. Tear
down this wall between us and teach us how to walk through it. Enable us to
rise up from this paralysis and move into the healing and wholeness You have
for us.”
[Stormie Omartian]
Wednesday 1 June 2016
'n Man se verraad
My man vind die Here, neem ‘n besluit om Hom te
volg en vir die eerste keer in die grootste gedeelte van my menswees, voel ek
veilig.
Veilig dat my huwelik veilig is. Veilig dat my man
die Here se aangesig sal soek wanneer groot besluite geneem moet word. Veilig
dat wanneer hy besluite neem wat ek nie mee saamstem nie, ek tog sal onderdanig
bly omdat ek in hom glo. Glo dat hy my belange altyd op die hart sal dra en my
ten alle tye sal beskerm.
Elke keer wanneer ons in die kerk is, oor die Here
gesels, by bidgroepe bymekaar kom, op aanbiddingskampe is, word my man vir my
net mooier. Wanneer hy sy hande uitsteek na die Here en hom aanbid kan ek my oë
nie van my man afhou nie. Dis sooo mooi. Ek is verlief daarop om te sien hoe
verlief my man op die Here is. Hoe hy Hom aanroep en aanbid. Sulke oomblikke is
in my geheue inge-ets en ek neem ‘n besluit dat wanneer donker wolke bokant ons
dreig, ek dit sal oproep en daarin gaan staan totdat ek druppend vol van genade
daaruit kan tree.
En toe ‘n donderstorm met geweld bokant my uitbars, onthou ek niks van my goeie voornemens nie en voel dit asof ‘n
weerligstraal my van my voete af ruk.
My man het ‘n verhouding met ‘n ander vrou. ‘n Ouer
vrou. Hoe gebeur dit? ‘n Ouer
vrou? Ek het myself in ‘n maalkolk van vrae ingedink, totdat ek dronk geword
het van al die heen en weer in my soeke na antwoorde. Was dit eerder van wyn –
daaruit kan ek nog van nugter word en my vinger op druk.
Ek is vir die wolwe gegooi. Die verwoesting van sy
verraad ruk my hart aan flarde. Hoe kon my mooie man wat die Here so liefhet,
so afdwaal dat hy met ons, met my, kon dobbel?
‘n Ouer vrou? Die naakte waarheid is net te veel – ek besef ek het gefaal.
Ek is geweeg en te lig gevind. As vrou, as sy maat.
Ek het te besig geraak met my eie dinge en nie ag geslaan op die rooi ligte wat helder rooi flikker terwyl 'n storm aan't broei is nie.
‘n Ouer vrou? Die naakte waarheid is net te veel – ek besef ek het gefaal.
Ek is geweeg en te lig gevind. As vrou, as sy maat.
Ek het te besig geraak met my eie dinge en nie ag geslaan op die rooi ligte wat helder rooi flikker terwyl 'n storm aan't broei is nie.
Hoe las jy iets wat gebreek het sonder blywende
skade. Hoe droom mens weer van vooraf.
Ironies hoe mens vir jare aan iets bou en in enkele
sekondes kan alles aan skerwe lé.
Ek moet uit hierdie donker gat uit kom. Ek moet erens
asem skep, my longe vol suurstof trek en my hartkloppings stil…doef-doef is al
wat ek in die doods-snikke van die nag hoor.
Doods-snikke. Ek wonder of ek in staat is om te glo iets kan uit
die dood uit opgewek word – as jy nie eens besef het iets is dood nie.
Ek kry myself weer bakhand staan voor die Here.
Verlee en verdwaald. Kaal gestroop van voorgee.
Met niks anders om aan te bied buiten ‘n gestroopte
hart soos ‘n land na oestyd…
Ek rig my oë op na die berge…my hulp sal van die
Here kom wat hemele en aarde gemaak het
dis my hoop
dis my geloof
dis my redding
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