National Women’s Ministries

“You who sit down in the High God’s presence, spend the night in Shaddai’s shadow, Say this: “God, you’re my refuge. I trust in you and I’m safe!”

There is something within us humans that like to know secrets. What is it within us that when something is revealed and we already knew, that we reveal that…oh, I already knew! I wonder how many reading this had a secret place especially when they were children where they would escape to when life got too much?

I challenge you today to ask yourself, ‘where do I dwell?’ when you dwell somewhere, you live there. You feel comfortable there. How often do I sit down or dwell in the presence of the Lord? Where will I be known to dwell?

It’s when you dwell with someone that you get to know them. You get to recognize their voice and their ways. The best way to recognize the voice of the Lord is through dwelling with Him in the secret place.

Secret place speaks to me of something that only I know. To me, that speaks of something intimate between just God and I. Each one of us can have that secret place with Him. Where only God knows our innermost thoughts, innermost fears and dreams. How wonderful to be able to do that. It is a privilege. Don’t neglect that privilege God has given you of being intimate with Him.

The Psalmist said, I will say of the Lord. Can I confess that today – that I find my refuge in God. What do you find your refuge in? Your job? Your intelligence? Your wealth? Your relationships? They are all temporal things. My focus will be where my treasure is. That is where I will spend my time, my energy and my money.

I don’t know what awaits me tomorrow but this one thing I know that if I choose to dwell in the secret place of the most High, He will cover me and protect me. If I choose to dwell in the secret place, and ask Him, He will lead me and guide my footsteps.

As I was driving around yesterday, it suddenly occurred to me that Christmas is over for another year! As I have mentioned in a previous blog, I love Christmas and all that goes with it… and yet here we are 4 days post the event.

So what does that tell me? That I am close to facing a new year… A new year with new challenges and the unknown!

In speaking to different people, they have commented that they are glad that 2010 is almost over..they want to start afresh.. start a new year, hoping that it will be better than the one just past.

I remembered a quote the other day that says, ‘the definition of insanity is doing the same thing over and over but expecting a different result.’ How true that is! I thought about that and realised that if I want to grow in my spiritual walk in 2011; if I want to lay aside the sin that so easily besets me; if I want to have a greater impact in my world, then I need to make conscious changes in my life.

If you took the time to investigate the habits of successful people or companies, you would find that they re-visit their goals on a regular basis… to make sure they are on track. This is a beneficial habit to cultivate into in my Christian life.

Is what I am doing helping me achieve my spiritual goals? If not, then perhaps I need to ask myself why I am doing what I do…

What I need is a spiritual purpose awakening in my life… what about you? Will you join me in this adventure?

Today as I grabbed one of my many writing notebooks, I happened to scroll through it a little. I found I had written down the following statement, “Historians test of a person’s greatness is ‘What did he/she leave to grow?’”

I have had that thought going through my mind all day and how it relates to my own life. Not the greatness part perse but what am I leaving to grow. You know, each one of us is an influencer. Some good, some bad. Most of us don’t even realise that we are.

During the course of today, I have reflected back on the people that God has allowed into my life. Be it for a long time or short time, I realise that some times I have been a good influence and other times… well, not so good… ugh…

I wonder what seeds I have planted in the lives of those I influence. I also wonder how well I have nurtured what I see growing in others. It is a sobering thought don’t you think?

More than ever before at this point in my life, I want to be a positive influence in the lives of others. When my time on earth is over, I want to know that I have helped plant many good seeds in the lives of others to grow.

What seeds are you leaving as you journey on the path of life?

There is no greater time, no greater need than in 2009 for you and me to embrace the fact that we have been Called for such a time as today! Not tomorrow, next week, next month or next year. My time is now. Your time is now.

As we are now already eight months into 2009, I wonder where we are at and if we have embraced the truth that I am called for such a time as right now!

I am sure if we sat down together, each one of us could tell of the highs and lows of the past seven months; of times when we knew we had pleased God and other times when we had let Him down.

I am sure that there will be those who are discouraged about their purpose in this life.

Let me share two verses of Scripture with you….

“Rejoice not against me, O mine enemy: when I fall, I shall arise; when I sit in darkness, the LORD shall be a light unto me.” (Micah 7:8)

And…

“But he knoweth the way that I take: when he hath tried me, I shall come forth as gold.” (Job 23:10)

Regardless of where I find myself today, even if I am sitting in darkness, the Lord will be my light. He knows me and He knows you! When we put our lives in His hands and yield to His will, everything that comes in or out of our life, He knows about! Be encouraged…you are called!

I have been thinking about my blog for a number of weeks now and felt embarrassed that it has been so long since I added a new one.  Time has a way of slipping through our fingers and before we know it days turn into weeks and weeks into months. 

Recently I have been dwelling on the peace that God gives us.  It is not the type of peace that people have when everything is going well i.e. the bills are being paid, health is good and life is running smoothly.  The type of peace that God gives us is the kind that even when your whole world is turned upside down and you don’t know which way is up.  If you look through your bible, we see that many times God didn’t remove people from their ‘storm situations’ but rather presenced Himself in the storm with them.  The three Hebrew boys were thrown into the fire but the Lord was with them in the midst of it.  Daniel was put in the lion’s den but the Lord was with him in there.  Paul and Silas were put in prison but God met them in there.  The following scripture comes to mind, ‘When you pass through the waters, I will be with you; and through the rivers, they shall not overflow you. When you walk through the fire, you shall not be burned; nor shall the flame kindle on you.”  (Isaiah 43:2).  Preceding this, the Lord said, ‘fear not’ and that is what the absence of peace brings….fear. 

I don’t know about you but knowing that whatever I experience, good or bad, Jesus is with me!  He will never leave me or forsake me.  When we truly believe this and that His love is unconditional towards us, His peace flows into our lives.

I challenge you to taste and see that the Lord is good!

What a busy and stressful time it has been throughout January.  After twelve years in the one home, we have moved.  Three teenage girls and the accumulation of twelve years of ‘things’ almost got too much to handle!

As I am one week post the move, I lay in bed early the other morning and my mind went to the children of Israel and how many times they moved during their forty years in the wilderness.  Every time the cloud lifted and moved, they were required to move also.  I know they wouldn’t have had as much as I did but the bible does say that when they left Egypt, they left with ‘their kneadingtroughs being bound up in their clothes upon their shoulders. and they borrowed of the Egyptians jewels of silver, and jewels of gold, and raiment: And the LORD gave the people favour in the sight of the Egyptians, so that they lent unto them such things as they required. And they spoiled the Egyptians.’ (Exodus 12:34-36)

I am so glad that I wasn’t one of those Egyptian women.  I don’t think I could have coped moving that many times!

My mind also went to the fact that as a Christian, I can’t be too attached to the things of this world.  As humans, the more we get, the more we seem to want but I don’t believe this is what the Lord wants.  I believe He wants me to be attached to Him and have Him as my first priority.

This whole moving experience has challenged me in considering what is really important.  What about you?  Would you be brave enough to ask yourself what is really important to me?

As we see the preparations for Christmas 2008 in full swing, and the reality that Christmas is only three weeks away, I am trying to motivate myself to pull out the Christmas tree, unravel it all, mantle it and decorate it….ugh…

I recall when my children were younger, I had one LP record (now I am giving away my age) which had Christmas carols on one side and the story of Bambi on the other. I would play the Christmas carols as we assembled the tree and decorated it. This always brought inspiration. My children loved it. It is funny to me now to wonder why they never queried songs like ‘dashing through the snow’ and ‘I’m dreaming of a white Christmas’ when it was 40 Deg. C. outside and the fact that they would be swimming in the pool on Christmas Day!

As I have gotten older, the true meaning of Christmas seems to be more important to me than it did years ago. I guess maturity has a way of leading us to consider the true meaning of things rather than what the media and society see as the meaning of things like Christmas.

I love to have tinsel, chocolates and Christmas decorations all around the house but even more so, I am eternally thankful to the Lord for the reality of Christmas. You and I will never be able to comprehend the enormity of what God did by wrapping Himself in flesh and coming into this world.

I am so glad that I know that Jesus is the Reason for the Season!

It was a sobering thought when I heard that the men involved in the Bali bombing were executed. In my mind I recalled the rewards that they believed would be theirs once they passed from this life into the next.

The faith and beliefs of people like these men are based purely on doctrine and what they have been taught. As far as I know, I have never heard that any other ‘god’ has ever appeared to anyone or that anybody has ever heard their voice, felt their presence or even had an answer to prayer from their ‘god’ and yet, these men and many more people like them are willing to lay down their lives.

I compared their commitment to their ‘god’ to my commitment to my God. Not only do I feel the presence of my God, I see His works in changing lives, physical healing and many other ways and yet so many times my commitment is found lacking.

Would I be prepared to die for my King? I want to say yes but it is a question that I don’t believe any of us could really answer unless we were put into that predicament in real life. A verse of Scripture comes to mind. It is found in Hebrews 11: 35-38, “Women received their dead raised to life again: and others were tortured, not accepting deliverance; that they might obtain a better resurrection: And others had trial of cruel mockings and scourgings, yea, moreover of bonds and imprisonment: They were stoned, they were sawn asunder, were tempted, were slain with the sword: they wandered about in sheepskins and goatskins; being destitute, afflicted, tormented; (Of whom the world was not worthy:) they wandered in deserts, and in mountains, and in dens and caves of the earth.” They gave their lives.

Who knows how persecuted we will be as the time draws closer to the return of Christ? I was strongly challenged by the events in Indonesia to consider my commitment to God.