26th June

Well it has been a very busy week... I am now in my new house, and I'm loving it! My housemates are lovely and fun and I get to live in the heart of a community that I have the priviledge of watching God change! Two of the young people knocked on my door last night and they were telling me how they'd been walking along singing 'Everlasting God' by Chris Tomlin together!!! These are guys that became Christians a couple of weeks ago... They're amazing! Then I went to the shop and another young person was asking me if I'd be at church on Sunday, I love the life God has given me, it's so exciting, I am blessed beyond what I could ever have imagined!

Also this week I've had a revelation... lately I've been struggling with doubt, doubt over whether God is listening to me, doubt over whether he really loves me, and doubt over whether he's even there. But I've never been able to give up because I know Jesus is real and so is his death and resurrection but still I struggled. But then the penny finally dropped this week when I was reading 'Shining Like Stars' by Lindsay Brown and I read this:

When faced with difficulties, our feelings will naturally be wayward. Only a real conviction of the truth of the gospel will buttress us, hold us together and give us confidence to press on in living for Christ. He came to give us good news, not good feelings.

How amazingly amazing and releasing is this?!? It's ok not to 'feel' that God is there all the time, our feelings ARE fickle. But just hold to the truth of the gospel and it's only thing that will keep us going! This sounds like the most obvious thing, but it filled me with mega excitement! I know that the gospel is true so I can keep running the race!

Oh and it's been actually chucking it down with rain and there are floods everywhere!

20th June 2007

I am moving again... I've discovered that God must have something really important to teach me through this fun activity... he makes me do it so often! Hang on, maybe there's something in that... maybe am beginning to trust Him more for my daily bread, to realise that even something as small as my day to day living is in His hands. And also, that I should be so grateful to Him that I know tonight, tomorrow night, in fact any night in the near future I will have a roof over my head!

I think it's important to get the balance right between God's grace working in a situation, yet giving people their due encouragement. This morning we were reading from Matthew 6, when Jesus is talking about our attitude to giving, praying and fasting. He talks about how our left hand shouldn't know what our right hand is doing, and how we shouln't be like the hypocrites when we pray... in other words we shouldn't do so called 'holy' acts so that other people think we're holy. But I've noticed that sometimes we can fall into a false humility, people get so caught up in not wanting to seem proud, or like they're doing things for show that they begin to deny God's work through them. For instance, if someone talks about Jesus, and their friend who is listening decides they want to come to church and see what it's all about, then yeah, it's thanks to God's grace that He used their words... but well done you for speaking out for Jesus!

It's always God's grace that He allows what little we give him to succeed... but we have the choice about what we give him to work with... and I think people should be encouraged for what THEY do to help bring advance God's kingdom.

It's not so sunny today, but it's pretty warm and that's good!

16th June 2007

So here I go...

Spiritual refreshment... I love telling people bout Jesus and allowing my Creator to help me to be creative in the ways I do that!

Excellence without extravagance...that's how I want to think.

God sees the bigger picture, that's what I reckon... so I need to not be so proud. Sometimes feeling bad, is only feeling bad about the fact that people think badly about me. But, God sees the bigger picture, that's what I reckon.

The sun shined really today.