In Christ alone...

God has done much in my life, has taught me much and show me much of Himself. For awhile now, God has been central to my life and the reason why I do the things I do. You don’t end up on a Christian mission ship with the purpose of evangelising the world without loving God. However, I have also known that I am still incredibly selfish and that I like being in control of myself and my situation, whatever that may be.

So, I have been asking God to help me in surrendering completely to Him. I like to do things. I am a great do-er. Things to do in your Christian life, to be the good Christian – I have all those boxes ticked. But surrendering – that’s not doing, that’s letting go; the one thing I find the most difficult. So repeatedly, for the last year, I have been praying and asking God to help me, as I know this is something I can’t do myself.

Earlier this year, I was asked to start a gospel choir onboard. This was one of my dreams – at some point in my life I wanted to run a gospel choir and be part of a group of people joining together to worship God through song and share this joy with others. I had mentioned nothing of this to anyone else, so when I was approached, I felt it was God saying, “Okay, it’s time now”. So I accepted, knowing that in my own strength this was impossible. I have been trained in running a choir, yet felt completely inadequate and incapable of what the position entailed. I accepted because not only was it fulfilling a dream, but I knew it was a way of keeping myself dependent on God.

Halfway through this year, I was asked if I’d like to move to the school and become a teacher onboard Logos Hope.  This was another desire I’d had and kept quiet – although personnel knew of my teaching qualifications, I’d made no noise about wanting to teach onboard. After the first full week of teaching, I’d had enough. I had a mini-breakdown and wanted to get out of the school and even off the ship altogether. Not only was I not feeling capable of the role I’d been given (teaching music, sport, computer technology and religion), but for the next 2 weeks I was supposed to take the 4 year olds while their teacher was on break, and also commandeer the entire school Christmas musical for the next few months.

That was when God gave me a gentle kick in the behind. He reminded me of how He’d called me to the school and I knew it. He also reminded me of Philippians 4:13 – I can do all things through Christ who gives me strength and told me that I could do it, but only when God was doing it through me. The children I teach were all created by God; they are His. He is the only One fit to teach them, to guide them, to love them, to calm them down.

All my life, things have come quite easily. I enjoy a challenge, but whenever the challenge got too great I was easily able to find my way out or simply quit. This time God put me in a place where that was not an option – had I gone in tears to personnel, they would simply have reminded me that I’d been there one week and to at least give it a good go for another month or two. No, this time God did as I asked – He placed me in a position where I had no escape; it was trust in Him, surrender all or stay absolutely miserable.

Needless to say, I’m not a complete idiot – the next day I started over. Before beginning, I asked God to take over. I agreed that these children were His and I didn’t really know what to do with them properly. I asked that He be their shepherd and I simply the staff in His hands to use as He wills – this is His school and His classroom, not mine. I don’t think I have to tell you the difference it made, do I?

It is only when we come to the end of ourselves can we truly begin to find Christ in the way He intends. And more than that, He taught me that the joy we are supposed to have – the joy that shouts to the world that we are Christ’s and He is ours; it can only be true when it is not dependent on our circumstances but in Christ alone. No matter what is going on, whether we’ve had a bad day, if we find ourselves in debt, if our best friend has left us… we do not worship Christ because He may fix our problems if we pray hard enough – we worship Him because He is God and He alone is worthy. We can be joyful even in truly awful situations, not because we like the situation we are in, but because God is God regardless of our situation.

"In Christ alone, my hope is found. He is my light, my strength, my song."

-Stuart Townend

A Visit to the Farm

"When we despair of gaining inner transformation through human powers of will and determination, we are open to a wonderful new realisation: inner righteousness is a gift from God to be graciously received. The needed change within us is God's work, not ours. The demand is for an inside job, and only God can work from the inside. We cannot attain or earn this righteousness of the kingdom of God; it is a grace that is given." -Richard Foster

The quote above surmises perfectly the lesson God has been trying to teach me of late. 

Frustrated at the plateau I appeared to have reached, I have been trying everything I can to keep moving forward with God, knowing there is so far to go and so much to learn and understand but not knowing how to get there.

From left and right have come the words: "Stop trying, just be", "relax in God", "stop striving", "slow down" and on it goes. I've been brought up with the mentality that if you want to move forward, that you have to do something about it - "God helps those who helps themselves". Well I have yet to find that in the Bible and God has been showing me that is not his way.

The more I learn of God, the more I realise how much more there is to know of Him - I'll never know it all, I have a very big God. That is both an amazing and wonderful thing and for me has also been daunting and frustrating at times. In this realisation, I had moved from a place of pride to inferiority - neither is a good thing. I'd moved from being able to see the growth achieved to seeing my inadequacies and imperfections and doing everything I could to improve and change.

Change and improvement in and of themselves are not bad or wrong, but because of my understanding that for those things to occur I had to do something, I was continuously faced with a conundrum: I'd say, "Lord, I want to surrender all to you, have you lead and guide me. I want to learn how to better hear from you - now, how do I go about doing that?"

It's ironic when you think of the meaning of surrender: to let go, to relinquish control. But God has been making it clear to me that it has got to come from him. Just like we can't do anything to earn salvation - that was achieved through Christ; so I have to allow God to do the work in me, being confident that He who began a good work in me will carry it on to completion until the day of Christ Jesus (Philippians 1:6).

I had become frustrated at my lack of understanding/ability to allow this to happen, because simply doing nothing didn't work either; so thankfully God stepped in.

This weekend I visited a friend on a farm. It was a fun and special time sharing with an important friend and allowing God to minister to me in his way. Surrounded by beautiful mountains, varied wildlife, a relaxed atmosphere with an unhurried pace and no pressure, simply a chance to explore my surrounds, myself and my God - He was able to speak to me clearly and I listened. 

Indie - after a chat and a cuddle
we came to an understanding.
A sweet girl.

What a way to relax and unwind!
Brrrrmmmmmmm...

In a moment of calm & quiet, my friend
allowed me to take certain liberties.

Clarina knows how to make the best of some
nice hay and a beautiful day.

One of the more normal faces
that was seen this weekend.

Two good friends.

A spectacular moment captured on film!
As I nearly face-planted, something held me back
and kept me from getting dunked.
So it is with God.

I have returned from the farm with a new understanding, a new sense of peace and some wonderful memories. Now to simply be with God, walking in His disciplines as I put myself in a place where God is able to work within me and see where his path continues...
    

All about God

A whirlpool. An accurate way to describe my mind right now. There are so many different thoughts swirling around up there in different shapes, sizes, colours but they're slowly melding and being pulled towards the centre to one main theme: God.
IT'S ALL ABOUT GOD.

Consider the controversial topic of conversion. Discussing 'Pascal's gambit', someone suggested it would be ideal to mention this to my non-Christian parents. However that's purely logic and conversion is a decision. Salvation, on the other hand is receiving from God, a gift that only Jesus can give us. Therefore to be saved is to respond to God, not a one-sided decision.

Response. That my entire life would be a response to God. Colossions 1:16 reads "For by him all things were created: things in heaven and on earth, visible and invisible, whether thrones or powers or rulers or authorities; all things were created by him and for him. " Genesis 1:27: "So God created man in his own image, in the image of God he created him; male and female he created them". 1 John 4:19: "We love because He first loved us". God took the first step and because of that, everything we do should be a response to Him. We love because He first loved us. Everything we do should be praising and glorifying God, after all we were created for Him!

Even when we do things as a response, it is still not all from us. Colossians 1:4-5 "because we have heard of your faith in Christ Jesus and of the love you have for all the saints- the faith and love that spring from the hope that is stored up for you in heaven and that you have already heard about in the word of truth, the gospel...". The love and faith we have springs from our hope in heaven. How is that we can hope in heaven? Because of Christ's death on the cross for us (and how can one fail to react to that amazing act!?) and the fact that we know He is in heaven, we will one day meet Him there and that He is our hope - it is for these reasons that we have hope and faith and can offer love and hope. It is not our hope we share, but a hope born in Christ. Again, it's all about God. And how do we share that love, hope and faith? "I can do everything through Him who gives me strength". Only with God.

Blessed are they who keep His statutes and seek Him with all their heart. Father God, I seek You with all my heart; do not let me stray from your commands. As the Son can do nothing by himself; He can only do what He sees His Father doing, let me only do what I see You do, Father God and only through Your strength within me. Amen.

Beginnings

God has given me a burden for those who can't defend and look after themselves - particularly children, sharing His love for them through me. Since I came to know God a short four years ago, day by day I learn more, understand more and that brings even more questions but with it joy and excitement, faith, hope and also a responsibility. A responsibility to share God with the world. Knowing what a joy and privilege it is for me, how could I deprive others of that? So for the first step of this journey in sharing Jesus with the nations, I'll be stepping out onto a ship that travels through many different countries with the goal of bringing knowledge, help and hope to all who cross our path.

I've been struggling for awhile now with getting deeper - into God's presence and Word and my understanding of that, and deeper into relationships with others. While at pre-field training for the ship, God gave me many small keys into unlocking that area. He's shown me in just a few short days how life-changing it can be, not only for myself but hopefully for others as they see Christ in me. It's only the beginning of a long but very exciting yet challenging journey that is never to end! Part of growing in that, through a friend God showed me a blog can be a way of keeping accountable in my growth with Him, while also presenting yet another opportunity to share more about Him - that hopefully any readers will learn with me as God teaches me many lessons and also for those who want to follow my time on the ship, to pray for God's ministry and the part that I play within that.

So concludes my first posting. Many more to come as God keeps revealing more about Himself and His will - what an exciting time to come!