death

theres been a lot of talk about death in my life recently, and several nightmares. some of the things that have come up have made me realise that there is a difference between being scared of dying, and being scared for others if we die. being scared of dying can be because you are unsure of what happens afterwards, its mainly a selfish thing. if we are scared for others for when we die, its slightly different. its not selfish. ill give you an example: my mum is scared of dying-not because she is scared of the dying, but because she doesnt want to leave me and my sister to sort everything out and doesnt want to hurt us so soon after dad died. it sound heartless, but i dont think id be affected in a big way. not emotionally. yeh id probably cry, but it would hit my sister harder. she hasnt been around as much as she'd have liked. plus she is more of an emotional girl than i am. ive changed more than she has(in certain respects). i have at least 2 spiritual mums and 2 spiritual dads(people i go to for support). i have people close around me whereas she doesnt. she has her church, but they dont give her the same kind of support as i get that she would find helpful. i just pray that when mum does die, she'll be strong enough to get through it.

JUST A THOUGHT“be doers of the word, and hearers only, deceiving yourselves.” (James 1v22)
It might sound a bit obvious, but there's a big difference between holding a cheque for a million quid in your hand, and paying a cheque for a million quid into your bank account. One looks good, the other makes you a millionaire. The truth is that we can be like that with God's Word. We can hear loads of amazing sermons, read inspirational books, go to awesome conferences etc…and it's all good stuff. But it doesn't mean ANYTHING unless it makes us spiritually rich and changes you from the inside out.
Am I the only one that struggles with 'been-a Christian-too-long-ness'?! You know, when you've been doing church and following Jesus for so long that you've nailed the whole 'looking the part' thing and everyone thinks that you're God's super-saint, but actually - what's going on inside is a totally different story! That's called deceiving ourselves.
The thing is that God fully knows what's really going on, but it doesn't stop Him loving us, and it doesn't change His commitment to helping us change. He's constantly speaking His love and His purposes to us through His Word. The challenge is to not just hear what He's saying, but to believe it and act on it. Sometimes, if we're struggling to get excited about what we hear, or think we've heard it all before, we just need to be honest with Him and ask Him to give us fresh ears and a willing heart.
Who knows, as we let God's word go past our ear-drums and into our heads, hearts, hands and feet - it might just transform our lives and our world.

well im sitting here waiting for some work to do and reflecting on last night. i got this wow feeling and laughed more than i have laughed in a very long time. i felt this real release. i was laughing with people rather than at them, which i suppose is part of it. 2 instances spring to mind. the first, we were having a deep discussion about Jesus having been sent by God and whether people before Jesus were saved by His blood or not. at the end of it, one sister said 'i bet he wont do it again'. it was really amusing, but thinking about it there is a serious point. He wont do it again. He will never die again, He will never become a man again. why? because He doesnt need to. He died to break the power of death, so He can never die again. He came as a man, and was raised as a man and is now in heaven, as a man. so there really is no point in sending another man.

sorting out my life has been intresting. over the past few days ive been working out all of the different possibilities for the next few years-or at least the main layout of it. ive realised that, as much is i disliked school, i like the set up. i tend to work by timetables. i like knowing what im going to be doing when. its intresting to know that God isnt like that. ok so he knows whats happening when, but He lives with unpredictability. how often have we been unpradictable towards God? He cant have a timetable like mine because we humans rarely do what he wants us to, so he cant always rely on what we say we are going to do.