God's Politics (Jim Wallis) - choose to fight

i have been reading this book for forever (it feels like at least). i will quite readily admit that i am not one who has ever gotten into politics, let alone american politics. however, while taking a long time to get into it, this book is really quite good - though mentions a lot of 'current' events that are already getting alittle dated, but the ideas behind it will always be current. i have had the time over the last few weeks to get some good 'chunk' time of reading in, and this has helped. so yes, i recommend the read.

the more i am becoming aware of justice and surrounding issues, the more i am learning about how to fight them. though i still feel really quite useless in the whole wider scheme of things, i am reminded daily of the difference i (well, God through me) can make in the lives of those around me. these days we all have the knowledge, we just have to make the choice to fight. unforutnately, we can tend to be a pretty lazy people. we are too comfortable, and seem to hold the idea that for poverty to be reduced, our lifestyles don't really need to change. i disagree. how can we expect the balance of wealth to be re-distributed, yet our lifestyles remain basically unchanged. in short, we can't.

choose to fight. choose to re-address the balance. realise that this can only happen if you are willing to change your lifestyle.

9 sleeps...

ok, so you may need to forgive my lack of blogging over the next 2 weeks or so. it's only 9 sleeps till i get married and things i think are going to be a little crazy over the next little period!!!

but today is

MY MUM"S BIRTHDAY - HAPPY BIRTHDAY MUM.

it is also

Kerryn and Hil's wedding anniversary (5 years...i think) HAPPY ANNIVERSARY

the weather was so great yesterday, we went swimming in the lake and spent some time outside in the sun and then we all went and climbed this tree - which could easily hold all 5 of us that were up there. sweet. i'll post photos later.

there are times of joy in life, some of which i have just mentioned, but amongst these, there are also times of sadness. this week, one of my good friends lost her mum to cancer. this is my second good friend (actually both are ex-housemates) to have lost a parent to cancer this year. i sometimes wish i could stop this evil disease. i can't. i thank the Lord that they both had faith. and i pray for my friends, and their families that are left behind. may you know His love, peace and comfort.

room in the army

this is just a quickie - my life is getting ridiculously busy right now. my brain in starting to hurt...

anyway, this morning an old (salvation) army chorus popped into my head. it goes like this 'joy, joy, joy, there is joy in the salvation army...' BUT, for the life of me, i couldn't remember what the word 'joy' was. i convinced myself it was the word 'room'. 'room, room, room, there is room in the salvation army'. later i figured out that missing word was actually joy.

however, then i started to think. yep, we do have so much joy in the salvation army, but you know what, we have a lot more room than we do joy! i kept thinking - maybe instead of being consumed with our own joy, we should be consumed with filling up all that empty space we have for people in the army. and you know what - while there remains one dark soul without the light of God - there's going to be room in the army...

the wise in God (+ years)

i really appreciate those who are wise in God (and years). last night we went to the local salvation army (georgina), where the congregation was more advanced in years than us. (though they also thought i was 20 and too young to be getting married, when i informed then i was 28, i think they thought that was plenty old enough). i was reminded of how much i have come to value the older generation. we have so much to learn from them. i loved the times i was able to spend with those a little older than me at my old church, to sit and talk and learn from their wisdom. it's a special thing. and sometimes something that us younger people don't value as much as we should.
so, to the younger people out there - find the older ones and get some of their Godly wisdom. drag yourself away from your peers for even just an hour and hang out with someone who you consider to be wise.
and to the older people out there - realise that we really do love to hear your wisdom and if some random - or not so random - young person wants to spend time with you, do it.

this being said - here's the other thing - a 30 yr old is old to a 18 year old, yet a 40 year old is young to a 65 year old. so we can nearly all fit into both categories!!!

now i just need to figure out how much longer i get to stay in the "young" category...i guess i can stay for a long time...i just need to keep finding someone who is older than me. i think i've got a few years left.

language

adam is from sweden. he'snot officially part of the ignite team, but he's up here with us, checking out what we do, as he is part of the new S2S (saved 2 save) training school that is opening soon ingotland, sweden. adam is a great guy.
anyway, last night we were playing phase 10 - just adam, drew and i. we have been trying to learn to count in swedish. i am pretty good. i can get to 12 now. with the exception of 7. 7 is a very hard number for a native english speaker to say. if you know someone swedish, please ask them to say 7 for you. anyway, drew and i were repeating this number, which if we tried to spell it phonetically it could turn out something like qwhooo??? we couldn't even figure that out. so we kept repeating this number whne eventually adam said stop. we realised that for quite a substantial amount of time, we had been sitting there saying '7, 7, 7, 7, 7, 7, 7, etc'. it was quite amusing. seriously, find someone swedish and ask them to say 7. then try it.

language is a funny thing. the igniters have had (dr, major) bruce here this week, teaching them bible. we've been looking at the language used and how it differs between the gospels, translations, etc. (check out cowboy jesus in matt 21:7).

language is fascinating really. and it is such a powerful thing. words. words have power. (but God has more).

i need to use my language, my words wisely.

real scrabble

last night for the first time in a long time i played real scrabble. not just the fast kind which i have been doing on a regular basis for a while now. it's a bit like life (well everything is if you think about it enough). we are not all dealt the same pieces, we do not all have the same gifts. some get the x's and the q's without u's and others get the blanks. but we all have the opportunity to make the most of what we have. we all have choices and decisions to make. some will get us triple word scores while others will get us nothing extra. sometimes our moves will help others out and leave the way open for them to achieve, and sometimes our moves will look mean, as we seem to block the only way for another to go, though we couldn't have done anything else ourselves. yes, life is more like scrabble than you've probably ever realised. luckily for us, we have something better than a dictionary to lead and guide us through this 'game'.

go and play your best scrabble today!

Psalm 86
11 Teach me your way, O LORD, and I will walk in your truth;
give me an undivided heart, that I may fear your name.
12 I will praise you, O Lord my God, with all my heart;
I will glorify your name forever.
13 For great is your love toward me;
you have delivered me from the depths of the grave.

(p.s. did anyone realise that the other day, i actually used capital letter in my blog!)

balance + priorities

so when you put a new team of people together, make them live in close confines, stick them in classes together, make them eat together, play together, you get the idea, throw in some brain overload and tiredness, you are going to come into some times of fun. somethings that shouldn't be big deals are and somethings that should be big deals aren't. the world gets a little twisted.

life is a bit of a balancing act. some figure it out faster than others. it's a balance between things you need to do on your own, things you need to do with others, things you need to do for others. again, just to make this a little more confusing, i don't think the balance is necessarily the same for everyone. there is no balance prescription or schedule to follow.

i think i am at the point in my life, where i am getting a pretty good idea of what the best balance is for me (though i guess my life's about to change again, so it might be back to the drawing board shortly). i know how much time i should spend with God so that my relationship is doing (ha - that makes it sounds easy, fyi - it's not as simple as i've made it sound, but anyway), i know how much time and in what ways Matt and I should spend our time for our relationship to be pretty good, i know when i need to hang out with others, i know when i should be serving. blah blah blah. but, as i said, i am about to hit a new phase of my life, and just as i think i have been getting to a pretty good place, some aspects are going to change again!

isn't that the beauty of life? i think we sometimes get scared of change. but i have learnt that during times of change, when we get to start all over again, our slate is clean, we can re-prioritise our lives. it's actually a really sweet thing. and when my priorities are in the right order, when i have the right balance, this is when i feel most alive. and what is this secret to feeling the most alive i've ever felt - it's when God is given priority over everything and my relationship with Him is deeper and stronger than ever.

priviledge and responsibility

Sept 11. A day that most people will be able to tell you what they were doing in 2001. You can't deny that this day changed how our world functions now. Whatever the reasons (whether good or bad), the justifications (whether just or not) that are given and without ignoring the hurt, the anger, the pain that is associated with this day, I pray that today, that all world leaders will look for truth (all truth belongs to Him), look at their own (their personal and their countries) faults, and seek to rectify the true injustices of this world.

Colossians 1:28,29 'We proclaim him, admonishing and teaching everyone with all wisdom, so that we may present everyone perfect in Christ. To this end I labor, struggling with all his energy, which so powerfully works in me.'

Wow. This is a huge responsibility and priviledge. To proclaim, admonish and teach. These are no easy tasks. And to do these with wisdom. I think it can be easy to get caught up in your own little world, to focus on things in your own life and to almost forget about others around us. It can be easy to put the blindfolds on. It can be easy to think that we have it tough. That we are the ones who have suffered. But if we know Christ and are truly allowing Him to reform our minds, renew our spirits, these verses in colossians will be our goal. No more blindfolds, no more self obsession, no more self pity. If's God's power is in us, working in our lives, we must carry out these commands. It's our responsibility, our duty and not to mention a wonderful priviledge.

just letting things float by....or not

the weekend flew by so quickly. i went back to toronto on friday night, as sandra and kim had come up to jackson's to lead a holiness weekend. i was glad to have the break and do a few wedding things, sort my room a little, go running with kathy, see matt a tiny bit (of course, when i come back for the weekend, he's working...). it was nice. anyway, that's just a quick update.

here's today's real thought.

'Have mercy on me, O God, according to your unfailing love; according to your great compassion blotout my trangressions. wash away all my inquity and cleanse my from my sin' psalm 51:1,2

i am reading through the psalms at the moment. i won't kid you, there's a lot of them. sometimes i think they are not really worth reading, at other times, i think that they are the greatest. sometimes i get distracted thinking oh these are just little poems or songs written by people...whatever. but at other times, the couldn't reveal any more truth about God and man. it doesn't take a genius to figure out that it really just comes down to my attitude. (Lord, please forgive me).

anyway, these verses are part of what i read yesterday. it could have been easy to skip over, not really think about it, just take it as part of the song david wrote. but there is so much in these two verses. we are full of sin and all God wants to do is love us. he is able to be in relationship with us because he sent his son to die, to take away our sin, to cleanse us. he did this just so he could be with us. this is the basis of christianity, the basis of a true believers relationship with God, but sometimes ,just like my reading of the psals, we skip over it, don't really think about it, appreciate, or even respond to it.

my prayers today are that we will always take the word of God as something we can learn from, never taking it for granted.
and that we all realise what this is talking about - and that we think about it, pray about it, take it on and respond to it.

peace

i am so thankful that God's peace is beyond understanding. yesterday, i wasan't feeling very good at all, but then after spending time with God, there was this peace. i don't know how it works. everything doesn't have to be known to experience it. i think we think that to have bpeace, everything needs to be ok. but with God, it doesn't.

by the end of the day, i knew some of the answers to some of the questions i'd been asking, and i didn't think that this was even possible. and i will just trust God for the rest.

matt and i get married in 3 weeks and 1 sleep, this is exciting, and scary (in a good scary kind of way, don't worry). all we want to do with our lives is whatever God wants us to do. now, that may sound kind of cliche, and you know, who cares, anyone who claims to follow Christ should be saying this. we want God's best. sometimes it's easy to figure out, sometimes it's harder. and sometimes we stuff up along the way. but as long as we seek God, keep our eyes on Him, it will be ok, and even sometimes when things aren't all ok and you don't know all the answers, you still get to experience His peace. That's sweet.

Thank You Lord.

seasons of life

isn't it funny how at some times in your life you really can't imagine life being any different. then you look back later and see just how much things have really changed.

this is good. i mean really, imagine things always stayed the same.

this is also sad. some things are so great and it's really not fun when they end.

regardless things can and do change. i pray that when we are in control of these, that we make the right decisions. i pray that when we are not, be have the wisdom in how to deal with them.

have a great day!

superbad is superBAD

so the other week matt an i wasted our time, money, breath and brain cells seeing the worst movie i have seen in a long time - superbad. it was just that, super super bad. it was bad, not funny and not even slighty entertaining.

i know this is short - i have just arrived up at jackson's point with the new ignite team for training. we got here yesterday and so far i have swum in that lake twice. i really missing heather being here with me. i also taught the new guys how to play wizard and my old fav - fast scrabble.

the wedding is less than 4 weeks away and matt and i are doing well, though would appreciate a lot of prayer at this time.

will try and blog a bit while i am here.