If God Never Did Another Thing For Me

If God never did another thing for me would I still love and follow him? This was a challenge in a book I was reading. It’s an interesting but I think flawed question.
My instinct was to say yes. If my faith is real it wouldn’t make sense to let it go if God stopped doing for me. If my dreams being fulfilled relied on me, if getting up and over or falling on my face was all down to me, why should this effect my belief in God or my willingness to follow Him. Then of course once you start thinking about this then you start to wonder about what about if bad things happened? What if something happened to me, my hubby or the girls? Would I get mad, angry? Undoubtedly. Would I rant at God? Probably. Would I shout and scream and do all of that? Yes. But would I stop believing? I don’t think I would.
We in western society find ourselves in an interesting position. For the most part we are comfortable, even safe. Sure crime is on the rise or seems to be and we are currently living with the consequences of a ‘me’ culture but look outside yourself. In other parts of the world you can be killed because of your race, faith, political preferences, because you dressed wrong, expressed an opinion or even had the gall to want to be educated as a woman. I’m pretty blessed. I have a roof over my head, clothes to choose from, a variety of food to eat, furniture, entertainment and even clean water. There are even safety nets if certain things get pulled from under me. Other people aren’t so lucky. Due to where I was born I am living in far more abundance than many and yet if something I take for granted is taken from me…?
Is it not a particularly said state of affairs that we live in a place where we even consider the question, ‘would I still believe?’ What does that say about our faith?
We expect our children to reach adulthood relatively untouched and unscarred, happy and healthy. In other countries they just hope their kids survive. Which leads to the thought, if God is no respecter of persons then He doesn’t value one life more than another, so why should we expect to live our lives untouched by certain things? Has our luxury, our abundance made our faith weak? Are we complacent in our faith? Are our foundations on rock that is rooted deep or are they on the shifting waves of sand?
If God doesn’t do… then I will no longer believe. That is a load of…Well you know what I mean. Christ gave his life so I can have a relationship with God, now and through eternity. Why does God have to keep doing in order for us to believe? Is our faith contingent on what we receive? And is the stuff we refer to in that context material stuff or is it other? Is it love, peace and joy?
Now we come to the flawed part of the question. God is the creator, He is the original giver. He gave life and life everlasting. God can no more stop giving to His children than I can stop giving to my girls. That however does not mean I will always give them every material thing they want. It doesn’t mean I won’t take things from them to discipline them. I will always love them, I will always be there for them and help them work through the tough things and I will always want the best for them. Sure when they are little they may equate love with stuff, more likely though they will just pitch a fit that they didn’t get their own way and they may even say the dreaded ‘I hate you Mum’, but I’d like to hope that once the fit is over we can hug and tell each other ‘I love you’. Hopefully if we do our jobs right they’ll grow out of that phase, they will know we love them regardless of anything going on in our life or theirs.
So why then is our faith in God contingent on getting what we want, when we want it? It is easy to profess faith when all is going well but I have found it is those times I am being squeezed that I grow the most. I may not like it and I may voice my frustration to God, He doesn’t mind that, but it is in the furnace that we separate what is pure and what is impure.
I was in a car accident not long ago. Just my car involved, just me and my baby in the car. The car was a write off. I had bad whiplash, some beautiful grazing and bruising and my baby cut her gum. Essentially it seems the car didn’t want to turn the corner I wanted to turn and we hit a tree. At home that night I was having a bit of a whinge to God: “why did it happen?”; “why didn’t you prevent it?”; “why do these things happen every time we get a little buffer financially?”. In the midst of all my whinging God spoke to me. You want to know what He said to me? “I could have put you in a wheelchair.” Well that shut me up.
Don’t misunderstand. I don’t think God was being vindictive or anything, He was just letting me know in language that would get through to me, that it could have been much worse. A fact many people commented on when they saw pictures of the car. Hearing God say that made me re-evaluate. At least we had the money to get another car. Sure it meant we couldn’t do other things we’d planned like a holiday, but we weren’t going to have to borrow money. It made me re-evaluate other things too, deeper things about my walk with God and what I really wanted out of life. As a result I have made some decisions I had been procrastinating about and things feel better.
Our problem seems to be our perspective. We want God to give but on our terms. We see things very much through the lens of ‘what’s in it for me?’ I want to feel a certain way when I worship and when I pray. I want to know I will always be safe. I want to know I will always be able to get that new pair of shoes I want. I don’t think that’s God’s focus though. I think He is far more focussed on our character and saving those around us. He wants a deeper relationship with us, not one with a foundation of ‘gimme, gimme, gimme’.
Do I wish I had an easier life? Sometimes. Sometimes I wonder why it has been such a struggle and certain things have happened, but if I hadn’t had the experiences I have then I couldn’t say the things I’m saying. I know God walks with us through the trials, I know that sometimes His answers to us are no, just because we don’t like to hear it doesn’t make it an invalid answer.
God gives, He just doesn’t always give us what we want. It is in His nature to give, and He won’t stop doing that, so therefore the question is flawed. Then again depending on our answer maybe it is still a question worth considering. If we think about it honestly maybe we will realise our idea of gifts and God’s idea of gifts can be two different things. The path ahead of me looks a little scary but that’s fine because I have faith that God will walk with me through those scary bits even if He doesn’t take them out of the way.

Mixed Messages

Watching the news the other night something struck me as odd.
A man fell asleep in his lounge only to wake to find someone in his house. They ran, he followed and got hit over the head when he tried to stop them stealing his car. The police response to this is 'don't confront leave it to us'. Two stories later they were reporting on the police raising awareness on campus and the message there was 'the person mostly responsible for your own safety is you'.
Hmmmmm.
So which is it? If you're outdoors then you're responsible for your own safety but if you're at home then leave it to someone else?

First Do No Harm

I can hardly see because of the tears in my eyes and it’s not what someone has done to me or even to anyone I know. What set me off was a story about a mother who told her child she didn’t want the gift he had saved his money to buy for her. This woman has walked out on her marriage and her kids and I just want to slap her or something worse. I know, sometimes my feelings just aren’t very Christian.
I saw that little boy and it looked as though all he really wanted was a mother’s hug. What are we doing to our kids?
There’s this thought that’s been going over and over in my mind the last couple of days and that is I think we need to take something from the Hippocratic Oath – First do no harm.
Forget new years resolutions and prenuptial agreements, forget me first and survival of the fittest. Every year, if not more often, maybe even first thing every day, we should take the oath to – first do no harm. Simple, no caveats, no clauses, no excuses.
This applies to big and small and I’m talking about myself too. I’ve done things I’m not proud of. I’ve hurt people because they hurt me or I thought they would. I’m sure I’ve probably hurt people I’m not aware of. Sure I haven’t killed, abused or any of those things we first think of as hurtful. But we underestimate our words. Before I speak perhaps I should put it through the filter of ‘first do no harm’. Before I act I should ask myself does what I’m about to do pass through that filter?
It’s all very well and good to say ‘what about me? what do I want?’ but think about it, I reckon we would all say we don’t want to be hurt. Why then do we think it’s okay to hurt others. I don’t want to be in this relationship any more; I don’t want to be a parent at the moment; why should I work when I can get welfare or just take what I want from you?; how dare you have something I don’t have; how dare you cut me off; wouldn’t it be fun to throw this rock at that car; or aim this laser at that plane. Even wouldn’t it be a laugh to humiliate, pick on, tease or torture this person. We can’t seem to stop thinking about ourselves. What would happen if everything we did was visited on us in turn? Our crime rate is high. Our divorce rate is high. Our apathy rate is high.
Please just take a minute to think about the poor person who was tortured and humiliated by classmates, and when arrested the parents jump in to defend their kids. Then there are those who do that sort of thing only to amplify the humiliation and pain of the victim by posting the footage of what they did online. How is that acceptable on any level? If there had have been even a hint of me doing something like that I so would’ve copped it. It’s called discipline.
Growing up I learnt that my actions have consequences. Too many people today live as if their actions don’t and the kids must get that attitude from somewhere. If there is one thing I’ve learnt from my eldest, and I know there has been more than one thing, it’s that kids model the behaviour they see, or are exposed to. With younger people displaying so much ‘I deserve, you owe me,’ self-obsession, we need to wonder what they are modelling it on. I’m sure there are some who will lay the blame squarely on the media, but the media often perpetuates society, so we really need to accept our own part in this. Also there will be those who claim there is nothing they can do because parents have been legislated out of disciplining their children, while this may be a contributing factor we cannot avoid the fact that often we simply don’t display the right sort of behaviour.
There are many sayings or ideologies that touch on this; karma, what goes around comes around, even the bible deals with it.

Do not judge and you won’t be judged. Do not condemn and you
won’t be condemned. Forgive and you will be forgiven. Give and
it will be given to you a good measure pressed down, shaken together
and running over will be poured into your lap. For with the measure
you use it will be measured to you.
Luke 6:37-38

Do unto others what you would have them do unto you
Matthew 7:12

Each of you should look not only to your own interests, but also
to the interests of others.
Philippians 2:4

It is by no means a new concept simply an old one it wouldn’t hurt us to revisit and if that means we need to reword it then that’s what we do.
First do no harm. If we can’t do it for ourselves (when we have no problem doing everything else for ourselves) then we need to think of the kids. We need to start modelling a lifestyle that shows happiness and hope not constant selfishness and greed. I know it’s not easy but how about today we put someone else first.

Food Portions In Parliament

Okay, we now live in a country where both our Prime Minister and the leader of the opposition have great personal wealth. To be honest I'm not sure that should be a topic of discussion when parliament is in session, they're both in the same boat and I'm not sure either can claim to be in touch with the common man.
Moving on, what really sticks in my craw, so to speak, is this debate about the size of the food portions served in the parliamentary canteen. The wife of one of the members complained her food portion wasn't big enough. Now I could be wrong, but it looked to me like the woman in question was quite large (though to be fair there were two women in the footage and I'm making the assumption based only of how they were positioned in the frame) and not looking like she's struggling for a meal. This is a problem because the tax payer is paying for her subsidised meals, and pensioners in this country can't afford to buy meat. They can barely buy enough to see them through the week, in fact some can't.
Do we see the problem?
And now the speaker of the house is looking into the issue. Surely there are more important problems than her $7.90 meal not being big enough. Rent or mortgage difficulties anyone?

Shoes

I wanted to do something light and in amongst my pondering something fell into my lap.
“Heelarious” is a new product on the market, stilettos for babies/ toddlers.
I am not joking.
It’s no secret that I don’t know fashion, but please. Heels are bad enough for grown women. Sure we all love a pair of shoes that make our legs look great – even I’m not immune to that, but that doesn’t mean they are something we should be encouraging kids to wear.
The toddler in the footage I saw was crawling with hideous pink squooshy shoes with inch high heels. When the little girl tried to stand, the heel squished down and her feet were turned seriously in, it would be like trying to walk with a stone in your shoes.
We are in the midst of several world wide problems including poor self image in so many of our girls, and women, and here these mothers are perpetuating the problem. When we start pushing image on girls so young (and don’t for a second think it all goes over their heads, there are always sisters and other kids watching) what message do we expect our girls to take through to the awkward tween and teenage years, let alone adulthood.
For heavens sake let our kids be kids.
An interviewer asked one of the creators of she was making a punch line of her child because the kids wouldn’t understand the name. She claimed no, but I think he had a point.
Don’t let vanity put babies in the torture devices we all know heels to be. There will be plenty of time for that later.
Image isn’t everything, surely enjoying childhood is more important.

What Women Do

Grab some chocolate, cake, a glass of wine or a coffee, whatever works for you, and get comfortable, we are going to have a bit of a chat. I am anyway, feel free to join in.
There’s something that’s been simmering away in my thoughts for a while now and every now and then it bubbles to the surface and I express my thoughts calmly and effectively. Actually it’s more like I lecture or rant. It’s to do with the things women do to each other.
It’s so easy to blame all our problems on men – it may even be instinctual but I think if, as women we had an attitude adjustment towards other women, it would make a big difference. Not all our problems would be solved, I’m not naïve enough to believe there is a silver bullet out there that will make all the bad things go away, but I really think some parts of our lives would be run more smoothly as a result.
Before I go on there is something I need to confess, I’m not a girly type of girl. I don’t have loads of girlfriends, I probably couldn’t identify fashion if it bit me on the butt and makeup and I are mere acquaintances. However I am very definitely a woman and I have experienced many of the things other women have. Some of those things I’d like to talk about now and some I’ll leave for later.
Let’s start with the distant past.
I was not popular in school. I was teased in high school nearly every day. When it happens like it did to me it just becomes something that happened, there was no one particular time that really stands out. The thing is though it wasn’t guys who picked on me, it was girls. I don’t think the guys really noticed I was there unless they wanted help with something. Most of it was to do with having a brain that worked well, I wasn’t athletic or pretty and the teachers liked me. Funny thing was if none of the popular girls were around some of the popular guys could be downright nice to me. But the bottom line is by the time I got to senior high I’d built quite a wall around my emotions and had developed quite a thick skin. Neither of which prevented me from being hurt or wanting to be accepted but I convinced myself it helped.
When I was 16 I started a new school and mum introduced me to the daughter of a friend of hers. I’d just come from boarding school and this was an automatic in with the popular girls. Needless to say I didn’t fit in and one of them pulled me aside one day to tell me they didn’t want me to hang with them anymore. The reasons were silly but it was high school; I didn’t want to date older guys, sleep around, or party all weekend. I was bad for their reputation. When this happened more defences were built around my emotions. No matter how much I said it didn’t matter it was another thing that resulted in a lot of insecurities later in life.
Even now just thinking about it I have to wonder if those things are the reasons I don’t have many girlfriends. I have trouble trusting women and their motives. I expect them to hurt me, so I don’t open myself up to them.
We as girls and later as women do so much damage to each other, it’s no wonder so many of us have insecurities and self-esteem issues. It’s about time we thought about things before we said them, thought about the consequences and even how we’d like them said to us. This is something I need to remember as well. All those years of betrayal have left me cynical and somewhat harsh and it very definitely effects how I deal with other women.
Sadly this is something we see a lot of now, girls pulling other girls down for no good reason. It always happened though is seems more vicious and continues well out of school hours now. You don’t even need to be around them to be hassled by someone – don’t you just love technology. People are being bullied, abused and slandered via mobile phones and the internet. I’m sure if you asked people why they do it they would answer: ‘because I can’, or ‘it’s fun’, or ‘I wanted to’. I wonder what those answers say about our own mental states.
There’s a fair chance we hurt others to make ourselves feel better about ourselves but that’s not a good reason. There is no good reason to treat someone else like crap, to beat them down physically, emotionally or verbally. We should be helping each other not pulling each other down. We should be contributing to positive and affirming emotional structure in each other’s lives rather that laying the foundations for multitudes of insecurities. We get enough junk thrust as us from other areas like the media, we really should have each other’s backs. At the very least we should respect each other as females and celebrate the diversity we have.
Which brings me to more recent history. My husband is a musician and this woman went up to him one day, after flirting with him for ages, and asked if he was happy in his marriage. Despite him answering yes she didn’t drop the topic but started asking intimate questions about things like his sex life. Can you see where I’m going with this. This isn’t about something a man did to me, my husband was faithful and my thought is she had no right to do what she did. She knew he was married and had a daughter, he refused her several times but that didn’t stop her disrespecting me by pushing her own lusts forward. If women respected other women this wouldn’t happen. Married or taken men would be off limits. Selfish women wouldn’t try to destroy other women’s lives by pursuing this path. Oh sure adultery is two sided but just imagine if all women decided ‘no I’m not going to do this, you are attached to someone else, I wouldn’t like it done to me so I refuse to do it to her.’
If only we respected other women enough not to pull them down or take what they have. Why do we want men that other women have? Some women will say ‘but my guy wasn’t happy.’ I have two things to say about that. Firstly what makes you think he’ll be faithful to you? And secondly if he’s not happy he needs sort the problems out or get out of the relationship. Relationships can be tough enough without other people coming in and doing their best to undermine all your work.
Issues of faithfulness can affect the strongest of relationships, I never thought they would affect mine. I was wrong. My husband wasn’t completely blameless, he could have reacted differently to certain situations so as to not put himself in particular positions but when it comes right down to it he has made right choices. I am proud of him and love him, and think our relationship is stronger because of how we have dealt with these things. Of course I’m no angel and the resolution wasn’t a pretty picture of calm discussion. Not to mention I’d really like to have smacked this women in the face or more and if I happen to see her again I may be tempted to do just that.
Thing is though she’s not the only one to have tried with my husband. There is one thing I feel necessary to add and that is my husband isn’t the kind of man who goes out of his way to illicit these sort of responses he just happens to be a musician. Just after our first daughter was born a young woman approached my husband and after fishing around for the response she wanted decided on a more straight forward approach, she tried inviting herself back to our place, when he said he was married that didn’t stop her, the next words out of her mouth were along the lines of ‘I suppose you have a daughter too?’ when he said yes she said she wouldn’t do that to his daughter, not an ounce of care about his wife.
Why do we think it’s okay to encroach on someone else’s relationship?
Why do we think it’s okay to hurt another person for fun?
Why do we think it’s justifiable to hurt someone in order to feel better about ourselves?
Maybe just maybe part of the reason women struggle so much is because we do so much to undermine and hurt each other. Don’t you think it’s time we stopped?

Patience

My computer is teaching me patience and I have to say I don’t like it. Patience is one of those things that’s supposed to be a virtue yet in many ways it seems more like an obstacle. Of course that could just be me and that’s probably why it’s one of the things God keeps prodding at me about. Little reminders here and there that even though I have come some distance down this road I’ve still a way to go.
And so I have a five year old laptop and I can’t wait for the day I get to upgrade my hardware, software and have something a little less temperamental. Until then the buzzing sound of my computer’s hard drive is a constant reminder that sometimes I need to wait for things with a little less frustration. My e-mail account will load up – eventually.