Feeling Alone (2)

Psa 88:1 LORD God, my savior, I cry out all day, and at night I come before you.
Psa 88:2 Hear my prayer; listen to my cry for help!
Psa 88:3 So many troubles have fallen on me that I am close to death.
Psa 88:4 I am like all others who are about to die; all my strength is gone.

The psalmist wrote a psalm which a lot of Christians must have felt in there life during certain stages before. A cry unto God from your heart, not knowing when or how your life will get better.
This is a cry of unbroken distress. No pious words of trust or hope soften the words of grief, accusation, anger, and questioning. The unusual thing about this Psalm is that the prayer never mitigates the completeness of his plight with any hint of hope or praise. Like Job the psalmist seem to have no hope or have no reason to praise God. This is like when we cry before God as we pray and wishing God will release us from our earthly duty and take us home.

Speaking to God the psalmist ends Psalm 88 with: " You have made even my closest friends abandon me, and darkness is my only companion."
I'm glad we have Psalm 88. There are times and conditions that we experience as unmitigated sadness. There are circumstances that are hopeless to us and seem and feel hopeless.

This Psalm stands to affirm that such expressions of grief are legitimate. It is not faithless to cry out in helpless and hopeless anguish. It is not wrong to place responsibility for such wrongs at the feet of God. And you don't have to appease God with some word of piety, hope or praise.

We can be completely honest toward God with our thoughts and feelings. And God is big enough to take it all. God won't punish us for being hurt and angry, even hurt and angry at God.

In fact, only God can take this kind of suffering. To give it to God might restrain us from internalizing our angry grief into a depression or externalizing by lashing out at someone else. Only God is great enough to take this kind of misery and not compound it. In Psalm 89 it seems as if that dark and lonely moment have passed. In our darkest moment we can cry out to God and just let go and know He understands, just as He know what the outcome will be.

Psa 89:1 "O LORD, I will always sing of your constant love; I will proclaim your faithfulness forever. "

Knowing God's will. (1)

Php 3:10 All I want is to know Christ and to experience the power of his resurrection, to share in his sufferings and become like him in his death,

As things change around me and I feel lost not knowing what is God's will and what not, I turn back to the Word for answers. Paul wrote that all he wants is to know Christ. I long as Paul did. I need to know God everyday in my life. As I listen to people around me and I see how they seek to know God's will and how they hope that they are in God's will, it is strange that those who do not seek for a relationship with God is those with the joy.

Col 3:1 You have been raised to life with Christ, so set your hearts on the things that are in heaven, where Christ sits on his throne at the right side of God.

Col 3:2 Keep your minds fixed on things there, not on things here on earth.

Col 3:3 For you have died, and your life is hidden with Christ in God.

Col 3:4 Your real life is Christ and when he appears, then you too will appear with him and share his glory!

The questions I ask myself is where my heart is and where my blessing in God is. Again Paul wrote that we should put our hearts on the things that are in heaven. I lost a lot of God's will in my life through dumb decisions I made. Sinful decisions affected my life in a way I could not comprehend. When looking at pictures of my children, I see years lost in their life's which I was never part of. These are years I can never get back and can never change.

As easter weekend comes to a close and we reflected on the death and resurrection of Jesus, I realize that yet another year came where God sent us a invite to be part of this forgiveness and resurrection in hope and life.

I know God's will is for me to accept His death on the cross as a offering into life.
I know God's will is for me to accept I made mistakes but he forgave me.

Feeling alone.

Mat 27:46 At about three o'clock Jesus cried out with a loud shout, "Eli, Eli, lema sabachthani?" which means, "My God, my God, why did you abandon me?"

Going to church on this easter Friday, was again a very good experience to me. It was good to see the church nice and full. Not being a member at the church was nice as well, because I was expecting nothing. The message went on the darkness that fell on earth and some peoples fear of the dark.

With me not scared of the dark, something else out of the scriptures spoke to my heart. When Jesus felt so alone on the cross, that He felt abandoned by His Father. With the worlds sin on Him as sacrifice, there came a moment when He felt totally alone. Darkness covered the earth for three hours.

This scripture made me realize the prize Jesus paid for me and you. How often in this last month I felt totally alone. As security structures collapse around me and so called safety nets fold, I once again turn to Matthew 27. We are living in a world that are crucifying the Word of God day by day. It becomes normal to look for a logical answer instead of using faith. We know there are some things only God can change. Only His presence can fill loneliness and make us feel belong.

Mat 27:22 "What, then, shall I do with Jesus called the Messiah?" Pilate asked them. "Crucify him!" they all answered.

I need to live the Jesus that died so that I could live. Very often I crucify Jesus through my action, when people ask what Jesus the Messiah can do for them. Every day I confront decisions I need to make. Everyday Jesus waits for me to include Him in my decisions.

Through His loneliness on the cross, I need never be alone again.

I thank God for knowing Him as my Saviour and that I never need to be alone again, because He paid the price for me today 2000 years ago.

Jas 1:5 "But if any of you lack wisdom, you should pray to God, who will give it to you; because God gives generously and graciously to all."

The need to belong.

To belong is every persons longing. From being children and growing up to being adults this longing to belong is always there. God created us with a need to want Him and if this need is not fulfilled it will leave us with a longing to belong. There is a lot of substitutes on offer to create a sense of belonging. They can never change what we long, but sometimes just sometimes they make us feel like being part of something.
God created us to belong to Him.

Tit 2:14 "He gave himself for us, to rescue us from all wickedness and to make us a pure people who belong to him alone and are eager to do good."

Between us and the world is the cross of Jesus. We need to change our mindset to Christ and what He stood for.

Col 3:2 Keep your minds fixed on things there, not on things here on earth.
Col 3:3 For you have died, and your life is hidden with Christ in God.
Col 3:4 Your real life is Christ and when he appears, then you too will appear with him and share his glory!

Believe the written Word

Mar 11:17 He then taught the people: "It is written in the Scriptures that God said, 'My Temple will be called a house of prayer for the people of all nations.' But you have turned it into a hideout for thieves!"

Jesus teachings to teachers in the temple is remarkable. While they are teachers of the word, Jesus teach them out of the word. Reality out of the Word. A scripture that puts the house of God in perspective. Jesus told them that they changed the temple and that which the temple stands for.

This was not new to them. They knew that they were doing wrong. It just became more easy as time past. When He walked into the temple, He had to change the temple back into a place of worship.

Jas 1:21 "So get rid of every filthy habit and all wicked conduct. Submit to God and accept the word that he plants in your hearts, which is able to save you."
In James I find another cleansing period, this time the temple of our souls. The scripture hear talks about accepting God's word in our lives. As we see Jesus quoting the Word and the power and victory that comes from pronouncing God's word, I realize that is why the word and Holy Spirit was left to us.

Having a bad week, where everything seems to happen to your life and there don't seem to be answers. I turn to God's Word and find all the questions I had, was already answered in the Word of God. Now I need to accept what God already gave me and practice the principles.

Heb 6:5 "they knew from experience that God's word is good, and they had felt the powers of the coming age. "

To know by experience means that they tried it and knew that it was good. As I need God in my life, I realized that cleansing into faith builds a place of worship and understanding with God.

Luk 11:28 But Jesus answered, "Rather, how happy are those who hear the word of God and obey it!"

I need more Faith.

Luk 17:5 The apostles said to the Lord, " Make our faith greater."

Of all the things the apostles could ask for, they asked for their faith to be increased. Jesus in the next verse told the apostles that if they had faith like a mustard seed, they will see and perform miracles. Everything in which our relationship with God dwells is born out of faith. Faith is the relationship with God. Without faith it is impossible to please God.

Heb 12:2 "Let us keep our eyes fixed on Jesus, on whom our faith depends from beginning to end. He did not give up because of the cross! On the contrary, because of the joy that was waiting for him, he thought nothing of the disgrace of dying on the cross, and he is now seated at the right side of God's throne".

Faith is not a feeling, but a way of life. Our feelings are all over the place most of the times. One day we wake up and feel great and we feel strong. A few hours later something happens and suddenly we feel weak. Through all this feelings our faith should be in control. Faith comes through knowing God and not through how good I feel.

This is why it is one of the nicest things the apostles could ask for more faith. If you ask God for a miracle in any situation it can only happen with your faith in God.

Like the apostles, I would like to ask God to make my faith greater.

Lewens doel: deur Solly Ozrovech

Psalm 90:12 “Leer ons ons dae so gebruik dat ons wysheid bekom”

“Jou lewe moet ‘n doel hê. Hierdie gedagte moet boaan jou sakelys van elke dag staan. ‘n Mens moet iets hê waarna hy streef, waarvoor jy werk, waarna jy reikhalsend uitsien.

Bevestig jou doelwit vir elke dag en strewe onverpoosd daarna.”

Jy moet terdeë besef dat jy sonder geloof totaal verlore is. Dit is die beginsel of vertrekpunt van elke dag.

‘n Beginsel is ‘n eerste ding waardeer al die ander dinge bepaal word.

God is die beginsel van die heelal, die Alfa. Wees daarom daagliks van God bewus. Vertrou Hom vir die geringste dingetjies en elke dag sal ‘n geloofsavontuur van heerlike opwinding wees.

Die teenoorgestelde van geloof is vrees en dit is ‘n vyand wat ons daagliks martel.

Identifiseer elke dag jou vrees sodat dit jou nie voortdurend regeer nie. Maak jou dagspreek die woorde van Hebreërs 13:6 …”die Here is my helper, ek ken geen vrees nie: wat kan ‘n mens aan my doen?” Leer om lief te hê; om God bo alles lief te hê: jou huisgenote, jou werksgenote en jou landgenote. Liefde dryf die vrees uit ons lewe uit: waar liefde is, is daar geen vrees nie, maar volmaakte liefde verdryf vrees….(1Joh. 4:18).

Elke dag is ‘n vakleerlingskap of proeftydperk vir ewigheid. Die lewe grens aan die ewigheid en is ‘n voorbereiding daarvoor. As ek elke dag reg tel en die tyd uitkoop; as ek lewe soos die Heiland dit van my verwag, leef ek nie meer in vrees vir die ewigheid nie.

Probeer vir ‘n paar weke om elke oomblik van elke dag op ‘n konstruktiewe wyse te benut.

Moenie verbaas waas as jy dan spoedig by daardie groep mense aansluit wat ‘n gesindheid van liefde teenoor die lewe ontwikkel nie, wat elke dag gelukkig is, wat elke dag met ‘n glimlag op die gesig en diepe dankbaarheid in die hart tegemoetgaan. Hou daarom die gebed in jou hart:

“leer my my dae so gebruik dat ek wysheid bekom!”

Where is my focus?

After a pleasant weekend, everything turns back to normal on a Monday. I find people give their worries a day or two off over a weekend. Monday is the day when the cycle starts all over again, or is this just with me? I seem to have a weekend break on all my daily problems. I kind of relax and every now and then feel like things are going to work out for the best.
This week starts with all the usual problems. I know this is going to be a rough week.
Turning to Jesus and reading a piece out of Psalms, I know this week is going to be a great week.

My problems is nothing compared to other peoples problems, but to me they are huge. I realized this morning again that I need to change my focus. God is my provider.

Psa 30:1-12 I praise you, LORD, because you have saved me and kept my enemies from gloating over me.
(2) I cried to you for help, O LORD my God, and you healed me;
(3) you kept me from the grave. I was on my way to the depths below, but you restored my life.
(4) Sing praise to the LORD, all his faithful people! Remember what the Holy One has done, and give him thanks!
(5) His anger lasts only a moment, his goodness for a lifetime. Tears may flow in the night, but joy comes in the morning.
(6) I felt secure and said to myself, "I will never be defeated."
(7) You were good to me, LORD; you protected me like a mountain fortress. But then you hid yourself from me, and I was afraid.
(8) I called to you, LORD; I begged for your help:
(9) "What will you gain from my death? What profit from my going to the grave? Are dead people able to praise you? Can they proclaim your unfailing goodness?
(10) Hear me, LORD, and be merciful! Help me, LORD!"
(11) You have changed my sadness into a joyful dance; you have taken away my sorrow and surrounded me with joy.
(12) So I will not be silent; I will sing praise to you. LORD, you are my God; I will give you thanks forever.


Reading Psalm 30, I realized there need to be a change inside me.
1. I will not be silent
2. I will sing praise
3. I will give thanks

This brings me back to where my focus is. Is my focus on God or on my Monday problem planner?

I have the choice to choose my focus.

Who is your God??

Exo 32:4 He took the earrings, melted them, poured the gold into a mold, and made a gold bull-calf. "The people said, Israel, this is our god, who led us out of Egypt."

This scripture made me realize how we easily follow a path away from God and stamp it with a god imprint. The people of Israel made themselves a god with gold and somehow connected it to their religion. When Moses left to be with God, they convinced themselves that this new god was the god that led them out of Egypt. They still needed to worship, but the new god was just more practical than their God that cared for them and loved them.

Exo 32:7 The Lord said to Moses, " Hurry and go back down, because your people, whom you led out of Egypt, have sinned and rejected me.

Exo 32: 8: "They have already left the way that I commanded them to follow; they have made a bull-calf out of melted gold and have worshiped it and offered sacrifices to it. They are saying that this is their god, who led them out of Egypt."

I believe that many of us are busy with a gold bull-calf and calling it god. Religion or non religion is becoming the modern way of thinking. There is a search worldwide for a type of religion. The more people search, the more they find other ways to worship. As long as the "religion" do not have the word Jesus in. When you take Jesus out it is called religiously tolerant and most constitutions all over the world where democracy rules, will have this in.

It is strange that when you let people choose their god, there is almost always a attack on Jesus Christ and God. Countries with stricter religious rule would not dare to say something about their religion. Neither would the world. We all read the newspaper on the cartoon on Mohamed. Their were such a uproar all over the world about it. Yet daily Christianity is under attack and the world is quiet.

2Pet 3:3-5 " Knowing this first, that there shall come in the last days scoffers, walking after their own lusts,

And saying , Where is the promise of His coming? For since the fathers fell asleep, all things continue as they were from the beginning of the creation.

For this they willingly are ignorant of, that by the word of God the heavens were of old, and the earth standing out of the water and in the water"

Are the world seeking for a god or running from God.

Miracles are born out of Prayer

Living as a Christian and walking with God is a wonderful experience of daily miracles. As I study the Word, I realized that God works when all other resources we may think of has passed.
As we study Jesus here on earth, I see that His whole ministry was based on prayer.

Matt 14:23 " After sending the people away, He went up a hill by himself to pray. When evening came, Jesus was there alone;"

Two things jump out of this scripture :

1. Jesus just fed 5000 people on five loafs and two fish. After this miracle Jesus took some time to pray. Prayer was His communication with the Father and his strength here on earth.

2. Jesus send the disciples away and spend this time alone in prayer.

Matt 6:6 " But when you pray, go to your room, close the door, and pray to your Father, who is unseen. And your Father, who sees what you do in private, will reward you."

The miracle of knowing God and seeing His hand in our life is one of the best feelings we can have. When everything is going wrong in my life, I know it is time to spend time with God alone.
Being secure in my belief that my Father is capable, brings out peace that can only come from our Father.

Faith and prayer becomes miracles. The secret is not to loose your faith or loose alone time with God.
Expect miracles when you pray.

From Faith to Miracles

The whole idea of Christianity is based on one concept, Faith. When I read through the Bible there is not one logical decision that made a miracle. In Mat 14 Jesus told His disciples to take five loaves and two fish and feed thousands. Their logic told them to send the people away so that they can buy food for themselves. For this miracle to happen, they had to have faith in what God said.

Heb 11:1 "To have faith is to be sure of things we hope for, to be certain of the things we cannot see."
When you can see it, it does not require faith. I can never understand why I want to bring logic in my relationship with God. All the people worth mentioning in the Bible, were there because of there faith in God. A faith that overcome all logic and reason became a miracle.
Our body reaps the benefits of faith.
Through faith Noah and his family were saved.
Through faith Abraham had Isaac.
Through faith Moses left Egypt.

This list go on through the Bible. Plans which did not succeed was made in sin or logic.
Our God is a God of miracles and miracles can only happen when we let Him through our faith in Him.
We trust God to forgive us our sins and trust Him for eternal life. Go one step further and trust God for everything.
Rom 8:15 " For the Spirit that God has given you does not make you slaves and cause you to be afraid; instead, the Spirit makes you God's children, and by the Spirit's power we cry out to God, Father! my Father!"

Happy are those

This scripture comes up quite a lot when I read the Bible.
Psalm 19:8 : " The laws of the Lord are right and those who obey them are happy. The commands of the Lord are just and give understanding to the mind."

In Psalm 34:8 " Find out for yourself how good the Lord is. Happy are those who find safety with Him."

This is a challenge David put to us as believers. Find out for yourself. If you things in your life that you are not happy about, you should give the things that make you unhappy to God. By doing that you will find out for yourself how good the Lord is. The book of Psalms are full of guidelines on how to be happy. It also have reasons why you could be unhappy.
When I move out of my mental, logical way of seeing things and into God's will, I will find peace and happiness. Thus, stop to reason about everything and trust God.
In Matt.5:6 Jesus said: " Happy are those whose greatest desire is to do what God requires; God will satisfy them fully!"
Here we get assurance from Jesus, that when you do God's will, you will be Fully satisfied. Not that we will have some satisfaction, but that our satisfaction will be full. Full means there is no more space left. We will long no more.
To find happiness and peace in your life, you must trust God to be capable to do miracles in all areas in your life. Jesus said in Matt 11:6 and in Luk 7:23 :"How happy are those who have no doubts about me!"
What a wonderful place to be in. No doubts on what Jesus did and will keep doing in our life's. I am walking day by day in trusting God. There is no plan B I can fall back on. Plan A is Jesus and that is all I need.

My prayer today is:
Father I need your joy, peace and happiness in my life. May all my doubts disappear in my knowledge of You and the fact that You never failed me yet. I trust You Lord and my faith is in You.

Logic vs Faith

We live in a world where everything is taught through logic. Doctors seldom accept miracles in the their patients life's. If a patient had cancer and the cancer is gone, the first diagnosis was misdiagnosed. In that way everything stays logical. Never before in my life time was there such a tremendous attack on Christian thinking, faith and believe. It is no wonder we as Christians fall in the same secular logic trap. It is better explained logical than to tell somebody that it is a miracle born out of the hand of God.

When the Israelites were fleeing from the Egyptians, their logic told them that they were going to die. In Exo. 14:13 Moses gave the people a few very amazing instructions.
1. Don't be afraid
Fear is definitely a mindset. It is something we need to act upon to let it happen. When things go so very wrong in our life our logical step is to worry and fear. I decide to fear the landlord, bank, disease and all other things I don't have control over. Moses said don't fear.
2. Stand your Ground
Standing your ground is easy when your bedroom door is locked and you are safely under your blankets on the bed. It is not so easy when you are in the open and there are thousands of fully armed men coming towards you, trying to kill you. Your logic says: "Run, run as fast as you can." Moses moved away from logic and into God's principles. He told them to stop looking at the Egyptians and start looking at God.
Stop fearing and don't move from the place you are standing. If they would do that they would see God in action and never see the Egyptians again.
If we can conquer a problem in life by trusting God, that problem will never be a problem again, because we will know God gave us victory on it before and will do so again.

Exo. 14:14 " The Lord will fight for you, and all you have to do is keep still."

Zec. 4:6 " The angel told me to give Zerubbabel this message from the Lord: " You will succeed, not by military might or by your own strength, but by my Spirit."

I believe that it is time to do the most non logical thing and that is to trust God with everything we have, when or minds wants logical answers.