THANKSGIVING FOR UNANSWERED PRAYER!

One of the worst times in my life was when I felt that God had let me down by not answering one of my prayers. From as far back as I can remember I had always wanted to be a writer and I finally completed my first book when I was 43 years old. I believed the promise God made to us in Psalm 37 “Delight yourself in the Lord and He will give you the desires of your heart. Commit your way to the Lord, trust in Him and He will do this”.

One of the main desires of my heart is to write and to share with others what a mighty God we serve.

Someone had prophesied over my life that God would give me the desire of my heart and the verse given to me in confirmation of this prophesy is found in Jeremiah 30:2 “This is what the Lord, the God of Israel, says: ‘Write in a book all the words I have spoken to you’”.

I had covered all the bases – I had prayed about the book, someone had confirmed it with a prophesy which was then followed up by a scripture verse and the book itself is very scripturally based. In fact a friend of mine who read the manuscript before I submitted it for publication had this to say “Actually, Noel, it would be a very good book if only it didn’t have so many scripture verses in it!”

I truly believed and had absolute faith that the book would be accepted for publication. I posted it off to three publishers – two of them never bothered to reply and the third one sent me a politely worded rejection letter. To say I was devastated is an understatement.

I was totally shattered and my faith and trust in God’s faithfulness was shaken. I had believed so strongly that this book would be accepted for publication and my faith had been unwavering! I spent days crying and weeks asking God why my book had been rejected.

After a period of time I started working on the manuscript again. I rewrote quite a few things and added some other things. I also spent a lot of time in prayer and reading the Bible.

Six years later I submitted the book to a partner publisher in America and they accepted it for publication.

I know now that if my book had been accepted first time round it would have been one of the worst things that could have happened to me and my family. I would have taken all the credit and become insufferably proud. I would not have been able to cope with the public speaking that goes hand in hand with having to promote a book. There was still a lot more healing that had to take place in my life and issues from my past that needed to be dealt with before my story was made public. I needed those years to grow in Him, to learn to rely solely on Him and to trust Him in all things. I needed that time to realize that God’s timing is always perfect and that He will not allow anything to happen to us – whether good or bad – until the time is right and He has equipped us to deal with the situation.

I thank God with every fiber of my being that He did not answer that prayer of mine at that time.

John 7:18 says: “He who speaks on his own does so to gain honour for himself, but he who works for the honour of the one who sent him is a man of truth; there is nothing false about him”

If God had answered my original prayer and the book had been published when I first submitted it - I would have spoken in my own strength and failed miserably.

In Ezekiel 36 it states “I will give you a new heart and put a new spirit in you”

I needed those years of unanswered prayer to recognize and acknowledge God’s spirit in me and to grow into the new heart that God had given me.

The minister and writer Theodore Cuyler said “I do not believe there is such a thing in the history of God’s eternal kingdom as a right prayer, offered in the right spirit, that remains forever unanswered.”

It took six years for my prayer to be answered and what a blessing that it did take so long.

THE MOST POWERFUL TOOL IN MARRIAGE

The most difficult and challenging thing I have ever done in my life is to stay married.  The second most difficult and challenging thing I have ever done is to have children.

Both of these life events have also been filled with extreme joy, peace and happiness as well as horrific sadness, many, many tears and the sure knowledge that if I did not have Jesus Christ in my life I would not have survived either!

In his book Letters and Papers from Prison, Dietrich Bonhoeffer writes one of the most incredible statements about marriage I have ever read:

Marriage and not just your love for each other makes you husband and wife in the sight of God and man. It is not your love which sustains the marriage, but from now on the marriage that sustains your love. God makes your marriage indissoluble.  He protects it from every danger from within and without. God is joining you together; it is His act, not yours.”1

For me, it was an incredible revelation to realize that on the day my husband and I took our vows before God, we were in fact declaring that our marriage now belonged to God.

In that very moment, God, Himself, sanctified our marriage.

Sanctification is brought about through the redemptive work of Christ and the work of the indwelling Holy Spirit. Redemption means deliverance from the enslavement of sin and release to a new freedom.

In other words, God was releasing us from our pasts as individuals and joining us together in Him.

For those of us who worry that our past behaviors, mistakes, sins will follow us into our marriages and that we will repeat the same mistakes in our marriages that we have repeated in our past relationships, take note of the following!

If we believe in Christ and have confessed any wrong behavior/attitudes to our prospective spouse and to God, and have asked forgiveness for our sins then the following words erases our negative behavior of the past and we need not fear the future.

Therefore, if anyone is in Christ, he is a new creation; the old has gone, the new has come!  All this is from God, who reconciled us to Himself through Christ and gave us the ministry of reconciliation; that God was reconciling the world to Himself in Christ, not counting men’s sins against them.” —2 Corinthians 5:17-19

A husband and wife can start their married lives together with their pasts wiped clean, and they can look forward to a future not marred by the past.

Always bear in mind that it is not your love which sustains the marriage, but “the marriage that sustains your love.”

Love is an emotion and like any emotion—joy, anger, sorrow—it tends to fluctuate.

There will be times when you will be disappointed in your spouse, when you will be angry and hurt, when you will think to yourself “Why did I marry him/her?”

Sometimes, the struggles and conflicts within a marriage, can continue for weeks and it is at these times that you need to remember that your marriage has been sanctified by God and that you need to continue to pray and trust that God will equip you to deal with whatever issues may arise.

Oswald Chambers said the following:

To say that ‘prayer changes things’ is not as close to the truth as saying ‘prayer changes me and then I change things.’ God has established things so that prayer, on the basis of redemption, changes the way a person looks at things. Prayer is not a matter of changing things externally, but one of working miracles in a person‘s inner nature”.2

Every Christian marriage, where, a couple are committed to each other, enjoy each other’s company and are content within that marriage has its roots in prayer.

Prayer can make your marriage a happy one. Prayer can heal marriages. Prayer can restore marriages.

Prayer in a marriage is a very powerful tool.

1.Bonhoeffer, Dietrich. Letters and Papers from Prison.
2.Chambers, Oswald. My Utmost for His Highest; Selections for Every Day.

Originally posted on http://www.startmarriageright.com/2014/11/the-most-powerful-tool-in-marriage/

DON'T JUDGE A BOOK BY ITS COVER (A SECOND REMINDER!)

Yesterday I was walking down the street and I passed a couple who had various body piercings and tattoos. My first reaction was to scowl at them, because to me, it just does not look right and I feel that they are 'defacing' the beautiful bodies God has given them. That is my personal opinion. My reaction reminded me of a few years ago when God taught me a major lesson about how easily we judge things and people by their outside appearances. I had just climbed off a plane in Birmingham, England, and was waiting, along with a 100 other people, for my luggage to appear on the carousel belt. I was on the opposite side of the carousel from where the luggage first appeared. The 4th item of luggage to appear was a big black suitcase that was ripped at the sides and held together by ugly brown sticky masking tape. As I watched its progress along the carousel the following thoughts were going through my mind:

“I wonder how someone who can’t even afford a decent suitcase can afford to fly?”

“I would be so embarrassed to acknowledge that as my suitcase!”

“I wonder how the person who owns that suitcase is dressed?”

As it drew closer to me I saw that it had exactly the same stickers that I had on my suitcase and then I saw my name on the identity tag and purely out of instinct I reached out and lifted it off the carousel belt. To compound my embarrassment I didn't even have a trolley so I couldn't put the suitcase on a trolley and cover it with my hand luggage! I had to pull this broken, wonky suitcase that was held together by ugly brown tape all the way through the airport. People stopped to stare at me as the wheel mechanism was also broken and it was making an awful racket as I pulled it along. I was mortified as I could just imagine what people were thinking!

In Matthew there are two very challenging verses “Do not judge or you too will be judged. For in the same way as you judge others, you will be judged, and with the measure you use, it will be measured to you” (Matthew 7:1,2) and John 7:24 says “Stop judging by outside appearances…”

My suitcase was filled with beautifully wrapped presents, chocolates and decent clothes.
Judging by the appearance of my suitcase you would have thought it was filled with rags.
Often things happen that are beyond our control – I had put a big, black suitcase in good condition onto the airplane in South Africa and had received a damaged and torn suitcase, covered in tape in England. Somewhere in transit the suitcase was badly damaged and yet the contents were unharmed and, thank God, nothing was stolen.

The friends I was visiting have a son whose body is covered in tattoos and he has various piercings on his face and body. Judging by his appearance you would think he was a delinquent who took drugs and was on the dole because he had never completed his education. In fact the truth is, he has never taken drugs, has a steady job,earns a good income and is one of the kindest, politest and honest people that I have ever met. I love him dearly and yet if I didn't know him and saw him walking towards me on the street I would cross over to the other side…………..!

My oldest daughter who is now working has also had a few piercings done. I struggle with it because it is something I would never do but she thinks they are beautiful. These piercings have not changed her at all. She is still the beautiful, compassionate, caring and humorous person she has always been. These piercings may affect how she looks on the outside to a small degree but they have certainly not changed what she is like on the inside.

The couple smiled and greeted me in a friendly way as we passed each other in the street and I was reminded again of that old adage "Don't judge a book by its cover".

I was also reminded of the words that Jesus spoke when the woman caught in adultery was brought to Him (John 8). The punishment for adultery was for her to be stoned to death. Jesus said to the crowd:

"If any one of you is without sin, let him be the first to throw a stone at her."

"WHO'S THE BOSS?"

In the early days of our marriage my husband would jokingly quote the following portion of  scripture to me “wives submit to your husbands”.

I would just smile quietly and tell him to go and read the rest of that scripture!!

“wives submit to your husbands as to the Lord”.

Contrary to popular belief, the Biblical meaning of submit does not mean ‘to obey, give in to, have to serve’.  The true meaning of the word submit “describes the Christian grace of voluntarily yielding one’s preferences to another” it does not mean to obey.

“The Greek word for “obey/obedience’ is hupakoe, which means to listen to or to harken to.  Submission (hupotasso) means to get under and lift up, or to put in order.  It does not mean obedience.”1

Our duty as wives is to encourage our husbands, to love them, to support them and lift them up.

The Biblical duty for husbands entails far more. When husbands finally read further after the ‘wives submit yourself to your husband’ part, this is what it says:

Husbands, love your wives, just as Christ loved the church and gave Himself up for her… in the same way, husbands ought to love their wives as their own bodies.  He who loves his wife loves himself.  After all, no one ever hated his own body, but he feeds and cares for it, just as Christ does the church…”  (Ephesians 5)

A husband needs to treat his wife exactly the same way he treats himself.  He needs to feed and care for his wife, he needs to love his wife as Christ loves His people.

Jesus embodies the word love.  Love is patient, love is kind, love is not rude, love is not self-seeking, it is not easily angered and keeps no record of wrongs.  Love always protects, always trusts, always hopes and always perseveres.

 A husband is commanded to love his wife in exactly that manner!  I am not sure how marriages, where partners do not know the Lord, survive.  Surely, it is only with God’s grace and His love flowing through a husband’s life, that a man is able to love his wife as Christ has commanded.

I am so thankful that I was born a woman!

It states in the same passage that “the husband is the head of the wife as Christ is the head of the church”.

In any organization or business there has to be someone who is ultimately in charge of the business, someone who can take command and lead and make a decision after consulting the relevant people in the business.

This is exactly the role of the husband – if you disagree on a course of action in your marriage, or both have strong, opposing feelings about a decision that needs to be made – it is the husband, who after consulting, discussing and praying the matter over with his wife, then has to make the final decision about the situation.

If you are living and loving each other in your marriage as Christ has commanded you must,  it will not happen often that you will reach a point in your marriage when the husband has to make the final decision.  You will generally be ‘giving in/compromising’ with the one who is the most passionate about something.

My husband and I have been married for over twenty-two years now and in all these years there has only been two times that we have really disagreed over something and not been able to compromise on it and he has had to make the final decision.

Writing this has brought to mind an incident that happened when our middle child was about six years old.  I was hosting a tea party for a group of moms and we were gathered around the kitchen table and at one point the topic of conversation turned to “who wears the pants in the house – the wife or the husband”.  There was a vigorous discussion around this point and our Amy just happened to be walking through the kitchen at the time.  One of the moms turned to her and asked “So, Amy, who is the boss in your house?”

She stopped in her tracks and answered “God!” and kept going.

I thank God that her father and I have been able to be a witness to her that neither the wife nor the husband ‘lords it over the other’ but that the ultimate authority in a Christian marriage is God.

1.  godswordtowomen.org/submission.htm

"I HAVE HAD ENOUGH, LORD!"

One of the Biblical characters that I most identify with is the prophet Elijah. He had major ups and downs, suffered from depression and frustration, was weak willed and often felt sorry for himself, and yet, he was known as one of the boldest of God’s prophets!  I identify with the first part of what I wrote, not the prophetic part!!

1.  At one time God told Elijah to hide near a brook and said “I have ordered the ravens to feed you” and they do just that “the ravens brought him bread and meat in the morning and bread and meat in the evening”.

2.  Elijah had authority through God to tell a widow that her “jar of flour will not be used up and the jug of oil will not run dry” and that is what happened.  There was a never ending supply of flour and oil in the house.

3.  This same widows’ son dies and Elijah cries out to God “O Lord my God, let this boy’s life return to him!” and “the Lord heard Elijah’s cry, and the boy’s life returned to him”.

4.  Elijah challenges four hundred and fifty of Baal’s prophets to call down fire from Baal and set a bull on an altar on fire.  The prophets cry out the whole day to Baal but nothing happens.  Elijah had made a separate altar and placed another bull on it with heaps of wood underneath it.  He then says he will call on his God to reign down fire from heaven and then, adds insult to injury, and tells some folks to fill four large jars with water and pour it over the altar.  He tells them to do this three times.  Once this is done, he calls upon the Lord and “the fire of the Lord fell and burned up the sacrifice, the wood, the stones and the soil”!

Elijah then has all the prophets put to death.  The queen of the land at that time happens to be a woman named Jezebel and she is bitterly unhappy about the fact that all her prophets have been killed and she sends this message to Elijah “You killed my prophets, and now I swear by the gods that I am going to kill you by this time tomorrow night” and this man, who has witnessed the most awesome miracles, the incredible faithfulness of God, turns around and flees for his life!

He has just called down the power of God to start a fire with wood that has been drenched, he has been instrumental in bringing someone back to life from death, and yet, at the threat from a woman he flees for his life into the desert where he finds a tree, sits underneath it and gives in to self- pity! “I have had enough, Lord” he laments.

He reminds me of me!

I have known God’s faithfulness in my life, I have witnessed a few miracles, I have felt God’s peace and His comfort in times of great sorrow and yet when I am faced with disappointments, or the death of a loved one or the shattering of a dream I thought was from God, I too, sit down and cry out to God “I have had enough, Lord”.

Elijah falls asleep (or if he was anything like me, he cried himself to sleep) and while he is sleeping an angel of the Lord bakes a loaf of bread for him over hot coals and fills a jar with water and then gently touches him and says “Get up and eat”.  A few days later God speaks to him in a gentle whisper and then gives him an assistant in the form of Elisha to keep him company and to help him do what God has prepared for him to do.

God does not accuse Elijah of lack of faith, there are no recriminations about the fact that he ran away in fear.  God does not accuse him of being a coward and lambaste him for feeling sorry for himself.

Instead, God commands His angel to feed Elijah and to ensure that he has a good sleep and then God, Himself, speaks directly to Elijah and to top all this off He then gives Elijah a companion who will accompany him on his journey!

God treats each one of us in the same way.  His love and forgiveness is overwhelming.  When we are overcome by our own sins, mistakes, fears, hurts, God longs to comfort us and care for us and through the death and resurrection of His Son He has made a way for us to be reconciled to Him.  We don’t have to wallow in self-pity when we feel we have blown it/sinned against Him/failed – all we need to do is to take some time out, pray to Him, sleep, eat, rest and then wait for Him to speak to us.

God “does not treat us as our sins deserve or repay us according to our iniquities”.

Our God is “compassionate and gracious, slow to anger, abounding in love.”

Image courtesy of Google

1 Kings 18, 19

Psalm 103

MARRIAGE AND A SILVER TEA POT CONTINUED .......

The actual title should be ‘Marriage and a Silver Tea Pot from a Man’s Point of View Told by a Woman!’

In a previous blog I stated that “life is not fair” because I felt that I had to compromise far more than my husband ever had too in the early years of our marriage. On reading the article my husband, Steve, said, “That brings back memories of me always having to be on my guard about what I said to you in those early days”.

I had very little sense of self-worth and struggled with feelings of inadequacy and would often perceive his comments to me as being critical or hurtful when that was not his intention at all. He could have gotten totally fed-up with me being so sensitive all the time but instead he chose to be careful about what he said to me and the tone in which he said it. It was not easy because he has a wonderful sense of humor and would often joke about things and I would get upset and withdraw from him and not speak to him for a few days!

Steve had to compromise with himself about speaking openly and honestly to me in case I took offense. He was a living example of the verse in 1 Peter 4:8:

Above all, love each other deeply, because love covers over a multitude of sins (wrong attitudes, mistakes)”.

He chose to be patient with me and to continue to love me despite the way I behaved towards him.

I thought it would be interesting to ask some men what they compromised about in the early days of their marriages and their answers have left me with a deep admiration for their honesty and their incredible love for their wives and families. They also chose to compromise because they loved.

Angus Campbell said,

One of the important things about compromise is that it’s not necessarily only about one person compromising for another to enable a positive outcome in the home. It can also be about one person in the marriage compromising with self when faced with choice. So in my example I had to do just that when needing to prioritize the things that were most important to me in building a marriage and family that I wanted.

I was a professional footballer and football was always a big part of my life even before marriage. Problem with that passion of mine is that it put a lot of distance between myself and family. I came to realize that in my list of priorities, Berna and the family needed to be number 1. That was according to my goals for the family. I made the tough choice to turn my back on the pro game and rather give myself more time to be at home. One of the wisest trades I made with myself and I live with no regrets and a marriage and home that has strong foundations and good walls. Still working on the roof and interior decorating but that will be a never ending story.

I guess that what I am saying is that compromise to build a marriage does not always require a trade between both parties. There are many times that out of necessity the trade is and should be with yourself if you are honest and courageous enough to go to that dark space.”

Randall Oliphant said,

My wife and l had a fairly long courtship before we got married and thus l was of the opinion that we knew each other fairly well. However, in the first few years of our marriage we did not set apart a special time to talk and map our way forward. Challenges were created by this but looking back now, that is what we should have done.

One of my greatest comprises l experienced was Consideration. l am by nature a very spontaneous character and so friends and social activities were just pounced onto my wife without considering any circumstances or emotion or tiredness she may have felt or experienced. As an unmarried couple, we were extremely busy with many social engagements and had absolutely no responsibilities whatsoever except to get up for work the following day. And without any thought l expected this to continue. God blessed me with an absolutely Amazing Life Partner and in her wisdom and patient manner, she brought certain realities to my attention. I was in fact so shocked to realize that we definitely were not living in a ‘Get up and Go’ environment any longer.

The other major compromise l had to make was to accept that even though l was always my wife’s prime consideration and she always made me feel like l was the ‘King of her Castle’, l was rudely awakened to the fact that when our son was born, he immediately occupied a huge part of her Heart and time. This became a huge problem for me as it started to affect our ‘intimate time’ and l started to retrieve to a very lonely period of my life. Questions like ‘why did l even commit to the institution of marriage when l am not able to experience the benefits and blessings thereof?’ Is my spouse even aware that she had moved me into another chamber of her heart? By nature l simply hate to be confrontational and as such l bottled up all these emotions within me, not even attempting to convey my feelings and emotions to my spouse. My wife literally breathed Baby and Home and what’s for supper and Pediatrician appointments and her whole world revolved around all of those factors. My response was simple, l ploughed all my time into my work and the Family business at the time with long hours which ultimately rendered me completely fagged out and ready to sleep at the end of a day. Fortunately an opportunity arose where we found ourselves in a space where we could have a meaningful conversation and a platform for us to express what we were feeling and because our relationship had a good foundation of 7 years courtship, we both realized that we were, in fact, just considering our individual needs and not the needs of us as a couple. It meant compromise on my part and a broader understanding of the overall needs of the family and our home and the realization of the responsibilities l had, not only as a Husband, but also that of being a Father.”

Suffice it to say that these men embody the following:

Husbands, love your wives, just as Christ loved the church and gave Himself up for her” (Ephesians 5:25).

There are many times that out of necessity the trade is and should be with yourself if you are honest and courageous enough to go to that dark space.”

Originally posted on http://www.startmarriageright.com/2014/10/marriage-and-a-silver-tea-pot-continued/
Previous blog post http://godspromisebook.blogspot.com/2014/10/marriage-and-silver-tea-pot.html

HOW EASILY WE FALL FROM GRACE IN OUR CHILDRENS EYES

I am, and always have been, a firm believer in the following verse “But when you give to the needy, do not let your left hand know what your right hand is doing, so that your giving may be in secret.”  (Matthew 6:3,4)

For the purposes of this story, however, I am going to discount that advice this once!

During the week my twelve year old daughter and I were browsing in a bookshop.  I noticed a lady standing next to us, she was neatly dressed but you could see that she was not wealthy by any means.  As I watched her she took a Bible from the shelf, looked at the front cover, turned it around and just held it for a while and then she put it back on the shelf.  She looked at some other books and then went back to the same shelf and repeated her actions with the Bible and then, with a sigh, she put it back.

I turned to her and asked her whether I could buy her a Bible?  She looked at me and nodded.  I took the Bible from the shelf that she had been looking at, it was a King James version, and asked her if this was the one.  She nodded her head and then told me it was far too expensive.

I told her not to worry and went to the counter with her, paid for the Bible and handed it to her with a hug and a “God bless you”.

She did not say a word – just looked at me in disbelief.

My daughter and I turned to walk out of the shop and she ran after us and asked me my name.  I told her, gave her another quick hug and then walked on.

She stood there looking after us as if she had just seen an angel – believe me, she certainly had not!

As we walked out the shop my daughter said to me “Mom, that was such a lovely thing that you just did for that lady”.  I explained to her that we do not give ‘sacrificially’ and that compared to the financial status of the lady in the bookshop, we were very wealthy.

Wealth is totally relative to your circumstances.  To someone living in a squatter camp in a tin shanty with no running water, electricity or inside toilet, the person who lives in a township in a brick house and has water on tap is extremely wealthy. Now to that person someone who lives in a suburb and has both running water, electricity and a car is wealthy beyond measure compared to them.  The list goes on and on.

We had just had a breakfast in a restaurant (even though we had plenty of food at home) for the same price that the Bible cost.  I can almost guarantee you that the lady in the bookshop has never had a meal in a restaurant because her money goes towards just being able to put food on the table.

Later that morning we went into another shop to return an electronic item that was giving problems.  We were sent from one area to another.  There were only two staff on duty in a huge electronics department – one had disappeared and the other one was busy and the general standard of service was deplorable.  Needless to say, I became very impatient and abrupt with the person who finally served us.  I have a feeling my daughter felt I was being rude – I think my behavior fell just short of being rude but I certainly would not get into a debate about it with her as I have a feeling she would win!

As we were walking out the shop my daughter turned to me and said “Well, Mom, you certainly have cancelled out the good deed you did this morning”.

I was mortified, I wanted to crawl under a stone and stay there for the rest of the day.

She was right and it was a good reminder to me that our bad attitudes and behavior do cancel out our good deeds.

I felt, in that moment, that this verse in Revelation was written about me “…for I have not found your deeds complete in the sight of my God”.

It is so easy to do a good deed but so difficult not to swear at people driving recklessly or to not be rude to shop assistants when their service is lousy.

Matthew 5:16 states “…let your light shine before men, that they may see your good deeds and praise your Father in heaven.”

Thank you daughter of mine for that reminder!