Learning To Hear God's voice

As beautiful as life is, it can throw us into an endless roller coaster of choices.  My desire, as a Christian is to be sure that the choices I am making on a daily basis are pleasing to my father in heaven. So the question that comes up how do I know if I have made the right choices and if I have truly heard from God.

We often find ourselves wondering, how do I know what job to take?  What am I supposed to do with my life?  Who am I supposed to marry? Am I making the right decisions? The questions are endless.

Here is the good news, as a child of God you don’t have to walk through life blindly, because God wants to speak to you and lead you through the difficult maze of life’s choices.

 The thing I have learnt on Hearing God’s voice is that it takes time to learn how to discern God’s voice. It’s not something that we wake up one day having completely figured out. It is not automatic; it’s something that is cultivated with time.

Here are some of the ways, which God has spoken to me through the years;

1)      God speaks to us through His word (The Bible is His word). God will never speak to us anything outside His word His word is His Bond, so no matter how he chooses to speak. I always have to check if that word is in line with the scripture.

(2 Timothy 3: 16) “Every scripture is God breathed (inspired by God) and profitable for instruction for reproof and conviction of sin, for correction of error and discipline. In obedience and for training in righteousness.”

It’s therefore important to read the Bible for ourselves.

2)      God through the Holy Spirit speaks to my heart. Often I feel an impression in my heart to do something or go somewhere. It’s a knowing that I know what am supposed to do or where I should go.

Sometimes a thought will pass through my mind and I instantly know that can’t be me just thinking because it’s usually  bigger than my mind, and higher than my thoughts.

 A word from God will breathe on your heart; your heart will come alive, even when it’s not something you may not necessarily understand.

For instance, God puts in my heart to give someone something. There was a time God asked me to give kshs .500 to a lady I hardly knew. It was extremely hard for me to part with my hard-earned money! For a few days, I ignored it but it kept coming back. I remember saying this is the devil! Then a still small voice saying, “the devil will never ask you to give.” From that day, I no longer had trouble figuring out if that’s God asking me to be a blessing to someone.

3)       Dreams and visions.

God has predominantly used this avenue to speak to me.

The bible is full of Examples where God spoke to men through dreams and visions. God gave Solomon wisdom and wealth in a dream, God spoke to pharaoh about preparing for a famine through a dream, God spoke to Joseph concerning his purpose and future through a dream, God warned king Abimelech through a dream, He spoke to Daniel in a series of dreams.

He also spoke to people through visions for instance he spoke to Moses through a vision, peter the disciple of Jesus had a vision to concerning God’s will for the gentiles to receive the gift of salvation and Saul met Jesus through a vision.

The word of God says Jesus is the same today, tomorrow and forever. God doesn’t change if He spoke to them through these avenues, He is still using them today to speak to His children.

4) Through His peace. When I need clarity concerning something in my life and God hasn’t spoken to me through any other avenue I always check my peace. Existence of peace means God is directing me in the path am taking and I have His approval. A lack of peace means the Holy Spirit is grieved by a decision I have made or about to make. This usually means either I need to wait on the Lord for clarity or I need to go the opposite direction. If have no peace about doing something I just don’t do it.

 (Isaiah 60:17) “I will make peace your governor and righteousness your ruler.”

5)  Open and closed doors. A situation where am trying to open a door and it just won’t open . when this happens I have learnt its either one of these two; one is am trying to open doors that God never intended for me to go through and because He loves me He will bolt them shut, secondly am stepping out before God’s timing and God is saying wait.

I learnt this one the hard way. It took me a whole year of trying everything to figure out God had not spoken concerning me working in a certain career field. I tried everything, I fasted , prayed(interceded),bound every spirit possible  and prophesied over it with the scripture, I believed God for it,  It just wouldn’t burge! Finally after a year I realized God wasn’t opening this door not because it wasn’t time or I didn’t have faith for it but because He had never promised. My job was somewhere else and this door was wide open.

Remember, Faith will only access what Grace has already made available.

6)      Other people. God will speak to us through people. God has put people in my life who speak things over me. through one of these ways;

 The gifts of the Holy Spirit; prophecy, word of knowledge and word of wisdom. Sometimes people will speak Gods purpose for my life. God is not limited he may pick a complete stranger to proclaim His purpose over His children.

 The purpose of the gifts is to exhort, encourage and to comfort. It’s never to hurt, wound, or accuse.

Through Godly counsel. This is when we submit a word we might think is from God and ask for guidance especially when it requires that we make major life changes.

(Proverbs 11:14) “Where no wise guidance is, the people fall, but in the multitude of counselors there’s safety.

You don’t want to go off quitting your job and relocating to another country based on a dream or a word that you heard then discover later you heard wrong!

Submit your revelation to trusted counselors and you will be safe.

Through confirmation. When God speaks to me about something major in my life, I often ask God for a confirmation that it’s really Him and not my flesh or the devil trying to deceive me. The word of God says to test the Spirit. I test the spirit through confirmation. Confirmation comes either from people or from circumstances.

(Matthew 18:19)  “Every word may be confirmed by the testimony of two or three witnesses.”

God’s word is not afraid to be tested and confirmed.

God will never tell you that someone already married is for you. The testimony of them being married is enough confirmation that it’s not God.

7)      Praying in the Spirit. I have often heard God speak to me as I prayed in tongues. When I pray in the spirit, it’s the Holy Spirit praying through me. Often He will drop a word in my heart or I will just pray something in understanding that I wouldn’t normally pray. Sometimes as am praying the spirit a person’s image or name will come to mind and I know I need to lift them up in prayer. Other times it’s a scripture and I would just pray it out loud or stand on in that particular moment.

8)      Still small voice. Sometimes God is so subtle when speaking to us that if we are not carefully listening we just might miss Him. Each one of us has done something then afterward said, “That was a wrong thing to do.” He is the still small voice telling us “to stop what we are doing because it’s wrong, to not speak another word because we will just make things worse, to call a friend up and encourage them, to not go a certain way because there’s trouble. Which we often choose to ignore.

With time, you realize that it’s a little like with our best friends. When He walks in the room, you know it. You know His voice because you have heard him repeatedly over the years. You know when He is happy or sad. You know what He delights in. You know how He walks because He has walked with you through life’s seasons; you know how He works because you have watched Him over and over again. You know Him so well that you even see Him in the dark.

Don’t fret if He speaks and you don’t understand, He will repeat it until you get it.  The most enjoyable part for me about hearing God is that, He doesn’t get irritated when I miss it.  Instead, He gently and patiently pulls me out of the ditch and helps me get back on track.

  

God bless you.

Preparing To Be A Wife:My Journey

Proverbs 18:22, "He who finds a wife finds a good thing and obtains favor from the Lord."

This verse has been life changing.

 One, because the woman mentioned isn’t running around trying to find a man. She knows who she is and that is enough to attract the man meant for her.

Secondly, I realize the verse doesn’t say he who finds a girlfriend, a fiancée, a beauty queen or whatever it says a wife. Meaning it’s possible for a man to find all kinds of things but it’s only when he finds A WIFE that he truly finds a good thing and obtains favor from God.

I remember one Saturday evening listening to a discussion on marriage, and a woman said, “Most of us are busy asking God for a spouse and not just a spouse but a good one.”

She asked, "can you be trusted with a good thing?” 

I had never asked myself this question.  If God answered, would I be trustworthy of what He gives me or would I mess up that gift? Could I be trusted with a good thing? This question opened my eyes from the stupor I was in.

Until that time, most of my prayers concerning marriage revolved around one thing what he should be when he shows up. I had me a neat list, and I took it with me to my prayer closet every time and waved it before God. We all have them. For some of us, they are written down in ink. For others they are mental notes strung up in the expectations we have of how our spouses should look and be like.

I realized I had it all backward. I wanted him to look a certain way, dress a certain way, have a certain career, love me well the list is endless. Never did I pause to ask would I be what my future husband requires? You bet he has a list all written up for himself too. 

Would I like if all those expectations I had put on him were what he expects of me? Gosh! I didn’t want that kind of pressure so my list had to go.

.Finally my perspective changed. I threw out my list (I know such a grand move!) and asked God to write for me the list he wanted me to have. God started showing me the kind of man that he was going to bring into my life not so I can check list it anytime a guy asked me out or showed me a little interest but so that I can become the kind of wife that he needed to be married to.

                                                  *Dating myself *

 How could I expect someone to love me if I didn’t know how to love me? I had to take time to be by myself to discover what I was like, my strengths, and my weaknesses. The purpose God has for my life. See am his helpmeet. His purpose is my purpose. How would identify him if I didn’t know what I was called to help with? It means any man who came along would do but if I knew what I was created to do then I could easily tell him apart from the counterfeits.

I stayed single for 4 years.

Genesis 2:15, 18. Amp, “and the lord God took the man (Adam) and put him in the garden of Eden to tend and guard and keep it.

Now the Lord God said it’s not good (sufficient, satisfactory) that the man should be alone; let’s make him a helper meet (suitable, adapted, complementary) for him.

                                            *A call to serve *

Marriage is a call to serve. Am called to serve my future husband and in order to be able do that I have found myself in situations where God was developing a servant’s heart in me.

 For the past 3 years, I have found myself in places where I have had to learn to serve. I served when I didn’t feel like it, served when what I was doing wasn’t necessarily being celebrated. I served when it hurt.

Sometime last year, I had just finished a work contract and while I waited for God to open up another one. I moved in with someone. A few weeks after moving in with her, she told me to do something and the way she said it was a bit disrespectful and demeaning. My pride kicked in.

Here I was muttering to myself about how I was too smart and altogether too special for this!  After all I was intelligent and well educated and how I was meant for some big job in a big company somewhere and not this menial work I had been assigned. I hated it.

 In the middle of this fit, I also heard the still small voice of the Holy Spirit saying to me, “trust me and honor me by honoring her.” From this day on we never had a discussion on whether I was going to do what I was asked or whether it was beneath me. I did some growing up and obeyed God.

 God was working silently in the middle of my hang-ups and unbeknownst to me, was putting in place a healthy environment, where my future husband and I could court and get to know each other.  If I had refused to submit to her, without a doubt I would have missed my chance to get to know him.

This was not my way it was God's way.

 God knew that by putting me under this person my character would grow. It was determined my passing this test would inevitably opened the door for love for me. Can you imagine if I hadn’t?

                                 *Love became a choice*

  I was in love with the idea of a lifelong love. I just didn’t know what a lifelong love was or how it looked like. I used to think that love was all wrapped up in sentiments and chemistry. However, it didn’t take long for me to realize their role in this kind of love was so small.

Little by little, situation by situation God introduced to me what a lifelong love looks like.

I started learning that love was patient and it endured long, I could no longer walk away from this because it wasn’t appealing to my five senses, or because it became messy and complicated. God is patient with us as he works on us and the same patience is required of us for other people.

To love is to put someone needs before yours sometimes and going his way even when it may not be what we are used to. I found out that I couldn’t always be first, and insist that things go my way. There is never a time things will be going my way all the time when there are two people involved.

Forgiveness is a gift that I will continuously be giving to my future husband because love doesn’t keep a record of wrong nor does it pay attention to the wrongs done to it. Sometimes it’s easy other times it’s extremely hard but  I could not afford to carry unforgiveness because it not only hinders God in our relationship but also my life.

Mercy, someone taught me to frequently deposit in the mercy bank because I don’t know when I might need a withdrawal. We all need mercy from time to time and when we sow it, we will be sure to reap.

Love is kind, there has been a time where I wanted to repay unkindness with unkindness but the Holy Spirit whispered nobody wins in this game. Play by my rules and you will both win. To give kindness where there is spite does not come natural, it takes the supernatural. It’s easy to be kind because am not depending on me am depending on Him.

                                       *Preparation through Prayer*

All I would say is pray pray and pray some more! Pray as if his life depends on it because you just might find out it does.

 There are times where I have prayed a miss and its was okay. Nevertheless, as I became faithful in praying for him, God started giving me insights into his life, his struggles, and his secrets. The Holy Spirit started to teach me how to intercede for him. There are things I know about him that he would not share with me but because the Holy Spirit knew I was going to pray for him, He entrusted me with them.

For example in 2014, months after we met  every time I would pray for him I felt like God was telling me to pray Godly friendships into his life. Without knowing, I was praying him into the same group of friends that I had. This allowed us to get to know each other well in a group setting (courtship God’s way). When I prayed for him concerning friendships I was praying him into my life. Imagine that.

Ask the Holy Spirit to help you to pray, pray in the spirit, you can never pray wrong in tongues because it’s the Holy Spirit praying through you.

Pray for his life, his purpose, his job, his friendships, and his heart. Pray that God will teach and prepare him for his role as a husband and as a father.  And watch as God starts to realign his life, in accordance to His will.

                                          *Getting wisdom*

The word of God remains my life manual. It’s the ultimate source of all wisdom. It’s also a relationship manual. If the Bible is, all you will ever read in this life it will be sufficient.

However, it doesn’t hurt to learn from people who have healthy Christ centered marriages. We honestly have no excuse to enter into marriage without wisdom because we live in an age where information is only a click away.

 A wise person learns from other people’s mistakes, a fool learns from his own mistakes.

I want to do my very best in marriage. but sometimes our best is just not good enough so I have decided that I will not only bring my best but I will take other people’s best and add to my best . No one intentionally prepares to fail but it’s no secret that failing to prepare sets us up for failure.

God has poured into my life through tons of people, this list is inexhaustible but here are some of the people God has been using to help me prepare for marriage:

·         Pastor Tommy Nelson, he teaches on the book of songs of Solomon from Dating to being married. It’s very interesting.

·         Heather and Cornelius Lindsey, she blogs, teaches and they have books on marriage.

·         Joyce Meyer ,she’s a practical bible teacher, she teaches on how to use the word of God in our day to day life

·         Jimmy and Karen Evans, they have a show called marriage today, it’s a great resource for singles and married couples.

·         Pastor Kathy kiuna show woman without limits has given some wonderful insights on marriage. She also has a book on marriage.

·         Dr. Stanley Mukolwe, He mentors couples that are preparing to get married and those already married. I attended a forum that he was invited to speak at.

·         Kris valloton, He is prophetic, a marriage counselor and teaches in Bethel church, he shares some marriage wisdom in his preaching.

·         Pastor Tony Gobanga and his wife, they sometimes come on radio and talk on marriage, great wisdom.

My heart’s desire is for us as Christians to have marriages that are thriving and full of life so much that the world will come to us and asks us what our secret is. Then we can point them to Jesus who is Life and life more abundantly.

Proverbs 31:10, Amp. A capable, intelligent and virtuous woman ---who is he who can find her? She is far more precious than jewels and her value is far above rubies or pearls.

God bless you,

Lucy.

My Triumph Over Lust (Becoming a joseph in sex crazed world)

I am writing this because I feel like this is an area the church is not addressing yet majority of the young people in church are struggling in. How do I know this? Because some time last year, every time I tuned in to my favorite radio station in the evening. Majority of the young people who called or texted had an issue with lust, masturbation or pornography.

I know. I understand because I have been exactly where they were and didn’t know where to get help.

 How can something that started as silly and harmless become this endless cycle of addiction that I now found myself in?  My 21-year-old self asked this question aloud to nobody in particular because I was all alone in the house at the time.

At 22 years of age, I encountered God’s mercy and grace and got born again and Jesus delivered me from the spirit of lust and masturbation I had struggled with for 9 years since I was 13 years old.  Crazy huh?  The devil never plays fair.

You have to understand the devil is a master deceiver. His ultimate goal is to make sure he keeps us from having a relationship with God. Satan will provide avenues, which try to substitute the place of God in our lives. My avenue was pleasing myself. This leads us to spend our lives, running from one addiction to the next without finding fulfillment.

The meaning of the word deceive is “to make someone believe something that is not true in order to get what you want.”

      Here are some of the lies I had believed;

1)      This isn’t hurting anybody.  Huge lie because sin does eventually hurt us. Masturbation and pornography does hurt somebody you! (1 Corinthians 6:17-18, The Msg) “Since we want to become spiritually one with the Master, we must not pursue the kind of sex that avoids commitment and intimacy, leaving us lonelier than ever—the kind of sex that can never 'become one.' There is a sense in which sexual sins are different from all others. In sexual sin we violate the sacredness of our own bodies, these bodies that were made for God–given and God–modeled love, for 'becoming one' with another.”

2)      You are in control and  you can stop this whenever you want.  In the beginning we feel like we are in control but like any other addiction eventually we realize we never were in control and even if I want to stop now I don't know how to.

3)      At least you are not sleeping around.  Truth is God never classifies sin , there’s no such thing as minor sin and major sin to Him, to Him sin is sin no matter how we choose to look at it.

4)      There’s no place in the bible that categorizes it as sin. Well the bible says sin is anything that separates us from God; do you think God feels welcome when we are busy having sex with ourselves and idolizing our bodies?

5)      Some day when you get married you will no longer need to please yourself, your future husband or wife will cure all your lust issues. If this was true then we wouldn’t have the issue of unfaithfulness that is so prevalent in marriages today(especially in church) now would we?

Jesus came to set the captives free and that is what he did for me, I was a captive to the spirit of lust.

Because of a decision I made when I was in my teens. The devil could not trap me in a chain of sexual escapades and soul ties. Therefore, he looked for an alternative. Same offer wrapped in a different package.

Therefore, through lust, I opened a door for the enemy to create an area where he could exert control over my life.

                                               How do we get free?

Here are some practical steps that I have applied in my life for years that has enabled me to live a life free of lust.

1)      Submit your life to God , the only way the devil will release the control he has in your life is if your life is fully submitted to God .I submitted my life to God when I got born again(I accepted the free gift of salvation that Jesus died for me to have). Anything that had nothing to do with God had to leave, because now I was under new management.

       If you are already born again and you are struggling in this area, I suggest you recommit your life to God again. The word of God is clear James 4:7 Nkjv, “ submit to God, resist the devil and he will flee from you.” You cannot be resisting the devil and you are busy trying to run your own life.

2)      Quiet time. This is a specific time set aside where I hang out with God.  Spend some time in prayer. Prayer is paramount, Jesus told His disciples, “wake up and pray that you do not fall into temptation.”  Put some worship music on; it really helps in cleansing the mind and the heart allowing us to focus on God and who He is. Study the bible; God will never speak to us outside His word, so when I study the word then I can learn to know the voice of God apart from other voices.

3)      Clean house: to have a new life means I have to change the way I have been living. Change the way I have been thinking. Because lust is not really a body, issue but a heart and mind issue.

Romans 12:2 NLT says, “Don’t copy the behaviors and customs of this world, but let God transform you into a new person by changing the way you think.”

I have no ability to change the way I think on my own I need God’s help. And that’s what He did and is still doing for me . This is not a one time thing its continuous process that lasts a lifetime.

4)      Guard your heart. We have to be careful what gets into our hearts because it will overflow into our lives .I had to let go of some friends because all we discussed was their sexual escapades or some sexual movie they watched.  Whenever one of my friends had sex, she would come and give us all the gory details.

The friends we keep really define who we are and who we want to be. If who you want to be is not being reflected in the friends you keep then you need to let them go.

5)      Guard your eyes and ears gates. whatever gets through our eyes and ears gets to our heart and mind. we therefore have to be careful what is coming through these ‘gates’ this means what I read , what I watched , the music I listened to that was lustful or sexual had to go. You have to be vigilant to take out the devil or he will take you out.

This saying is true garbage in, garbage out. Godliness in, godliness out.

                                                   

I remember about 3 weeks after I got born again my youth pastor told me ,I had to find some new music to listen to. I asked him you mean I can no longer listen to my music? He said No!

I went home opened my computer I had over 1,000 songs , I love music ,I had since I was 7 years old I felt like God was stealing life from instead of giving me life. Even though it was hard, something in me knew I had to trust that God would bring me some new music to listen to so I cleaned my computer. Yes, I deleted everything!

All the Chris brown, Rihanna, Katy Perry, Beyonce, Usher Raymond, drake, lil Wayne, nickleback, had to go.

Here is a fun fact today I have over a 1000 songs on my laptop, and all of it glorifies God! Now I listen to music that breathes life into me rather than music that takes life from me.

6)      Train yourself to flee. Yes to run away if you have to.  Sounds a bit over the top but its true. You can clean out your life but that doesn’t mean everyone around you will clean house. You will live with people who love to watch or listen to lustful stuff, they maybe Christians even because you know yourself you have to do whatever it takes. if you find yourself in a situation that would cause you to compromise,run.

1 Corinthians 6:18Amp says,  “shun sexual immorality and all sexual looseness (flee from impurity in thought, word or deed).”

 The meaning of the word flee is ‘to run away, as from trouble or danger.’

7)      Know your purpose. God didn’t just put you in this world so as you can live and die. He created you for a purpose. Life is more than getting an education, a job, getting married and getting some babies. God put you in this world as a solution to a specific problem.

When you get a vision for your life. All the above becomes very easy because you will understand what you are running towards in life. You will be angry enough to no longer allow lust to steal the purpose that God has for you.

   

Joseph is a guy who finds himself sold as a slave in a foreign country. God was with him and made him successful in his master’s house. The master’s wife casts her eye upon Joseph. This woman was probably drop dead gorgeous. She keeps pestering Joseph to sleep with her, but each time Joseph would tell her no! He said “how can I do such a thing and sin against God?” she would not hear ,one day she caught  him by his garment and said “lie with me,” but Joseph left his garment and fled and got out of the house.   (Genesis 39:6-12)

Joseph had a purpose. He knew if he gives in to this woman, he is done. Your temptation might not be a woman or a man, it could be a phone, a computer, magazine or it could be yourself. When you understand God has a purpose for your life none of this things will stand in the way.

8)      Become a living sacrifice. Surrender your body on the Altar; let your body become a sacrifice before God. Here is the thing is with living sacrifices they can walk off the altar unlike dead sacrifices. Therefore, this is a daily thing.  You can do it in your Quiet time and tell God “here is my body it’s yours and not mine.”

When God owns your body. You can no longer do with it as you please. You will live a life that brings glory and honor to Him.

9)      Have an accountability partner or talk to someone you can trust. When we confess our shortcomings one to another then we deny the devil the power to hold it over our head, with guilt and condemnation. Confessing also allows people to pray for and with us. We are not meant to walk alone in this life so don’t choose to die with your struggles when God has provided a community that can hold you up.

10)  Get an understanding of Gods purpose for sex.  When we get a healthy understanding of God’s intentions for sex and marriage we will not put unrealistic expectations on another human being. I will know it’s not my future husband’s job to heal my lust issues. Moreover, everyone comes with issues in marriage, how can two broken people  help each other? it’s my job to get my soul whole ,my heart whole and my body whole before marriage so that when I do get married what I will be  bringing into the marriage is wholeness. Do your part. God will help your future spouse to do their part.

Masturbation, pornography and sexual immorality in themselves are not the disease. They are just symptoms of the disease and unless we treat the disease, we will forever be dealing with symptoms that keep resurfacing. Lust is the disease and when you take out the disease, the symptoms will eventually disappear.

God bless you,

Lucy

Enjoying the journey

He said angrily “Lucy love is a process not an event!”

This was a statement that my then (soon to graduate from med school) boyfriend said to me when we were having a fight over the phone.

Angry or not, he made a serious point which, years later has made a lot of sense to me than it did back then.

I was young, naïve and clueless. I knew nothing about love and to be honest nothing about life. But what 20 year old does?

Who does he think he is? He doesn’t deserve me! That’s what my 20 year old brain was thinking. I was not at all pleased that he wouldn’t adjust his beliefs to mine (yep I was miss smarty pants).

Fast forward to a few years later I now know, no! I thoroughly comprehend love is a journey, not an event.

Just like life ….a journey, with different phases.

I live in a country that doesn’t have many beaches. In fact the only place you will see a beach is at the coast, so when you finally get to travel to the coast, to most people(yours truly included) it’s one of the highlight of life especially when you are young and in college.

We plan, we save, and we lie to our parents just to achieve this dream. I can remember the countless times that friends and I planned this. Which never did happen maybe because we lied and fleeced our parents, (there really is such a thing as karma).

Finally, I got my chance to travel to the coast by bus(no I didn’t con my folks this time) and it was a long but most enjoyable journey, one because of the company, two because of the breathtaking scenery.

In life like travelling to the coast, many parts make up the journey; breathtaking sights, delays, the not so pleasant company that we did not necessarily choose for our selves, the not so thrilling parts that we would rather skip through, the list is endless.

 Some parts of this journey tend to be clearer. We can see our surroundings, and ourselves. Here we know where we are, we have clarity about the journey. We all love this part, when everything is enjoyable, and the goodness of the Lord is all around us. In this part, it’s easy to celebrate. It’s so easy to praise God.

There is the part of total darkness where we can hardly see ourselves leave alone the person next to us, scary times! When travelling by bus we have full assurance that the driver knows what he is doing. We put our faith that even though it’s dark and we can’t see the way. He will drive us through it.

 In life, we too can have confidence in the one in control.  We learn to walk by faith believing that we are still on course even when we cannot see it. We put our hands in the hand of God, and we allow him to guide us through to the light again.

 Then there’s the ordinary phase, when everything is just plain and lacking, our surroundings are not exciting and we can barely find our joy. We tend to ask questions in this place. We tend to wonder if there’s something, we have done or not done to be at this place. We cry, we kick, we scream .we live for the day when we can finally leave this place and get to the next part of the journey.

Anywhere else but here!

                                         

                                            *The little boy's story*

I heard a story of a boy. One day a fairy visited him. She brought him a gift. a ball with a little string on it and she told him that whenever he found himself at a place in life he didn’t like, all he had to do was pull the string and he would fast forward  to the next part of his life .

Years later the boy had now grown into an old man .The fairy returned to him and asked him if there was one thing he could do differently?

 He answered," I only wish I could go back and suffer slowly."

You see every time that he found himself in an uncomfortable, slow or painful place in life he would pull the string and skip that part.

Wouldn’t we all like to be able to fast forward life to the good parts and skip all the hard parts? I know I would.

However, here is the thing. Every part of our lives has a purpose and most of the time we hardly learn anything in the easy, exciting, fun parts of life. The most important lessons are in the hard, painful not so fun parts.

As Christians it’s here that we learn what it means to have true joy, to be patient ,to be faithful even when we don’t feel like ,to be peaceful like Jesus in the storm , to love the people who make it amazingly hard to love (I call these the extra grace required types ) . sometimes am one of these, sometimes you are too. its in this phase we learn what it truly means to put our trust and confidence in God.

This is the place where we really get to look at ourselves and evaluate our thinking, our attitudes and our motives. And do the necessary re-adjustments. 

 We see a God who shows up when no one else does.We now don’t just see Him as the God of the Breakthroughs or of the mountain top experiences. We now see him as God of patient endurance, of hope, of faith that is so immovable that now mountains have no choice but to move.

Can you then imagine skipping all these parts? I cant .

We may not enjoy this part most of the days; days we won’t even pretend to like it here.  Sure there will be days we’ll just be enduring rather than celebrating.  And we should celebrate not because it’s hard but because we know God is up to something! Still there days we’ll have such joy that the people around us will know it can only be Christ’s joy. Days where we praise even when we don’t feel like simply because we know who He is in comparison to our situation.

What if we choose to go through the hard parts and not resent them? What if we choose to suffer slowly? Then maybe just maybe they wouldn’t last as long. And not because they have been shortened but because we have a different perspective. Now we are not looking at where we are. We are looking at who is with us. Eyes so firmly fixed on Him that we look around and suddenly we are on the next part of our journey.

When we start to see it differently, every part of the journey becomes a place of new experiences. We do not lose ourselves in the laid back, exciting, very much pleasurable parts because we now understand there are a reason and a purpose for it. We don’t despise the hard, painful and oh so slow parts because we now choose see them as seasons of learning and growing disguised as challenges.

Finally, we come to the realization that the journey is as important as the destination maybe even more imperative. Now we are not rushing through life to the finish line. We find things to celebrate in every part. Yes, we celebrate the people who walked with us; even those who left us because we know everybody can’t come with us.

We made some mistakes; acquired some invaluable skills in the same step, fell a few times but in the process found out how to crawl when we couldn’t walk. We paused to enjoy the small wins as well as the big wins. We grew in character and in faith.

A wise person once said, “The danger of living in the future or in the past is that we miss the opportunity to enjoy today.”

Yes we carry all the good memories in our mind , we also live in the hope of tomorrow its not bad the problem is forgetting to live today.

Make a choice to live in the now, and not stuck in the victories and excitements of yesterday, nor in the dreams of tomorrow.

Here is to making the choice to enjoy the journey!