Maybe I was little influenced by the event we hosted last night, but I have been thinking about common phrases we use when we pray.

One I have thought about for some time is one that talks about hedges.
Do you know the one I mean?
Where people pray that God would build a hedge around someone.

When you think about it, it does seem a little strange…
A hedge is a collection of closely planted trees or shrubs that interlink to form a wall of plants.
Why would you pray that someone has a wall of shrubs around them?

It is actually in the Bible.
Amazing aye?

If you look in the first chapter of Job you see this amazing story of God and satan having a conversation.
They are talking about a guy called Job and how honourable and blessed he is.
Satan challenges God as part of this conversation.
“Have you not put a hedge around him and his household and everything he has?” Job 1:10 niv

Hedge is all about protection.
A hedge can give you shelter from storms.
A hedge can give you shade from heat.
A hedge can protect you from attack.
And a hedge can keep what you have from disappearing.

God hadn’t just build a physical hedge around Job and all he had. It was a spiritual hedge.
A circle of his protection around all he was and had.
So I think it is a cool thing to pray for someone or even yourself.

Why don’t you pray that for someone today.
Why don’t you pray it for yourself and your family.
That God would hedge you or someone else about.

Something to think about...

I was looking for a clip on youtube today.
Something that I knew about by a guy I have heard of.
He has a great reputation.
He has taught me heaps over the last few years.

My search results surprised me.

The majority of the suggested clips to my search were all about how bad, how wrong, how stupid...any negative something that someone could produce.
I thought surely this person is not that bad.
I then thought this must be just a weird search result so decided to search for someone else I respect.
Just to see if this was a one off result.
And guess what? Same thing...
The majority of the suggested clips to my search were all about how bad, how wrong, how stupid...you get the idea.

What disappointed me the most was these people call themselves ‘believers’. Yet they spend seemingly endless hours producing material to publish, complaining about others.

Now I am not against pointing out something that is wrong. I am the first to say something (I hope) when someone’s theology is completely mental or misguided.
But this stuff just stinks of stinky stink stuff.
It embarrasses me that our world can watch us griping about each other!

I believe we need to be careful about criticising others.
I mean, who is critiquing our critique?

The Bible tells us to pray for those over us.
Pray that they can remain strong. That they can be wise. Pray that they will interpret the Bible correctly.
It also says to be careful to not call something wrong that God might be calling right.
Sometimes we just don’t know.
You need to be comfortable with that. Remember we are following God, not being God.
Only God can judge someone’s heart.

I have learnt that I have an opinion but not always all the answers, so I just let some things play themselves out.
I have also learnt that people no matter who they are, great or small, respond better to being told what they have done right more than what they have done wrong…

Let God judge for us. He seems to do such a better job.

Something to think about.

Do you ever wonder whether things just happen by chance?

Is life random, or a collection of random events?

I am more and more convinced that it is not.
This is why...

If life is so random...
Why is it that some randomly good things happen to some people?
And then why is it that some random bad things happen to others?
Then others seem to have random combinations of both.
And who or what decided random was supposed to be the ‘norm’ anyway?

I think that when you give someone control of your life, and they have the power to influence it in every way... random really has no place.
If life is random, then random ends up showing who you gave lordship of your life to, has no control at all.
In fact it isn’t lordship at all!

When you give your life to God. When you give yourself to become a disciple of Jesus.
At that moment, random is not a factor for you.
Nothing happens without a reason and purpose.
You now exist beyond circumstance.
You now live a in a realm beyond secondlife, beyond all imagination.
God has control if you want him to, and if you let him...of what is going to transpire.

Take the story in Exodus of Moses being a baby.
The Egyptian’s have demanded that all male babies born to Israelite women be thrown in the Nile to drown.
But Moses’ mum doesn’t want to do that.
Instead she places him in a basket to float instead of drown. Giving what might seem like a random chance to survive. And who rescues the baby?
Pharaohs daughter. From the very family declaring he should die.
And who gets asked to nurse the child?
Moses’ actual mother!
How random is that?

On that face of it, it is totally random. But it is not!
God is in control. You can trust him to work things out exactly the way they need to work out.
When things seem impossible, that is when it seems all the more possible for God.

Your life doesn’t have to be random.
It can be full of purpose, direction and security.
You just have to give it to God.

Something to think about.

Suze and I have been married for a little while now…
Actually it has nearly been 15 years! Awesome!!!

It is pretty easy after that period of time to just be in a routine. To assume things are ok, or if they aren’t to assume that they can’t change for the better.

I have been what they call a ‘Christian’ for 18 years!
Extra Awesome!!!

It is pretty easy there too to just have a routine.
To assume this relationship that God saved me to have is ok, or if not, to think that maybe it can’t be better…

Here is a profound thought for you…

If you want change...you have to create change.
You have to position yourself for change.
Same just breeds same.

So this is what I am doing…

To keep things ‘interesting’ in my relationship with Suze we are going to join our Love Dare challenge in a few weeks.

To keep things ‘interesting’ in my relationship with God, I have just started doing a new Bible Reading plan which is different to anything else I have done before.

There is a quote that people are over quoting at the moment...so I will too.
It is “be the change you want to be”

Very simply, if want change...do something about it.
Nothing worth doing comes without some effort.
And most things never change unless you want it to first.

Something to think about…