So Much More

So there I was...holding a worthless piece of paper after getting conned off my cash!! I was sooo horribly dissapointed! Aarrgghh! I hate losing money. What puzzled me most was that I had actually prayed through the decision, performed due diligence to the best of my ability, prayed again....and STILL got scammed.

Its at this point in time that one is most tempted to ask questions like "Where was God when I was asking for guidance? God knows I wasnt in this to get inordinately rich illegally or immorally, so why did He allow it to happen to me? Does this mean I am not supposed to try my had at business at all? How will I pay back the money I lost? What is the point of it all?".

Soon after though His Holy Spirit got through to me and I repented for not trusting my Father. Honestly! Nothing, absolutely NOTHING happens to the saints without our Fathers consent and approval. Even the devil needed his application rubber stamped in order to torment Job! Ergo, the Father has a plan for EVERYTHING that happens to us, both 'good' and 'bad' (in parenthses simply because if it is us defining events and occurrences as good or bad, then we have already judged our Father of evil, a grave fallacy indeed. I need to blog about that too...).

In hindsight, I have learnt quite a few valuable lessons from the ocurrence, and just when I thot it was over the below devotion came in. I must admit its weird and wonderful the way God wants to make Himself known to me, and the myriad of ways he accomplishes it.

"And Amaziah said to the man of God, But what shall we do for
      the hundred talents which I have given to the army of Israel?
      And the man of God answered, The Lord is able to give thee
      much more than this."
             -- 2 Chronicles 25:9

A very important question this seemed to be to the king of Judah, and
possibly it is of even more weight with the tried and tempted O
Christian. To lose money is at no times pleasant, and when principle
involves it, the flesh is not always ready to make the sacrifice. "Why
lose that which may be so usefully employed? May not the truth itself
be bought too dear? What shall we do without it? Remember the children,
and our small income!" All these things and a thousand more would tempt
the Christian to put forth his hand to unrighteous gain, or stay
himself from carrying out his conscientious convictions, when they
involve serious loss. All men cannot view these matters in the light of
faith; and even with the followers of Jesus, the doctrine of "we must
live" has quite sufficient weight.

The Lord is able to give thee much more than this is a very
satisfactory answer to the anxious question. Our Father holds the
purse-strings, and what we lose for his sake he can repay a
thousand-fold. It is ours to obey his will, and we may rest assured
that he will provide for us. The Lord will be no man's debtor at the
last. Saints know that a grain of heart's-ease is of more value than a
ton of gold. He who wraps a threadbare coat about a good conscience has
gained a spiritual wealth far more desirable than any he has lost.
God's smile and a dungeon are enough for a true heart; his frown and a
palace would be hell to a gracious spirit. Let the worst come to the
worst, let all the talents go, we have not lost our treasure, for that
is above, where Christ sitteth at the right hand of God. Meanwhile,
even now, the Lord maketh the meek to inherit the earth, and no good
thing doth he withhold from them that walk uprightly

From spurgeons Morning and evening. You can subscribe to these daily devotions here

PS Where your treasure is, there your heart is also (Matthew 6:21)

Step Out Into the Deep

For about two weeks now I have been struggling with a business situation: some goods I was expecting seem to be lost or delayed in transit. Potential customers are already asking questions and begining to doubt that they will get the goods they requested. Now a new avenue has opened up and it will take a large financial risk to begin a new business relationship. I have done as much due diligence as I am able to so now the onus is on me: should I step out into the deep?

I guess it is just me trying to stay within earshop of safe harbours. However, that is NOT where God dwells. He does business in the deep; where one totally and completely trusts Him, and Him alone.

Oh, and just to make things better, a pal sends me this devotion here below:

It takes no effort or faith to live in the familiar!
That’s why many are comfortable in the known...If Abraham never left he would have died unknown and unrecognized. The price of greatness is moving, going, risking and forsaking the past to lay hold on the future.

So there you have it. Amazing how GOd gives a loving, gentle nudge in the direction He wants you to go.

Here I am Lord; send me.

On Sibling Rivalry

I have been following Pastor Jon Coursons through-the-Bible teachings for a while now. I find his teachings extremely witty and yet "deep" and real, and best of all, totally applicable for day-to-day living.

This week he has been teaching from Matthew 18 (you can listen to it free here) and just happened to put the spotlight on something that my wife had brought up very recently.

Perhaps a bit of background will help here: my family is "special" (myself included!). Due to historical events that I really am not too sure about, weighty issues never get discussed. In fact, so much is swept under the rug i suspect there is more under there than there is above it! Unfortunately we (as the kids) tend to have picked it up: elephants in the room are politely requested to keep to the corners, everyone has full medieval armour so no toes are stepped on, and a special resin has been invented that keeps everything below the carpet.

You can see now that no deep, meaningful interraction ever took place. In fact, when I got married, I could not understand why my wife fought so hard with her siblings, and yet at the end of the day they still loved each other to bits! In our house, people hardly ever fought. An atmosphere of "tolerance" (read "emotional constipation") was the order of the day. Sadly, my mum was chief in ensuring the status quo remained, perhaps in an effort to have a peaceful household, but in the process creating an unreal atmosphere, a domestic utopia if you will, that, in hindsight, must have taken ALOT just to hold together.

So now here I am. My sisters are not talking to me because they were involved in a car accident (dont worry they are ok: just a badly dented rear) and I have been unable to go see them due to issues upon issues at my home. One of them sent me a text to tell me so. That got me wondering: where were they when I had a full head-on collision with a chap so drunk he couldnt even get out of his car? Or the time a truck almost took out the entire right side of my car?

And that is where God steps in. Here are a few scanty notes on Pastor Jons sermon:

-Humility: Humility is not thinking lowly of ourselves (that actually is a form of pride). Humility is not thinkng of ourselves at all. Being "other-people-centric" as opposed to ego-centric.
-Honesty: Speaking the truth in love. Remember: Truth without love is brutality, but love without truth is false (the latter is exactly where I am).
-Forgiveness: The pharisees taught that you had to forgive two, maybe three times. Peter must have thought he was pretty hot advocating for seven times. But no. Christ lovingly told him "seventy times seven" or (as in another gospel) as many times as you want to be forgiven.

So Lord please help me. Broaching issues is very difficult but I cant expect it to start with someone else. The change begins with me.

I do not know what to do but my eyes are on you (2 Chronicles 20:12)

Random Rhymes

Yes I know...I havent posted a thing in AGES! AEONS! Millenia even! So here goes. The below is a rhyme that came to mind when listening to my fave radio station - radio316. It was a country song about Noah singing in the rain. I found that an intriguing concept and decided to come up with something more...well...me :-)

Like Noah, singing in the rain
Daniel, dancing in the flames
Christ, walking on the waves
Peter, praising in the jails
Lot, watching as they blazed
The pharisees, confused and amazed
stood, abused and dismayed.
Like a fool and his ways
Judas, a fool who surveyed
Gods Tool to betray
But in the end
Jesus! Who rules and who says
"Come one, come all to Me,
All who are subdued and in pain"

Not I, But He

There is always that one devotion that you read that so grips you, so takes you, so answers all your questions, quells your fears, ignites your hope, that you read it over and over again, and cannot get enough of. The one below did it for me a few days back. It is a devotional by C. H. Spurgeon (June 19, 1834 – January 31, 1892) that i recieve in my mail daily (you can recieve the daily devotional too from Heartlight).

Thank you Lord. I sooo needed to hear this...

"Looking unto Jesus."
             -- Hebrews 12:2

It is ever the Holy Spirit's work to turn our eyes away from self to
Jesus; but Satan's work is just the opposite of this, for he is
constantly trying to make us regard ourselves instead of Christ. He
insinuates, "Your sins are too great for pardon; you have no faith; you
do not repent enough; you will never be able to continue to the end;
you have not the joy of his children; you have such a wavering hold of
Jesus." All these are thoughts about self, and we shall never find
comfort or assurance by looking within. But the Holy Spirit turns our
eyes entirely away from self: he tells us that we are nothing, but that
"Christ is all in all." Remember, therefore, it is not thy hold of
Christ that saves thee-it is Christ; it is not thy joy in Christ that
saves thee-it is Christ; it is not even faith in Christ, though that be
the instrument-it is Christ's blood and merits; therefore, look not so
much to thy hand with which thou art grasping Christ, as to Christ;
look not to thy hope, but to Jesus, the source of thy hope; look not to
thy faith, but to Jesus, the author and finisher of thy faith. We shall
never find happiness by looking at our prayers, our doings, or our
feelings; it is what Jesus is, not what we are, that gives rest to the
soul. If we would at once overcome Satan and have peace with God, it
must be by "looking unto Jesus." Keep thine eye simply on him; let his
death, his sufferings, his merits, his glories, his intercession, be
fresh upon thy mind; when thou wakest in the morning look to him; when
thou liest down at night look to him. Oh! let not thy hopes or fears
come between thee and Jesus; follow hard after him, and he will never
fail thee.

"My hope is built on nothing less
Than Jesus' blood and righteousness:
I dare not trust the sweetest frame,
But wholly lean on Jesus' name."

But God

The sperm hits the egg
and a new life is born;
Open destiny, unwritten future;
Tabula Rasa.
Unfettered, unknown.

And there she is! Our lovely little angel, about a month and a half old in that pic.  Not a day goes by without us thanking God for her. It has been quite a journey, through very deep dark valleys, when we were not sure we would ever get close, let alone make it. But God....what a wonderful statement! Seemingly the beginning of Gods involvement in the affairs of men. Off course He was always involved but at that particular moment, its almost as if He steps in and says "Enough!"

“…Yet your father has deceived me and changed my wages ten times, But God did not allow him to hurt me.” Genesis 31:7 

“ But God had come to Laban the Syrian in a dream by night, and said to him, “Be careful that you speak to Jacob neither good nor bad.” Genesis 31:24  

“ So now [it was] not you [who] sent me here, But God; and He has made me a father to Pharaoh, and lord of all his house, and a ruler throughout all the land of Egypt.” Genesis 45:8 

"But God demonstrates His own love toward us, in that while we were still sinners, Christ died for us.” Romans 5:7-8"

“ But God, who is rich in mercy, because of His great love with which He loved us, even when we were dead in trespasses, made us alive together with Christ by His grace you have been saved.” Ephesians 2:4 

We can go on and on (read one lovely article here).

The mercies of God are endless, his love boundless. At His great works we wonder "Who is man that you are mindful of him, mere man that you care for him?" (Psalm8:4) It is bewildering, and humbling all at once. We can but thank Him. Over and over again. Every single day we live.

First Day

So there I was in my new primary school. It looked funny. It smelt funny. The other kids, the color of the walls, the odd looking, odd sounding teachers, it all confirmed my deepest fear: mum and dad finally had decided to get rid of me. Not that I blamed them. That stunt with my mums vinyl collection had left the house silent indeed. And that was after the experiment with the stereo. They had sworn by terrible gods and even more terrible ancestors that the TV would be behind razor wire. Permanently.

Mum and dad shouldn't curse like that...its not good...

"Kinuthia!"

I jumped. We were all assembled, single file by class, at the central area of the school, a sort of cul-de-sac if you will. The towering classrooms seemed to be glowering down on us, making us feel even smaller. The Head-teacher (what was her name again? Washer? Wisher? Ah..Wachira..Mrs Wachira) was reading out the register of all the new entrants (read convicts) into the institution.

"Kinuthia?!"

"Urr..I'm here..ma'am"

A snigger rippled through the crowd. Calling a teacher 'ma'am' was extremely unusual in this part of the world. You couldn't blame me for that. First my parents send me to a cream-of-the-crop British school, then throw me into this hell hole. Curses. They must have found out what happened to the cat...

Mrs Wachira gazed at me with obvious disdain. Curses. Making enemies on the first day of ANYTHING was bad luck of the worst sort in my books.

This was not going to be easy...

I forced myself to concentrate on the goings on. A difficult task considering I was only 6 years old with the attention span of a fruit fly. Again, not my fault. No one had done any research on the possible connection between 7 hours of TV a day and ADHD that long ago.  I gazed at her until my neck ached and eyes watered. A fat lizard crawling on the wall a few feet above her caught my eye. I could envision a myriad of delicious outcomes should it have lost its grip, none of which would be favorable to her.

My slingshot....darn! Mum had performed a full search of everything that I had packed into my knapsack. She had found the slingshot. And the water gun. The boomerang too. She even took away the marbles! For sweet Pete's sake, what damage could one child do with a sack of marbles? That incident with her rear view mirror had come back to bite in a big way. How was i to know glass doesn't bounce off glass? I was 5 and a half! What would I know?!

The mood of the other students changed. I looked around wondering what was coming next. A lanky upper primarian with dark curly hair and simian proportions walked up to the podium. The headmistress whispered a few words to him. He nodded seriously and intelligently, then turned to face us.

"Therefore now no condemnation for there is no condemnation in my heart..."

And immediately the kids burst into a horribly discordant retort which i later learnt was the head teachers favorite song. For an excruciating 5 minutes I had to attempt to follow what was meant to be a hymn. All things considered I did pretty well. That trick i learnt the first (and last) time mum and dad took me to church: Simply repeat "The cow jumped over the moon" to the tempo of whatever song (smiling and nodding occasionally) and none but the most observant can tell that you have no idea how the song went. This particular song, however, troubled me. For a few seconds i couldn't tell why, until i remembered my dad telling me that the process by which blood traveled in the body was called condemnation. I was sure of it.

I looked around me. Poor malnourished, brainwashed fools. When push came to shove I'm pretty sure they would be begging for condemnation in their hearts. I kept mouthing the song though. Dad had also told me that "You never rock the boat that bites you son" and I was not going to do that. Not on the first day of school. I was going to blend in with this sorry lot. Even if it killed me.

The song ended abruptly and it was time to go to class. We were herded like sheep to the direction of a particularly evil looking, damp,  mould smelling, cavern-like building. I sighed. Only 7 years, 300 days, 6 hours to go.

This was not going to be fun...

Disconnected!!

Ok so wifey and I took one of the most drastic steps EVER attempted by mankind. I mean, this is akin to boldly going to where no one (ok few people) have gone before (insert dramatic Star Trek theme song here). We lapsed our Satellite TV cable subscription. Deliberately!! We have never bothered to buy the standard TV aerials so yes...we are disconnected! Unplugged! Isolated!! Or so I thought...

You are taught in every premarital counselling class the dangers inherent in the little (or not so little depending on your available income) box of pictures and magic. Personally, I took all that teaching with a grain of salt. Telly never really hurt anyone, did it? Didnt I get that question answered! We now have much more time to talk, read our novels (we both love reading), or just listen to the radio and critique everything. Initially I thought it would be extremely difficult but now its turning into something supremely enjoyable. There is never any mad rush to catch something on the tube; when my wife needs my attention I dont have to swear inwardly at the timing, or ask her to wait until the commercial break. We simply get a few movies, or seasons of our fave series and watch when we feel like, and when we get bored we argue about whether space-time is flat or curved...I even have more time to practice on the piano.

Steve and Cindy Wright in their Marriage Missions website state the following: "Let me (Steve) just say...that as a recovering "TV-holic," balance in this area of my life is essential. I can easily find myself spending hours in front of the TV rather than doing anything productive for my spiritual life or my married life if I'm not careful."


They then cap it off with this interesting, if not sobering, satire of the 23rd Psalm:

THE 23rd CHANNEL (Author Unknown)

The TV set is my shepherd. My spiritual growth shall want.

It makes me to sit down and do nothing for His name's sake

because it requires all of my spare time.

It keeps me from doing my duty as a Christian

because it presents so many good shows that I must see.

It restores my knowledge of the things of the world,

and keeps me from the study of God's word.

It leads me in the path of failing to attend the evening worship services

and doing nothing in the kingdom of God.

Yea, though I live to be 100, I shall keep on viewing television as long as it will work.

for it is my closest companion. Its sound and its picture, they comfort me.

It presents entertainment before me, and keeps me from doing important things with my family.

It fills my head with ideas, which differ from those set forth in the Word of God.

Surely, no good things will come of my life

because my television offers me no good time to do the will of God.

Thus I will dwell crown-less in the house of the Lord forever.

Oh and the lovely photo at the begining is Unplugged by N0t1m3. See it on Deviantart here

When I say "I am a Christian"

I know i have not blogged in quite a while...my apologies to all my fans out there. And no it is not because of anything bad or wrong; I have just been running around pretty hard trying to keep this boat afloat.

Now it hits me that I have been working and serving and worrying, being obsessed and possessed by that which needs to be done. How quickly I forget! As much as God appreciates all the activity, it is in the stillness, and silence that the rightousness, peace and joy overflow. The activities will cease, but the latter three will remain forver. So if you are like me, here is what Jesus says to us both:

LUKE 10:40-42

41) And Jesus answered and said unto her, Martha, Martha, thou art careful and troubled about many things:

42) But one thing is needful: and Mary hath chosen that good part, which shall not be taken away from her.

Perhaps because of this my wifey, in her characteristically helpful and supportive role, sent me the below poem. What a wonderful encouragement! What a humbling note! It is rare you get to see such a simple, hearfelt cry...

When I say..." I am a Christian"
I'm not shouting "I am saved"
I'm whispering "I get lost"
"That is why I chose this way"

When I say..."I am a Christian"
I don't speak of this with pride
I'm confessing that I stumble
and need someone to be my guide

When I say..."I am a Christian"
I'm not trying to be strong
I'm professing that I'm weak
and pray for strength to carry on

When I say..."I am a Christian"
I'm not bragging of success
I'm admitting I have failed
and cannot ever pay the debt

When I say..."I am a Christian"
I'm not claiming to be perfect,
my flaws are all too visible
but God believes I'm worth it

When I say..."I am a Christian"
I still feel the sting of pain
I have my share of heartaches
which is why I seek His name

When I say..."I am a Christian"
I do not wish to judge
I have no authority
I only know I'm loved.

Carol Wimmer

Art Attack

The base unit..

Art Attack!

The new tv cabinet wifey and I got made. It makes the sitting room so artsy..