13 November 2019

We come from such different backgrounds, different upbringing, different personalities, different nationalities, but we have One major bond.

That of the Lord Jesus Christ.

We all thirst.

Thirst for Him. For more knowledge. For more of Him. For more experience of Him. For more worship of Him. For more clarity from Him. For more desire for Him.

Our body, mind and spirit are in tune for more of Him. The desire won’t go away. We can try and ignore it. We can try and deaden the persistent sound. We can be laughed at. Ridiculed even by our own family. Discouraged by those we love to get ‘real’. To not be so ‘full on.’ Go back to the norm.

But this is the reality for us. This is His kingdom here on earth. This is our desire. To love and know Him more.

When you realise how much the Lord, our Saviour has done for us – it brings us to tears. It brings us to our knees in adoration. In thanks. In gratefulness that He would notice us. That He would choose us to follow Him. That He would make us worthy to be His disciple.

We share that bond of Him. It is so precious that it draws us together for more of Him. We are sisters in Christ.

This is THE way for me. Is this THE way for you? Only you can answer that.

How do I describe Him whom I find? How do I share with people about Him, so they get it?

The world is crying out, groaning for Him. Groaning for truth. Groaning for justice. Groaning for peace. Groaning for Love. So many are searching for this joy, this happiness but in all the wrong places. How To proclaim to a world full of pain and suffering that He is the solution.

Even our fellow Christians feel we are too full-on. How can you be too full on for the Lord?

Sure, there is wisdom in not giving ‘pearls to swine,’ and a young Christian is still being formed, but often you feel that the “older Christian” should know, should understand? Have we been living at half-mast? Doing the Christian walk but not truly living it? Or could it be like the lives of the saints – some are chosen to give up more? To walk a holier life? We are given God’s grace to do so. It’s not by our own strength.

Living a Christian life is risky. Sometimes God asks some of us to give it all up for Him. Then the choice of yes or no becomes ours. But when you truly love the Lord, you have no choice.

I have a twin sister Julie, who is a saint. She lives 24/7, looking after her husband. Fourteen years ago, he had a brain aneurysm which led to a stroke and made him unable to care for himself. They have seven children and at the time still had three at school.

Why did God allow this to happen to them? Both such Godly people. Loving God and their neighbour so well. They would care for their next-door neighbours who were refugees. They would give clothes off their backs to those in need and they lived a very simple life. And this “tragedy” happened. Why?

Maybe this was THE way of following Christ for them. Of how they would become even holier. Of how they would know Him more.

He sent his Grace to my sister to cope, to live, to surrender to this life. That does not mean that she never feels like giving up. It is just so hard!!! That tiredness sets in sometimes, physically and mentally. I know at times she has cried tears of sadness and frustration.

But not once has she blamed God. Not once has her Faith in Him waned. It has become stronger and full of His Light and Hope for all to see.

They are BOTH (for Stephen still has a brilliant mind and is in love with the Lord – which is such a blessing), proclaiming Jesus to all they meet.

By their lives!

By their love!

Do I do the same where I am? With my lifestyle? My actions, my thoughts, my words? Am I following the Lord to the best of my ability and then calling on Him to give me His ability? Am I following the WAY He has for me right now?

Whatever that is for each of us, may we do it with a joy in our step, a peace in our hearts and a knowledge that He looks upon us and loves us always.

May these jottings from my journal inspire you to believe in and fall in love with Christ- the hope of the world, as stated in Jeremiah 17:7, ‘Blessed is the man who believes and trusts in and relies on the Lord and whose hope and confident expectation is the Lord!’

Love always

Rosemary