A New Perspective

I was listening to a program on the radio about how the food we cook does not often taste as nice as the same food someone else cooks. I found the discussion very interesting. Food, cooking involves our sense of smell, sight, and taste. When we cook a recipe ourselves, our senses are already overloaded with the aromas and tastes of preparing the dish that we are “over it” by the time we sit down to eat. But if we taste someone else’s completed dish, our senses are fresh to delve into the aromatic flavors and delights that cause us to say “Wow, that is delicious. Better than when I cook it.”

It made me think when I am talking to my God and spending time with Him, do I appreciate Him (using my senses of Spiritual sight, Spiritual Taste, a Spiritual Knowing…….) as much as I should?

Let me explain.

If I spend time with God, on a mundane day in day out way, not really even looking forward to the time spent, but doing it out of obligation, do I even enjoy it?

Do I taste and see that the Lord is Good as described in Psalm 34?

O taste and see that the Lord is good;
    happy are those who take refuge in him.
O fear the Lord, you his holy ones,
    for those who fear him have no want.

Psalm 34:8-9 NRSV

Do I sense with the Holy Spirit living inside of me, even the joy, the privilege of being united with the Father?

Do I sense My God’s presence?

Do I look forward with anticipation what this Prayer time might achieve?

Do I look forward with anticipation to spend time with my God?

Or have I shut my senses off?

Have I overloaded my senses with other things, and God does not get a look in?

That is why when we have taken the time to “walk with God” on a beach, in a park, out in God’s creation we often feel like we just saw the best sunset ever! Our senses were fresh and open to listening to God’s Spirit.

If you have not done this lately, stop, go outside, breathe in the fresh air, smell the world God made and look for God. Then let all your senses appreciate Him. I bet you that you will have a God-filled smile of joy on your face, in your heart and bursting within your spirit.

Don’t let the world, life, overload you.

Well, you may say… ‘you don’t have my life, my dire circumstances…’

May I share a story with you… Corrie Ten Boom taught me a lesson in appreciation of God and how He can work in our desperate lives. She with her sister and family were caught helping Jewish families escape from the Nazis during the Holocaust in World War 2.

Her sister, Betsie, was arrested with her and sent to the Ravensbruck Concentration Camp. Every night Betsie would thank God for where they were and the bedbugs that infested the mattresses.Corrie could not understand her sister’s words and vocally told her ‘you’ve got it wrong, the bedbugs I do not thank the Lord for.’

These two sisters were so in love with their God, they had sneaked in a bible and were sharing the Word with many in their camp. One day the soldiers decided to check out the dormitories by pulling everything apart, everyone’s bedding etc. to see if they could find anything hidden, not allowed. As the soldiers were heading towards their bunks, where the bible was hidden, the guard stopped and said under her breathe, (but they could hear it) ‘I’m not touching that bedding. It’s infested with bedbugs’…… and walked away. From that day onwards Corrie praised and thanked God for sending them the “bedbugs.”

It gives you a different perspective, doesn’t it?

Be open to What God may be saying to you. What God may be doing through you.

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

Rosemary

Every week groups of ladies meet together to chat about the things I raise in my weekly blog post and to chat about life in general. We call these ‘Heart Connect’ groups.

DISCUSSION QUESTIONS

Where could you appreciate what God has given you in your life?

Where do you need a new perspective? What can you do to be open to a new way of thinking?