A complete and utter waste of time...

Facebook is such a complete and utter waste of time. I wholly acknowledge this for a fact. Yet I still spend my valuable time staking those of my friends whom I no longer have much contact with, procrastinating by playing pointless games, aimlessly looking at pictures of other friends because I really don't know what else to do and if I'm lucky I might find someone to talk to. I actually regret the day I got facebook. BUT there is absolutely no way that I actually going to deactivate my account. I wouldn't survive. I did a 40 day facebook famine once - and suffered from severe withdrawal symptoms. I'm pretty sure that I am not the only one with these problems.

My sister has a nice quote written on a sticky note above her desk saying: "If an activity doesn't bring you closer to God then don't do it." Everything which we do should be to the hounour and glory of God. We have to remember that in the way in which we spend our time. Is what I am doing to the honour of God? Is it something which is upbuilding and to his service? Is it an activity which draws me closer to Him? or does it do the opposite... (something which would be good to remember everytime I go on facebook or even on the computer :D )

Count your blessings.

Count your blessings name them one by one,
Count your blessings see what Christ has done,
Count your blessings name them one by one,
And it will suprise you what the Lord has done.

As Christians we have recieved so many blessings. As Paul has listed in Eph 1, we have been chosen to be God's children, we have been redeemed by Christ's sacrifice on the cross and have God's grace 'lavished on us (Eph 1:8). We have been included in Christ in that we have heard and responded to the 'message of truth, the gosple of (your) salvation' (Eph 1:13) and we have recieved the gift of the Holy Spirit which marks us a children of God.

Many of the Christians which I know (as well as myself) have also grown up within a Christian family. We went to a Christian school which was supported by the Church we attend. We havve been instructed in the the word of God for our whole lives which has resulted in a rich knowledge of the Bible. All of these things can be seen as even greater blessings. Often we don't see it as this and take much of it for granted, not thinking that God has placed us within these situations with his purpose in mind and that they are such a great blessing in teaching those around us because of the rich knowledge which we have been given.

With so many blessings we have so much to be thankful for. Because we have expereienced so much of the grace of God, our thankfulness to him should abound through everything we do.

Be Still and Know that I am God...

WOW. Floods, Cyclones, Bush fires, Earthquakes, even bigger earthquakes, Tsunamis. It seems like the world is falling apart. With all this happening around us we tend to become afraid. What's going to happen next? Where is it going to be? Will we be next? One of the things which people are most afraid of is the unknown and with all which is going on we feel unprotected and vulnerable.

BUT we don't have any reason to feel unprotected. As the psalmist says in Psalm 46:1-3. "God is our refuge and strength an ever present help in trouble, Therefore we will not fear, though the earth give way (earthquakes), and the mountains fall into the heart of the sea (even bigger earthquakes), though it's waters roar and foam (tsunamis and floods) and the mountains quake at their surging". We can really see that a comforting. Although the world is falling apart with disasters all around us, we can cling to the knowledge that our God will be strong for us and protect us. Nothing will happen to us without his will.

Further into the psalm (vs. 6,7) "Nations are in uproar, kingdoms fall (all the civil unrest in Egypt, Lybia and other countries in the area); he lifts his voice, the earth melts. The LORD almighty is with us; The God of Jacob is our fortress. The world may no longer seem like a safe place and there may be calamity all around us but we can be assured that our God is a strong hold and a fortress. We know that God will keep us safe.

Of the whole psalm vs. 10 is probably my favorite verse: He says, “Be still, and know that I am God; I will be exalted among the nations, I will be exalted in the earth.”  Be still - we cant achieve anything by worrying or by trying to take control of the situation. Be still - rest in the knowledge that the Lord is in control of everything. Know that our God, because he is God, is in control of everything.

Bursting Brain

WOW. That's pretty much all I can say. I've just had a really intense weekend with so much happening and so much to think about (hence the fact that my brain is about to burst). We just had an amazing youth congress on the topic of Spiritual Warfare. There was a large group of us and we had some really thought provoking speeches and discussions over the weekend on the topic. On Sunday morning we had a interesting sermon which discussed the point of being on the border of sleeping and being awake spiritually (It was taken from the archives of 1944 but still very applicable and appropraite for us today). Anyways I don't want my brain to burst but I'm still busy sorting through all this information, soon, there may be a few more posts about what I have learnt and what I have been thinking about lately.

Power Failure

The power is out. We had a wonderful storm this afternoon with 62mm of rain and with it came a glorious power shortage. As a result, the options of activities to amuse ourselves with suddenly became very limited. Dinner became a long, drawn out affair as nobody was able to do any work afterwards. We even left the dishes to do at a later date because without the power we don’t even have running water.

It really is a nuisance that we are so dependent on electricity. Years ago people had things to occupy themselves after dark, and they did that by candle light (unless of course they just went to be like everyone in our household). We have become so dependent on the internet, the phone, our computers, lights, TV, electric appliances to help us cook. But more so, because of this dependence, we take so many of that for granted so that when for some reason we have to live without any of those commodities we find ourselves lost. For example if we separated someone from their mobile phone for a day. Most people I know wouldn’t know what to do without their number one communication device. Another example is me. I don’t have power, which means I don’t have internet, I don’t have light (apart from that given me by my computer screen) and I don’t have ... .  I’m completely lost for what to do with my time. I was going to do lots of uni work tonight but that just isn’t happening because there isn’t any light or internet.

Sometimes it is good to reflect on what we have. It makes us realise how blessed we really are and what we have been given from our heavenly father. Thinking about many of those things which we usually take for granted makes one realise the blessings we have.

BTW this blog post was written in a word document and uploaded later... I needed something to do with my time