Tossed About

When I was younger, my dad used to take me out on our dinghy to do some fishing in the Bribie Island passage. We would bob up and down in that little boat when a larger boat's wake washed past us. It didn't take much for us to be swishing about. We can also get tossed about through life.

I was married at age 21 which is young for many these days, only 3 years after becoming a Christian. Those 3 years were a whirlwind of growing in faith and falling in love with my husband. It was a great time in my life. While I was at university my faith was nurtured by Student Life, a Christian organisation that reaches out to university students. They provided a protective and encouraging environment for me to learn about God and exercise my faith. But in the month after I finished uni, I got married, moved out of home to a new city, moved from the only church I had ever known and started a new job. I found the first year of marriage difficult for many reasons. But one reason being that although I had agained a wonderful husband, I had suddenly lost my supportive Christian cocoon. I spent the following 2-3 years feeling tossed about by ideas, philosophies, culture, work ethics and attitudes. All of a sudden that protective Christian "home"was gone and I had to grow up. I found myself losing my footing in my faith and began slipping into unhealthy habits and choices. I remember feeling desperate for this "tossing" to stop and I longed to feel sure footed and established in my understanding and faith. Scripture like James 1:6, 

But when you ask, you must believe and not doubt, because the one who doubts is like a wave of the sea, blown and tossed by the wind. 

and Ephesians 4:14-15, 

Then we will no longer be infants, tossed back and forth by the waves, and blown here and there by every wind of teaching and by the cunning and craftiness of people in their deceitful scheming.  Instead, speaking the truth in love, we will grow to become in every respect the mature body of him who is the head, that is, Christ.

spoke to me.  I needed to know more about my God and mature in my understanding of him.  But how?

It was around this time that I went on an Emmaus walk. It was on this walk that I recognised my need for a mentor in my life, to help me get into God's word, to pray for me and to keep me accountable. So when I got back I spoke to my pastor and within weeks his wife was mentoring me which was the beginning of a friendship that has had ongoing multiplying spiritual impacts in my life that has overflowed into the lives of other women that I nurture in bible study groups now.

Over the weeks and months of being mentored, the tossing subsided. God's words became my anchor and prayer became my lifeline. When the world's voices were pulling me in every direction, it was the sure and reliable word of God that I found dependable and trustworthy. Why? Because I believed by faith that the bible is God's revelation of himself to me.  I began to  love God's word and to know his character is completely trustworthy and true, and I began applying his teaching into my life. Remember the parable of the wise and foolish builders? 

Therefore everyone who hears these words of mine and puts them into practice is like a wise man who built his house on the rock. The rain came down, the streams rose, and the winds blew and beat against that house; yet it did not fall, because it had its foundation on the rock. But everyone who hears these words of mine and does not put them into practice is like a foolish man who built his house on sand. The rain came down, the streams rose, and the winds blew and beat against that house, and it fell with a great crash.   (Matthew 7:24-27)

The foolish builder built his life on a foundation of  choices based on listening to voices other than God and when life's storms came the foundation was revealed to be unstable unreliable and untrustworthy. But the wise builder who chose to build his life on a foundation of God's word and applied God's truth into his life found his foundation to be  reliable and sure during life's hardships.

I chose Jesus as the anchor  in my life, steadying me through rough seas.  So dear friend, who are you listening to?  Who will you choose to guide you?  Which way will you go?

Question :  Do you need a prayer partner, mentor or close friend to help you stay "on course" for God? I encourge you to seek out the help you need, as a life that is anchored in Christ, is a life with a purpose, secured and protected.

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Transforming Prayers

Have you ever had a week that has just gone from bad to worse?  And you've thought, things couldn't get any more awful?  That was my week last week.  It began with the news of a loved one dying and spending time with family at the funeral, to my youngest daughter getting a chest infection and then my other daughter having an anaphylaxis reaction requiring and epipen injection and a trip in the ambulance.   And I'm left asking myself, what more can I take Lord?


I am not the only one who has felt times when life gives you curve balls leaving you feeling numb and hurt.  The anguish of our hearts during times of grief and pain can be indescribable.  But they can be expressed to the Lord.    David wrote many prayers from an anguished heart to the Lord.  In fact David shows us how it is done in Psalm 22.  He starts off asking Why? Why? Why?

My God, my God, why have you forsaken me?
Why are you so far from saving me,
so far from my cries of anguish?
My God, I cry out by day, but you do not answer,
by night, but I find no rest. (Psalm 22:1-2)

Interestingly, David stops to remind himself of what the Lord has done for Israel. Rather than continuing on that thread of where is God, he deliberately puts his eyes onto God.

Yet you are enthroned as the Holy One;
you are the one Israel praises.
In you our ancestors put their trust;
they trusted and you delivered them.
To you they cried out and were saved;
in you they trusted and were not put to shame. (Psalm 22:3-5)

David again cries out to God about what is happening to him, pouring his specific concerns out to God.

But I am a worm and not a man,
scorned by everyone, despised by the people.
All who see me mock me;
they hurl insults, shaking their heads.
“He trusts in the LORD,” they say,
“let the LORD rescue him.
Let him deliver him,
since he delights in him.” (Psalm 22:6-8)

Again David stops and remembers what the Lord has been for him.

Yet you brought me out of the womb;
you made me trust in you, even at my mother’s breast.
From birth I was cast on you;
from my mother’s womb you have been my God. (Psalm 22:9-10)

Notice how David consciously brings his thoughts back to God.  We see again in verses 12-21 David expressing his deep distress to God using metaphors to portray the attacks from his enemies and his inner sense of powerlessness under their fierce attacks. But in verses 22-31 we witness a change in David's prayer, he's praising God!  How is that possible?  It's possible because David never loses sight of who God is and his love for those who fear him and call on his name.

The transformation of David's prayer from cries to praise comes from remembering who God is, what he has done and the trust in his certainty of deliverance and in God keeping his promises. Remember that David's praise to God is in anticipation of God's deliverance. David's situation hasn't changed but his attitude and perspective has shifted, enabling him to praise God, and acknowledge the universal rule of God, "All the ends of the earth will remember and turn to the LORD, and all the families of the nations will bow down before him, for dominion belongs to the LORD and he rules over the nations.(Psalm 22:27-28).  As David prays his fear is dissolved as he remembers the power of God and his character.

I just love this prayer as it shows me how I can express my deepest hurts to God when times are hard and also how prayer changes my eyes from being focused on me to being focused on God and who he is, enabling me to praise him during hard times.

So as we go on with life let us focus our attention on who God is and his promises as revealed to us in scripture, as God's word is the anchor to our souls, keeping us firm and secure no matter our circumstances.  That's not easy,  but it is worth it.  

  

Question: When things go bad, what is your response?

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