A New Thing

For I am about to do something new.

    See, I have already begun! Do you not see it?

I will make a pathway through the wilderness.

    I will create rivers in the dry wasteland. Isaiah 43:19

God is about to do a new thing. Are you ready for it? Are you prepared? For years we have been praying for Revival. The 1960s were before my time so I have never seen this Revival everyone longs for and prays for. What I do pray for is the new thing that God is about to do and I do feel that it has already begun and that once it gains momentum it will be upon us before we can even utter the word Revival.

In 2014 at a conference in Pukekohe New Zealand, I had a vision of Ancient doors about to burst forth. The light shining from the door was blinding and it got brighter and brighter until the doors burst open. I drew this vision and got given confirmation of my vision when a guest speaker stood up and spoke my vision out word for word. This started my calling to art and creativity.
A year later I received a vision of a shofar horn which I drew. When the Shofar is heard it is a call to repentance or a call to arms. It heralds and it calls and it rallies.

Over the years I have drawn and written many things that God has spoken to me such as Monarch Butterflies and swords. The one about the sword came when I realised that the sword was the shape of a cross and that my cross the I was to carry was not a burden but a weapon. The sword of the Spirit would be what I would use. My testimony and what God has done would be the thing that brought the enemy down. I have been seeing others draw these visions too. One I stumbled upon was a beautiful painting of the Ancient doors I had a vision of but from a different view point. I was seeing the doors burst open but from within the doors and there stood Jesus blowing a Shofar with a sword before Him. Jesus was about to walk through the Ancient doors that had burst forth.

Why I am sharing this with you is because I feel this new thing is going to come through the renaissance of art. God is raising up an army of artists. 20 years ago there were only a few artists here and there and it was very rarely seen in the church. The most art you saw was in the form of flags, dancing and music. Music has come a long way and so has dance. God has used new ways of expressions of music and dance. We are no longer only allowed to use a Church Organ on a Sunday we can use electric guitars, violins, drums, bass. We jump around dance and we sing loud and joyful songs to the Lord. Our expression has changed. The past wasn't wrong. Hymns are beautiful and they still hold power but with a new generation comes a new song. A new sound. I new thing.

So when we speak in tongues and prophesy and the Holy Spirit moves, where is the Art? Where are the paintings. The churches used to have stained glass windows and the ceilings and walls were painted. The floors were even beautifully done.
We are missing the art and the artist. We are missing the sculptors, painters, designers, decorators, florists, creators, innovators and the list goes on.

Social Media is so popular because this generation is a visual generation. Messages are processed quicker visually than they are verbally. They say a picture is worth a thousand words and it is true. One picture can convey a message to me in a flash whereas if I were to describe that picture in my head it would take a while to express it quickly.

This is what I wrote in my journal on the 27th October 2019:

"New revival is coming from the most unlikely sources. Squash those people who don't fit in your box and you will squash the revival you were praying for.
Speak negatively about art and creativity and you will stay stagnant. New Revival is coming in the form of a Renaissance renewal of art and innovation. Creativity is being released now as it was released over Bezalel. God is pouring out the Holy Spirit on all people to dream and see visions of all the things and systems they will create."

It is time to go deeper. Deeper in the Lord yes and deeper into how God sees His Creation.

Let the Creative people in. Do not be afraid. God knows what He is doing. But pray because this new thing although driven by God is also being attacked daily by the enemy. Depression. loneliness, discouragement, hopelessness and suicide are attacking creative people.

There are people who are going to come out of this new thing that will have genius ways of thinking. They will out think and out create even Leonardo Da Vinci and Albert Einstein. The dreams that they will dream the visions they will see will astound the world. Pray for them and don't miss this new thing by expecting it to come in a way that you have seen it in the past. Although all the signs were there people missed the coming of the Messiah because they were expecting something different.

 This new thing will be as crazy as rivers in the desert and paths in the wilderness.

Go to the Mountain

Flee to the mountains or you will be swept away!
Genesis 19:15-26

In Genesis we read of the destruction of Sodom and Gomorrah. Abraham asks God to spare Lot and his family and God agrees and send angels to rush Lot out of the city so that it can be destroyed.
Once out of the city the angels tell Lot, his wife and two daughters to flee for the lives, not to stop and not to look back but to flee to the mountains. Lot then pleads with the angels to let him go to a small town off in the distance instead because he felt he might be overtaken by the destruction and would die.

Lot chose a small town with very few people, over a mountain. How many times do we do that in our own lives? We choose the small and manageable over the huge and risky. We choose things just within easy reach rather than something that will take more effort and take longer.

Lot not only chose a town not very far from Sodom but one that he could see in the distance from outside of Sodom which meant that his view of Sodom would be plainly seen from the town. We too tend to move just far enough away to still see the past. We glance back on it and sometimes even long for the days gone by. Like the Israelite's in the desert who fled the Egyptian's slavery. They too thought going back was preferable. I get it. When things get tough the past always looks better. Transition and change can be unsettling and we feel uncomfortable so we feel that maybe it would be better if we went back because at least it was familiar.

What would happen if we fled to the mountains?
 Psalm 121 Says: I lift up my eyes to the mountains.
Where does my help come from?
My help comes from the Maker of Heaven and Earth.
He will not let your foot slip
he who watches over you will not slumber;
indeed, he who watches over Israel
 will neither slumber nor sleep
The Lord watches over you
 the Lord is your shade at your right hand;
the sun will not harm you by day,
nor the moon by night.
The lord will keep you from all harm
he will watch over you life;
the Lord will watch over your coming and going
both now and forevermore.

When we lift up our eyes to the mountains we change our perspective from the small things in our lives to how big God is. He was not going to lead Lot out of Sodom and only protect him as far as a small town. The Lord even sent angels to protect him and lead him out but he thought that he would die on the way to the mountain. When God tells you to go His plans will work out for the good. He doesn't tell you to change without a plan. You see Lot was seeing on a one dimensional plain. He saw the small picture. Had he gone to the mountain his perspective would've been greater.
In the natural we like things to be rational. We see with limited sight. When we change how we see from the natural to the spiritual we see differently. Things will be three dimensional.

Lot's wife did not have a very good ending for when she and Lot arrived in the small town she looked back longingly at Sodom being destroyed and she turned into a pillar of salt. Sodom was not a very nice place at all. It was a place filled with lawlessness and so much so that Abraham struggled to find anyone that was holy in even a small way. When we look back and long for what was, we can become hardened and bitter. Things don't always work out as we had planned. The past can be hurtful. It can hold some fond memories even. Though to grow we need to move forward and leave the past where it is. Paul says in Hebrews 12:1-3 that we are to throw off anything that hinders us and run with perseverance the race that has been been marked out for us and fix our eyes on Jesus, who is our rock and strong mountain.

Can I encourage you today that if you are struggling with your past, I know it isn't easy to let go. The pull of who we were can be so strong but it is not impossible. We just need to resolve that the past is not in itself bad but longing for its return is not a good idea because it keeps us stuck in the small places. When we shake off the past that is hindering us we step into big places filled with promise and purpose. When we are in the mountains we go up a level, we look down on our past from a bigger perspective and it becomes small in the distance. When we have different perspective on our past we can see the bigger plan. When we are too close to our past we cannot see the big picture.
God is all about the big picture and He uses the things we learn in our past to serve our future and help others run the race marked out for them. That is why we do not run this race alone.

Maybe it is time for you to leave your past in the past and embrace a new future. God will use your past for the good but let God use your past, don't work it out on your own. Maybe it is a sin that you cannot shake or a hurt that constantly reminds you of an event. Step out and flee to the big spaces of the mountain. God will not leave you or forsake you. You will not die but you will live to run the most amazing race that He has marked out just for you.

Father thank you that you have so much more planned for us than our small minds can imagine. Help us to embrace your big plan for our lives even when it is scary and we are unable to comprehend it. We trust that You will guide us through just as You have done so many times before for us and others who have gone before us.  Amen

Why Have I Been so Quiet?

Noticeably I have not posted much here. The reason being is not so much that I have been busy but more like life just being hard in general. I do feel like things have turned a corner, whether I continue to post again here or start another blog is up in the air at the moment.

I am currently studying Interior Decor full-time and am looking at obtaining a Diploma in Interior Design studying part-time somehow next year while hopefully working as well.
I have been updating on Instagram and Facebook the things I have been doing in my course and what I get up to if there is anything interesting. You can search for my profiles using the username thecreativekiwigirl.

It was maybe a bit of a spur of the moment decision to start studying. I wanted to get some sort of qualification but I wanted to be something I would enjoy doing without squashing my creativity. Also it needed to be correspondence so I didn't have to travel to study.

I had sometimes thought about interior design as being something I was interested in doing for myself. I wanted so badly to own my own home and do it up all lovely but we were mostly in houses that weren't ours and then when we did own our own home we were strapped for cash and had to make do with what we had.

Doing this course has helped me see what the past season was all about. The things I have learned from seeking out knowledge and improving my art, my love for geometry in school, getting more confident in drawing and seeing things differently than I used to, scrapbooking which involved a lot of mounting of photographs and presentation techniques, to my love for colour and textiles and Victorian buildings and other historical buildings. It is all tying itself up in this neat little bow. This course is like a bridge between the old season and the new season, a hand hold between the old me and the new me.
Not only am I enjoying this course, even though it is a stretching experience and having to send out assignments every 2 weeks is crazy, I am acing it. At school I was mostly scraping by on about an average mark. Once or twice I have managed a high grade but really I scraped through high school. This course however, the marks are crazy good and I am simply enjoying being a perfectionist. Well not simply because it isn't simple but I am having fun and I am not even board. I can even see myself working in an actual job doing this everyday.

At the moment I am unable to write here as much and I haven't really known what to write or even if what I was going through was really something I wanted to share. When I am through this time and I can see above the clouds again I will start writing again but for now I will be posting on my A Walk of Faith and Trust facebook page with some verses and positive motivation for you all.

Build Up and Encourage

Don’t let anyone think less of you because you are young. Be an example to all believers in what you say, in the way you live, in your love, your faith, and your purity.

1 Timothy 4:12

The biggest part of being a leader is to teach. If you don’t think you are a teacher you are fooling yourself. You are teaching every day to those around you even if you don’t realise it. Some mistakes I have seen repeatedly in my life is not letting people you are leading fail. And when they fail not giving them constructive feedback or helping them grow. How fair is it to expect someone giving it a go to be perfect and succeed the first time.  Encourage, teach, give positive feedback and allow people to succeed in their failure. Give them second and tenth chances. So many people have given up because of the one chance they had that they blew and then never got chosen again.

It is like that one child that wants to play sports but isn’t as great at the rest but you stick him on the side-lines because he is no good. Does he learn to play that way? NO! You work with him and give him a little extra help and you believe that he can do it. You echo his dream and build him up to meet it. You allow the team to build him up to and you don’t treat him like a failure you treat him like a learner.

Failure and mistakes needs to be called learning because that is what it is. Learning because you don’t know how to do it yet but as you go and you see others do it you try and you try again and again until you have learned it and you have grown and embraced your dream and it is now a reality.

Come on people. The reason why we have a world full of people who have buried dreams is because no one believed in them. They blew their one chance and were never asked again. They failed which means they were gifted or talented enough for their dream. Disqualified by lack of faith and unbelief.

We need to trust people more and see their lives as an expression of the Creator. God made them and put that dream in them. He has given them that desire. Why not build each other up? Why not encourage and allow people to learn in their failure? Let God deal with the character and attitudes. Life will teach you enough without you jumping on everyone’s failures and faults.

People are painfully aware of their faults and the things they hate about themselves. Why add to that? Why point out failures when we were called to love each other and build each other up and teach, encourage, prophecy, edify and pastor? Be very careful who you criticise and belittle because that person has a call on their lives and could be on the verge of quitting for good. They may just have been criticising themselves for 10 year and your words could bring confirmation or it could break that mindset and spur them on to good works.

For years we have tried to control behaviour. Punishing people for their misdeeds and for stepping out of line. A world of rules and regulations that were meant to serve us has now only enslaved our minds and hearts. We have brought the lie into our lives that we are guilty until we are proven innocent. Yes there are some real criminals out there and my heart really breaks for those hearts that have been so hardened that they no longer feel anything for anyone and killing and harming is sport to them. We can only guess the reasons why they turned bad. I don’t feel like they were destined to be destructive and I think maybe the opposite was true that if they didn’t go very very mad then they may have been the very very best thing that happened to this world and maybe the enemy knew this and circumstances took over. It is just terrible seeing God’s creation broken and not functioning as it should. However let’s not treat each other as criminals first until they prove themselves.

We are desperate for unity in the church but can I suggest that we stop trying to hustle unity and start working from unity. We are all one in Christ, brothers and sisters, family. We already in unity. It isn’t something we need to attain but it is something we need to live.

Why do you think Timothy was told not to let people look down on him for his youth? It doesn’t matter how old you are there is always someone older than you, looking down on you and ready to either teach you or discourage you. Which are you going to be? There is always someone younger than you, looking up to you to see if you will be open to teach or open to judgement.

How will you teach and treat those around you today? Remember that God is judge and we are called to love Him and others as we love ourselves.

Challenge: Build up and encourage 3 people this week. Note the difference it makes in their lives and see if they grow more and step out a little bit more and become more courageous and brave. Come on you would want someone to do that for you too so why not let it start with you and maybe they will pay it forward.

Identity Theft

So God created human beings in his own image.

    In the image of God he created them;

    male and female he created them.

Genesis 1:27

We have all heard about identity theft. Where someone takes your details and tries to palm them off as their own. A person assumes your name and your identity is stolen and you are left feeling stripped of who you are.

What I am wanting to talk about today is another form of identity theft that is happening every moment of the day without you even being aware of it.
It may start off with being born a girl when your parents wanted a boy. It may be that you are teased and bullied at school and called names and mocked. Maybe you are have reached puberty and no longer know who you are anymore. You could be struggling with what gender you feel you belong to. You may be depressed and the words that are playing over and over in your head are not ones that you would say to anyone else ever.

Identity can be stolen from you through words and thoughts and unless you are aware of it you are fairly powerless to stop it but I am here to tell you that you are being lied to and robbed and that you are not powerless.

The enemy has been wanting to steal the identity away from mankind since the day they were created. When he lied to Adam and Eve in the garden of Eden he took their identity into question. Mankind was made in the image of God and yet that snake decided to twist and distort this. He said to them that they won't die if they ate from the tree of good and evil but that God was holding from them that they would be godlike when they ate of it and that their eyes would be opened. Funny things they were already made in the image of God so they were already godlike. They could've asked anything from God and they even walked with God in the Garden. What happened instead was a real struggle for identity. Instead of finding themselves they found shame and they covered themselves and hid. They were so stripped of identity that they were too afraid to face God who not long before they had walked with and spoken to.

What is robbing you of your identity? What lies have been whispered into your ear? Who stuck that label on you? Do you not know that you are created in the image of God and that you are worth so much more than these words and labels that have been stuck on you.

I know it is so much easier to tell you to just shake it off than it is to actually do it. Believe me I have had so much of my identity attacked that I sometimes wonder how I am still standing but God.

The only way to understand your identity is to look to the one who gave it to you. The one who created you and made you awesome. He didn't just create us to look like just anything like the monsters on Monsters Inc, some fluffy, some with 2 eyes and some with 5 and scaly. He made us in human form to resemble Himself. If anyone knows what your identity is it is the one who gave it to you.

It so annoys the enemy that you have this identity that he will try and do whatever he can to corrupt it before you can even step out into the fullness of it. He knows that once you know your true identity you will be unstoppable and you won't be able to be lied to anymore. There is a battle for you mind and soul whether you like it or not and it isn't going to take might or power to overcome it but the truth of the Holy Spirit. You can not will it away and you cannot fight it in your own strength you need to look to your Creator and who he says you are. Then and only then can you be ready to face these issues.

You can't fight a lie with will power. They only way a lie can die is if we know the truth. Only then can we truly be free.

In the past the church have been really quick to judge those who have been stolen from. People have been using fig leaves, dirt, alcohol, drugs, anger and fear to hide their shame for thousands of years. There truly is nothing new under the sun. All have been lied to and those that believe the lie repeat the lie over and over in their minds every day. We will do whatever we can to get our identity back. We will starve ourselves and mutilate our bodies and even go as far as to end our own lives. We even try and get out identity from others or groups and gangs, all because we do not grasp the wonderful miracles that we are.

What are some of the things that you have believed that aren't true? Seek the truth at the Source of your identity and believe no longer the lies of the enemy because he only comes to steal, kill and destroy but Jesus came to give us a rich and satisfying life. You were never made to live a broken and unfulfilled life. You were created for great things. Time to rise up and find the treasure that is buried under all the lies. You have gold within you just waiting to be found.

If your identity is in Christ then live like it. God has showed us how to put on the whole armour to fend off this attack on our identity. But don't stop there show others how God sees them. Stop judging the external garbage people are doing. Love who God created them to be.
I watched Wonder Woman last week and her final words were "It's about what you believe. And I believe in love. Only love will truly save the world."

It is about what you believe and I believe in the greatest love. That the Father so loved us that He gave His only Son to die for us so that we may be reconciled to Him in our full identities. No more shame that we need to cover up. I believe in this love and it is only this love that can truly save the world. It is time to take our identities back and love the world as Christ loves.

True Colours

 We now have this light shining in our hearts, but we ourselves are like fragile clay jars containing this great treasure. This makes it clear that our great power is from God, not from ourselves. 2 Corinthians 4:7

Then, by the will of God, I will be able to come to you with a joyful heart, and we will be an encouragement to each other. Romans 15:32

The other day my husband and I decided to surprise our 4 daughters and take them to see the new Trolls movie. WARNING: There may be a few spoilers even though I tried not to.

There were a few things that were a bit dodgy in it but overall I enjoyed the message.

The Trolls are super happy all the time so much so that the always sad Burgens (huge ogery type characters) think that to become happy that they need to consume a Troll to be happy. They create a holiday called Trollstice and on that day they have a Troll feast.

Without giving too much away and then spoiling the movie for you, the overall message is that happiness is inside of every one of us. We do not need to consume to be happy. It doesn’t come by external means.

I thought about how so many people think that when they buy this thing or that thing then they will be happy. When they have that thing they aren’t truly satisfied. The Burgens thought that by swallowing a Troll that this would make them happy and it did for a while, until they needed their next fix of Troll.

Sometimes we can feel very unhappy and really sad and slip into depression. It is very difficult to get out of it.

One of the Trolls had something traumatic happen to him the result is a rather paranoid and grey looking Troll that doesn’t give hugs and doesn’t dance or sing. He is about as unhappy as a Burgen.

His other friends help him and get him to talk about his problems and he then gets shown how to be happy again. How to find that happiness that was buried and hidden away.

Later on the Trolls lose their happiness and turn grey and sad. The once unhappy Troll then sings True Colours.

You with the sad eyes
Don't be discouraged
Oh I realize
It’s hard to take courage
In a world full of people
You can lose sight of it all
And the darkness inside you
Can make you feel so small

But I see your true colors
Shining through
I see your true colors
And that's why I love you
So don't be afraid to let them show
Your true colors
True colors are beautiful
Like a rainbow

Show me a smile then
Don't be unhappy, can't remember
When I last saw you laughing
If this world makes you crazy
And you've taken all you can bear
You call me up
Because you know I'll be there

And I'll see your true colors
Shining through
I see your true colors
And that's why I love you
So don't be afraid to let them show
Your true colors
True colors are beautiful
Like a rainbow

Having friends around you that can help you up when you are down and have lost your happiness is very important. I know that we don’t always feel like we have friends when we are depressed. The world becomes this small dark place.

Happiness. What is happiness really? We have happiness that comes from something funny that we saw or heard. We have happiness that makes us feel good for a bit until a new emotion hits like sadness. The one I am talking about is that state of being that trumps any other emotion. Joy. I know I have written about joy before and I am still trying to figure it out. But one thing I know is that joy is always there. I always have access to joy. I never have to eat a troll or buy a new handbag to get joy.

Life overcomes us though and sometimes we need a friend to come beside us and remind us where to find our joy maybe even remove the darkness that is blocking our joy.

Truth is we need friends in our lives. We need people praying for us and not judging us. People who don’t attack the way you act but who call out the joy. People who can see past the façade and who see the hurt and try and hug it away and take us by both hands and pull us out. People who will fight for us.

Grief, loss, shame, hurt, guilt. Some of the worst feelings in the world. They tangle through our very being. They pull at who we are and try and unravel us. They leave us in a state of depression that we feel we will never escape from. Just when we thought we had reached a point where we have them dealt with we round a corner and they are there ready to assault us again.

Grief. A feeling that sits under the surface of your every day. You never know when it will come to the surface. Maybe a memory, a smell, a favourite flower. Sometimes in the quietness of the night. It sneaks up and pounces and goes through your heart and up out of your eyes in floods of tears. When it has been around a while it doesn’t come out in floods, it ends up sitting like a lump in your chest, refusing to move.

Loss. Similar to grief but disguises itself as something innocent but really it is fuel for grief. Loss reminds you. Loss tells you, you are alone. It tells you that you will never love again. You will never open your heart again. Loss breaks your heart and tells you it will never be mended.

Shame. Shame is that little creature that lives on your shoulder telling you that you are a terrible person for feeling bad and not knowing how to act properly. Shame tars your soul. It moves in and makes itself comfortable in the guise of self-improvement. Shame confuses and blinds. It steals your identity and robs you of your joy.

Hurt. Cuts deep. It aches and bleeds. Hurt leaves you gasping for air as it tries to expand in your chest. Unable to contain it you think you may burst, until you do and tears flow. Hurt is messy. It never puts on a well contoured, bronzed make-up tutorial with winged eyeliner. Instead it stirs up anger. It stirs up moods you didn’t even think were possible to express before. It makes you less likely to trust again and twists your view on reality. Something someone did or said will replay over and over in your mind and hurt comes back to remind you.

Guilt. Justified or unjustified, guilt is the knife that stabs you in the back. Guilt shouts ‘If only you…’ If only you had not done that or said that. If only you had it all together and you weren’t such a mess. If only you had told them you loved them one last time. If only you had gone and seen your friend that day. If only you hadn’t left them alone that day. If only. Guilt attacks your mind making you feel like you aren’t acceptable. Like you aren’t good enough.

Grief, Loss, Shame, Hurt and Guilt are deadly. There is no overnight cure. It takes time to work through these emotions. There is forgiveness. Forgiving yourself and others. But it is a process. Sometimes it needs to be a daily decision to forgive. There are times when you forgive and that is it you move on but when it is 3 degrees deep even surgeons know that you need to add extra stitches on each layer and then there is still the healing after. Some hurt, grief, shame, guilt and loss are not superficial. It can be layers and layers going deep down.

How do we heal these wounds? I found the only way is time, love and understanding. Not everyone knows or can know what you are going through just like you don’t know what others are going through but with a dose of compassion and genuinely caring for the other person you can dive into those dark places and bring hope to a dark situation.

God heals the brokenhearted and binds up their wounds. He brings healing and He knows the best way to do the surgery that is needed. His hands are skilled at removing dead tissue and cleaning wounds from infection.

I know that in my own attempt to fix someone’s problems I have gone in with a spoon and tried to dig the hurt out of them. Like a bull in a china shop I have done more harm than good. Had I just shown love and looked passed the person’s anger or frustration. Had I look at the heart as God does and seen the hurt buried deep in their eyes, the grief that has lined their face and the heavy load on their backs. Get alongside people and help them up so they can see clearly. Find the gold inside and let it shine brighter than the ties that bind.

We all just want to be happy and have joy. Some have just been on a journey that has smothered this. That is why God gave us each other. To encourage when shame takes seat. To hug when grief leaves you speechless. To fill the gap loss has left. To bring hope when hurt has harmed and to absolve when guilt accuses.

Why I am all for Choice

“Today I have given you the choice between life and death, between blessings and curses. Now I call on heaven and earth to witness the choice you make. Oh, that you would choose life, so that you and your descendants might live! 20 You can make this choice by loving the Lord your God, obeying him, and committing yourself firmly to him. This is the key to your life. And if you love and obey the Lord, you will live long in the land the Lord swore to give your ancestors Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob.”

Deuteronomy 30:19-20

I have been meaning to write this for awhile. It is a sensitive topic in a way and not one I take lightly. I don't wish to condemn anyone. That is not my intention. This post is not only about this one choice but also about the other choices we make in life.

You could say I am pro-choice however I am not pro-abortion. I am pro-life. I am not against the fact that you have the right to make a choice. We all do and that is how God created us. He created us with the ability to make choices to decide for ourselves.

In order for us to understand this gift of choice we need to first understand who God is.

Firstly God is Love. Love is free and cannot be demanded. God gave us a choice to love Him. He has the power to demand that we love Him but He understands that love is far better and more genuine when given freely. He loves is freely and unconditionally so when we mess up He still loves is because His love is not based on good behaviour. I love my children even when they mess up. I love them freely and they love me freely in return. I have never needed to demand that they love me. I wonder what would happen in our relationship with our Heavenly Father when we really understand His love for us and return it freely.
What would happen if we chose to love others the way God loves them, freely and without strings.

Secondly God is forgiving. He has already forgiven every one of our sins the moment Jesus took them upon Himself on that cross. Every single one of your sins. It doesn't matter how terrible or how small. We have been given a choice to forgive. We can choose to harden our hearts toward a person and suffer the consequences of unforgiveness or we can choose to forgive those who wrong us. Sometime that choice can take time and sometimes you will need to make that choice everyday until you come to a point where you have given it completely over. But you can make that choice. It is healthy for you to forgive and that is why we have been given that choice but again it is not forced upon us. We don't have to forgive but we need to forgive.

God is patient. He is so very patient with us. I am so in awe of how patient He has been and still is with me. He was patient with Moses and the Israelites for 40 years in the desert. If that were me I would probably not have been that patient after one year. Again we have been given a choice to be patient. We have been given the choice to throw a tantrum or to be patient with others. Often we look at others sins that they have been walking into over and over again and we get impatient with them while we with our so called minor sins continue to do the same. Going down the same road over and over. The same choices over and over. Patience with each other and our own individual journeys without judgement when we do not know the full story and we have not walked in the same shoes as another. Patience is a choice. If God has freely given us a choice of patience it is because He knows it is something we are capable of,

I could go on for days with who God is and I encourage you to look in your Bible for yourself all the things that God is and what He isn't.

The point is we have the choice to choose how we live our lives. We have God's Word that shows us how to live our best life. Choosing to love, forgive, be patient, extend grace, use our bodies wisely, be kind, care for our bodies and care for those who we have in our lives.

Some choices are easier than others to make. Loving my children is easy. Loving people who are nice to me is easy.
Then there are the not so easy decisions. Quitting smoking. Quitting a sugar addiction. Quitting drugs, alcohol. Choosing to abstain from sex, Choosing to wait for marriage. Choosing life. Choosing not to end a life.

Making these choices are not easy but they are possible. If they were not possible they would not have been given to us as a choice.

God has set before us the choice of life or death. He hasn't done that to be mean. He has done this because He loves us and wants us to freely choose Him. Without choices we are only mindless robots that do whatever God says. No one wants to be in a relationship where we have no choice. A lot of people are in these kinds of controlling situations and we protest this kind of oppression.

Choice is a gift.

So this why I am all for choice. But I do not feel that it is God's nature that He is happy with the choice we make to end human life. He forgives the choices we make that go against His best for us but for our own good and for our own health it is wise to choose the best choices for our lives.

People in my life have chosen to end their own lives. That choice did not only affect them but it affected everyone around them.
I could've chosen many times to end my life when I went through depression. I thought about it more times than I care to admit. It felt like the easy choice at the time. The harder choice was to fight for my life and do everything possible to get out of that hole. Relying heavily on God during this time was the best choice. Not easy but the best choice. There are times when the battle is to hard for people and it can send them over the edge and put them in a hole the will not survive. What happens in this is case is between them and God but He is a loving God and He looks at the condition of our hearts. He is compassionate to the broken.

A friend of min Kirk and his wife went through a pregnancy that made his wife very ill. Watch their story here. Instead of aborting their baby, they chose, despite the circumstances to trust God and go through with their pregnancy regardless of the outcome.

I have never had to make the choice to let my child live or die so you probably think that I don't have the right to judge and you would be right. I don't judge your choices but I am concerned because I only want the very best for you. I want you to get the very best out of this life.

Sometimes the hardest choices to make are the best choices. They build character and make us better people. Maybe the very thing you have struggled with and have overcome may be the very thing someone else needs to hear and be encouraged by.

Again I am not here to condemn you but to encourage you to hear God when it comes to making choices. Look to Him and not the circumstances. Circumstances today won't be the same in years to come. Life keeps on moving. New choices to make come up everyday. If you seek wisdom to make these choices you only need to ask God.

So what if you have lived a life of one bad choice after another? Well the beauty of God is that He is also a God of Redemption. He forgives your sins but doesn't leave you as you are. He always leaves you better than you are. He created you to be a whole and unique being and that is how He sees you and what Jesus came to do was to redeem your life to restore you to the person you were created to be.
But God uses everything. He turns all things to the good. What you struggle through and overcome He will use to help someone else who needs it.
You are not a lost cause. You are not beyond redemption. You do not to be perfect before you come to Him. You just need to freely choose to hand all your choices over to Him understanding that He desires the best life for you. He loves you and wants to have a relationship with you if you would only choose Him and invite Him into your life and every choice you make.