Threes

What do they say about threes?
That God always speaks in them?? Nope...I think the only reason we hear things 3 times from God is because we are either hard of hearing or slow learners. How wonderful that He's a God who speaks loudly...when He needs to....and is extremely patient.


Well life had been going along so well. I thought I had the routines and functions of a Mum down pat. That was until mid-week last week when disaster hit. Sparing you the gory details, I will simply say, breastfeeding is not as nice as it used to be.
Meanwhile, the emotions started going haywire thanks to the pain and subsequent sleeplessness and I found myself upset, questioning and doubting and poor old J found himself with a whinging, sooky wife.

Then God spoke.....3 times in 3 days. And as per usual, He was creative in how He spoke....it was of course, in 3 different ways. And yet the 3 different messages, all interlink. How like Him to take the random, lose ends of thoughts and ideas and tie them up nicely so they make sense.

1. As I was driving in the car I had the Christian radio station on (Go Rhema!) and an oldie but a goodie came on. The lyrics are: "I love You, all of my hope is in You....Jesus Christ take my life, take all of me..." WHAM! I heard God. He was saying, "Get your focus right my girl. Look at me, love me, trust me and you'll know hope. And hope is what you need right now....the hope for healing and a better day tomorrow. Give your life, including your pain and doubt to Jesus. Give Him your emotions, your attitudes, your thoughts and let Him give His to you. Instead of doubt, know belief. Instead of despair, hope. Instead of unrest, peace." I sang along with that song with great gusto, making it my prayer...albeit a very loud and off key prayer!

2. My friend L has had her own struggles in recent times and she has been such a great encouragement to me. Through them, she has grown closer to God and in sharing some of that experience, she has been a challenge and a blessing. So one of the ways God has spoken to her was through Joyce Meyer's book 'Power Thoughts.' (L shared something of that book in last Friday's blog) I now have that book in my possession and as I read chapter one on my attitude...God spoke. The 5 rules Joyce presents about our thinking and more specifically our attitude, reminded me that in the midst of what's going wrong, I need to: maintain the right attitude when the going gets rough; realise the rough times won't last forever; stay in touch with God and try to keep things in perspective. (You can read Chapter 1 for yourself at Joyce's website.) All things I needed to hear and take the time to process and apply to how I was feeling and responding right then....and in the days since.

3. Sunday's sermon came from the story of the Israelites crossing into the Promised Land. The theme?....'Trust God.' Considering all that the Israelites had seen and experienced in the past 40 plus years, you'd have thought trusting God would be easy. Afterall, they'd been led by fire and cloud, rescued out of slavery, provided with food in most unusual ways, saved from charging Egyptians and the rest. But I guess I'm a lot like them really. I have seen and experienced God doing great things and also working in small, quiet ways. Firsthand, I know Him to be good and faithful. So I need to TRUST Him in all my days, but especially the ones that are difficult.

So 3 words....HOPE, ATTITUDE, TRUST. May they be a reminder to you and me both that God IS alive...He IS good (all the time)...He IS faithful.....He DOES love us.....He IS working things for our good. Hey! That's 5 things! Yep, that's God...He exceeds all our expectations. I'm so glad!