Creating yourself

Strengths & Struggles

I read the following from Boyd Bailey's "Wisdom Hunters" and it seemed to follow on so well from my post "Live Creatively". I have included it here in full and acknowledge the inspirational writings of Boyd Bailey.

“We have different gifts, according to the grace given us.” Romans 12:6a
Know and understand your strengths, for it is best to behave how God created you. By God’s grace, He places within you giftedness to carry out His plan. This is called your core competency. You may be a gifted leader, so lead. You may be a gifted coach, so coach. You may be a gifted counselor, so counsel. You may be a gifted administrator, so administer.

You may be a gifted networker, so network.
You may be a gifted writer, so write. You may be a gifted teacher, so teach. You may be a gifted servant, so serve. You may be a gifted artist, so create. You may be a gifted communicator, so communicate.
There is a long menu of gifts, and you probably resemble several of them. Study your gifts, and you will discover your strengths.

Become comfortable with and accept the one thing you do naturally. It is effortless because God has engineered you for this. He gave you the skills and abilities to innovate, create, and produce these desired outcomes. However, make sure you do not confuse passion with strength. If you have the passion to speak, it is imperative you at least have the raw skill for speaking. Many of the technicalities of communication can be learned, but don’t try to make yourself become someone you’re not.

Synergy for life and work come as you align passions and strengths. Take the time to understand what you do best and where you have the most energy, and then position your responsibilities at home and work to mirror that ideal. Do not be afraid to change and try new things. Ask others to validate what you do best. Ask those who know you well to affirm where they see your passion protrude. Then, prayerfully align around both.

You can know and understand your strengths by taking a spiritual gifts test, as this helps you define your God-given disposition. Take a personality assessment, for this helps you understand your temperament. Lastly, consider taking a psychological test, because this reveals your emotional intelligence and your leadership style. Be who God has made you to be, and you will be free.

Furthermore, embrace and celebrate your struggles. They keep you humble. Do not resist accepting your struggles; embrace them instead. Make your struggles your servant by allowing others to do much better what you can’t do. It is okay not to like details, but value them and those who manage them well. Your struggles beg the need for a team. It is in your struggles that you depend more on God and others.

So, be honest with yourself about what you don’t do well. Accept the fact that even though you want to do something, you don’t need to if others can do it better. They can free you to do only what you can do. Release your areas of mediocre effectiveness, as this gives others opportunities for excellence. Laugh at yourself, for this frees you from the tension of unrealistic expectations, and allows you to enjoy life.

You are a valued member in the Body of Christ. “The body is a unit, though it is made up of many parts; and though all its parts are many, they form one body. So it is with Christ. For we were all Taken from the September 10th reading in Boyd Bailey’s Seeking Daily the Heart of God.

Live Creatively!

Live creatively, friends.....Make a careful exploration of who you are and the work you have been given, and then sink yourself into that. Don't be impressed with yourself. Don't compare yourself with others. Each of you must take responsibility for doing the creative best you can with your life. (Galations 6)

WHAT DOES IT MEAN TO "LIVE CREATIVELY"?

• Using our God-given gifts, talents and abilities.....stretching ourselves.....exercising them.....not squandering or neglecting them
• Staying connected in relationship with the great Creator, the One who is creative beyond my wildest imagination and allowing His creative "juices" flow through me and out of me as expressed in my unique abilities and talents.....His creative fingerprint on my life  
• Using our talents and abilities not only for selfish  pleasure and enjoyment.....using them in ways which we will not always fully comprehend or imagine to enrich the lives of others, and in the enriching reflect something of God's love and purpose for those who are touched by our lives, our talents, our actions
• In our creative living out of our passions and interests.....our desire should be a willingness to be used as God's available instruments in lovingly restoring people to Him.....sharing in the burdens (and easing those burdens) of those who are oppressed.....being generous in all that we have and are.....being sensitive to the needs of those with whom we come into daily contact.....LIVING OUT MY FAITH CREATIVELY!

Beyond doubt

I don't know what this day will bring

Will it be disappointing

Or filled with longed for things

I don't know what tomorrow holds

Still I know I can trust Your faithfulness

I don't know if these clouds mean rain

If they do will they pour down blessing or pain

I don't know what the future holds

Still I know I can trust Your faithfulness

Certain as the rivers reach the sea

Certain as the sunrise in the east

I can rest in Your faithfulness

Surer than a mother's tender love

Surer than the stars still shine above

I can rest in Your faithfulness

I don't know how much time is left

But in the end I will know Your faithfulness

When darkness overwhelms my soul

When thoughts are storms of doubt

Still I trust You are always faithful

Always faithful

(Brian Doerksen: "Your Faithfulness" from his album "You Shine")

You can be sure that God will take care of everything you need, His generosity exceeding even yours in the glory that pours from Jesus. (Philippians 4)

When things look bleak!

I am continually amazed and blessed at the timing of accurate and relevant words of encouragement for me...right now...where I am... in challenging circumstances. God knows!

Trusting Obedience

“He replied, ‘The man they call Jesus made some mud and put it on my eyes. He told me to go to Siloam and wash. So I went and washed, and then I could see.’” John 9:11

Some situations call for trusting obedience. You know what God is saying, but you are not sure of the “why” or the “how” behind His command. What He is asking you to do may be unprecedented. This may be your first time to follow Him in this fashion and, therefore, it is a little scary.

Some people have given you a hard time, and others think you are somewhat strange; but this is the nature of trusting obedience. You have limited understanding but you still trust God. Though you are unsure how He is going to provide, you trust that He will. And many times, “lo and behold,” His provision is more creative and thorough than you anticipated. This is the fruit of trusting obedience.

This is why God blesses trusting obedience. He knows your situation. He knows your heart. He knows your needs. He is the master at connecting your need with His provision. He uses unconventional means so that He is guaranteed to get the glory. Yes, you could make things happen. You could go into debt. You could manipulate a circumstance.

You could strong-arm a relationship. You could give up or not go there, but your impatience may rob you of God’s blessing. Be obedient and trust Him with what you know to do today. Do not be overwhelmed with tomorrow. Trust Him with today. Be obedient today and trust Him with tomorrow.

It is trusting obedience that opens our eyes to opportunities we never imagined. Satisfaction with conventional thinking may seem safer, but God’s will is never too risky. Following hard after God with trusting obedience is what keeps your faith fresh and on fire. Settling into a selective obedience produces a frigid faith that facilitates a boring, barren life with very little fruit that remains.

If God is telling you to leave, then leave. If God is telling you to stay, then stay. If God is telling you to give, then give. If God is telling you to serve, then serve. It is your trusting obedience that He blesses in spades. Fuel all your efforts by faith. This will stretch you and grow you. God may not show up until the last minute.

Others may criticize your God-sized mission and your faith-filled methods. Because of fear of your failure, friends may disassociate or distance themselves from you, but once they see God’s blessing and faithfulness, they will come out of hiding and attempt to ride the bandwagon.

Therefore, do not let the fickleness of people’s support dissuade you from trusting obedience. God is the one to whom you will ultimately give an account. As long as you can explain to God your actions, you are in a good position. If you disobey God, prepare for a severe judgment.

Followers of Jesus have tasted the fruit of trusting obedience. There is no reason to return to the wilderness of distrustful disobedience. Your trusting obedience may relate to money. Hold finances with an open hand and watch God work. Money can be God’s tool to facilitate His work, or it can be Satan’s obstacle that keeps you from trusting obedience.

Listen intently to the voice of Jesus, and then trust Him and do what He says. He has your best interest in mind. His intent is not harm but healing. Your trusting obedience will fuel the faith of others and bring glory to God. You are not alone. He is with you. You can trust Him with your obedience. Do what He says. Clarity and understanding follows trusting obedience. Trust and obey—this is His best way!

With grateful acknowledgement to Boyd Bailey’s "Wisdom Hunters" daily devotional.

Trust Me!

Denial & Despair

Catastrophe strikes and a person's world falls apart. People respond variously, but two of the more common responses are denial and despair.

Denial refuses to acknowledge the catastrophe. It shuts its eyes tight or looks the other way; it manages to act as if everything is going to be just fine; it takes refuge in distractions and lies and fantasies.

Despair is paralysed by the catastrophe and accepts it as the end of the world. It is unwilling to do anything, concluding that life for all its intents and purposes is over. Despair listlessly closes its eyes to a world in which all the colour has drained out, a world gone dead.

God works in catastrophe! Denial people refuse to see that catastrophe is in fact catastrophic. How could it be? God wouldn't let anything that bad happen to them?

Even in catastrophe, GOD IS AT WORK, sovereignly using the catastrophe. As difficult and stretching as it may be, we are able to embrace God in the worst of times.

The despair people, overwhelmed by devastation, refuse to see that life is worth living. How could it be? Everything may be lost and nothing appears worth living for anymore.

GOD IS AT WORK, even in the wreckage and rubble of life, sovereignly using the disasters in life to create new opportunities...new people.

Whether through denial or despair, God's people can emerge from catastrophe robust and whole.

(With acknowledgement: "The Message" by Eugene H. Peterson)

He (God) knows us far better than we know ourselves, knows our pregnant condition, and keeps us present before God. That's why we can be so sure that every detail of our lives of love for God is worked into something good.....I'm absolutely convinced that nothing.....absolutely nothing can get between us and God's love.....(Romans 8)

No coincidences!

Fame in obscurity

How They Found National Geographic's "Afghan Girl"

David Braun
National Geographic News

Updated March 7, 2003

This story was first published a year ago, in March 2002, when the National Geographic Society announced that the "Afghan Girl" had been found.
A National Geographic EXPLORER documentary airing in the United States on Sunday, March 9, 2003, tells the whole story, including an interview with Sharbat Gula.

She was one of the world's most famous faces, yet no one knew who she was. Her image appeared on the front of magazines and books, posters, lapel pins, and even rugs, but she didn't know it. Now, after searching for 17 years, National Geographic has once again found the Afghan girl with the haunting green eyes.  

The mysterious Afghan girl whose direct gaze has intrigued the West for so long is Sharbat Gula. She lives in a remote region of Afghanistan with her husband and three daughters.

Sharbat was located nearly two decades after her picture appeared on the cover of National Geographic magazine in 1985. She had no idea her face had become an icon, said Steve McCurry, the photographer who made the famous portrait for National Geographic in 1984, and who tried to find her again during many subsequent trips he made to Pakistan and Afghanistan.

McCurry's photo of the girl was selected as the cover of National Geographic 100 Best Pictures.

In January 2002, a National Geographic team returned to the Nasir Bagh refugee camp in Pakistan, where Sharbat Gula was originally photographed, to search for her. She was identified through a series of contacts that led to her brother and husband, who agreed to ask her if she was willing to be interviewed.

Sharbat has been photographed on only two occasions: in 1984 and at the reunion with Steve McCurry this year. She had never seen her famous portrait before it was shown to her in January.

"This is the face that so captivated not only National Geographic readers but also anyone who saw her image around the world," said Boyd Matson, host of the National Geographic television show EXPLORER, who was with the group that met with Gula.

"We've known her face, but we've not known her story, not even her name," he said.

Final Search

National Geographic set out to make one last concerted effort to find the "Afghan girl" before the refugee camp in Pakistan where she had last been seen was demolished.

From the camp, the trail wound through several villages and into at least one dead end, until someone recognized the girl on the cover of National Geographic and said he knew her brother.

"The second I saw the color of her brother's eyes, I knew we had the right family," said Matson.  

Because Sharbat Gula lives a traditional Muslim life behind the veil, she was not allowed to meet men outside her family. But the Geographic team was given permission to send a female associate producer to meet Sharbat and photograph her face.

Matson said that when he compared the photograph of the woman with that of the girl, he was certain it was the same person. "The irises of the eyes, the moles and scar on the face—all indicated this was the person we were looking for," he said.

Still, to make sure Sharbat Gula was the girl who had been photographed 17 years earlier, the EXPLORER team obtained verification through iris-scanning technology and face-recognition techniques used by the U.S. Federal Bureau of Investigation.

After Sharbat's family granted permission for her to meet with the man who photographed her 17 years ago, McCurry knew immediately, even after so many years, that he had found her again. "Her eyes are as haunting now as they were then," he said.

"She remembered me, primarily because she had never been photographed before I made the image of her in 1984, or since then," he said.

Sharbat Gula recalled the experience of being photographed as a child, she told McCurry, because she remembered how her head covering was full of holes after being scorched by a cooking fire.

When they met again, McCurry told Sharbat her image had become famous as a symbol of the Afghan people. "I don't think she was particularly interested in her personal fame," McCurry said. "But she was pleased when we said she had come to be a symbol of the dignity and resilience of her people."

The award-winning photographer said his original image of Sharbat had seized the imagination of so many people around the world because her face, particularly her eyes, expressed pain and resilience as well as strength and beauty.

Sharbat Tells Her Story

When Sharbat agreed to have her picture taken for the second time in her life, she came out from the secrecy of her veil to tell her story. She wanted the people around the world who knew her face to know that she survived the refugee camp in Pakistan.

She married and had four daughters, one of whom died in infancy. She lives in obscurity, according to the customs and traditions of her culture and religion.

A member of the Pashtun ethnic group in Afghanistan, Sharbat said she fared relatively well under Taliban rule, which, she feels, provided a measure of stability after the chaos and terror of the Soviet war.

According to Matson and McCurry, Sharbat Gula has returned to anonymity; the latest publicity about her name and face is unlikely to draw attention to her in Afghanistan. "She will not give another media interview and she wishes not to be contacted," Matson said. Her family has relocated to a different village in a remote part of Afghanistan, where she will continue to live her life in purdah, he added.

Asked if Sharbat would benefit financially from her famous image, Matson said she was "being looked after."

"Clearly she has become a symbol that National Geographic has used to illustrate the circumstances of refugees like her, and many people have inquired about her," he said. "She stood for an entire group of refugees, not just Afghan refugees. She has helped us with our mission of educating people about other cultures and regions—and she's helping us again by drawing attention to the lives of Afghan women and girls in general."

Because Sharbat Gula has come to symbolize the suffering of an entire generation of Afghan women and their children, the National Geographic Society is creating a special fund to assist in the development and delivery of educational opportunities for young Afghan women and girls. The Society will work with select nonprofit organizations and local authorities in the region to create the program.

Contributions can be made online to the National Geographic Afghan Girls Fund or by sending a check directly to the National Geographic Afghan Girls Fund, Development Office, National Geographic Society, 1145 17th Street N.W., Washington, D.C., 20036.

Sharbat Gula's life is the subject of the cover story in the April issue of National Geographic, and the process of finding her and verifying her identity is detailed in a television documentary from National Geographic EXPLORER, broadcast in the United States on MSNBC and internationally on the National Geographic Channel.

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  HOW WILL OUR LIVES STAND UP UNDER SCRUTINY?
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  WOULD WE BE WILLING TO SACRIFICE FAME FOR OBSCURITY?
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  WHO IS THE REAL ME...THE REAL YOU...BEHIND "THE FACE"?
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  WHEN PEOPLE WE KNOW SEE OUR PHOTOGRAPH OR HEAR OUR NAME A DECADE FROM NOW, WHAT IMAGE COMES TO MIND?...WHAT LEGACY ARE WE LEAVING BEHIND? 

Standing firm!

January 1879. A dusty oupost in a lonely, unknown part of southern Africa destined to become immortalised in the annals of military history. Men of the British Imperial Army, the 24th Regiment of Foot, fought for their lives against overwhelming odds as warriors of the Zulu army hurled themselves repeatedly against hastily constructed barricades and the thin red line of British pride. With nowhere to run, surrounded and desperate, they fought through the night...for their lives...for each other...for Empire. Modern weapons, training and discipline saw them through. They stood firm!

• How often in life, having done all, are we required to stand firm?
• When circumstances threaten to overwhelm us...when there is no escape...when we have exhausted all options....what is there left to do? What will carry us through to victory? Who do we look to as our leader and inspiration?
• Just as the foundations of training and discipline of the few were tested repeatedly and severely through that long terrifying night, how strong are our foundations when the storms rage around us? What/who do we place our trust and faith in?
• The "battles" of life test our character and values and it is when all is "stripped away" that our true self, our true values are tested. Will we stand up to the test...are our values solid and enduring and securely rooted? Do we know what our values are?
• Do we have a higher purpose undergirding our living?

Be prepared. You're up against far more than you can handle on your own. Take all the help you can get, every weapon God has issued, so that when it's all over but the shouting you'll still be on your feet. Truth, righteousness, peace, faith and salvation are more than words. Learn how to apply them. You'll need them throughout your life. God's Word is an indispensable weapon. In the same way, prayer is essential in this ongoing warfare. Pray hard and long. Pray for your brothers and sisters. Keep your eyes open. Keep each other's spirits up so that no one falls behind or drops out. (Ephesians 6)

Living LIFE!

God.....invisible AND deaf?

A relationship with God does not promise supernatural deliverance from hardship, but rather a supernatural use of it.

"I am the way, the truth, and the life", Jesus said. Truth and life may supply the motives for following, yet in the end a relationship with God, like any relationship, boils down to the "way", the daily process of inviting God into the details of my existence. Soren Kierkegaard likened some Christians to schoolboys who want to look up solutions to the math problems in the back of the book. Only by doing the math, step by step, can you learn the math. Or in John Bunyan's analogy, only by pursuing the way, progressing through its joys, hardships, and apparent detours, can the pilgrim arrive at the destination.

I have an unmarried friend who prays earnestly for God to lessen or even remove his sexual drive. It causes him constant temptation, he says. Pornography distracts him, plunges him into a failure spiral, and ruins his devotional life. As gently as I can, I tell him that I doubt God will answer his prayer as he wants, by recalibrating his testosterone level. More likely, he will learn fidelity the way anyone learns it, relying on discipline, community, and constant pleas of dependence.

For whatever reason, God has let this broken world endure in its fallen state for a very long time. For those of us who live in that broken world, God seems to value character more than comfort, often using the very elements that cause us most discomfort as his tools in fashioning that character. A story is being written, with an ending only faintly glimpsed by us. We face the choice of trusting the Author along the way or striking out alone. Always, we have the choice.

In my own spiritual life, I am trying to remain open to new realities, not blaming God when my expectations go unmet but trusting him to lead me through failures toward renewal and growth. I am also seeking a trust that "the Father knows best" in how this world is run. Reflecting on Old Testament times, I see that the more overt way in which I may want God to act does not achieve the results I might expect. And when God sent his own Son - sinless, non-coercive, full of grace and healing - we killed him. God himself allows what he does not prefer, in order to achieve some greater goal.

From "Reaching for the Invisible God" by Philip Yancy

Keep Walking!

Those who wait on the Lord.....shall walk and not faint (Isaiah 40:31)

• There is no thrill for us in walking, yet it is the test for all of our steady and enduring qualities and reveals our character
• Having the reality of God's presence is not dependent on our being in a particular circumstance or place, but is only dependent on our determination to keep the Lord before us continually.
• Our problems arise when we refuse to place our trust in the reality of His presence!
• We will not fear even though.....(Psalm 46:2) - This experience will be ours once we are grounded on the truth of the reality of God's presence, not just a simple awareness of it, but an understanding of the reality of it
• At critical moments in our lives it is necessary to ask God for guidance, but it should be unnecessary to be constantly saying, "Oh Lord, direct me in this and that" - in fact He is doing it already!
• If our everyday decisions are not according to His will, He will press through them, bringing restraint to our spirit. Then we must be quiet and wait for the direction of His presence
• Let us hold fast the confession of our hope without waivering, for He who promised is faithful (Hebrews 10:23)
• Do not walk by sight but by faith! (2 Corinthians 5:7)
• Cheerfully pleasing God is the main thing, and that's what we aim to do, regardless of our conditions.....It's what we trust in but don't yet see that keeps us going

Enter the Silence!

He took me by the hand and walked me into pitch-black darkness.....I keep a grip on hope.....God's loyal love couldn't have dried up, His merciful love couldn't have dried up. They're created new every morning. How great Your faithfulness! I'M STICKING WITH GOD.....God proves to be good to the man who passionately waits, to the woman who diligently seeks. It's a good thing to quietly hope, quietly hope for help from God.....When life is heavy and hard to take, go off by yourself. ENTER THE SILENCE. Bow in prayer. Don't ask questions: wait for hope to appear.....the Master won't ever walk out and fail to return. If He works severely, He also works tenderly. His stockpiles of loyal love are immense.....You came close when I called out. You said, "IT'S GOING TO BE ALL RIGHT." (Lamentations 3)

Faith with Feet!

EXPECTATIONS & ASPIRATIONS ARE OF NO USE UNLESS THEY CAN BE TURNED INTO REALITY!

• When we do the possible by faith, God will do the possible
• We must pray in faith and trust God for whatever enterprise we are involved in. Then we need to roll up our sleeves, get stuck in and see it through!

Faith or Foolishness?

Jumping out of the boat, Peter walked on the water to Jesus. But when he looked down at the waves churning beneath his feet, he lost his nerve and started to sink. He cried, "Master, save me!". Jesus didn't hesitate. He reached down and grabbed his hand. Then He said, "Faint-heart, what got into you?" (Matthew 14:29)

• I know when the instructions have come from God because of their quiet persistence. But when I begin to weigh up the pro's and cons, and doubt and debate enter my mind, I am bringing in an element that is not of God. This will only result in my concluding that His instructions to me were not right
• Many of us are faithful to our ideas of Jesus Christ, but how many of us are faithful to Jesus Himself? Faithfulness to Jesus means that I must step out even when and where I can't see anything. BUT faithfulness to my own ideas means that I must first clear the way mentally. Faith is not an intellectual understanding - it is a deliberate commitment to the Person of Jesus Christ, even when I can't see the way ahead
• Are you debating whether you should take a step of faith in Jesus, or whether you should wait until you can clearly see how to do what He has asked? Simply obey Him with unrestrained joy

Whatever He says to you, do it (John 2:5)

"Don't waste your life!" by John Piper

• Love is doing what is best for someone. But making self the object of our highest affections is not best for us. It is, in fact, a lethal distraction
• The people who make a durable difference in the world are not the people who have mastered many things, but who have been mastered by one great thing
• Desire that your life count for something great! Long for your life to have eternal significance. Want this! Don't coast through life without a passion
• Fleeing from death is the shortest path to a wasted life.....Death makes visible where our treasure is
• People go deep with God when the drought comes. That is the way God designed it
• If we walk away from risk to keep ourselves safe and solvent, we will waste our lives
• Both pleasures and pain are laced with poison, ready to kill us with the diseases of pride or despair

Divine Purpose

The thing is to understand myself, to see what God really wishes me to do.....to find the idea for which I can live and die (Soren Kierkegaard)

Exceedingly Abundantly!

Now to Him who is able to do exceedingly abundantly above all that we ask or think, according to the power that works in us.....

God can do anything, you know - far more than you could ever imagine or guess or request in your wildest dreams! He does it not by pushing us around but by working within us, His Spirit deeply and gently within us.
(Ephesians 3:20)

Trust in the Lord with all your heart, and lean not on your own understanding (Proverbs 3:5)

NO FEAR!

You who sit down in the High God's presence, spend the night in Shaddai's shadow, say this God, you're my refuge. I trust in You and I'm safe.....under them (His outstretched arms) you're perfectly safe.....yes, because God is your refuge, the High God your very own home.....If you'll hold on to me for dear life, says God.....if you'll only get to know and trust me.....(Psalm 91)

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  God does not promise to deliver us from adversity but in adversity!
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  There is nothing we need fear when we are living at the place where we are at one with God
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  God does not give us overcoming life - He gives us life as we overcome. The strain of life is what builds our strength. Once you face the strain, you will immediately get the strength. Overcome your own timidity and take the first step. Then God will give you nourishment.

GOD NEVER GIVES STRENGTH FOR TOMORROW, OR FOR THE NEXT HOUR, BUT ONLY FOR THE STRAIN OF THE MOMENT.

SAFE HARBOUR?

If you know these things, blessed are you if you do them (John 13:17)

• Be determined to know more than others
• If you yourself do not cut the lines that tie you to the dock, God will have to use a storm to sever them and to send you out to sea on the great swelling tide of His purpose - Put everything in your life afloat upon God
• You are not to spend all your time in the calm waters just inside the harbour, full of joy, but always tied to the dock. You have to get out past the harbour into the great depths of God and begin to know things for yourself - begin to have spiritual discernment
• WHEN YOU KNOW THAT YOU SHOULD DO SOMETHING AND YOU DO IT, IMMEDIATELY YOU KNOW MORE
• God has promised that He will go before us and prepare a path through the wilderness

PANIC vs WAITING

But those who WAIT on the Lord SHALL renew their strength; they shall mount up with wings like eagles, they shall run and not be weary, they shall walk and not faint (Isaiah 40:31)

• Do things God's way and in God's time, and you will never tire
• It is much easier to do something than to trust in God
• The degree of panic activity in my life is equal to the degree of personal spiritual experience

DARING TO BELIEVE

• God will turn impossible situations around
• Don't allow fear to rule you and prevent you stepping out in faith
• Don't allow the past to affect the present!
• Be patient and wait expectantly for God to work and to reveal His plans
• Be prepared to "risk all" for God - risking all in God will bring the "vision" to reality

.....but the people who know their God shall be strong, and carry out great exploits (Daniel 11:32)

• "The world is waiting and wanting to see what God can do through one man whose heart is totally yielded to Him" (A pastor's challenge to DL Moody)
• "When we choose deliberately to obey Jesus, He will tax the remotest star and the last grain of sand to assist us with all His Almighty power" (Oswald Chambers)
• "The devil uses fear as a weapon to stop believers being used by God. Fear causes paralysis. Unbelief causes doubt, but when someone believes God, there is nothing too difficult for Him to achieve. Do not be afraid to tackle the impossible for the King of Kings, through faith" (Angus Buchan)
• "Attempt great things for God and expect great things from God" (William Carey)

IN OVER YOUR HEAD!

....when you're in over your head, I'll be there with you. When you're in rough waters, you will not go down. When you're between a rock and a hard place, IT WON'T BE A DEAD END - because I am God, your personal God, the Holy of Israel, your Saviour.....So don't be afraid; I'm with you.....You're my handpicked servant so that you'll come to know and trust Me, understand both that I am who I am.....Forget about what's happened; don't keep going over old history. Be alert, be present, I'm about to do something brand new.....I'm making a road through the desert, rivers in the badlands. (Isaiah 43)

WALKING ON WATER!

He made the disciples get into the boat and go before Him to the other side (Mark 6:45)

• We should never have the thought that our dreams of success are God's purpose for us - it does not always follow that if Jesus compels us to do something and we are obedient to Him, that He will lead us to great success.
• What we see as only the process of reaching a particular end, God sees as the goal itself.
• Whatever my vision of God's purpose for me, His purpose is for me to depend on Him and on His power now.
• God is not working toward a particular finish - His purpose is the process itself. What He desires for me is that I see Him "walking on the sea" with no shore, no success, no goal in sight, but simply having the absolute certainty that everything is all right because I see Him walking on the sea (6:49). IT IS THE PROCESS, NOT THE OUTCOME, THAT IS GLORIFYING TO GOD.
• God's training is for now  not later!
• We have nothing to do with what will follow our obedience, and we are wrong to concern ourselves with it. What people call preparation, God sees as the goal itself!
• GOD'S PURPOSE IS TO ENABLE ME TO SEE THAT HE CAN WALK ON THE STORMS OF MY LIFE RIGHT NOW. IF WE REALIZE THAT MOMENT BY MOMENT OBEDIENCE IS THE GOAL, THEN EACH MOMENT AS IT COMES IS PRECIOUS.

WHOSE IN CONTROL?

Everything in the heavens and earth is Yours O Lord, and this is Your kingdom. We adore You as being control of everything. Riches and honour come from You alone, and You are the Ruler of all mankind. Your hand controls power and might and it is at Your discretion that men are made great and given strength. (1 Chronicles 29:11,12)
This verse has moulded my faith and outlook over the past few years.