When I Doubt

Dear Lord

There are days when I just feel giving up. I wish I didn't need money, I wish ... I wish many things and I'm sure everyone else wishes that also. I don't understand business, I've still got so far to go. Like today I just feel like, like - I've flopped, and maybe I'm not as smart as I thought. Or as ... able? Sigh. Sigh. Sigh. I really need a new strategy.

You are not a flop Lord - You are able. You are steadfast. You are True. You are Sure. You are Certain, only You are Certain, only You can be reached, can be touched, where one thing doesn't mean another. where the system is... straightforward...I flop Lord - floppity flop flop.

Let me live off of You Lord.

Let me have my Daily Bread from You.

Let me eat of Your Presence.

Apart from You I am nothing and nothing works and I just feel like crying and giving in.

It's much harder out on my own than I reckoned. Or may be not. May be its just, I don't know...no, it's not that it's much harder than I anticipated, it's just that - it's HARD. That's all. It's just hard sometimes to keep on going when everything in you is screaming just stop, just give up, you are not enough, you are not enough. You're stupid, you're slow, you don't know enough, you're not educated enough. You're just Not. Not anything at all.

My only hope is You. You alone are my salvation. You alone are my sanity. Maybe today everything will flop. I don't know, I don't care, what does it matter anyway? I can't fix it with my own power anyway. I can only play my own small part and trust that God will somehow make a way as He always has. Make something more of me than this sad little vessel that I am, carrying a great trove of glory that is not my own - may it be His alone. May it be His glory alone. That Shines. In me. Out of me. In me.

Make me a star Lord. Make a star of me when all I see is a blackhole where my heart should be, where my courage should be - where I should roar my lion's heart roar, and can't manage but a squeak - be my Lion's Roar. Be my Battle Cry. Raise me up a standard, raise me up Lord. My Lord, my God. Faithful God. Ever true. Ever true.

Who We Are PART 2: Winners

How do winners lose? Like winners.

In the thrall of the fight stand I. Beat me down again - she shouts to the world - but know this - I WILL GET UP. Shout me down again - she cries - but know this much, whether whisper weak or whisper strong, my voice still shall be heard in your tumultuous throng WHETHER YOU WISH IT OR NOT - I really don't give a snot! YOU DEFINE ME NOT! Not trouble, not pain, it is when I rise again that the truth is revealed: of past failures I've been healed. Now who am i? I've been steeled to bend bows of iron - I"M A SURVIVOR! That's the song of ZIon. You define me not with your tedious tales of perceived greatness. I am great because I rise again, I am great becase I receive not the coward's stain - that cries "Give up! Give in! Give out!" My song, my cause is one: More than a conqueror - a daughter, a son.

"....Now they do it to obtain a perishable crown, but WE FOR AN IMPERISHABLE CROWN.
Therefore I run thus: not with uncertainty.
Thus I fight: not as one who beats the air." **

How do winners lose?
Like winners of course.
Still standing.


** 1 CORINTHIANS 9:25-26

"Therefore put on the full armor of God, so that when the day of evil comes, you may be able to stand your ground, and after you have done everything, to stand."
- EPHESIANS 6:13

Who We Are PART 1

Who we are, who I am...the things I've been before and the kinds of doors I've opened before. The things I don't feel comfortable talking about. The things I may think of telling, but I think twice about.... "There is now therefore no condemnation for those who are in Christ Jesus..." - Romans 8:1. Who we are.

Do the things that I have gone through have any bearing on who I am? Do the experiences, the mistakes, the sorrows... do they change who I am? Or they merely influence? We are a sum total of the things we have gone through? But if that is true, then wouldn't that mean that our experiences define us? Yet I cannot be what I have been through, only who I have become through what I have been through. Or maybe what it's really about, what is really important, is not where I've been, but how I made it through...and who I have become along the way.

A Grip On Faith

Hope is candlelight in a damp and cold place, with a bitter wind bursting forth outside a creaking shack; it seems like it's barely anything to keep you warm, but something of it burns inside of you, keeps that little piece of your soul warm, that without it, you would be lost and forlorn.

Faith is that blind leap into a vastness you cannot begin to comprehend, but are willing to face because you believe there has to be more to life than this, more to life than mediocrity and plainness, more to this existence than just being born to die.... Faith is daring to live!

Sometimes in life we get to this strange place - for one it's like the deepest pit of hell, for another it's like the coldest, most frozen side of the mountain, and for yet another it's like a wasteland, bleak, barren and void - and we begin to question - question ourselves, question our lives, question our beliefs, we may even ask ourselves what really is the meaning of this word which before I threw around so flippantly?

Faith. You live by it everyday without thinking - like the way you take each step with confidence fully trusting gravity to not let you float off into space; like the way you breathe - trusting the air to be there the next time you inhale. And it's like that with God, He is like the air, except He is even more worthy of our trust. He is faithful and true, He is there ready to rescue you just like that next breath...after all, He gave the first... And He wants you to know that He is worthy of your trust. He wants you to know that though the world may give a different impression of Him, He never changes, He is ever-loving, ever-faithful, ever-true, ever watching over you and all you need to do is cry out to Him, and in Your next breath His manifest presence surrounds you...

"....So let me dry away your lonesome tears like the sun melts morning dew,
and I will wrap you up in true, true love and I'll be faithful to you.."

In this world of pain and sorrow, where a promise won't hold true:
here's a vow you can be sure of, I'll be faithful to you." **

God is faithful and true.

Private Barney

**(from a song by DON WILLIAMS)


But now, this is what the LORD says - He who created you, O Jacob,
He who formed you, O Israel: "Fear not, for I have redeemed you; I have summoned you by name; you are Mine.

When you pass through the waters, I will be with you; and when you pass through the rivers, they will not sweep over you. When you walk through the fire, you will not be burned; the flames will not set you ablaze.

For I am the LORD, your God, the Holy One of Israel, your Saviour;
I give Egypt for your ransom, Cush and Seba in your stead, since you are precious and honoured in my sight and because I love you....."

- ISAIAH 43:1-4


For this God is our God for ever and ever: He will be our guide even unto death.

- PSALM 48:14

Vantage Point - New Perspectives

Hey!!! It's been like way too long since I posted anything new on my blog! So here I am, after a week of fantastic Action!!! Action 2008 at the Celebration Centre. It was awesome! But what is even more awesome is what we got out of it! Or at least what I got out of it. I have got a new perspective. You see, this year is my year of change. God whispered that to me at the end of last year. And what a year it has already been! How many of you know that when you start to see things differently, a lot of things change: that opportunity that before looked so juicy and tempting, suddenly bares its ugly teeth and bad breath...or, that snug, cushy little box you've grown used to, where there are no challenges or discomforts - that cushy little joint starts to lose its lustre, and suddenly you find yourself longing for more... You grow dissatisfied with the state of your existence, you become uncomfortable with your own mediocrity.... You've suddenly had it with living on the lower tier of life, receiving only what the world can spare to give you, or what it has left over. You've grown weary of living your life like a spare wheel... it reminds me of something I read yesterday, 'never allow someone to be your Priority while allowing yourself to be their Option'.


Well I'm seeing my life a lot different now. I'm shaking off some bad habits and bad thought patterns, though it has not been nearly as easy as it sounds. The thing is, there are things we have been doing and thoughts we have been thinking for years that are actually holding us back. Like, you want to be great, you know you are gifted and talented, and that you have something to give, yet it seems that every time you put your hand to something you get to a point where you talk yourself out of it, or you start beating yourself up if you make a mistake or when you meet a challenge. Or else you ask yourself, as Marianne Williamson put it, "who am I to be brilliant, gorgeous, talented and fabulous?" Who are you to want to be great? Who are you to dare to live your dream, to believe in it and in yourself? Who are you to dare to be different?


You know what I love most about being a Christian? Yah I know it certainly has its perks, like not going to hell! :-) But you see, what greater hell is there than a life without purpose and without hope? I live with the Living Hope in my heart, the Hope that never fails, never wavers even when I waver and grow weak, it's "Christ in me, the Hope of Glory". You see, the Word of God tells me I am peculiar, that I am in this world but not of it. How much stranger can you get? So if I don't fit in - so what? I wasn't made to fit in but to stand out! And as for my dreams! Well, it's time they stop being just dreams and become something of substance.


A Race Well-Run

And I see myself in a future place
standing heads above the crowd
And I’ll recall a race well-run
in insurmountable odds
I will recall how I stretched myself
how every sinew was called
Out to triumph and held not back
from that which I desired.

Burning Bridges

You can spend your whole life waiting around for something to happen. Until maybe one day you realise that you are the one that is supposed to be happening. What is the point of all these words and talk about how great we are gonna be, how great I wanna be if it comes to no substance? that's a great question right there. What is the point? It's like how I have been hiding this blog in case all that I am writing is a load of hogwash that nobody wants to read anyway. It's like how I have been hiding out in my little bubble, Celsys bubble, afraid to step out and become who I am supposed to become, do what I know I am capable of doing. We have called the box home, not realising it is the enemy and that there is no box. There is no box.

Maybe it's time we burned some bridges. Maybe it's time we really stepped out from under the covers. Maybe it's time to step out of the box, step out of the dark holes in which we've been hiding and take on the world, take on our dreams, take on ourselves. Sir Edmund Hillary, the first man to climb to the top of Mount Everest said, "it is not the mountain we conquer, it is ourselves." And therein lies our war. We are wrestling with ourselves. The war is to rise above self. What we accept, what we...permit, whether the words of others or our own, what we permit to define us, to rule us...these are things that we allow to have power over us. "As a man thinketh in his heart, so is he..." so is he...

My life has been in chains
I've spent days hiding out from the rain
I've not tasted sunshine
or sought out mountains to climb

this hole has been my home
but I tell you, no more, I say no more
I'm gonna step out of myself
I'm gonna take my life off the shelf
Start living - that's my goal
i won't call this hole my home
i won't call this hole my home
i won't call this hole my home

"Hear my cry, O God; attend to my prayer.
From the end of the earth I will cry to You, when my heart is overwhelmed;
Lead me to the rock that is higher than I."

- PSALM 61:2

The Reality of Dreams

I was talking to my younger brother earlier this morning. And I'm thinking, we live in this other world of comic books and movies and ... huge unbelievable dreams. We are artists, we've been drawing comic books since we were kids. Making up stories, characters, worlds in our minds, then immortalising them, heroes and villains alike on paper. To create them you have to believe in the impossible, you have to be able to see the invisible, hear something that no one else can hear. And now I come to this place, today where I am ... hungry again. I'm hungry to be around other people, who see beyond what we see now, who believe in something beyond themselves. Who see through impossible eyes, believe in the impossible, and dream dreams not normal, not of the usual ilk of this land in which we live.

The reality of dreams is that some are just dreams, things of the mind, of little substance. But then the reality of dreams is that there are those that are meant to be pursued. You've gotta believe in them. Joseph, son of Jacob had a dream. He dreamt that the sun and the moon and the stars all bowed down to him. You laugh. But that is the reality of dreams. A great man once said, if your dream doesn't scare you then it isn't big enough. Well I'll tell you, I am totally freaked out. if it wasn't for God I would have gone mad already. But God, the God of the impossible, the reality of His existence and presence in my life, gives me the hope that ... our dreams are worth having, that, if this infinite God can make Himself known to finite lil' ole me, if the mortal can touch the divine -- if all this can be so, and it is, then there is hope yet for my incredible, my -- powerfully unbelievable, totally -- insanely crazy dreams. There is hope yet.

I am a woman of dreams
On the edge of my horizon my glory gleams
Blinds me with its light
Yet still I'll fight
Until dream meets reality.

I am a woman of great words
My words are strong and sharp as swords
My dreams within my grasp
Can't wait until I clasp
My dream turned reality.

And when I sleep -- promise whispers
You'll reach the horizon yet
Don't fret my sweet
And this raging thirst within me
soothes me says
We'll make tables of the mountains
Of the rivers we'll make fountains
When our dreams turn to reality.

- ChiChi Chiweshe


"Then the LORD answered me and said,
"Write the vision and and engrave it so plainly upon tablets,
That everyone who passes may [be able] to read [it easily and quickly] as he hastens by.
For the vision is yet for an appointed time and it hastens to the end [fulfillment];
it will not deceive or disappoint. Though it tarry, wait [earnestly] for it,
because it will surely come, it will not be behindhand on its appointed day."

-- Habakkuk 2:2-3 (AMP)


God bless!