WHEN I THINK OF THINGS I CANNOT GET

Tears fill up my eyes but are held back when I remember I am better off than someone else. Tears roll down my face when I think there was a time when I did not know better. Sometimes I let go and cry in my Father’s embrace as He dries my face. I pray for better. I pray for good things but then I remember someone else has it worse. Sniffles in my nose when I remember where I started. When I remember I cared less thinking life is just to be lived as I lived it. Now that I am here and good things have slipped my fingers I start crying out and asking God why? Why did I not know what I know now? Why did I go into unyoked relationships instead of having a relationship with God? Why did I not plan wisely, save money when there was enough? Why did I not share it and make a difference in the lives of the needy when I could? Why did I change jobs without listening to where God wants me to go? Why did I spend time gallivanting from one party to another when the real party is in the house of the Lord? Tears fill up my eyes and I feel like giving up sometimes but then I am reminded…. YOU HAVE FOUND GRACE, THAT’S MORE THAN YOU NEED.

You are probably reading this asking yourself is this a poem, a story to make you cry or a lamentation? This is reality of what most of us face on regular bases. I am writing this to all those who are still having it good. I am writing this to all of you who are beating themselves up for your mistakes.  I am barring myself to you for you to see my scars in order to protect you from getting them as well. For you who are crying daily, I’m showing you that these scars heal and with God’s hand on them they will disappear.

Life seems great when you can have whatever you want at the swipe of your card or counting of notes from your purse or wallet. It all feels like heaven when you can drive to any destination in your grand vehicle or even if you use public transport but you can afford just anything you like. I see how women can change their hair as and when they please and get their nails done and fake eyelashes to match their fake hair. Don’t get me wrong I am not hating because I was once one of those ladies who derived pleasure from looking good from my hair, nails, make up, clothes and shoes that match my bag. There is absolutely nothing wrong with looking good but there is everything wrong if it is to feel good, to attract attention to yourself and for some to make people see you are well able.   

I never really do it for attention but only because I love these fake things sometimes. But years ago I thought the right person would be attracted and believe me the “fake” ones are always attracted.

The world has made us believe possession of certain things adds to a person’s being. The world has made us believe belonging or fitting in makes a person complete. Hence we have these unhealthy relationships and marriages. What happens in the world is that when a person gets a job, their salary goes into the world and nothing remains for you. How? You ask. You enticed into credit. You get shopping accounts, you buy a car on credit, you buy a house on credit. But what other way can we get these things without credit?

I am not saying do not buy homes or cars if they really are a need. I am saying do you really need a credit card? Does it make sense to buy bread on your Woolworths account? Why do you drink Moët & Chandon or just alcohol and have the guts to swipe a gold card that has no cent of yours? Have you thought about “What If?” What if you lose your job? What if you become ill or disabled that you can no longer pay your past expensive lifestyle? What if then you really need a home or a car that is necessary but due to foolish spending on unnecessary brand names and not showing up at work due to drunkenness on “borrowed” money you then lost your job or you became ill or you got in an accident and wrote off the car you did not finish paying off and was not even insured? 

Mhhh…maybe you are a child of God (born again) and you don’t drink. Well you probably maxed your credit cards on all the best spiritual books out there, you do not wear any shoe that cost anything less than R700, you eat only good food (as Woolworths is assumed as the best), you go for regular spa treatments as your body is the temple of the Lord and your car if you have one gets a regular valet not a corner R40 carwash and you buy you house stuff nowhere else than @Home, Stuttafords, etc. If it’s not your house 40% of your salary goes to your rent hence the circulation of credit (paying credit with credit).

The point of writing this note is to open your eyes to what the world is locking us into. It makes us believe “To have” is “To live”. If it’s a gadget, there’s much better than the one that you have. We have all bought in to having a Cellphone that even if you fill in a form or apply for a job there’s a Cellphone number needed. That was the end of home telephone numbers. Then it was Blackberry and we can no longer survive without emails and instant messages. Now everyone wants an iPad (Lord help me for I am still good with writing with a pen).  How do you get all of these things on your salary? CREDIT!!!

Ok…point of this was not to write about credit but to fill you in on “WHEN I THINK OF THINGS I CANNOT GET“. Every one of us gets that feeling. Whether you are the highest paid or not even paid a cent. God told me: “THINK OF ALL THE THINGS YOU HAVE.” My friends, what do you have? Someone out there does not have shoes. Someone out there does not have anything to put in the dry mouth of a screaming hungry and sick baby. Someone is looking for newspapers to make his bed tonight. There’s a girl who is getting infected with HIV unwillingly but for the sake of bringing food for her siblings she has to prostitute her life.

“WHEN I THINK OF THINGS I CANNOT GET” like buying my own monthly toiletry, eating my favourite cereal, getting a regular income I am reminded of God’s GRACE. I am reminded of how FAVOURED I am. I am reminded of my loving FAMILY and faithful HUSBAND. I am reminded of my EDUCATION and ability to apply SENSE and KNOWLEDGE. I am reminded of my PEACEFUL, COMFORTABLE SLEEP, I am reminded of the place I can freely receive the Word of God and WORSHIP Him. I am reminded of my PURPOSE.

What is my purpose? To glorify God in the way I live, the way I dress, the way I relate to others, the way I serve others and the way I service my clients. To bring God into the lives of those who don’t know Him. How? By giving and sharing with them what I have; which is the LOVE OF GOD by loving them and helping them. By using my gifts and talents to minister to them that they may know Him. Even through the work I do I work as I work for God and those who see the wonder of the work of my hands I tell them “I AM JUST A VESSEL”

“WHEN I THINK OF THINGS I CANNOT GET” I am reminded that I have eyes that see, I can hear, I can smell, walk, use my hands and speak. Birds fly, chirp and sing. Bees pollinate flowers and make honey. Flowers bloom and make the world colorful. The sun shines during its appointed times. My friends, look at what you have and use it to glorify God not yourself. Share it with the needy and not keep to yourself. The best place to invest is in the lives of the needy. The world will enslave you through credit and desires to look better or have the best gadgets, car, hair, clothes. Wake up from self and give to God through giving to others. There will be no bad credit to your name but goodness and mercy shall follow you till eternity.

“Thy will be done as it is in heaven” that is what we pray and God’s will can only be done through us when we are willing. “You are blessed to be a blessing”. “You are blessed coming in and blessed going out”. All these blessings shall overtake you if you keep God’s commands.

 “WHEN I THINK OF THINGS I CANNOT GET” I praise God for I know He knows what is best for me to have. I praise God for I know I WILL NOT GET SICKNESS, LACK, POVERTY, INSECURITIES, GENERATIONAL CURSES because I have God as my Father, Provider, Healer, Protector and Redeemer.

“WHEN YOU THINK OF THINGS YOU CANNOT GET” ask yourself:  “WHAT DO YOU HAVE?”

TO GOD BE THE GLORY!!!

GOD WILL ANSWER YOU

My dear friends we all get disappointed in life when what we hoped, what we believed does not turn out as you expected. You could have been in a relationship but unexpectedly it breaks apart. This note below is actually a response to a client of mine who is now my Spiritual sister who was to get married last year but God had a different plan. She gave me permission to share this incase someone has experienced something similar. It does not have to be a relationship. It could job. Read on and find an answer or two to your question.

I am sorry about the outcome of the”could have happened” marriage. Do you know God will never ever let you stay without closure and explanation of why it turned out the way it did? (Ok I am just assuming it was not death). People always say “It was not meant to be” when things don’t go as we expect. Only God knows and you must pray and ask Him. God is not inhumane. He became man through Jesus Christ to dwell among us, so He understands feelings and emotions. So just like if you would ask your earthly father why he not allows you certain things, you just as well have the right to ask your heavenly Father. But that does not make Him man because God is faithful; He is not man to lie, nor a son of man to change His mind.

I know He loves you so much that He wants the best for you. Naturally we think we are ready for marriage but if God wants the best for you, just like your earthly papa, He will not hand you over to a man for marriage before you are completely processed and ready to be an Ephesians 5:22 wife: “ Wives, submit to your husbands as to the Lord.”
We might feel like we now understand that instruction from Big Daddy but only He knows us for He is the porter and we are the clay. The clay pot can never know that is ready to be used or not.

Even if when people break our hearts, they themselves can be oblivious to why they do what they do. One pastor in 2003 said people hurt us through a blind spot. We might label them selfish but sometimes people are just prone to being vessels of the thief and liar of this world. But one truth is:” All things work together for good for those that love the Lord.”

TD Jakes says in his ‘Woman Thou Art Loosed’ we as single women should not ask for Saul (the Israelites saw other nations having kings and demanded to have one too.). He says we must serve God in our singlehood, whole-heartedly as though He is our husband by spending time with Him like we would with our husbands. That way He will be certain that He can give one of his princes chosen by Him and not you to marry you to marry you.

I say if it is His prince, chosen by Him, in the right time, he will surely treat you like his queen. Remember in Genesis 2:18 after God realized that it was not good for a man to be alone? He decided to make him a suitable helper. He put him to sleep and out of his rib God formed the woman and when God presented her to him he recognized her and said “This is now bone of my bones and flesh of my flesh;” (Genesis 2: 23). My sister, God has put your Adam to sleep and He is in the process of moulding you, perfecting you, into his suitable helper. This is how I manage to stay single and 100% sold out to God.

I live daily according to
§                               Matthews 6:33:
But seek first his kingdom and his righteousness, and all these things will be given to you as well.

§                               Matthews 6:33:
Delight yourself in the LORD,    and he will give you the desires of your heart.

§                               John 15: 1-8

The Vine and the Branches
 1 “I am the true vine, and my Father is the gardener. 2 He cuts off every branch in me that bears no fruit, while every branch that does bear fruit he prunes[a] so that it will be even more fruitful. 3 You are already clean because of the word I have spoken to you. 4 Remain in me, as I also remain in you. No branch can bear fruit by itself; it must remain in the vine. Neither can you bear fruit unless you remain in me.
   5 “I am the vine; you are the branches. If you remain in me and I in you, you will bear much fruit; apart from me you can do nothing. 6 If you do not remain in me, you are like a branch that is thrown away and withers; such branches are picked up, thrown into the fire and burned. 7 If you remain in me and my words remain in you, ask whatever you wish, and it will be done for you. 8 This is to my Father’s glory, that you bear much fruit, showing yourselves to be my disciples.

To add to the mail for this note:

If you can live according to these above scriptures, surrendering yourself to the Lord and being fully committed to living for Him He will give you more than you ask for. By delighting yourself in Him, spending time with Him, you start to resemble Him and your desires will be molded by Him. When your desires are molded by Him, you will than pray in line with His will because He has given you desires that when you tell Him about them, He will give you because He already has the provision kept specially for you.

I advice, you beloved friends, quit depending on yourselves and leaning on your own understanding. Give God access to your life through prayer so that the plans He tells you about in Jeremiah 29:11 (plans not to harm you but to prosper you) can come to pass. You are not your own, you were bought at a price. Therefore honor God with your body (1 Cor 6:19c-20).

Let God take over and rule over your life and allow Him to use you for the purpose He created yourself. At the right time, when you are ready to be introduced your Adam, Boaz or Jacob, He will put you in the right garden, garden or path where your lifetime mate will see you. Note, he will see you; meaning he will know that you are the woman he should marry.

Quit running in and out of relationships that take away a part of you ad damage you emotionally and spiritually. Hindering you from being the best person God has created you for. Stop breaking God’s heart by allowing yours to be broken. Give your life to God and He will never leave you nor forsake you. Even when you get married, keep God in your marriage. “A cord of three strands is not easily broken.” (Eccl 4:12b)

 God loves you and I love you too!!!

"MARRIAGE IS NOT...sex. SEX IS NOT...marriage"

                                                                    Marriage is not sex!
                                                                  Marriage is not for sex!
                                                               Marriage is not about sex!

Marriage is a ministry, a fellowship, a union which God created to have man and woman minister love to one another same way as He loves us and from learning to love one another like He does we can breed and extend this love into the world. This love is not physical love. Sex is primarily for reproduction if we speak biology but to mankind, God gave sex as a gift to enjoy in marriage. 

Spiritually speaking sex in mankind is for man and woman to become one. It is not just fluids that are exchanged during coitus but emotions and spiritual strengths, weaknesses, etc.
If sex was that important how would a physically unable (sickness, accident or born that way) couple's (2 shall become 1) marriage be strengthened or how will they become one?
Sex is just an added recreational benefit. Recreation? Yes- playing together as one person I don't have to paint pictures.

The world has perverted sex so much, made it seem like the best thing to have or do that young unmarried people ignore God and indulge in it. And having had that premarital experience affects our view of marriage that we think where there is no sex/no good sex there is no marriage. It has also been made to be the destroyer of marriages- Premarital experiences affecting the union.

So how do we overcome this? How do we become one? Through Prayer together- fellowship together as one unto the Lord. If couples would aim to have Spiritual climaxes and Spiritual orgasms(Lord forgive me for calling it this) praying for one another and the world we would have less divorces, less STD's, less abortions, less crimes, etc.

God's main aim to create man was to bring GLORY unto Him and He realized man had less impact and too much to deal with by himself in Eden (Gen 2:18). And on this point, Marriage is not our ultimate purpose or end as human beings- BEING ONE WITH GOD is. We are not alone like Adam because we have the body of Christ. We have our brothers and sisters so being single is not a curse for we ought to be complete in Christ as no man or woman is the other piece to you.

WHEN GOD, WHEN?

Searching...yet not finding
Knocking...but no door is opening
Sowing...yet still no reaping
Praying...having no answer
Crying...and eyes not drying

When? You ask: When?

Search... you will find in places nobody thought or looked
Knock...knock on the next door and the next door and the right one will open
Sow... for the right time to reap is near
Pray...continuously because your life and breakthrough depends on it
Cry ...until your eyes dry and seek the joy just by rejoicing always

He has seen you, He has heard you
He has answered, continue to do good
Continue to trust Him

Your door has your name on it!
Your job is being created to match not your qualifications,but your God-given assignment
Your harvest is too much to reap by yourself,in the right time you will have a field to share the work of your hands
Your prayers have unlocked the gates of heaven, open your hands and just receive

Cry, cry, cry the tears of joy
Cry, the tears of healing
Cry, the tears of appreciation

Lay your head on His bosom
Accept His embrace
Take His hand and let Him lead you
Listen and hear Him for He will tell you
What to do, where to go and when to go

Do not be shaken by the winds,
For the Lord is with you in this boat.
Do not be worried by what goes on around you,
For He says you shall not be hurt because you are protected by Him.

He knows your desires,
He feels your pain
He sees your tears
He understands your fears
He says: "Stay with me, stay in me
It shall be done to you according to your FAITH"

The end