The analogy of grips...

**An oldie but a goodie**

When a parent is escorting their child across a crowded parking lot by the hand, there are two grips at work. The first is the child's rather questionable grip on the quardian - which is independable at best. Sometimes the child grips firmly, other times they do everything in their power to break free. The strength of the child's grip comes and goes with their mood swings but this is irrelevant because the second grip has been at work all along. The parents grip on the child. Thank God for the child's safety was not based on the child's grip but on the parents grip. From the child's perspective they are imprisioned slaves but from the parents perspective they are safe in their care. There is always two grips even though one is sometimes rather questionable and two different perspectives for the same occurence. The same is true of our relationship with our Heavenly Father. God has got us no matter how hard we sometimes try to get away and no matter how far we feel we are from Him. Throughout the bible you can find 'child's grip' passages. Practical, tactical and teaching us how to grip back. On the other hand the 'Father's grip' passages teach us how to find peace and rest in God's guardianship. It's important to know and recognise which passages are which. Otherwise we can become obsessed with gripping when we should be resting and vice versa. Both are important. In life and in the Church too much emphasis can be put on gripping the Father's hand and we can become pre-occupied with trying to please God with good works. The child's grip passages are there to help us FEEL closer to God - not to actually MAKE us closer to God. Believers are already as close to God as they'll ever be, no matter how we feel on a day to day basis - there are no varying degrees of salvation. Unbalanced priority given to child's grip passages can keep Christians from finding peace and rest, wanting to grip firmly all the time and beating ourselves up when we can't do it. Sure, we feel closer to God when we're gripping back, but that's only a human emotion. Parents don't love their children any less when they misbehave.

Beautiful Saviour

I LOVE this song...http://au.youtube.com/watch?v=z8e9lCxn_IY

I'll take that as a compliment!!

I was explaining to a friend today that I feel God has really been trying to drum into me that what I recognise as my 'short-comings' or 'faults' are in fact the opposite and constantly worrying about them wont change the way I am...and that I have been missing out on a lot of 'life' because I get so tense and wound up about these well...'short-comings/faults'. God made me ME. God made me...ME. My friend actually laughed, shook his head and preceded to tell me that I am...
1. Low-maintenance
2. Non-intrusive
3. Non-needy
4. Safe & Strong
...and that if i actually possessed the qualities I think I need then I wouldn't be so likable and easy to get along with after all!!

hahahaha I love it!!

2008

Well it finally came, a few more hours will see 2008 come to a close. I'm not a 'new years' person, never been into the resolution thing myself. Dec 31st has always just been another day on the calendar, rolling into the next. This time round something is different. Since November I have felt a stirring, deep within, of the need to 'clean' parts of me up! To settle, to stand against, to let go and to pack it all in my little (well big actually) 'God' box and keep soildering on. Not escaping from using and learning the experience of 2008 and prior but not bringing it all forward with me... the whole leaning on God and not my own understanding thing. Not sure if that makes complete sense but hey it does to me! So moving forward in the search really all comes down to my devotional reading from last night which reads:

"We are weak, but you are strong" 1 Corinthians 4:10
- We need help - and alot of it. (skip skip skip) You are weak unless you find your strength in God, and the sooner you face that fact, the better.

Amen to that!!

Stick that in your pipe and smoke it aka My thought for today...

Letting go of pride, an idol, sin etc is so hard because it initially means just that - giving up, disconnecting, loosing something - something earthly that we are programmed to believe we just can't survive without...the ironic consequence of taking that step of faith will infact prompt a whole new world of opportunities that we would otherwise never have had.

I will never leave you nor forsake you - Hebrews 13:5

Colossians

So I am searching...and something inside prompts me to go read Colossians (Holy Bible) so before work this morning I read the entire book...Is only 4 chapters but when I put it like that sounds soooooo much more :)

2:20-23 really stand out to me "Since you died with Christ to the basic principles of this world, why, as though you still belonged to it, do you submit to its rules: Do not handle! Do not taste! Do not touch! These are all destined to perish with use, because they are based on human commands and teachings. Such regulations indeed have an appearance of wisdom, with their self-imposed worship, their false humility and their harsh treatment of the body, but they lack any value in restraining sensual indulgence"

I have been contemplating this on and off all day and as the ink I remember on those pages begins to etch itself on my heart and mind I am slightly overcome.

"Since you died with Christ to the basic principles of this world, why, as though you still belonged to it, do you submit to its rules"

I decide this is sparking enough intrigue that it is time to do a Bible study on this book...which I planned to search around on the net in the first instace AFTER I finish playing on facebook.

So we all know facebook right? In the news feed this girl I went to school with comments on some random shot...long story short...well really only 4 clicks later I arrive on a churchs website. This church is round the corner from where I grew up and next click I am NOT suprised in the least that their last few podcasts are on the Book of Colossians.

I love my God. So many things go wrong, so much pain and uncertainty in this world and so much picking up and starting again. But so many things go right. And the right is in that corny saying "it's the little things". It's the little things like taking a tiny step towards whatever God puts on your heart and who knows what years of tiny steps will look like from now. It's the smallest things like reading a part of the Bible when feeling prompted and seeing the consequence flow on. The small things, I believe they mean the biggest and I know I'm not alone.

Press on to the goal...

what more can anyone do?