heavenly beings.

In my basic theology course the other day, we learnt about Angels and Demons....
Now i am not going to go into the theology of it all, mainly because i will bore myself with it, and maybe you as well... However there was one point that hit me and hit me hard.
Angels have no idea what it is like to be saved, to be created to fall, but also to be created so God could redeem...
God created us humans, so he could save us, no other creature he has made will ever feel that.
Wow i don't know if that blows you away but it did me. Not only does our God love us, but he designed us just so he could love us, with a love that is unintelligible, undeniable and incredible!
Angels may be heavingly beings and may be in communion with God, but we are saved by him, we get to call Him father, us underserving little earthlings get to live in heaven one day!
I cannot wrap my mind around that today!

shipwrecked

Acts 27: 21-22 “… Paul stood up before them and said: “Men, you should have taken my advice not to sail from Crete; then you would have spared yourselves this damage and loss. But now I urge you to keep up your courage, because not one of you will be lost; only the ship will be destroyed.”
This passage really stood out to me while I was reading the stories and history in Acts. Paul had warned these men not to sail a certain way, but they still went ahead and did it anyway. It reminds me of how we are with our Lord, He warns us and tells us not to go a certain way but we do it anyway. We think that if we are reaching the final goal he wants for us, and then is does not matter how we get there. We think that taking short cuts or ignoring the present to get to the future goals is ok. It is not, we will be shipwrecked and we will fail. I was so encouraged by these verses, because often I want to take short cuts, or miss the lesson I am supposed to learn. I do it all the time and then find myself in a huge mess. I could have saved myself much “damage and loss” but selfishly I want to do things my own way. However the Lord is merciful there are consequences our ship may be destroyed, all that we have built on and relied on may be annihilated however we are spared. He still takes us to our final destination, but we get there in through a much more painful process, than if we had just listened in the first place.

close and yet so far

So lately I've been thinking of my innate tendency towards sin. We as Christians have a glimpse of what its like to be holy. We have a small inkling of what its like to look into the very face of God... why because He exists within us. Yet this very glimpse of God, is sometimes our downfall..
We seem to think we are immune to sin, that "...something like that could never happen to me.." We ignore our conscience at times because we think we are better than others. We think we can withstand, withhold, that somehow having Christ in our lives makes us immune, some kind of super hero... and that has been my downfall, that has been my weakness.
Oh i know that i sin, thats the funny thing, but i still pretend that i don't, i still look down on those that have made "big mistakes".
Yet more and more each day i am realising, that i am so much closer to Satan than i am to God. Everything about me screams "unholy" i am truly i disgrace to creation, the only thing, ONLY THING that keeps me from being a little devil is God's grace. This seems so self-explanatory especially to someone who grew up in the church, but that is the problem i grew up in the church. So somehow i'm closer to God right? not at all, i push Him farther away because i think i'm closer to Him than i am.
To those who read this, maybe that doesn't make sense, but finally i have some clarity in my life, i am capable of anything, absolutely anything, i can feel Satan poking me at all times of the day... I am depraved, one hundred percent depraved.
Thankgoodness i have the Lord, He makes me even slightly acceptable to exist on the planet, without Him i am truly nothing and am so prone to sin its scary.
The closer i get to God, the further away i realise i am!

temp. change

Something about Chicago one learns very quickly is that the weather changes at an extreme pace...
Now for those of you who have lived in Africa that wouldn't make sense at all...
I have also spent much time in California where the weather can change with variations of at least 15 degrees in one day...
However there is nothing like Chicago. One day it is 15 degrees with a wind chill of 5 and snowing buckets. The next its 40 degrees and the sun is shining down splendidly...
this morning it was about 50 degrees not bad at all, cloudy but warm.. then in a heart beat it changes to about 35 degrees and in half an hour or so will be pouring buckets!
If Chicago has taught me anything it has taught me to shop well:)... now yes i know what you're thinking, i didn't say shop alot i said shop well.... You must get the right clothing for the right weather... if you do not you will surely freeze to death or in the humidity die of a heat wave....
Obviously to me the biblical parallel is so clear.
At this time in my life i have had much change... much like the weather one day i have felt hot the next terribly cold. I haven't known how to adapt how to "dress" so to speak. I have been wearing coats in the summer and shorts in the winter.
Slowly i am learning how to adapt. How to brace myself for those freezing, to bundle up, much like putting on the armour of Christ and just jumping into the cold. Or relaxing in a tank top and just enjoying the summer breeze.
I have leanrt that one cannot expect everyday to be sunshine, but how do you live like its still sunshine!
You embrace it, you thrive in it, you find a winter sport you love :)...
not really but you allow the cold times to grow you and then soon enough you will be in the warmth again.