Monthly Musings: July discoveries

It’s hard to believe that July has been and gone, and there’s only a month before the arrival of spring. But before we get carried away in anticipation of spring, here are a few of my discoveries in July.

• Booknook and Bean opened in Topham Mall around the corner from work, and it’s my new favourite place for a hot chocolate, a pre-loved book, or a little yummy treat (or all of them together!). On the pre-loved book front you can donate books or buy them (there’s an honour system – just pay what you want between $2-$7 per book). All profits from the books are invested through Kiva, providing micro-loans to people around the world so they have an opportunity get out of poverty. What a great idea!

• My recent reads: The Grand Paradox: the messiness of life, the mystery of God and the necessity of faith by Ken Wytsma Heading Home: my search for purpose in a temporary world by Naomi Reed and Booked: literature in the soul of me by Karen Swallow Prior (I didn’t set out to choose books with such long titles but they’re all worth a read).

• I came across this beautiful song “Light” from Gungor about their daughter who was born with Down Syndrome. They named her Lucette which means light, and if you need a little light right now watch this video (oh, and you might need some tissues too!). The full lyrics and a little more of their story is on the You Tube page (Light).

• I also discovered that the service at Apple is pretty impressive. I’ve had my iPad Mini for about a year and love it. Unfortunately it stopped working about a week after I arrive home from holiday. I took it into the Genius Bar at the Apple Store and they ran some tests, determined there’d been a hardware failure and swapped it for a replacement on the spot. You’ve gotta love that.

• For the last month I’ve been trying out the Bullet Journal system, and so far I’m finding it very helpful to have one place for recording tasks, events, phone calls and meeting notes. All you need is a notebook and a pen. I’ve tweaked it a little for my own needs, particularly at work, where I keep it open on my desk and also take it to meetings.

Christmas: God with us

For to us a child is born,
    to us a son is given,
    and the government will be on his shoulders.
And he will be called
    Wonderful Counselor, Mighty God,
    Everlasting Father, Prince of Peace.

Isaiah 9:6

It’s Christmas once again, as we celebrate the birth of Christ, the coming of the awaited Messiah.

“The virgin will conceive and give birth to a son, and they will call him Immanuel” (which means “God with us”).

Matthew 1:23

One of my favourite Christmas songs is Bryan Duncan’s “The Form of Man” – the lyrics never fail to remind me of the astonishing truth of Christmas:

“He wrapped his love in flesh and blood and he took the form of man.”

The extent to which God would go to dwell among us, to love us, to redeem us, is truly beyond comprehension. With total vulnerability, Jesus the Son of God submitted himself to share our humanity. He walked this earth with us, and entered into our mess.

“God the Father sent His son and we held him in our hands.”

Whatever your Christmas looks like, whatever burdens you may be carrying, may you find peace and rest in Jesus, the one who came to be God with us.

With love and blessings,

Ann

Image sourced here.

31 Days: What if you listened?

What if everything you did in life was for the express purpose of showing your love to God?

What if it was all an expression of adoration and worship?

What would life look like?

What would it feel like?

What if you stopped thinking you already know what God wants and what he’s doing, and started asking, started listening?

So here’s what I want you to do, God helping you: Take your everyday, ordinary life—your sleeping, eating, going-to-work, and walking-around life—and place it before God as an offering. Embracing what God does for you is the best thing you can do for him. Don’t become so well-adjusted to your culture that you fit into it without even thinking. Instead, fix your attention on God. You’ll be changed from the inside out. Readily recognize what he wants from you, and quickly respond to it. Unlike the culture around you, always dragging you down to its level of immaturity, God brings the best out of you, develops well-formed maturity in you.
Romans 12:1-2 (MSG)

Image sourced here.

This is Day 27 of the series 31 Days to Listen.

31 Days: Listening – the gift of paying attention

Have you ever noticed how it feels to have someone listen to you? I mean really listen. It doesn’t really happen all that often, especially in this crazy busy world of distractions. But when someone gives you their full attention, and just listens, that’s a precious moment.

When someone is genuinely interested in you and what you have to say, their attention says that you matter. You have value.

I need to know that I matter, that I have value. So do you. So do we all.

It’s hard to listen really well. To listen without jumping to conclusions or to judgement. To get past the feeling that listening isn’t enough, that I need to share my own anecdote to show that I understand, that I need to provide a solution a friend’s problem, that I should have some useful advice. That I somehow need to fix things, as if they need me to rescue them, as if I’m not already broken myself.

But what if I listened to someone in order to learn? From them. About them. What if I listened – to know them?

How would that change the way I listen?

Would it free me from shouldering a responsibility that is not mine? Would it free me from waiting for ‘my turn’? Would it free me from trying to impress with my own insight or humour? Would it free me to really pay attention and seek to understand a person. Would it allow me to really see them for who they are? To be with them? To love them and care about them?

I think it just might.

This is Day 23 of the series 31 Days to Listen. Visit Write 31 Days to see how other writers are contributing to this challenge.

31 Days: The Gift of Listening

 A number of years ago, I asked God a question. A question followed by a declaration. A challenge even.

Lord is this all there is? Is this all I’m ever going to experience of you? Because if this is all there is, it’s not enough.

I was hungry. I didn’t fully realise it at the time, but I was hungry for more of God.

I’d been a Christian all my life, but I felt that there had to be more than what I’d experienced. That was a particular turning point for me, because it opened a way for God to show me that there was so much more to having a relationship with him than I could possibly imagine. He’s been continually answering that question with more of himself. And I’m still just beginning to discover the depth and richness of relationship that He offers.

Knowing that if I’m willing to listen, He’s willing to speak, has been one of those precious discoveries.

One of the ways I do that is to write my questions in a journal and wait for his answers. It’s not a ‘prayer list’ so much as a conversation. I write because it’s helps me to concentrate, and so I can come back and see what God was doing, what he was saying in particular seasons of my life. It’s good to see what I was learning, and to see what I’m still learning. It helps to see the threads he’s weaving together into the fabric of my life.

A simple question I often ask is, “Lord, what do you want me to know right now?”

That’s the kind of question that allows Him to set the agenda, to steer the direction of our conversation. There have been times (many, many times over the years) when I’ve been afraid to make room to listen. I’ve been afraid of what I might hear, what he might say, what he might ask of me. But I’ve discovered that most often he wants to tell me how I’m loved, to encourage me, to lead me forward.

I’m discovering what a precious gift it is to listen to God, to know him and to be known.

This is Day 22 of the series 31 Days to Listen.