deepest fear.

yesterday i watched the movie Coach Carter again (i love this movie... not sure how many times i have watched it now..)
But in the movie it has a quote from Marianne Williamson... which i love (in the movie it is edited and stuff about God is taken out of it.. unfortunately).. here is the original version of it.

“Our deepest fear is not that we are inadequate. Our deepest fear is that we are powerful beyond measure. It is our light, not our darkness that most frightens us. We ask ourselves, Who am I to be brilliant, gorgeous, talented, fabulous? Actually, who are you not to be? You are a child of God. Your playing small does not serve the world. There is nothing enlightened about shrinking so that other people won't feel insecure around you. We are all meant to shine, as children do. We were born to make manifest the glory of God that is within us. It's not just in some of us; it's in everyone. And as we let our own light shine, we unconsciously give other people permission to do the same. As we are liberated from our own fear, our presence automatically liberates others.”

And it is so true... well i know it is for me... i often shrink back for others to shine and think who am i to be all this... but i am a child of God and because of that i should shine and be all i am created for so that others will be encouraged to shine.  

so, i also challenge you to be all you were created to be in ?Christ.... and therefore giving permission to those around you to shine...

something beautiful

Below is a song that a friend of mine wrote and sung... it is an adaption of the song "something beautiful, some thing good".  

I love it... it is so simple, and true.. and it hits my heart... i feel God's love, i feel Him melting any walls that i have put up to protect my self... so that the truth sinks in... that He calls me beautiful.. and no matter what has or is happening in my life He can make something beautiful.

our words...

last night i was reminded how much our words and actions can hurt the people around us... even when we don't intend to hurt people...
All people have had a different walk in life, and so they see things through different lenses... like even some people being asked to go somewhere, i have seen taken the wrong way... the invite was just an invite to join in on community... but the person took it the wrong way... (and not the way that most of you who are reading this think...) The person took it as if the guy inviting him was just taking the mickey of him, teasing him.... to make him jealous... but it was just a honest invite to come along and join in .... I only found this out when i actually sat down with the person who was invited, and he shared that,...
It made me think how many other times do our good intentions, invites, words and actions and non action are taken the wrong way just because people are hurt and they see things through different lenses... and we will never know what they are thinking about, or how they see things (even our words and actions) unless we get alongside people and ask them....

Blessings...

Tonight i went out to the soup run... and the volunteers that had prepared the food and were serving it under the Salvation Army, were from a small (Greek or Italian i think) ethnic church. these guys went full out to bless the guys on the street that come along to the soup van... Before coming down town they cooked pasta (instead of the hot dogs that they usually have), they also made individual Tiramisu to give to everyone... they also gave out bags with fresh fruit and homemade biscuit/cookies (depending where you come from)... they also had some toys to give away to some kids that come with parents... It was awesome to see some Aboriginal kid's eyes really light up when they were give these big teddies (the younger ones) or a snorkeling set (the older kid), it was gorgeous... These kids had such a sparkle in their eyes when they received these presents.
It was awesome to see, cause these volunteers didn't just come to "feed the poor"... but really wanted to bless them, and this is how they thought they could do it best and a number of them stopped to talk with people, .... they also had a small group singing Christmas carols during their time there.
I know that this made some of the people there feel loved and valued... which is how people are meant to feel.
There is stuff that we can do everyday, that would make people that we have contact with, feel loved and valued... Even if it is just smiling at people, or taking the time to chat with people...
go out and bless people today.... dare you....

Last Official Cell for the Year.

Last night was our last official cell for the year.... We had a bbq out the back and just chilled and hung out it was great fun...
We were blessed by one of our cell mates bringing this huge platter of meat... lamb and pork chops, chicken, sausages it was that big, that we only cooked that meat and there was still leftovers. We had a huge spread of food.. it was a feast.
it was a lot of work to prepare for the night... my house mates started preparing salads 2 hours before people were meant to rock up and didn't finish until people were rocking up... i got home form work and started setting up out side... getting chairs and a table set up out there.

Although there was a bit of work involved it was well worth it... we only had one of our regulars that didn't show, and had a total of 15 that came and hung out with us... some were only there for half the time, cause they had other stuff on before....
Our cell has been getting a regular of around 10... and at the beginning of the night it didn't look like we were going to break that, even though we had a couple of new people come... there were a few regulars that didn't make it at the beginning of the night... but as the night processed...3 of our regulars rocked up, and brought some friends...

It was a great time,
I think we should do things like this more often... at least over summer while it is warm outside....
Any way i just wanted to share and praise God for the awesome night we had last night.

I have been learning lately that it is really important to be intentional with my relationship with God.... you see, for ages i had a lot of spare time, cause there wasn't really many people around that i could/would hang out with... and it was a little easier to spend time with God.. cause i had time... plenty of it...
however, lately i have being hanging out with people nearly every night of the week... which has been awesome, and sometimes tiring.. I haven't had that sort of community for a while and missed it, even though hanging out with other Christians in community is all good, in fact we are told to hang out with others... i have noticed that i have been getting distracted from spending time with God... That i would put off or even forget to hang out with God ... and my spirit and ministry has suffered because of this... so i am re learning to be intentional about spending time with God... more than just reading my bible, but actually sitting, quieting my spirit (which is a bit hard lately, since i have had so much activity going on) and listening...
Listening and hearing what God wants to tell me, hearing who He wants me to pray for, hearing His direction for me... and the ministry i am involved in...

roadtrip adventures to and from melbourne

Normally this trip takes about 8 hours, which was the case on the way to Melbourne. We drove over night on Thursday night, it was quite fun, we stayed up and got to our destination at the right time, and safely...
However the way back was a slightly different matter.... we had passed Ballarat and was continuing along the road heading to adelaide, when we ran over something already dead on the road... It wasn't seen til the last minute, due to having high beems off, because of on coming cars. So we went over it.... a little while latter we were hearing a weird noise coming from the car... we stopped in this small little town called Beaufort. (this is a nice town during the day.... but at night everything is closed and no one is around). It was here that we had a look around the car to work out what the noise was.... and we found a cable hanging down from the car. We weren't sure what the cable was but thought it would be saver getting someone to look and fix it than to continue driving, So we rang the RAA (well the Victoria equivelant) and was told that because we hit something it is classed as an accident and that they couldn't help... so we spent quite a while ringing different people (around 1am) to get a mechanic to come out or a tow or anything... to no avail. We also txted friends that we thought would be up to pray.
We decided that we may as well settle down and sleep the night. 2 people decided to sleep on the side of the road while another 2 of us stayed in the car.. about 20 to 30 mins after this decision (about an hour or 1 and a half hours since we stopped), a truckie pulled over to see if we needed some help... I told him the situation, He climbed down from his truck to have a look, He told us that it was just the hand brake cable and that we could just tie it up and it would be fine. One small problem, we didn't have anything to tie this cable up with... so we asked the truckie if he had anything that we could use... After searching his truck he came back with a usb cable that he had cut the ends off and cut it in half... Then told us how to tie up the hand brake cable... so we went under the car to tire up the cable, Success... we were on the road again... Praise the Lord... for he answers prayers, both ours and our friends prayers on our behalf. 2 hours after we stopped.
There may be some pictures to come....

by the way we are still on the road.... 398 km to go...

Wedding

today i went to a wedding... it was fun.

the wedding was a traditional style but was very laid back... a lot of jokes and mucking around by everyone involved. (Including the officer starting to read the funeral notes, and then dedication notes, before getting to the wedding stuff).

This wedding really suited the couple, it was awesome.

I have got a pic of one of the groomsmen, and it is someone that a lot of you who read this blog know.... I've posted the pic and do you reckonise him.