Am I ready?

Today's services were awesome.  I lead Sunday School this morning.  Which I used to dread because I thought it was quite boring and always felt the pressure of expecting to speak Samoan when I speak very little.  But the past couple of years I have made it my responsibility to make the most of it when I am given an opportunity to serve in His ministry.  And today...I loved it!  It feels really good when I feel that our church is in a spiritual place that complacency can be broken and accepted.  I have trialled so many different things since I joined this church and the congregation have been great and supported me in these little changes I make.  But I think most of all, I really do feel that God is telling me to ruffle some feathers.  I also want to be an example for our youth that there is no one way of serving our God.  As much as we are all from different homes, different backgrounds, different mindsets we need to adapt our worship, our service to suit everyone.  But of course having a husband whom I check in with before I do anything at church has always been very encouraging.

Today's message during Sunday School was about God's perfect plan.  I taught the older youth today which was refreshing though I missed my 9 & 10 year olds :).  We discussed their thoughts about what they felt their plans were for the future.  Some really good insights were shared.  God gave me an opportunity to share my testimony with them.  I hope that in sharing my story with them it helps them to understand the goodness there is in living for Him.

We discussed the blessings that God gives us and a thought came to mind. Most people say that they will wait for the blessings, but ni this discussion I felt that God blesses us because of something that we have done that is pleasing to Him.  So in order to receive more blessings from Him we need to do more.  We need to act more on our intentions, on our thoughts.  Too often I think we just think about things.  I asked the class to write down what they think their plan is, or are for the future.  And a comment was made that they weren't good in writing things down.  I believe that in writing our thoughts down on paper our thoughts then become real.  We don't write anything down because of the fear that what we need to do is what we HAVE TO DO. I felt really blessed and encouraged in sharing with this class.  I hope they felt the same way too.  One thing that was shared by one of the students was about fulfilling God's perfect plan for us wasn't just about achieving our goals, but it was about developing ourselves as a person so that we are capable to fulfil His perfect plan for us.  Soooo true.

Our messages talked about never forgetting God.  Realistically we get so caught up in our own day-to-day things that we do forget Him.  But God is always there waiting for us.  He never sleeps.  Dan preached in the evening service asking ourselves about whether we are ready.  This has been such a strong message ringing in everyone's minds with the recent earthquakes in Christchurch and in Wellington.  Dan and I were in the kitchen having a conversation when we heard a loud rumble and the kitchen shook.  We froze for a second and then ran to our girls' bedroom to check on them.  They were fine and had slept through.  But that event was enough to get us talking about what we needed to do when it happened during the day etc.  I could see tears well up in Dan's eyes as we talked about our plan.

Throughout the day the messages were about plans and preparation.  The earthquakes put a lot of things into perspective for me...but most of all I honestly feel that this doesn't stop me from serving Him.  This doesn't mean that I ignore everything else that goes on in my life but it does mean that my faith needs to be stronger.  In everything that I do I cannot feel that tasks are a burden to me and my family.  Because as soon as I feel that way, the potential blessing could be stripped away from me and my family.  I would be asking myself, "Well what's the point?".  "Why help others, when I feel that it will be too much work when I already have enough to do in my life?".  Thoughts like this that creep into my head make me feel that I need to think outside of what goes on in my life.  There are bigger problems out there.  Opportunities as unfortunate as they are, to help others, and all that I feel is frustrated.  I know that in the past I used to feel that way.  Feeling that I have had to do so much in supporting our church when others don't move.   But I remember the day when I said to my father-in-law, who is the Pastor of our church, that Dan & I used to take on all the duties because our parents were the Pastors but it no longer is about that.  We are taking on the duties because we believe in God's Perfect Plan for our lives.  The day that I announced that commitment really made an impact, a change for life for me.  As did the decision I made to leave home in 2001 and declaring to God that I was leaving home for Him and that I believe that I will serve Him in His ministry and have complete faith that He will protect me and provide for me....and He did.....a million times over He did.  I will never be able to explain in words the goodness that God has done for me but I can only show in my example for others.

So this week my aim is again to focus on the task at hand.  To be patient in all that I do and to see every opportunity that God has laid before me to share with others about His goodness.