God must be busy...

That anchor man says the fight began
Somewhere in the Middle East, world prays for peace
There's a single mom just got laid off when they lost a job
To some foreign hands, some faraway land
Last night in Oklahoma some twister took thirteen
And they're praying that they find the missing three
God must be busy

That highway sign went from slow ahead to traffic's dead
Thought it couldn't get worse than that Amber Alert
They say she's four, Colorado plates headed out-of-state
In a Chevy van, it's hard to understand
You can see it in the faces of all those highway strangers
They're praying that God keeps that girl from danger
God must be busy

And I know in the big picture I'm just a speck of sand
And God's got better things to do than look out for one man
I know he's heard my prayers cause he hears everything
He just ain't answered back or he'd bring you back to me
God must be busy

At evening news ain't much changed
Pretty much the same since I left home
Yeah, that war's still on
They found that little girl
She was soaking wet, half scared to death on the side of some road
Them prayers work, you know

And the Bloods and Cripps are at it
And theres a killer drought down south
And old folks can't afford the drugs they can't live without
God must be busy

And I know in the big picture I'm just a speck of sand
And God's got better things to do than look out for one man
And I know he's heard my prayers cause he hears everything
He just ain't answered back or he'd bring you back to me
God must be busy

That anchorman says the fighting's worse
Cities burn in the Middle East, world prays for peace

Brooks & Dunn - God Must Be Busy 

Firstly, I need to say that just because something has a "christian" label on it doesn't make it christian or good!

When a song says that things aren't going well for me, or I'm not getting my way, therefore God must be busy - it is hardly good and gives a false impression of what God is actually like!

When we write music or poetry or other things, our heart will often leakmout and share itself with us and occasionally with the rest of the world. Whoever wrote this song is sharing their hearts warped view of God, as too busy to stop and have time for me!

When I first heard the song I asked myself "what the ...? Did I really hear that guy say what I thought he said?" And sure enough ... blah, blee, blah blah God must be busy! Where does this guy get off? Does he not know that God is intimately interested in everyone including him?

While I get the other meaning that God is running flat stack solving problems, answering prayers and whatever else - its still looking at God as though He is nothing more than an overworked and under paid secretary with a bunch of demanding, picky bosses!

It wasn't until I started ministry training through Elijah House, then hearing the song again, I put it together. This guy has a very warped view of God because of his personal issues!

Whats with the thing of, I didn't get what I wanted, so I will automatically say God must be busy elsewhere with someone else, who, He loves more than me, whom He cares about more than me, so I'll just go write this song that screams "I HAVE ISSUES, BITTER ROOT JUDGEMENTS, BITTER ROOT EXPECTANCIES, INNER VOWS AND UNFORGIVENESS"!!

And I know in the big picture I'm just a speck of sand
And God's got better things to do than look out for one man ... since when did God have better things to do?

How does the writer of this song see God? Well, you can get a glimpse simply from two lines of the song. Firstly he shrinks himself down to an insignificant speck of sand then he says that because my "genie in a bottle" has failed to grant my demands, he must be busy elsewhere!

As children we form perceptions or ideas, whether accurate or in accurate, about our parents that colour or completely warp our relationship with God as adults. If our father is distant then we will assume that God is distant. If we see our father as being present but too busy to answer our request for time, hugs, or whatever else, we will see God as present but too busy for us! In the very area where we dishonour our parents, we will reap trouble relating to God. Our view of God will be screwed up, warped and twisted. And we will possibly end up saying something like ... "And I know he's heard my prayers cause he hears everything He just ain't answered back or he'd bring you back to me God must be busy".

This is apparently what passes as a good, uplifting, edifying christian song - my word, I didn't realise that the standards had slipped so far down the toilet!

How many people are listening to crap simply because they brought it from a christian book shop?
Do they not stop and listen to what the writer is actually saying in their favourite songs?
I sincerely hope that I never hear that depressing, warped song again.

May Gods blessings shower down upon you. And may you be coated in the dust of your Rabbi!

Australian Watcher On The Wall
http://australianwatcheronthewall.blogspot.com.au

How does one walk down that road?

The path I've walked is a hard one. And now I've been asked by a specific being to change direction and walk a different path. The question is ... how?

Hope deffered makes the heart sick.

7 years. Hope deffered for 7 years. What does that do to a soul? And then to be asked to start hoping again.

I've buried one child and mourned the loss of a second. Yet, of all that turmoil, the emotional upheaval and pain. This new learning is the hardest.

How does one go from no hope, loosing hope, and frequent disappointments to having hope. Having expectation of good. How does one truely believe that the plans set before them are for their own good, to not harm?

And I still say that in all honesty, I really don't know if I can walk that road. After a while, you sorta start to expect to be disappointed. You eventually tune out to that pain. You shut off that part of life. Close the door and walk away. But now,  to stand at that door, with hand on the knob, sanity screams "don't go there, don't enter the chaos". The heart whispers that I must. The emotions say I can't, I lack the strength and the courage. And the voice, a small bearly audible whisper, says come with Me.

How will I know when I've got where I'm going? How many boxes of tissues will I need along the way?

I can hardly walk this path. I keep tripping over hurts, pain and disappointments, not to mention I can't see through the tears. I feel weak, shaky and downright scared of yet another disappointment.

Why so long? Why wait so long to decide to walk this road? The pain would have been less if it had been earlier! I feel stuck, with hand on the door knob. Stuck is not moving. Stuck is glued.  Stuck is paralysed. Yet, I can see now, when I look back, this road was coming. This path was coming. I just didn't see it, or want to see it. I aided in its delay. My actions, my decisions aided in the pile up of pain. And now, what on earth do I do with it?

God, I don't know what to do with it. I don't know how to hope. What is the difference between hope and wishful thinking? What does hope look like? What does hope feel like? How will I know when I find it? And what do I do with this pain? What do I do with these disappointments?  God, You known what I've wanted, I've told You again, and again, and again. So often I can't remember. All those tears, everything. It's all piled here, because I didn't know what to to with it. I don't want any more disappointments. That is why its so hard to go here. Its been easier to simply say, no I wont go there, I wont do that because that action leads to pain.
But then I went there, and You, You caused a stirring. A churning of the water. And I was shoved in because, well, I don't know why. But You do. You've wanted me to walk this path. And I kept refusing, because it's too painful. So You, You orchestrated a meeting, a divine intervention. Because I need to go there, but I lack the strength and courage. And with one small breath, the door knob is no longer in my hand, the door is no longer closed, and the chaos is exposed to the light. And all I can do is stand and stare. And in the pile is shattered dreams, shattered desires. From not one but two little lives. Desires piles up. Well, actually the same desire, in duplicate a thousand times over. That one prayer that I've asked for. It's all there. Present and accounted for.
My nose hurts from blowing it so much. Can I have a break from crying? I need to sit down, oh, that's right, I am sitting.

I watch as that small whisper brings order to the chaos. It's not so hard to look in this room now. But the learning has begun. In earnest. I need to learn to trust, to hope, to dream. And I need to go shopping to buy some more tissues!

May Gods blessings shower down upon you. And may you be coated in the dust of your Rabbi!

Australian Watcher On The Wall
http://australianwatcheronthewall.blogspot.com.au

"We all have a little bit of Egypt in us" - Do we? Really?

I am either saved by grace or I am a sinner, not a little bit of both. I do not have a little but of Egypt left in me. I am 100% saved by grace. When I left my Egypt, I didn't just burn my bridges, I nuked them from orbit! Where there were once rivers, needing bridged to cross, there are now crators, filled with water, no bridges, no roads leading up to and away from any bridges, just massive big crators. Why? Because I am saved by grace and no longer require my old Egypt! Granted, like a child learning how to walk, I fall over (sometimes rather dramatically), but I am still 100% saved by grace and justified through faith in Jesus Christ. Not sinner, not slave, but child. Child of God. Child of the Most High, Living God, no less. So why do some people like to try and tell me otherwise? Why do they try to erode my faith away? Why are they unable to accept my faith and why do they not believe that they can have tye same faith? Is it because of the fundamental flaw we humans have possessed since the garden? The inability to trust that what God said is the truth? So we allow ourselves to be deceived by anything and everything? Maybe if we spent a little more time sitting at Jesus' feet, we might just start comprehending His message. Saved by grace does not require anything. To believe that we are saved by grace, requires us to trust that the words and the actions are true. Death on a cross is no simple thing. But it is the action that goes with the words. The rest will come, simply by spending time. So, please, go have a lunch date with Jesus. He will tell you that you are saved by grace and justified through faith in Him.

May Gods blessings shower down upon you. And may you be coated in the dust of your Rabbi!

Australian Watcher On The Wall
http://australianwatcheronthewall.blogspot.com.au

Getting intimate with axe heads.

There are verses in the bible that keep coming up in conversation, in preaching, in books being read... Why does this happen? Because God wants us to get the message.

I had a dream this morning where a group of people and I were sitting talking about this very subject. And one of the ladies said that a particular chunk of scriprure kept coming back to her and being in her face. I was prompted to tell her why.

What I said was someyhing like this.

We are meant to be about the Fathers business, and to do that, we need to have intimacy with Him. To be intimate is to spend time with Him, but we cant do that if we drop the axe head.

I read the story where a group of guys are out chopping wood to build stuff, and one of them borrowed and axe head from someone so he could do his bit. He's working away then he looses his axe head.

I have seen people, they are working away and then they stop. Why did they stop, becsuse they lost their axe head or they lost their intimacy with God.

In the story, the guy goes to the man of God and says to him, that he cant work because he lost the axehead and what's worse is the thing was borrowed.

The man of God says to him, take me to where you lost it. It wasnt "go to the shop and buy a new one". It wasn't "go and borrow another one". It was "take me the the exact spot where you lost the thing".

They go there, and the guy says its in there. It sunk to the bottom of the water. As axe heads will do! But, the man of God picks up a stick tosses it in and the axe head floats, and the guy retreives it!

The point is, that if we stop being intimate with God, we need to ask ourselves what happened! Did we move away? Did we drop our axe head?

We cant be about the Fathers business if we do not know what that business is. And we are meant to be stewards, not servants.

To be a steward, we need to be on the same page as the boss. Because we have access to His thoughts, His desires etc.

A servant will do only what they are told, they may have an incling of the bigger picture, but they are slaves, the big picture means nothing to a slave. Slaves do only what they are told to do, nothing more. Unless they have the desire to become a steward.

To be about the Fathers business we need to be about the Father. Intimacy.

Yearly? Well, you can try! But if you have a spouce and you only see them once a year on Christmas,  are you really going to know what gift they want? You can guess, but you wont have had intimate conversations to find out what they like. So yearly with God doesn't cut it in the intimacy department.

What about monthly? Well, monthly, you've gotten closer to being a steward, but you are still a slave. The simple fact is that whilst once a month with God is a great improvement on once a year, in reality, if youre onlt committed to once a month, you may as well be committed to only once a year, because once a month isnt enough to get that intimacy thing going. Instead of being almost total strangers, you're sort of acquaintances, who still have huge awkward moments, periods of silence, and a vague desire to end the conversation to go your separate ways!

Once a week is a huge imptovement. Your relationship has kicked up a gear. You know the other enough to overlook the awkwardness. You know the other person likes coffee, but you've never made it for them.

But to have the relationship with God where you and He are in the same book, on the same page, requires effort on your part. When you don't feel like it, when you're sick in bed, when you're so busy that you're run off you're feet and thouroughly exhausted, when the world is great... its a daily thing, even an hourly thing, and right down to spending every spare minute with Him, even every second. And yes, you can still work while spending time with God. You can talk to your passengers in the car while you drive? You can tslk to God while you do stuff. You talk to your family whilst preparing dinner? You can do the same with God.

To swim means you need to get wet past your ankles.
To see the axe head float, means you need to go back to where you lost it.
To be intimate with God requires you to desire His presence wherever you are and with whomever you're with, whatever you're doing, every second of the day.

Things come up again and again and again becsuse God is trying to tell us something. Are our ears painted on? Or are we being about the Fathers business, in intimacy, leading devoted lives, that are totally in tune and walking in cadence with Gods Spirit?

May Gods blessings shower down upon you. And may you be coated in the dust of your Rabbi!

Australian Watcher On The Wall
http://australianwatcheronthewall.blogspot.com.au

After funeral thoughts...

Why is it that funerals have a way of transporting me back in time? I've only ever been in close proximity to 2 white coffins, one was today and the other was Exaviers.

This transportation happened at a different funeral too. At the burial service. There I was at the Glen Innes cemetary, yet I felt like I was back on that day, watchimg Exavier be lowered into the ground.

Have I not dealt with this grief thing? Am I holding onto something? Why does this come up? I got frustrated with myself for not keeping it together, for stumbling whilst reading a scripture. I thought I was stronger than that.

So much for being a comfort to those who are hurting. How do I put my crap aside and actually be there for others? After so many years I feel like some wounds have not been closed.

I thought it had been dealt with, that chapter closed. Tucked away for safe keeping. But no, it seems like it is wide open and at every funeral I attend, at some point in time I am left to "revisit" Evaviers funeral. I wish I could keep it all separate, but no. It seems that that is simply not possible. Am I forever going to be stuck in this place? Because my plea for people to not die seems to be ignored periodically. And at times I simply can not refuse to go to the funeral.

I don't like to remember the pain of that moment. As if it's not enough to know everyday that there should be more than one child gracing my home!

How do I remain in control of my emotions when others are in need of comfort? I cant just run away and hide. Though, I wish I could.

May Gods blessings shower down upon you. And may you be coated in the dust of your Rabbi!

Australian Watcher On The Wall
http://australianwatcheronthewall.blogspot.com.au