Even when doing the dishes.....

Hello, one and all its me again, back after a while away. Been an exciting two weeks with stuff coming up and changing all the time. Exam season now so everything is like in high gear with guys doing a lot of SWATing for their upcoming papers. So just been a good morning, woke up and was thinking tomorrow (24th October) is a very significant day for me although at the moment it won't have an official significance it still reminds me of the journey thus far and how I made some important decisions in my life. But anyway back to the subject matter, I guess you guys must be wondering what this whole ' Even when doing dishes' title is all about. Well today I was at a worship workshop for all the GodFirst battalions and got a lot of insight into worship and thought I'ld share with you guys.

There was an interesting quote that came up today, "Religion happens when God walks out the door". Just got me thinking what things have I been doing as a worship leader during the worship service that God is not involved in at all but just because well, 'I've learnt to do it RELIGIOUSLY'. Very disturbing thought but think about it, in church are you now just raising your hands, cause its the norm, do you even know why you're raising up your hands? Not to say raising up hands isn't great  its awesome shows just our surrender to God, but when we no longer think about why we're doing stuff and they just become 'RELIGION' then it becomes fruitless.

Today though I just want to shift our gears and move out of the context of church and more into our everyday lives. What is worship for us, if we could mention the five things you could do other than singing to worship God, what would it be? Would that include paying your taxes with integrity, being a good steward of your time and studying for an exam or doing an assignment on time. To think about most of our lists might include the 'significant stuff' like, working at a homeless shelter, or serving in a team on Sunday, which are all GREAT things don't get me wrong. But sometimes we think we can't do this in the ordinary stuff and thereby lose the opportunity to worship God all the time. As that verse in 1 Cor 10:31 thats says "Therefore, whether you eat or drink, or whatever you do, do everything for God's glory."(HCSB)


So I've got a challenge for you guys, I'm always on my facebook like once every hour of the day, so for the next seven days my statuses will show how on that day I'm going to worship God. I want to do this for two reasons, firstly since I am on my facebook constantly its a good reminder of what I should be doing for the day. And two it might encourage people on ordinary stuff they could also do to worship God. Hope all of you will join me in this. And maybe you're not a facebook addict like me and you're always on your cellphone. Why don't you make your background image what you're gonna worship God by doing today, or even set a reminder very hour. Maybe you're a computer junky, set your desktop background to what you're gonna do to worship God. I assure you you'll see amazing fruits as you exercise God in worshiping God in all you do.

Just want  to leave you with a scripture which I think so depicts what our lives should be like, "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."(Message)


love, peace and happiness


Tau 

Lonesome Thoughts

Thought I'ld go on a different tangent today and write a poem.... Wrote this after a though provoking discussion with a friend just over a year ago..

What it seems
Ain't what it is
What is was
Ain't what it will be
The good or bad in a person is......
....not what they are in a moment
But what they are constanlty

When it was a seed
Noone imagined an oaktree
For it decided to weather the harsh climate
To become what is was meant to be
For our trials and circumstances
Don't make us who we are
But our choices in therein

Who you seem
Is not who you are
Who you were
Is not who you will be
For strong bridges have broken,
Many a time
Small streams turn to great rivers

love, peace and happiness

Tau

Waiting well...

Coming from Zimbabwe, queues where always the order of the day. Queue for money to buy food, queue for fuel to go to the grocery store. Queue for an item i.e. bread at the grocery store then ultimately queue at the cash till to pay for these groceries so our lives were filled with waiting. But thinking about it what did I do with those precious hours in which my life was filled with waiting and I come up with one word, NOTHING.

Isn't this the same with our walk with God, were sometimes we are in a season filled with queues and all we do is complain. Comparing God to a bank teller or fuel attendant whose sole purpose is to serve us. Personally I've been in a waiting period for a couple of months and just going in my brain, 'Anytime today would be good God'. But to my dismay am still in that queue and nothing seems to be happening. Speaking to my mum today made the situation even more real and it was so easy for me to start thinking of a backup plan, just incase God doesn't pull through. But even as the thought entered my mind the absurdity of such a phrase hit me. And it hit me in the form  of two verses Numbers 23:19 - 'God is not man who lies or son of man who changes his mind, does He speak and not act or promise and not fulfill?'(HSCB) and Hebrews 6:18 - ' So God has given both his promise and his oath. These two things are unchangeable because it is impossible for God to lie. Therefore, we who have fled to him for refuge can have great confidence as we hold to the hope that lies before us' (NLT). 


Its so easy not to trust God when things don't happen in our alloted time, when God seems to be just taking a chill pill in our situation for kicks, but I think the thing we need to learn is to wait well. As Sibs (Elder at Godfirst church) once put it, do we sometimes consider that God is more interested in working in our hearts than in our situation. That He is more worried about building Christ-likeness in us..... Not saying God doesn't care about our problems or the situations we are in, but lets not let our lives boil down to the whether God has done His 'genie' work. Terry Virgo(leader of New Frontiers family of churches) put it excellently when he said, "Salvation begins when we surrender to Christ's lordship".


Maybe you have an unmet need in your life right now, maybe like me not knowing how you are going to come back to university the following year. Maybe your marriage has been on a knifes edge for months, or you are watching your only child's health slowly deteriorate. Whatever it is, big or small, I encourage you, while seeking God for an intervention wait well. Instead of complaining 3hours in the bank queue of your situation, see the inner work that God is doing. Because one thing is for sure, that its our faith in Jesus that gets us through the hard times. Because hard times will come and go, problems will arise and pass but God is still God. Just thought I would leave you with the words from a song by Kutless called I'm Still Yours

Even if you take it all away

You never let me go

Take it all away

I still know

That I'm yours

I'm still yours

love, peace and happiness

Tau

Look up...

I know, I know guys its been a couple of days since my last blog but its been a very trying time for me. Went through a bout of bad days and sleepless nights. Was feeling very restless but just like Jacob felt I was telling God I won't let go till you make me right. And am feeling a lot better now, still fighting the doldrums.

So anyway today I don't have much to share just something interesting happened today late in the day. Decided to go to the grocery store to get some groceries(no prizes for guessing). On my way back I met this short white guy who greeted me and complemented me on my hat. And it seemed like this guy had something burning He wanted to say to me but he just kept quite. We walked in silence until our paths went in different directions and he said to me. "Can I offer you a piece of advice," knowing me I love to hear what people say especially perfect strangers. Then he added, "Always look up when you walk, it could drastically change your life." Weird I know, my first thoughts were, this guy maybe saw me crossing the road and a car maybe almost hit me and He's just telling me to look where I am going. But my philosophical self could not take this statement at face value. The last part of his advice "...it could drastically change your life" rang in my head for a while.

Then I started to think, how often like me crossing the road do we walk with God looking at our feet. I know it is written, 'God is a lamp unto our feet', but sometimes we get so obsessed with the steps we are taking we forget to look up to see the one who's waiting for us at the finish line. This came at such a timely moment in my life when I had become obsessed with my good days and bad days that I had forgotten to take my eyes off the road cause ultimately I'm not the one driving........ God is. I guess its easy for all of us to become engrossed in our cares, successes, failures that we fail to see the full view. Our life becomes limited by only as far as our steps take us.

So as that  short man said, 'when we walk lets always look up...'

love, peace and happiness

Tau

Grace.....

When Satan tempts me to despair,

And tells me of the guilt within,

Upward I look, and see him there

Who made an end of all my sin

I describe myself as one of those modern type worship leaders, out with the hymns and bring in the real music sort of guy. But quite interesting God has taken me on a tangent from my usual style and made me fall in love with hymns. I remember listening to 'I Exalt Thee' and just having the words impact my heart so much and focus my attention on God. But not to get caught up in dissecting my favourite hymn I guess today just wanted to write about grace, the word the entire gospel is built on. Just looking at guys who wrote hymns, I can't help but marvel at thhey're understanding of grace. Hymns have two common things which i feel are central to the Gospel. One is understanding that God loves you regardless and the second being that the only way we know that is by focusing on God.

I guess a lot of my posts have concentrated on the second postulate (proves i write a lot of scientific reports to use words like this) but today I'll spend time on the first. You know that verse in Psalms that says "But you, O LORD, are a shield about me, my glory, and the lifter of my head." (Psalm 3:3 thank God for the internet). I was watching a series called 'Lie to Me' and this guy has got like a PhD in like Psychology and helps the government and companies spot liars. This one episode was interesting when this one guy felt shame and guilt for something he had done, and the PhD dude says, this guy is showing shame because his shoulders are drooping and his head is tilted down.

Isn't that what its like with us and sin, when we sin our spiritual shoulders droop and our heads tilt down. What's so amazing about this verse is that it doesn't point to 10 step plan to get out of guilt, it points to Jesus. You might say well, Jesus wasn't born yet and blah blah blah, how can it point to Jesus. But something fascinating I discovered recently Luke 24:27, ^" And beginning with Moses and all the Prophets, he explained to them what was said in all the Scriptures concerning himself." All of scripture pointing to Jesus, WOW, I would have loved to have been part of those wide eyed disciples.

So I guess not to go off topic, grace is truly what saves us. Its truly what gives us pride in our saviour. If it wasn't for grace we wouldn't be here. Mercy Me (christian rock band) sing:

And if I boast let me boast

Of filthy rags made clean

And if I glory let me glory

In my Savior's suffering

Isn't that crazy

It would definately be crazy if it all wasn't true. I've got a friend of mine and her name means grace. But the first time i asked her what her name meant she said to me, "It means unmerited favour" (still think she just wanted to make it sound cool." But thats exactly what grace means...

love, peace and happiness

Tau