A Net in Time

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Christian living

The Power of Your Love

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We sang this song in church one morning. It brought me back a few years singing this song with people I cared about.  It was so good to lift our voices in praise to the Lord.  Anyways, I hope you like it. 🙂

The Power of Your Love

Author is Geoff Bullock.   I expected when I plugged his name into the search bar to just learn some basic facts about him.  He’s an Australian boy, who has recorded more than 20 albums and written two books.  He was part of the rise of Hillsong. I didn’t expect to read about a story of God’s grace… Fame, leadership, loss, sin revealed, and God’s grace seen.  You can read more of his story here. 

Lyrics

Lord I come to You
Let my heart be changed, renewed
Flowing from the grace
That I’ve found in You
Lord I’ve come to know
The weaknesses I see in me
Will be stripped away
By the power of Your love

Hold me close
Let Your love surround me
Bring me near
Draw me to Your side
And as I wait
I’ll rise up like the eagle
And I will soar with You
Your Spirit leads me on
In the power of Your love
Lord unveil my eyes
Let me see You face to face
The knowledge of Your love
As You live in me
Lord renew my mind
As Your will unfolds in my life
In living every day
By the power of Your love
Hold me close
Let Your love surround me
Bring me near
Draw me to Your side
And as I wait
I’ll rise up like the eagle
And I will soar with You
Your Spirit leads me on
In the power of Your love
Hold me close
Let Your love surround me
Bring me near
Draw me to Your side
And as I wait
I’ll rise up like the eagle
And I will soar with You
Your Spirit leads me on
In the power of Your love
And I will soar with You
Your Spirit leads me on
In the power of Your love
And I will soar with You
Your Spirit leads me on
In the power of Your love

Love One Another

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Augustine once said “Remember, we are washed in the same blood.”   Doesn’t that comment just make you think?  Doesn’t it just highlight to you how we are all part of one family.   ALL believers in Christ have been cleansed by the same blood, the blood of Christ.  We are all part therefore of one big family.  It’s good that eh?

Sometimes, oh sometimes, we are so caught up in being doctrinally correct that we lose sight of the fact that we are family, and forget to treat each other like it.

love one another
Photo by Jamie Street on Unsplash

We need to love each other like family.  And just like families do, we can call each other out when we act inappropriately, or have faulty thinking, but we do so from the vantage point of love.  We don’t want our loved one going places, or thinking places, or acting in ways that aren’t suitable.

So when we talk with other believers, even if their faith is divergent from our own (for instance believers baptism vs covenant baptism), we don’t have to act like, or treat them like they are horrible for having a different standard.  The question always comes down to this… do these other believers love God, do they see that Christ’s death is the only answer to the sin in our lives, do they embrace God’s word as God’s word and believe in it wholly?   If they do, they are brothers and sisters in Christ, they are family.  Shouldn’t we treat them as such?

These are my people; we have been washed in the same blood, sanctified by the same Spirit, and loved by the same Father. (Ian Hamilton, The faith-shaped life) Share on X

Doesn’t mean it’s easy, in fact loving family can be downright messy, but let love be the first guide.  Let love draw us into unity with each other instead of letting our differences drive us apart.

…….

Do you want to follow along?   Faith Shaped Life is available on amazon.

Grace Like Scarlett

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Free product received in exchange for my review for Nuts about Books. 

Affiliate links will be used in this review. 

The full title of Adriel Booker’s book is Grace Like Scarlett: grieving with hope after miscarriage and loss.   I DO NOT want the title to set you off though.  This lovely book is geared toward those who have suffered through miscarriage at any stage of pregnancy, but it is a worth-read for anyone struggling to understand God’s goodness throughout difficulty we face in life.    Reviewing this book brought back tons of memories for me at the same as it assured me of God’s overarching plan for my life and those impacted by it.   I urge you to pick it up.   Read it, share it, see God in action even through difficult times.

grace like scarlett

Who is Adriel Booker?

Mom, mentor, bible teacher, writer and advocate.  She leads “The love A Mama Collective” (which helps women in developing countries with safe child-birth) and helps leads a YWAM group in Australia.  She has suffered three miscarriages.

What do you get?

More than 200 pages helping you understand miscarriage and who God is in your life throughout it.

Six sections divided as follows:

  1. Blindsided
    1. among the fields of gold
    2. Hello, deep love
  2. Overboard
    1. The spectacle of heaven
    2. From the dust
  3. Adrift
    1. diary of a broken heart
    2. A thousand shades of grief
  4. Marooned
    1. the 18-inch journey
    2. an invitation to liberation
    3. thistle cove
  5. Anchored
    1. A crisis of faith or catalyst for grace?
    2. Whose fault is this, anyway?
  6. Onward
    1. The business of tear-wiping
    2. And then she laughed

Six appendices to help you work through your own miscarriage and well as to help others.

  • A letter for grieving dads
  • Remembering your baby (memorial ideas)
  • Helping your child process grief after miscarriage
  • Pregnancy after loss
  • Caring for a friend after miscarriage
  • Resources and Support

My Thoughts

Along the way she gives practical advice for talking with your children about loss, how to show them God even in the midst of grief.  There is so much I treasure in this book.   Written in a personal manner you can feel Adriel Booker’s love for women and her strong desire to help them see God even in the midst of a personal calamity.   The occasional journal prompts that appeared were well-timed and appropriate, their goal?  Help you talk to God about your pain, fears and questions.   It’s a good thing to do that.. even in journal form.
grace like scarlett

Quotes that grabbed at my heart

“Do you think God can still be good, even if we don’t know?   Do you think we can still trust him?”  (her son’s response as yes)

“He is not offended by our lack of certainty over the Big Questions; he’ll never equate our doubts or confusion with a lack of faith if, while questioning, we stay committed to relationship with him.  This is why covenant matters.  Your belonging to him, and his belonging to you…. it matters.”

“God will not shy away from your messy faith or your messy theology or your messy life.”

“The language we use for death fails us; these babies aren’t dead, they aren’t lost.  They are alive and found in him for eternity.  We grieve their loss to us here and now, but we grieve with hope because we know there is more to the story.”

grace like scarlett

Poignant words fill the pages of this book, I can’t possibly list all the words that made me stop and think and consider God just a bit more.

Miscarriage is HARD…those hopes and dreams crushed you know?  But God, God is there through every single bit of it.  He is.  He works it out, he helps us grow our faith, he answers our questions, and he accepts us where we are in our moments in time. Mrs. Booker does an excellent job of walking us through not only her own pain, but also in using our pain to help others.  Our very vulnerability is part of the healing process not only for ourselves but also for those we bump into on our journeys.  Use it.

But seriously… please… Go get this book, read it, share it, seek out God all the more and move forward.  DO IT.

grace like scarlett

 

Grace like Scarlett: Grieving with hope after Miscarriage and Loss
Adriel Booker
Baker Books
Softcover, 224 pages
Miscarriage, Loss, Faith
Women’s Issues, Motherhood
Reviewed for Nuts About Books

The Sorrow of Faith

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hands raised, text the sorrow of faithDo you understand God’s sorrow at our sin?

That’s the question Mr. Hamilton asks in today’s chapter.   Do we know the truth of this statement: The ultimate tragedy of sin is not that it spoils my life, disrupts my relationships, scars my world, but that it dishonours, defies, and disgraces my God.    Do we understand David, when confessing his sin to God says, “Against you, you only, have I sinned and done what is evil in your sight.”

Too often we are only taught about what sin does in relation to us.  How it hurts us, hurts our relationship with God, and so forth.  Centering it all around ourselves.

quote by ian hamilton

But that’s not the sorrow of faith is it?

The sorrow of faith is what sin does to God.  How it grieves his heart, makes him angry, and causes him to turn his face away from us.   God HATES sin.  HE does.  Do we truly understand this?  Do w

An old term in talking about sin is Deicidium… which means God Murder.   Do we see sin as being that kind of horror against our living God?    Do we truly see God?  

The ultimate tragedy of sin is not that it spoils my life, disrupts my relationships, scars my world, but that it dishonours, defies, and disgraces my God. Ian Hamilton Share on X

That’s what it comes down to you know?   The more we see and know God the more we see and understand just what sin is in relation to him.  It’s a horror, a darkness trying to cover up the light, a disruptor of all that is right, true, honourable and good.   It’s an abomination against God.   See that.

Understand God all the more so you can see that. As we do that, we are better enabled to understand the sacrifice of Jesus on the cross, and the magnitude of the love and grace he bestows up on us.

Understand God more, see him more clearly and you will understand Jesus’ sacrifice more dearly. 

Want to follow along?  I’m currently on chapter 16 and working through one chapter a week.

Fragrance of Faith

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When I started reading this 15th chapter in Faith-shaped life it didn’t make any sense to me.  Talking about Jesus being the Rose of Sharon (referencing the Song of Solomon) and how often Christians get lost in the exactitude of faith and belief that they lose their fragrance of faith.   This made ZERO sense to me.   So I talked with hubby and he immediately asked me… does he reference 2 Corinthians at all?   He referred me to this passage: 

14 But thanks be to God, who in Christ always leads us in triumphal procession, and through us spreads the fragrance of the knowledge of him everywhere. 15 For we are the aroma of Christ to God among those who are being saved and among those who are perishing, 16 to one a fragrance from death to death, to the other a fragrance from life to life. Who is sufficient for these things? 17 For we are not, like so many, peddlers of God’s word, but as men of sincerity, as commissioned by God, in the sight of God we speak in Christ.

Then this chapter began to make sense… because I can read scripture and make sense it of (usually, not always).  🙂

fragrance of faith, applying an essential oil to hands

Fragrance of Knowledge

What is this fragrance of knowledge and do we show it well?

When I think of fragrance I think of two things.

  1. STINK – you know like a skunk has a fragrance all it’s own
  2. PERFUME – a sweet or nice smell that one can appreciate as it’s pleasant to the nose.

So when we think of the fragrance of knowledge, of being the aroma of Christ, what are we conveying?   Does the smell we convey lead to life?

Does our union with Christ show as we proclaim the knowledge of Christ?   Have we allowed the two to become separate?  When we proclaim Christ do people see our relationship with him?

People need not only to know the truth of Christ’s redemptive  work, of the forgiveness we find in him, of the connection to God that he once again gives us… but they need to see the results of that lived out.  Our relationship with God needs to be apparent as that is what shows the good aroma of the Lord. 

Learning to Yearn

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A homeschool friend of mine wrote this book Learning to Yearn, she’s written another book “Calling all moms“.    ANYWAYS, I promised her a review back in April and then we bought the house and life got busy, I saw it sitting there and said “OH RIGHT!”  🙂   So that leads me to today eh?

Learning to yearn, review image

Anyways, Laurie is a lady of a quiet faith, she longs to know the Lord better and wishes that for her readers as well.  She’s had some trials in her life and has learned that the best way through them is the seek the Lord throughout.  She raised seven children, losing one to cancer, she grew up in a non-believing home. 

What do you get?

122 pages, divided into nine chapters.  Each chapter is prefaced with a bible verse, and none of the chapters is particularly long, making it easy to read through. Each chapter is followed by a blank page if you want to take notes as you read. 

Learning to Yearn, contents

Using real life examples, Laurie does an excellent job of connecting the spiritual with the everyday.  Helping us to better see the Lord in the things around us.   I could really see Laurie’s humbleness throughout her words.  She doesn’t offer these words out of a sense of “I’ve been there done that”, but more from a “this is what I’ve learned as I continue to struggle with it myself” point of view.  It’s refreshing to read a book that comes from a “me too” perspective you know?   One that shows important lessons to learn about walking in faith, but shows while walking side by side eh? 

One of the lines I liked was this one “It’s an act of faith to let our tight grip go.  It is also an act of faith to go through life with hands open surrendering to His plan, instead of tense, white-knuckle gripping.  Daily we need to ask for help give our concerns, fears, and hardships into His capable hands”. 

My thoughts:

Good book, go out and get yourself a copy eh?  Learn more about how to yearn for the Lord and how that will, over time, transform your life. 

learning to yearn, book cover

 

Learning to Yearn: Amidst the Storms of Life
Laurie Kenyon
Kenyonspage Publications
122 pages, softcover
Christian living, christianity

disclosure

We Know

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In this chapter, Ian Hamilton breaks down the importance of truly understanding this truth from God: And we know that for those who love God all things work together for good, for those who are called according to his purpose.  From Roman 8:28

And we know that for those who love God all things work together for good, for those who are called according to his purpose. On a water flood background

Paul starts this verse off with this imperative. WE KNOW.  Can we believers truly say this?  How can Paul, the midst of life’s uncertainties, say this with such clarity and forthrightness?   WE KNOW.

Well, who is the we… those who love God AND are called according to his purpose.  It’s a two parter eh?   The love and the calling. First There we are, the people of God, the people that love God.  Not a person all on their own, but a person united with others so we become a WE.   We have a love for God that holds us together but we also have a calling.  A calling to do God’s purposes.  With that love comes a knowledge that God will work all things in our life together for good.

Do you see how they fit together?

The love we have for God calling us to a unity.  

God’s love evidenced in our lives.  He called us to be his own.  He predestined us to love him and to be mindful of him and he calls us his own.  In the calling he works everything that happens in our lives for good. 

It doesn’t say that he works everything out for OUR good, but that he works everything out FOR good. Remember how we are a WE?  So the struggles that we go through… a job to find, a death of a child, temptations, devastation, death, and such like.  We, including the individual me and I, but we, who are loved by God, who love God and are called according to his purposes.  He works it all for the good. 

Isn’t that just the greatest comfort?

Paul’s assurance that we KNOW this.  That we know God’s calls us according to his purposes and that he works out everything single thing that happens in our lives FOR GOOD.  He does.  It’s just a regular fact in our lives as believers.  So confident he is that we know this thing.

The miscarriages I’ve had helped me reach out to a gal who went through a miscarriage, losses of animals held dear to my heart help me understand pet loss in others, raising a child (something not always so easy) helps me reach out to other moms.  It doesn’t always directly benefit me, but it does benefit the kingdom of God.  And THAT, that is a very good thing.

What hard things have happened in YOUR life that have turned out for good?