What Will You Choose?

My heart is heavy. It's sorrowful. And I think God's heart might be that way too. When He sees His people living lives that aren't His best for them. Sees them making choices that have eternal consequences and it's as if they don't even care. Don't care about the destination of their souls. Don't care that they are shutting out His goodness, His love. Choosing to put the things of this world above the things of Heaven. I'm guilty of all of this. Guilty of wanting my own way, of being relentlessly selfish and worldly. Of thinking I know best. How His heart must break. 

His people choosing to ignore His Word, not even feed on the Words of life that He so freely and perfectly gave us. To let them soak into the core of who we are, so this world and all of it's filth just ricochets off of us. Seeing His people needlessly suffer and stress and worry and live in turmoil, when we're the ones who stand in our own fickle pride and act as though we can make it on our own. Are we serious? Do we really think that we can survive this life without drawing from the Author of Life? 

He puts before us life and death; His plea? 

Choose life! Choose Me! Forget this world with it's quickly passing standards, with it's quick fixes and worthless solutions and just CHOOSE ME! I'm everything. I hold everything. I've made everything. I know everything. I know you. Children of mine, be mine. Live as mine. Breathe as mine. Stand out, stand up, speak out. Let your life be a mirror image of me. 

And it's not about methods, or routines, or formula's, or schedules. It's not about any of this. It's about whether we want it enough. All the methods in the world won't change a thing if you simply don't want to. If you simply don't want to pray, don't want to pour over His word, don't want to thank Him for every blessing, don't want to take every horrible, hard, seemingly impossible situation to Him and leave it there for Him to work out in His perfect way. It's about choices. 

He's given us every answer to every dilemma. He's suffered through every single thing known to man when He hung on that Cross. And yet the walls of the box go up and He is placed so safely and comfortably inside of it, having access to only what we let Him. It's not about anything other than our choices. Are we going to choose Him or not? Choose Him fully or not? Are we going to listen to the world or not? Follow the way of death, or life? It's not complicated. His ways are easy. His ways are perfect. His ways are more than enough.

(Photo Credit)

The Quiet Time Basket

So many things have been changing and happening around here lately, that I haven't found the time to be able to sit down and write a single thing! I've missed you all and missed writing here in this little space! With that being said, I would like to share with you a little something practical that has given me a 'boost' in my times with the Lord. 

My husband and I enjoyed a lengthy conversation the other night about habits. We talked about healthy ones, unhealthy ones and new ones that we would like to create. We realised that we're all creating habits each and every day, whether we notice them or not, and whether we intentionally choose to or not.

So, if habits are formed regardless, isn't is much wiser to choose healthy ones in the first place? 

To focus on what we spend our time on, what we read, listen to etc, and make sure that we are choosing that which is good? Time is being spent every second of every day; time that is irreplaceable. Habits are formed each day, and unhealthy ones are hard to break.

This day I call the heavens and the earth as witnesses against you that I have set before you life and death, blessings and curses. Now choose life, so that you and your children may live. Duet 30:19

I want to choose life. We must choose life!

In my day to day life I want to deliberately choose the healthy habit of spending time with the Lord. Of praying, giving thanks, reading His word, journaling, keeping a thankful list and so on. Putting all the materials together for these activities makes it so much easier for me to keep this healthy habit. Anything to make habit forming easier, right?

Enter the Quiet Time Basket.

What is that you ask? It's very simple. It's a basket that I picked up from a local garage sale (for 50c) that I have filled with all my essential quiet time materials so that it's really easy to grab it in the morning (with my cup of coffee of course) and head outside for some time with my precious Saviour.

Here's what's in my Quiet Time Basket ...

• My Bible
• Highlighters
• Pens
• Lead Pencils and colouring pencils
• My journal
• My thankful journal
• a small tin of solid watercolour paints and brushes
• rubber and sharpener
• fine tip coloured felt pens
• the book that I'm currently reading

What I really enjoy about this is that it's something that's so simple, but it's effects are so good for the soul! And if I have a spare few minutes throughout the day, I can just grab it again and off I go! How easy is that?!

Finally, brothers and sisters, whatever is true, whatever is noble, whatever is right, whatever is pure, whatever is lovely, whatever is admirable--if anything is excellent or praiseworthy--think about such things. Phil 4:8.

I pray you all have a beautiful week choosing to spend time with the Lord!

Preparing For Busy Times

At the moment, our family is in the process of moving house. You know, that process where things are all over the place and your home is turned upside down as you see a wall of boxes grow before your very eyes?! Yep, it's full-on around here.

There's something though, that I've been wanting to invest in for a few months now, and yesterday, I was finally able to do so. It's a second slow-cooker (or crock pot for my American friends!) This morning I woke up and gave our home a thorough cleaning, with the help of our children, and then set to work putting meals in the slow cooker.

I've been wanting a second slow-cooker for so many reasons; one of them being so that I can be cooking two meals at once. One for that night, and one for the freezer. This is what we plan on doing over the next couple of weeks. Making meals in the slow-cooker for freezing to enjoy when we're in the thick of moving house in a couple of weeks time. Hopefully this will make things so much easier and we will still be enjoying healthy meals as a family.

Obviously, I had to think through the financial side of things and figure out if investing in another appliance is worth it. We have a page on FaceBook where we can buy and sell things and I was able to purchase my second slow-cooker (although smaller than my first one), at just $25.00 with a recipe book as well! That's an investment I can afford!

Why do I love my slow cookers so much? ...

• the time I gain back
• knowing that the meals are healthy
• leaving the house is fine as my meals are still cooking!
• no rushing at the end of the day
• more time to spend with my family
• stockpiling meals in the freezer!
• less washing up!
• I can make this delicious breakfast!
• I feel very organised! (although, lately not so much!)
• cooking two meals at once
• there are so many things I can cook in them!
• they're easy for my children to use should they want to cook a meal
• the house smells amazing!
• I have a sense of satisfaction knowing my family will be well fed




My second slow-cooker. It has tomato, honey, potato and sausages
(and a whole pile of veggies!)



But this second slow-cooker wasn't just purchased for the benefit of my family alone. Here's the other ways I hope to bless others with my small investment ...
 

My first slow-cooker. It's currently cooking honey mustard chicken legs
(also with a whole pile of veggies!)

• sharing pot-luck meals with Church family on Sundays
• meals for sick families
• meals for others who are very busy too
• meals for families struggling financially
• meals for our elderly neighbours (especially in winter)
• larger sized meals for get-togethers with friends and family

I'm really thankful that I could make this little investment!

Is this something that you would consider doing?

 

I hope you're having a beautiful week!