Challenge Literature Fellowship - Australia
I have been suffering from back pain for the last few months, which has been quite debilitating. Last night, as I sat on the couch with my sausage dog on my lap, my daughter set me a poser: “Mum, would you rather have no pain and no dog, or have Carrie but continue to have pain?”Continue reading
I read a story recently about a dog that has sat for four months outside a hospital in Brazil, waiting for its owner, who died there. Apparently, another dog in Japan waited similarly for ten years on a train station! I reckon my sausage dog, Carrie, would only wait for me until someone walked past with food!Continue reading
The vet tells me my little dog, Carrie, is dying.
You wouldn’t know it from looking at her though. She has a glossy coat, she runs around and barks the same as always, she is eating and pooping and scratching and sleeping and curling up on my lap, same as ever. She doesn’t seem to be in any pain or have any swellings.Continue reading
After all these sausage dog stories, I think I may have got the analogy wrong. That my relationship with my little dog is not in fact a very good picture of God’s relationship to me, after all.
You see, the other day I was eating something and Carrie was begging for a piece of it. I said “no” and one of my girls said, “Mum, she knows you don’t really mean it.” Sure enough, I eventually gave the dog some.Continue reading
Carrie, as a sausage dog, is of course very short-legged. This has some advantages for me, as she is unable to jump on my bed, reach food on the kitchen counter or pull things off the couch. However, the flip-side of that is that she needs my help a lot – every time she gets on or off anything.Continue reading
“Hatred stirs up strife, but love covers all wrongs.”
Let me tell you the story of Binyoni, the Principal of a Christian school in Burundi.
His name means “Little Bird” and he was called this because he had a beautiful gift of music and was constantly singing and encouraging people in their faith.
There came a time of political unrest in the country and the ruling Tutsis were systematically seeking out leaders in the Hutu community and murdering them.
Binyoni was a Hutu and one day, he and his eleven teachers were taken by a group of Tutsi soldiers who had been given orders to put them to death. As they were being escorted up the hill to their place of execution, Binyoni turned to the soldiers and asked if he could pray for them.
Continue reading
By Rob Furlong
Every successful sprinter will tell you that the key to winning is keeping your focus on the finish line. Never look to see where your opponent is and most certainly, never look back!
In his wonderful book, A Resilient Life, Gordon MacDonald writes “…there are some (people) who stand out from all the rest…the further they run, the stronger they get…”
He calls such people “resilient ones” and describes the qualities he has observed in them; qualities that are the reasons behind the strong impression they leave on people.
The same thought can be applied to marriages. Why is it that some marriages make it through the toughest of times – even emerging from them stronger – when other marriages fall apart?
It comes back to one word: resilience.
Continue reading
By Rob Furlong
Have you ever wondered how different our world might be if Jesus had never been born?
For example, as a direct result of His emphasis on love, mercy and compassion, Christians set up organizations such as hospitals, universities, a just and fair judicial system, orphanages and centres caring for the poor.
All because a baby was born in a stable two thousand years ago.
One of the most profound impacts Jesus has had upon our world is in the area of our relationships, especially those between husbands, wives and the family unit.
Continue reading
By Janice Teo
I have a lemon tree at home. To all who know it, it is a superstar. First of all, it is of the Meyer variety, which I understand is the Wonder Woman of the lemon tree world – strong, beautiful and able to cheat death at every turn (a necessary quality because until my mother-in-law came to live with us, I had to take care of it).
Secondly, for all its star quality, it is no diva. Some plants require more attention than an octopus going through a clingy phase; my lemon tree on the other hand is happy with regular watering and the occasional squirt of fertiliser.
There was one time when it had scale (scale are tiny, sap-sucking insects) and my heart stopped thinking we had lost it, but my mother-in-law, armed with lemon oil – kryptonite to scale – smothered the life out of the bugs we already had as well as all their future generations.
I can’t even claim any credit for planting it. It was already in the garden when we bought the house 15 years ago. In all that time it has never faltered, fruiting twice, sometimes even three times a year. Its fruit never varies in quality – always juicy, luscious and unblemished. It is so bountiful that the question is never ‘will we have enough?’ but ‘what do we do with all the excess?’
One evening I was struck by the thought that my lemon tree was the perfect metaphor for some aspects of what it means to be a Christian.
The Bible draws many parallels between the life of the Christian and life in the garden. In John 15, Jesus says: “I am the vine; you are the branches. If you remain in me and I in you, you will bear much fruit”. In verse 16 He says: “I chose you and appointed you so that you might go and bear fruit—fruit that will last.”
And in Galatians 5: 22-23, the apostle Paul writes: “The fruit of the Spirit is love, joy, peace, forbearance, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness and self-control.”
Good fruit symbolises abundance, plenty, health and harvest; it means your plant is in the right environment and has all the nourishment it needs. Bad fruit or worse, barrenness, mean the exact opposite. The quality of your fruit in other words, is a reflection of your root system.
What kind of fruit would I be producing if Jesus had not come into my life; if Jesus hadn’t been my gardener, tending to me, pruning me, nourishing me? I shudder to think. My root system would surely not be as healthy as it is and it is all thanks to the love of God and His transforming work in my life.
I’ve been a Christian for more than 40 years. That does not make me perfect though, as I have had moments when the scale of sin has infested my life because I have disobeyed God. So I required copious amounts of Holy Spirit lemon oil to get me back on track. Thankfully the soil and environment I grew up in have been immensely helpful in keeping me faithful in my walk with God.
So I asked myself: Have I been bearing good fruit? Am I strong, steady and happy to give of my own harvest to others? Am I also a low-maintenance ‘plant’, more concerned with blessing others than my own comfort? I pray that is the case.
I also think about the time we almost gave up our lemon tree for dead, but my mother-in-law refused to give up. Today it is flourishing thanks to the fact that someone cared enough to nurse it through the storm. In God’s family too, nobody is a lost cause. Whether you need lemon oil or pruning, the Master Gardener has the skill to restore your life. He did that with me, He can do it with you. My lemon tree and I are living proof that anything can grow and blossom in the hands of the One who nurtures us all.
By Rob Furlong
Last month we began looking at ways of dealing with anxiety or helping support someone through it. Let’s consider some more helpful principles:
Music: It has been shown repeatedly that music has the power to alter the patterns of our brains as well as enhancing our ability to experience rest, serenity and peace.
Continue reading