God knows what He is doing

My parents have a habit which drives me to absolute insanity, they are both unashamed channel hoppers. You can be watching something and then out of nowhere they will skip through hundreds of channels, then decide there is nothing on, announce that TV is rubbish and turn it back to the channel you were watching just in time to catch the credits, gee thanks Mam and Dad.

But the other day when my mum did this she landed on a TV show I have never watched called Touched by and Angel. As I said I have never seen this show before and have no desire to ever watch it in the future. However the one sentence of the show I did hear did catch my attention.

"God always knows what He is doing, sometimes that is the hardest part to accept"
               Monica Touched by an angel

I was struck at how true this statement is. As Christians we should all accept that God has a plan and He knows exactly what it is that He is doing. His plan is the Master Plan, a plan to end all plans and the only one that is sure to work. It is a perfect plan that we should accept without question, but its not that easy is it?

We are human, we have doubts and because we are not perfect and know it we can sometimes struggle to understand a plan that has no flaws, that unlike us is perfect. As the quote says accepting that this plan is perfect and God does know what He is doing is often hard to accept. Things happen in our lives that we struggle to understand, that we can not see how they fit into the plan. Yet fit into the plan they do and it is not our place to question how or why.

God always knows what he is doing. Accept that and follow his plans and you will find yourself not living an easy life but certainly living a truly blessed life.

Making music

Last year my Gramma was promoted to glory. After she passed away we were informed that we had been left a significant sum of money. I was not sure what I was going to do with my inheritance until my little brother suggested that we buy ourselves our own personal brass instruments instead of using ones provided by the band we play in. As soon as it was suggested I knew that it was a great idea and started looking for the right instrument for me.

I finally received the instrument above on the 23rd of December after waiting 2 months for a hand built personalised cornet. Since then I have spent many hours practising and playing this beautiful instrument and enjoying every minute of it.

I talked to my Mum about spending my inheritance from her Mum on an instrument, what she thought and how my Gramma would have seen the investment. The reply I received was that my Gramma would have been over the moon that I was using the money she had left for me to purchase something I would use every week and something I would use every Sunday in worship at our Church.

This instrument is a beautiful thing, not only does it look amazing and have so many special meanings for me, from the tigers eye in the valve tops in memory of my Grandad and the message engraved on it saying;

live, laugh, love,

From Gramma

This instrument also produces an amazing sound and is simply said the best instrument I have ever played. The quality of the instrument is such that it makes me sound like a much better player than I actually am. This is a fantastic thing because it allows me to play this instrument in worship every week in thanks and celebration of God. Although God does not mind the quality of the music we play if our hearts are in the right place and we are doing it for the right reason. But for me, if I am going to be worshipping God I want to do so in the best way I can and produce the best music that I can. 

Today was the first time in many many years that I have had a music lesson, normally I practice and learn on my own in my own time. However now I have my own instrument I am determined to play it as well as I possibly can. If I could ask that you all pray for me and my progress in this new endeavour to be the best brass musician that I can be so that I can use this gift to worship God who has given me this gift, thank you.

Dreams

I don't know about other people, but I do not dream very often. Or at least I should say, I don't remember dreaming very often at any rate. However last night I had the most vivid and strange dream that I can ever remember having.

In the Bible there are stories about dreams and dream interpretation, the most famous one we all will know is Joseph and Pharaoh. But for me while the dream was strange and the meaning did not seem at all clear, at the end of it, knowing it was a dream, I tried to figure it out and was given the meaning almost straight away.

I'll tell you the dream before I talk about the meaning. The dream began with me surrounded by all the things I love doing some of the things I find most enjoyable and was in the company of many of the people I love and many strangers but who were the easy going fun loving kind of people I love to be around. After some time it was time to leave and go home and so I headed back to my car.On leaving the place I had been I ended up in the biggest multi level car park I have ever seen, it was cavernous like some kind of sci-fi space hanger, it just seemed to keep going.

At this point although not like anything in my life nothing strange had really happened yet, but the next part is where it began to become a little different shall we say. So I began walking to where I knew I had parked my car, but it wasn't there, I looked around the area where I had parked my car and though I saw cars the same, none of them were my car. Feeling slightly annoyed at myself for not remembering where I had parked my car I began to wander the car park in the walk of shame of someone who didn't think to remember properly where they put their car.

I searched all over this level of the car park where I knew I had put my car, but it was nowhere to be seen. And now I was fully doubting myself I set off to check other levels of the car park. This is where the dream really began to be a little weird. I went down a level and ended up in an outdoor car park in the middle of nowhere surrounded by sand. Again wandering round I searched for my car but to no avail. Now feeling absolutely lost and confused I was just wandering round the car park feeling sorry for myself when someone I know through mutual acquaintances showed up. At first he was trying to wind me up but in the end after seeing how distressed I had become tried to help me.

It was at this point my Mum woke me up asking if I wanted to go shopping, I decided I was too tired and rolled over back to sleep. Now knowing that everything that had been dreamt before was a dream I tried to figure it all out, why did it happen, why did the main theme of the dream seem to be being lost and confused. No sooner had I begun to think about this when a leather bound Bible floated in to my sight. Now I have not yet had time to check if the words that appeared to me are in the Bible, and if they are if someone could point me to them I would much appreciate it. The words I saw said, "You were lost because you are not yet doing what you should be doing. The life you are living is not the life I have set for you."

Now I think I know what this means, and I am sure I know what God has planned for me in the short term at least, maybe this is God giving me a bit of a shake to say get on with things and stop dragging your feet. But I need to think about it a little more. If there is more to the message than I have so far worked out I will be sure to let you al know.

Advent Challenge Day 22

This challenge is now complete, please feel free to browse all of the 

completed tasks via the Advent Challenge tab.

When the task to help someone came up I was unsure as how to go about completing this task, so I decided just to wait until the opportunity arose. I trusted that God would give me an opportunity to complete the task in a way that I wouldn't be able to do myself.

Turns out my Dad needed some help with something he had planned for work. As it is coming up to Christmas he is having a small party in his office this lunch time and he needs food cooked for them to eat at the party. Since I love cooking and am told I am quite good at it my Dad asked me if I would mind cooking some things along with my Mum for the party.

And so I managed to turn out a few dishes before I had to go to work. My Dad requested that I make wings and glazed sausages to go with the savoury dishes my Mum was making and some sweet lemon tarts for a tasty desert.

This is not the way I thought I would be completing the task when it was selected but since I had no idea what I would be doing I guess it is not a bad thing. It also helps with the slightly strained relationship with my Dad at the moment, hopefully repeated acts like this will lead to him being more accepting towards the plans for the future, but we will see.

I am now drawing close to the end of this series of challenges with only 3 days to go and then it is Christmas. These next 3 days are going to be very busy and fitting these last tasks in is going to become increasingly difficult, but after getting this far into it I will endeavour to complete all of them satisfactorily. But to find out you will have to check back each day until the end of the tasks. In addition to this I am going to make the first mention of a new much shorter series of tasks I have been challenged to do over the holiday period. I will go in to much more detail in another post nearer the time but basically between the 26th and the 31st all my posts will be single words. You have my friend Caron to thank for this, please check out her blog its really quite interesting. I am not quite sure how this will work or how I will complete this but it may be interesting to check out and see ow it does work out.

But anyway back to the task in hand, the next task in the Advent Challenge will be task number 24. Pray for what you are thankful for this Christmas. Check back for tomorrows post to see how this challenge goes, until then, Merry Christmas.