Author: Simone

Loves to tell and hear untold stories about people, places and experiences!

Think Tank

Someone’s journey begins with this verse. How does this apply to you? It is a beautiful door isn’t it? Many of us have such beautiful doors that we not only lock, but we also batten down tight. It takes many errors sometimes to realise that all we have to do is surrender when we are in doubt and wait for what’s to come. We need to breathe, let some cool breeze in that will give life and light. When we close ourselves off from all possibility, why do we expect to get a miracle. We have to open ourselves, though we may be afraid, though we may be cynical to the possibilities of miracles and a gentle voice that guides, instead of confuses.

Watching... waiting for His coming

Someone needs the reassurance of these words as they face the hail storm that lie ahead after coming through the fire that is now behind them. There is always a period when there is perfect peace and in those times we have to grab a hold of sanity and let it lead the way. Sometimes we stand alone ot among a few and realise that pain will lead to pleasure and sadness will give way to joy. To mould you He had to break you ans to smooth you out you had to burn. A promise is a promise and will come true if you believe.

Revelation 3:10 (ESV) - Revelation 3:10 ESV - Because you have ...

A season is only for a moment, a moment that may seem too long for you to bear. So just when you feel that this is it, then comes the shower of rain. All you need to do is to wait for it and let it happen. There is no potion you can brew that can get you where you want to be or need to be. Healing comes after the wound and not before. There is a process that must take place before you can come out on the other side.

god restores health

But you will and when you do, all you can say is Thank you Lord, I made it through.

Emotions.

Being emotional is often associated with being weak mentally and impulsive in many instances. However, emotions are necessary in order to be intuned with reality. Or, at least that is what I belief.

Is it really as simple as changing your thoughts in order to change your feelings and emotion? There are some people who are identified as being highly emotional, which on sight implies that they act oftens based on how they feel and may not cope well with reality. However, as someone who would like to lump myself in the category of highly emotional people, I think we tend to see the truth way ahead of most and therefore are more in tuned with reality.

I can often tell when someone has a negative reaction to me even if they appear to be so kind and so nice to me and ten times out of ten I am proven right. It does help that they cannot keep up the charade for long and long before the big reveal, there a evident cracks in the nice guy facade. It seems that we can tell when someone is not as emotionally connected, lacks compassion and seems detached from everything happening around them.

It is true that people who are highly emotional do get tired and anxious in extremely tense situations, especially when the situation is allowed to continue indefinitely. However, we welcome and need change and when it does not happen we get anxious, we want to break down the barriers that refuse us from experiencing it.

The trick is to understand why we feel the way we feel in a certain situation and be patient with others and ourselves. We experience emotions whether we like it i not, whether we care to admit it or not, but we can take the time to find a means by which we can channel these emotions to our good. It really is important that we embrace and are honest about how we feel moment by moment. I have learned the hard way how dangerous and anti-productive it can be to ignore how you feel and in instances try to suppress them. I have felt the sharp teeth of regret because I have reacted in the wrong way at the wrong time because of years of suppressed emotion. While there are persons who may feel uncomfort at your display, it is better that they experience honest emotion instead of those tainted by time that had not healed all wounds.

I am slowly learning how to be honest about how and why I feel the way I do and I see that there is no better cure for a peace of mind than this.

The Heart is Deceitful…

Just when you think you are getting out of that dark place, cold callous and wicked tentacles threaten to drag you back into the abyss. When we isolate ourselves from the things that make the heart heavy and the spirit low are we not able to operate from a better place?

We all want to have only the good things and not the bad but are we okay with getting it by any means necessary? Should we feel justified at someone’s suffering because they or someone they know have done bad things?

if we really stop and think about how we think, we will realise that we are far from being the “good” person we want to be. We realise that we may still take pleasure in seeing justice being served or someone, “getting what’s coming to them because it is justified”. However, if we are truly honest, we will admit that we all have done questionable and outright bad things at some degree or another. If we really search our heart we will find things about ourselves hidden in the shadows that we would not like to come to light. The person we are thrilled to see defeated, may have been crying out for help but we never took the time to help but skipped straight to condemning.

The heart is deceitful, because if we allow it to rule us, we may end up doing that which is not of the Spirit but that which is of the flesh. We may become distracted by superficial matters that do not address real problems. We can allow ourselves to be influenced by forces that work for evil and not for good. We may find ourselves championing causes that have nothing to do with doing what is right and everything that is wrong.

“The heart is deceitful and desperately wicked” (Jeremiah 17: 9)

There is no one here on this earth that has not struggled with this. While there are those who are winning the battle there are many more who have lost, and who take pleasure in the losing of their soul to wickedness. We have to be constantly on guard for the moments when our weaknesses threaten to overtake the logics of our spirit. It is a spirit that gives us this sense that we are still under construction, even while there are things around us that say otherwise. The Spirit that reminds us that we are not perfect nor are we expected to be perfect. A Spirit that reminds us that we should not think of ourselves as the saviour of anyone, because all we can do, is the best that we can do as imperfect beings.

For there is truth in the fact that in our weakness we see the unrelenting power of the Almighty. It is a power that speaks to the deceitful heart and brings peace to a tormented spirit.

7 “Blessed is the man who trusts in the Lord,
And whose hope is the Lord.
8 For he shall be like a tree planted by the waters,
Which spreads out its roots by the river,
And will not fear when heat comes;
But its leaf will be green,
And will not be anxious in the year of drought,
Nor will cease from yielding fruit. (Jeremiah 17:7-8)

To Be Influenced or Not.

It seems quite common for people to act as a collective when it suits their agenda and be divided when it does not. One of the global cultural phenomenon that had emerged over the years is the influencer culture. When I was younger there were international personalities that I liked and listened to but never really thought about unless I was consuming some aspect of their productivity. So I had my favourite singers, movie stars ect. However, outside of those roles I did not know nor did I care to get to know them more. I was fine just enjoying their talent for a limited time and living MY life for the duration of my existence.

Today I notice that there are many persons who are obsessed with those personalities they admire, which for me is a bit strange and also disturbing. The idea of an influencer has moved beyond the ubiquitous definition of someone who has the power to affect the buying power of consumers to, for many, someone who they see as their friend. Really an influencer is like a salesperson, there to sell you something not to be your friend. whether that thing is an actual product or a dream at the end of the day that is it.

Yet many choose to ignore this one unchangeable truth, and instead become so invested in the lives of these persons to the point where they ignore their own lives to preside over those they deem as being “like family”.

Sure there may be qualities in a person that you admire and they may motivate you in some way but the key here is that no matter what you do, you can never replicate them or their lives. The danger comes when persons ignore their reality to construct a possibility on someone else’s sand heap. The tide will always come in and tear it down. Many people rely on the voices of others to direct them and never the voice of the Almighty. They look at what others have achieved and think they can do it too, while being ill-equipped to do so.

On the other hand, one may say that positive influence should be separated from negative. While this is true, often times we do not realise that even when we aim to do what is “good” it is because we are influenced and not because it is a conviction that we have. What this suggests is that we want to please, or we want others to like us, so, we censor what we say and do to match the narrative we want others to have about us. When someone is influenced to do something “good” or “right” does it make being influenced a good or bad thing? Wherever we stand, we must be honest enough to acknowledge that being influenced is a way of life that has led to many unhappy persons, who seem stuck in slow motion, as they grapple with where their opinions begin versus those who have influenced them.

The Only Way is Up!

I am sure that at some point you may have felt the burden of your past. You are so burdened that your legs cannot carry the weight of that past and so you buckle under the pressure of it.

You may also feel the weight of real or imagined eyes that accuse and arrest you and say to you that you dare not move on. While it is important to learn the lessons that need learning from your past, one should never dwell there. One should never pitch a tent there or build a bed there, because they feel like giving up.

“Sir, I have no one to put me into the pool when the water is stirred up, and while I am going another steps down before me.” (John 5:7)

There are many things that will try to hold us back. There was that great opportunity that we missed and can never get back. Or, there is this one person, or thing that will not leave us alone long enough for us to take the step we need to make the move that is required to step into the pool of opportunity waiting for us. There are so many things that have held us back, and we can’t seem to shake them. Maybe it is that we do not have to tools to overcome these obstacles by ourselves and we are still searching, hoping and praying from the right thing that will help us to do so.

“Get up, take up your bed, and walk.” (John 5:8)

The trick is to stop being your own worst enemy. So,before you get too far, from heeding the naysayers who punish you for the wrongs you may have done and the wrongs of everyone else they could not hold accountable, think whether this is the life you are meant to life. In life you can’t continuously keep looking down or you may miss the path you’re suppose to take and bypass the stops you are suppose to make. When we are given the chance to try again, we cannot stay in the same spot and hope for something or someone to tip us into the pool. Like the man at the poolside who had tried to get in for thirty-eight year, you have to get up, take that bed and walk. Now, life will not be smooth sailing and the experience and some of the baggage accumulated over the years will not magically disappear. But you cannot stay along the pool side if you have been given the opportunity to be healed. You cannot harbour years of doubt, fear or recrimination and hope to move forward. All those things that have kept you immobile have to be removed for you to move up.

and he took up his bed and walked (John 5:9)

At some point we have to decide if the fear of failing is stronger than our need to rise, to experience something truly wonderful and real. When we have been stuck for a long time, will we find the strength, given by The Almighty to finally walk into a future that we are meant to experience? Only you can answer that question and heed the command to get up and walk.

The Righteous Bully

It seems that there are too many people ready to lead a lynch mob from a place of misplaced self righteousness. In this place, often times hidden in the dark, away from full exposure, the” righteous” condemn those they disapprove of with the sharpest edge of their tongue or twittering fingers – whichever is most convenient. You know, it is so easy and so tempting to attack someone who has fallen from grace, because they did or said something “bad”. But, among that group of generous and ruthless judges are some truly sadistic characters.

Somewhere along the line the need to speak up for what is right and being vindictive blurs and they justify their hate by pointing a finger at their victim, “look, they deserve this because they have done and said some terrible things”. They become so invested in taking people down a peg or two, three, four or five, until there’s nothing left of them, until they are buried beneath the ground. These grand inquisitor, famous for their relentless pursuit of supposed offenders, never stop until those accused lie prostrate, or, dead at their feet.

People have parties to celebrate the demise of the “guilty” and feel justified in their belief that because the guilty part has been vanquished, justice has been served. They choose to ignore the fact that many innocent souls have been consumed by their fanaticism and their thirst for blood. They ignore the fact that these “guilty ones”, have family and friends who suffer during and long after they have gotten their “just reward”.

It is so easy and enticing to slip into the role of the offended because people have become so quick to judge and find fault with real or imagined slights. Also, it is easy to see but not hear someone, to watch but not understand that the people we judge are simply, just people too. Maybe some didn’t mean to become a part of the mob, but like in a frenzied and hypnotizing ritual, they are swept along and become a tsunami that destroys everything in its path.

The righteous bully is a title that can belong to any of us. All it takes are words of recrimination and a desire to find guilty anyone who we deem unworthy to live grow and evolve. It is when we decide that everyone has to be a carbon copy of a undefined prototype, unrealistic but desired. At the end of the day therefore, is the danger that we can so quickly fall into the quicksand of righteous indignation.

However, we never realise that while we may sit on the bench, knock the gravel and preside over a trial today, tomorrow we may be the one standing trial, begging for mercy.

Our Own Trojan Horse

I have come to realise that if we allow ourselves, it is easy to see yourself as a victim, to believe so much in your sense of rightness that we invite Trojan horses into our lives that destroy us.

I am sure you have heard the expression “sitting on your high horse”, but today I want to talk about being tricked by a Trojan horse of our own making. Of course the phrase, “sitting on your high horse”, refers to being conceited. The think is that sometimes we can get so blinded by our own sense of being in the right that we move from sitting on the horse, but create little Trojan horses built solely with pride that kills.

Sometimes we get tangled in our own cleverness that we become like the people of Troy, fooled into believing that we have taken for ourselves a meaningless victories that becomes our undoing.

So, as told in Virgil’s famous epic poem, Aeneid, the Greeks tried to enter the city of Troy for ten long years to no avail. Finally, they decided to try something bold, they built a large wooden horse large enough to hold some soldiers which the Trojans were unaware of and pretended to sail away in defeat. Now, after they left the people of Troy thought they had won the war and so dragged that wooden monstrosity of a peace offering meant for their gods into their city to celebrate. After all, they had outsmarted those pesky Greeks. Of course it was all a trick and in the end the Trojans were defeated in a surprise attack and the Greeks really won the war.

Whether or not we know it, many of us think too highly of our own quick brain and self-righteous indignations when we feel we have been misrepresented or disrespected by someone. This causes us to invite negative thoughts that can undermine relationships and stifle our growth. Allowing the Trojan horse in can mean that our defenses are weak and we can no longer see anything we do as wrong but everyone else becomes an enemy that must be defeated. It is easy, I have come to realise, to believe in your own sense of justice and fairplay, eventually everything becomes black and white. When this happens, it is almost impossible for us to see flaws in our strategies, argument and positions and invite a spirit of ill will into our interactions with people we feel have slighted us. We are unable or unwilling to see the danger of having this outlook and never quite understand why we seem stuck where we are.

If we build our own Trojan horse then we become easily deceived from within and we are blinded to our faults and our vision becomes filled my an image of ourselves and our place in the world that is of our own creation, having no basis in reality. The enemy is not outside the enemy is within. There are no Greeks trying to breach our defenses. What we need to be careful of is that we may forget that in the grand scheme of things we cannot get to the big picture without noting the finer details. We cannot be deceived into thinking that we have it right and everyone else is a mess. We all are messes from time to time. Therefore, it is more important to work on those weak areas that can easily be penetrated, than to prematurely celebrate a victory before we have began the real war. The real war in seeing ourselves as we truly are, flaws and all, bad decisions and misjudgement and all and not be deceived by the lies we tell ourselves and others.