Does the Lord get amnesia??


“Then God remembered Rachel and answered her prayer. 

God made it possible for her to have children.” 

Genesis 30:22

 

Rachel couldn’t have children and in that time of history, women were looked down upon

if they couldn’t have children. It must have been hard for Rachel because Leah was bearing

children while she was unable.

But things didn’t stay that way for her because the day came when the Lord remembered her…

 

He hadn’t forgotten about Rachel. He hadn’t discarded her prayers or the desires of her heart.

He had them at the very front of His mind never to be forgotten. It’s not like the Lord gets amnesia

and totally forgets what you need. He loves you and knows exactly what you need so don’t lose heart.

 

The Lord has not forgotten you. He knows what’s in your heart and His desire is to bless you

beyond what you can ever imagine! He is listening to you and even though it may seem like

He is silent the day will come when He will speak up. The day will come when He remembers you.

Keep trusting, and keep praying.

Bless you, friends…

 

Rolain

 

 

 

Wait for hope to appear……


THOUGHT OF THE DAY.

God proves to be good to the man who passionately waits, 

to the woman who diligently seeks. 

It’s a good thing to quietly hope, 

quietly hope for help from God. 

It’s a good thing when you’re young to stick it out

through the hard times. 

When life is heavy and hard to take, go off by yourself.

Enter the silence. Bow in prayer. Don’t ask questions:

Wait for hope to appear. Don’t run from trouble. Take

it full-face. The “worst” is never the worst. 

Why? Because the Master won’t ever walk out and fail 

to return. If He works severely, He also works tenderly. 

His stockpiles of loyal love are immense. 

He takes no pleasure in making life hard, in throwing 

roadblocks in the way: 

Lamentations 3:25, 36

 

What an amazing passage of scripture. There is so much to take

from it. What stood out for me was this verse that said,

wait for hope to appear

A lot of us have abandoned hope because what we were

trusting for didn’t come to pass.

We thought God abandoned us. But the word is very clear,

‘wait for hope to appear’…..

 

When all hope is gone, wait for hope to appear.

When life is hard, wait for hope to appear.

When trouble comes, wait for hope to appear.

Wait for hope to appear!

No matter how bad things seem, wait for hope to

appear.

The word is very clear:

 

“It’s a good thing to quietly hope,

quietly hope for help from God.”

 

We can hope because the Lord will never walk out on us,

He will never fail to return to us, the word tells us.

 

Hope can return. I may have given up and lost hope but

it can return! I will wait for hope to appear. God will not

let me down.

Don’t abandon hope, instead wait for it to appear!

Amen

 

photo credit: google images

 

Rolain

Will things ever get better…?


Will things get better? When will things get better in my

country? When will it turn around for the good?

These are the kind of questions I have been asking myself.

My country is in a very critical position right now.

Corruption has escalated much (but which country hasn’t)

Most businesses are closing. Unemployment has risen…..and,

and, and…….the list continues.

 

But is that not the story of the world?

The world is not getting brighter, easy to live in,

and so on. On the contrary, it is getting darker,

more evil, more corrupt…

I was waiting for things to get better in my country.

But there is a chance it might not get better but instead

deteriorate even more!

 

That is when with the help of a friend I realized I am

waiting on the wrong thing. My focus is wrong.

I serve an Almighty, Powerful God. He is not looking at what’s

happening around me to determine if He can bless me.

He is not moved by the darkness, corruption

and the evil in the world. If He wants to bless me He will

regardless of what is happening around me.

Can God provide for me in a desert??  Yes!

Let’s look at a few scriptures:

 

He split the rocks in the desert and gave them an ocean

of fresh water.

He brought a stream of water out of the rock and made it

flow like a river!

Psalms 78:15, 16 (ERV)

 

But you would be fed with the finest wheat;

with honey from the rock I would satisfy you.

Psalms 81:16 (NIV)

 

Think about a rock. It’s one of the hardest substances

on earth. You can’t break it easily. You will get nothing

from it. You can’t rely on it for sustenance but God says:

He will feed you with honey from the ROCK and

make water flow out from it……!

 

The conclusion is this: God CAN provide for you in the desert!

You can be surrounded by the worst circumstances ever

but God will still make a way for you. Don’t wait for man.

Don’t look to anything except God. There is hope for you.

The world wants you to think you are out of options.

It teaches you to look at what is in your hand and what is

happening around you to decide what you can have. But it’s a

lie……That is not faith!!

 

I am not waiting for things to get better anymore. I am not

waiting for the economy to get better because God is my

Provider.

I don’t know where you are in life and what you are trusting

God for but know this: there is more!

God wants you to have more. You can pursue your dreams

even if there is nothing in your hands. You can ask the impossible,

pray the unthinkable because God is your God!

He surely is our amazing God!

 

Rolain

 

 

 

 

 

 

When you look at what is in your hands…..


I have been looking at my life and all the things that

need to be done. I have seen the plans I have and the

things I want to do and have realized things are not

adding up.

I am not earning the salary that will help me get all the

things I need, that will get me to the places I want to

go.

In other words, I don’t have much in my hands as far

as resources are concerned. Money, knowledge, skill

and so on.

But does that mean I should give up?

Does that mean I should dream small?

Does that mean I should change the way I pray?

Does that mean I have to abandon some things?

 

You might be in the same boat as me. You look

at your life and you don’t have enough. You don’t

have much in your hands. What do you do?

Some people tend to make their dream smaller.

They pray pocket sized prayers to fit what they

see in their hands but is this what God wants us

to do????

 

As I was thinking about all this I realized something,

God doesn’t want us to down size anything!

He didn’t make a mistake when He gave us the desires

that are in our hearts.

So for example,

If I have a desire to travel the world but I don’t have the

money right now it doesn’t mean I should abandon the dream!

The enemy would like us to give up on the dreams that

have been planted in our hearts but don’t.

 

God is not looking at what is in your hands to bless you.

He is not waiting for you to get everything in order so

He can bless you! (We are surely doomed if He is waiting

for us to get ourselves sorted out!) He is not waiting for

you to get the right salary so He can start opening doors

for you…!!! Get that kind of thinking out of your head right

now. It will stop you from getting God’s best!!!

 

You must stop looking at what’s in your hand if you

want God to move and bless you!

 

Jesus looked up and saw a crowd of people coming

toward Him. He said to Philip, “where can we buy

enough bread for all these people to eat?”

He asked Philip this question to test him. Jesus

already knew what He planned to do.

Philip answered, “we would all have to work a

month to buy enough bread for each person here

to have only a little piece!”  John 6:5-7

 

I feel like this is my story. Situations happen

in my life and Jesus is asking, “where can we

buy enough bread for all these people to eat?”

And I keep making the mistake of looking at what

is in my hand!

What do you do when He asks you that question?

Philip did the same thing. He knew that Jesus was the

Messiah but what was the first thing he did? He looked at

what was in his hands!!!

The truth is, JESUS already knows what He has planned

to do!

He is testing you so you can look to Him! He has so

much in store for you but all those things are in

a realm that are way beyond your capabilities in

every sense of the word!

I am here to say, stop looking at what you have

in your hands!

Your life may not be adding up, you don’t have the

slightest idea where you are going to get money

to go to university, you don’t have an inkling of

how you are going to start that business, you don’t

have enough money to take care of your family.

I am here to encourage you to look to the Lord!

He knows what He has planned to do in your life.

No matter how impossible your situation seems

He knows what He is going to do.

 

Then Elisha said, Hear the word of the Lord.

Thus says the Lord: Tomorrow about this time

a measure of fine flour will sell for a shekel and two

measures of barley for a shekel in the gate of

Samaria!  2 Kings 7:1

 

The Israelites were under siege by the Samarians

with no hope of escape. Food had run out, so things

were getting really bad. Israel was in a really bad

situation. There was no one to turn to. There was

no help coming but despite all those undeniably difficult

circumstances the man of God declares a word. It was

in-conceivable to think everything would be back to normal

the next day.

 

Then the captain on whose hand the king leaned  answered

the man of God and said, If the Lord should make windows

in heaven, could this thing be? But Elisha said, You shall

see it with your own eyes, but you shall not eat of it.  

2 Kings 7: 2

 

The captain looked at what was in his hand. He heard the

word of the Lord but instead of trusting the word

from God he looked at what was in his hand.

The lesson can’t be any clearer. Look to the Lord who

knows what He is going to do. Our job is not to figure

out the “how”. Our job is to trust in the Lord with

all of our hearts even if things don’t make sense.

As sons and daughters of God let us start taking our

focus off what is in our hands and instead looking

to God……….

Rolain

 

 

 

 

 

 

Why we have been blessed……


Everything that we have – right thinking and right living, a clean slate and a fresh start –  comes from God by way of Jesus Christ.                              1 Corinthians 1: 30, 31 (Message)

I love this scripture. Everything we have is from God. We have so much to thank Him for. As I was thinking about this scripture another thought came into my head. Why?
Why has He given me right thinking?
Why has He given me right living?
Why has He cleaned my slate?
And why has He given me a fresh start?
Yes, it’s to bless me. God has blessed me and He keeps on blessing me. And yes, it’s because He loves me. No one can deny that. But something I went through made me look at this scripture very differently.
We had a busy day at work and being the designated driver I had to take the staff home. I thought it would be easy so I agreed. We cleaned up and locked everything up and with one of my best friends off we went to drop the staff off at home, at their doorstep. We left work at 10 pm and finished at 2 am! We were lost for a full hour. How did you get lost you might be thinking??? Some of the workers live in a place where there are no roads, we nearly got stuck with the car. No street lights, no nothing! We were truly driving by faith and thank God we saw someone walking around at that time of night whom we asked for directions. They helped a bit. We got to the workers home and it was literally a mud hut. There were no neighbourhoods, no lights, nothing. Just pitch darkness!  This was their home. This is were they lived. This was their life.
Where am I going with this? I am getting there. God has given me so much. It might not be a million dollars or an MTV crib but it’s still precious. He has given me knowledge, He has given me the ability to see in a way other people cannot, why? And this is what I am getting at. God has given me all that He has given me so I can be a blessing! My destiny, your destiny is not about you but it’s about other people, helping other people.
What is your story? He has given you a fresh start so you can minister to someone else. There are people waiting for you, waiting to hear what you have to say, waiting for you to show them the way. God has given you everything so He can bless you and so you can be a blessing to someone else! It may not be much but that’s how God works. He uses the little we have to do great things through us. God bless.
Rolain

You have got competition…..


I had an amazing time at kids church today. It was one of those weeks where the kids were very responsive. It was great. My responsibility at kids church is to lead praise and worship and I love it. After church though one of the other leaders came to me and told me I had competition…….I know, you probably wondering, and that affects this story how????  🙂

For the past year I have been leading praise and worship at kids church. On any given Sunday we have two teams that teach. One team will teach the really small kids and another team will teach the older kids. I lead praise and worship for the older kids, but this week I was teaching the younger kids and I was not able to go and lead praise and worship like I usually do. So one of the leaders came to me when we were done and told me I had competition. He told me how one of the other leaders led the kids well in praise and worship. I went on to tell the leader that it’s not a competition because it really isn’t. I have been taught that as a leader you need you be able to duplicate yourself. I am glad when there is someone else who can do what I do. A leader without followers is not a leader. What is the point of being the only person who can do a specific thing? In Africa this is our biggest problem. We don’t want to teach others what we know because we are afraid we will lose our job. We are afraid we will lose the attention. We are afraid we will seize to be important. And that is why we don’t grow. We can be so much better than we are now and I believe there are people who are starting to see how important it is to pass down the knowledge they know. A real leader has followers, people he is leading. It’s not a competition. It is about extending the vision, it’s about growth.

When I used to work at a Thai restaurant the head chef was like that. He was afraid to teach other people what he knew. Instead he would teach them a portion of what he knew but not everything or he would teach them the wrong thing. He thought he was being wise but he was wrong. As leaders it is our job to duplicate ourselves. It’s a shame to be the only one!!!! Please remember, it is not a competition. God will bless you because you liberally gave what you know. I am here because someone stepped out and taught me what they know. They did not hold back. Are you like that? Do you freely give what you know? A leader is not a leader if he doesn’t have followers. And a leader has not succeeded if he is the only one that can do what he can do. There is a much bigger picture at work here. It is not a competition. Be eager to teach others and watch and see how God will bless you.

Rolain