A Decade of Writing

The 9th of January marked my tenth year of blogging!

That’s a huge milestone for me. So much has happened from making the decision to start blogging. I have met some amazing people, got confident in my writing and even wrote a book.

I remember when I first started. I was afraid because I didn’t know how people would respond to what I was writing, and anxious because I didn’t know anything about blogging. “How was I going to do this” I thought?

But the important thing to note is that I did take the step of faith to start and God has been so good.

I want to encourage you to do what God has put in your heart to do. This is the best time to start. You may be like me who was fearful of the unknown or anxious but God is with you. He will help you as you take that first step. Just start friend.

If you gave up and think it’s too late to start again, you are not too late. God is the God of second chances and He is waiting for you. Don’t bury those desires God has put in you. That’s what the enemy wants you do. He doesn’t want you accomplishing what God has called you to do.

And as I come to the end of the post I want to thank all those who have been with me on this journey, new and old. Your support means so much to me. Here is to another ten years of writing!

Do what God has called you to do friend!

Rolain

The Only Reason To Worry And Panic

There is only one reason you have to worry and panic and that’s if God is not with you.

If He has abandoned and disowned you then I would say you have plenty much

to fear.

There is a scripture where this sentiment is echoed.

“If it had not been the LORD who was on our side,

Let Israel now say-

If it had not been the LORD who was on our side,

When men rose up against us,

Then they would have swallowed us alive,

When their wrath was kindled against us,

Then the waters would have overwhelmed us,

The stream would have gone over our soul:”

Psalm 124:1-8

The author is thinking about what would happen if God was not on their side.

He sees how the enemy would totally annihilate them. They would have no chance without God.

And that’s what I am talking about here.

Without God on your side then you can worry, panic and fear.

But that is not the case with you and me because He is with us. He is fighting for us.

When enemies stronger than you come against you, the Word says, He is your support.

So bring Him your fears, and worries. He will not leave you helpless friends.

Bless you

Rolain

Zoom Out And See God’s Big Picture.

God has an amazing plan for our lives. But at times we can get so engrossed in the now, the present

and forget that God is moving in our lives.

We need to learn to regularly take a step back or zoom out.

I was given a picture of this as I played a game. The game is called, Guess The Picture.

And the point of the game is to decipher a magnified picture as quick as you can.

The game is best played with a group of people.

In the beginning, you can’t make out the picture because it is magnified to the max but when

the game starts the picture begins to zoom out and the picture gets clearer and clearer.

And that’s what happens when we are so zoomed in. The picture makes no sense because

it’s a blur.

But as we take a step back and look at the answered prayers, the breakthroughs, the things

God has done for us, we begin to realize that God really is in control. He knows exactly what

we are going through. Taking a step back strengthens our faith as we see God’s faithfulness.

But also remember that God is working through the tests and trials we face. They are not

meaningless or pointless.

Think about a an image for a moment.

What makes an image? Pixels right.

An image is comprised of millions of pixels.

But this is the thing, without pixels, there is no image. A picture cannot exist without pixels.

Pixels play a very important role in the formation of a picture and that is the same in our lives.

The difficult times, the trials, the tests, all have a purpose. We are learning to trust God more.

We are experiencing His faithfulness and greatness in the hard times.

We are growing in the midst of intense opposition.

So don’t disregard what you are going through today. It’s not meaningless or pointless.

God is working in the midst of the tests, trials and hardships. Trust Him.

As I close I want to remind you that God is at work in your life, even in the times when it doesn’t

seem like it. Take a step back and see His hand in every aspect of your life.

And if you like what I write and want to support me financially you can now do so by buying

me a coffee or two. I have signed up with “Buy Me A Coffee” and it’s an easy way to support me.

Click here to support.

God bless you friends

Rolain

A faith that cannot be destroyed…..

“So we will never fear even if every structure of support were to crumble away. 

We will not fear even when the earth quakes and shakes, 

moving mountains and casting them into the sea. 

For the raging roar of stormy winds and crashing waves cannot erode our faith 

in You.”    Pause in His presence.

Psalm 46:2, 3

This scripture spoke to me today.

I was thinking about the difficult things we face in this life

and wondered if the storms we face are eroding our faith in God or strengthening it?

Is the constant onslaught of the enemy slowly eating away at your faith?

We must be careful when this begins to happen.

The more intense the fire gets the more we rely, and lean on Him. We need to beware

our faith is not diminishing as the onslaught continues because that’s the enemies goal.

He wants to decimate our faith, decimate us. he wants us hopeless, he wants us in fear, he wants us

paralyzed.

Let’s take a look at the definition of the word erode.

Erode definition

1: to diminish or destroy by degrees:

a: to eat into or away by slow destruction of substance (as by acid, infection, or cancer)

b: to wear away by the action of water, wind, or glacial ice flooding eroded the hillside

c: to cause to deteriorate or disappear as if by eating or wearing away inflation eroding buying power

 

The eating away of your faith doesn’t happen suddenly. It happens in degrees. It’s barely visible and

before you know it your faith is wrecked.

We need God’s help against this attack. The Lord is by our side always and no matter how many attacks

the enemy launches he will not succeed. Don’t lose heart in the fire. Don’t give up in the fiery storm.

He will save you every time! Keep hope alive.

And this is the thing, your faith may be as small as a mustard seed but that’s enough for the Lord

to work with.

Things WILL get better, the storm will pass. Hold on to your faith.

No matter how intense the storm gets ask Him to give you strength to keep holding on.

Bless you friends….

 

Rolain

 

When I am at my weakest…..

“He delivered me from my strong enemy,

From those who hated me;

For they were too strong for me;

They confronted me in the day of

my calamity,

but the Lord was my support.”

2 Samuel 22:18-20

 

I love this chapter. King David sang this song

when God delivered him from all his enemies,

and Saul.

God is a God of war and our enemies don’t stand

a chance against Him!

No matter how strong your enemy is the Lord will

deliver you!

 

“They confronted me in the day of my calamity but

the Lord was my support”

 

Of all the times to attack, the enemy chose to attack him

in the day of his calamity! Simply said, the enemy chose

to attack him when he was at his worst and weakest!

That wasn’t good news for David.

At his worst and weakest he was vulnerable.

He didn’t stand a chance!

 

 

The enemies tactics haven’t changed. He still tries to attack you

when you are at your weakest.

Why do you think it’s so easy to think negatively

when you are discouraged and crushed??

Some of the reason is because we are flesh and we

have a natural proclivity to be negative but the other

part of that is because we have an enemy

who doesn’t want us to accomplish all that God has for us!

As I look at the times I was discouraged and

down I remember how easy it was to think negatively.

But the truth of the matter is a bad day is simply a bad

day. It’s not a reflection on what the rest of your life will be.

It’s not a forthcoming attraction of what you are to expect in your

life!

 

 

“They confronted me in the day of my calamity,

but the Lord was my support”

 

The Lord is my support at my weakest.

That is why the enemy will not win.

I may be at my weakest and I may be having the worst day

but the Lord is my support!

I don’t have to fear because God is by my side.

 

When you are at your weakest turn to God.

He will deliver you from your strong enemies.

The enemy will not cut you down. He will not be

victorious over you!!

 

An Introduction on faith…..

 

Do we really understand all we need to understand about faith? I don’t think so. And as I read Hebrews 11 I was more convinced of that fact. There is so much we don’t understand about faith, so much we need to learn. As we begin to understand more of what faith is the deeper we can walk in it. The men and women of old had a different view of faith and we see it in the stories we read. Let me not get ahead of myself….

As we begin let us look at the definition of faith according to scripture.

Hebrews 11:1 – Now faith is the assurance (the confirmation, the title deed) of the things [we] hope for, being the proof of things [we] do not see and the conviction of their reality [faith perceiving as real fact what is not revealed to the senses].

That is the way the Amplified Version puts it. I like this definition a lot because I understand a little about title deeds. An individual doesn’t need to take people to his house to convince them he owns the house. All he has to do is show them the title deeds. Even though the house can’t be seen the title deed is the person’s proof. And so it is with faith. Your faith is the “title deed” you carry around. We can’t see the house, the car, the career or whatever it is you are trusting God for but the faith you have in God is your proof! It is the tangible proof that God will give you what He promised. But with that being said, how does faith work? To answer that question let us look at another passage of scripture.

The Message bibles says it like this,

By faith, we see the world called into existence by God’s word, what we see created by what we don’t see. Hebrews 11:3

This is the essence of faith. “What we see created by what we don’t see”. God didn’t wait to see, feel, touch, taste for Him to create. Let us learn from Him. Your life may look like nothing is happening but have faith.  Your life seems meaningless but it’s not. You need to speak and act upon what God has shown you. It may seem out of this world but you need to speak it out. Faith doesn’t wait for things to take shape and happen before it acts, no! In the darkness, in the bareness faith works!

To drive this point home let us look at another scripture:

By faith, Noah built a ship in the middle of dry land. He was warned about something he couldn’t see, and acted on what he was told. The result? His family was saved. Hebrews 11:7

Let us imagine this because I think it’s pretty amazing. Noah was warned by God about a flood. He had never experienced a flood before. So because he feared God he built an ark. How crazy must he have looked by everyone! The word says, “He built a ship in the middle of dry land”! Wow. Did he have to struggle with doubts? Did he ever stop and think, what the heck am I doing? We don’t know all that but what we know is he built a ship on dry land. God wants us to start building our ships. It may not make sense, it may sound like the craziest thing in the world, people will mock you, but that is not what matters, believing what God tells you is what is important. Having faith in Him is the most important thing.

As I conclude this post let us look at one more scripture:

By an act of faith, Israel walked through the Red Sea on dry ground. The Egyptians tried it and drowned. Hebrews 11:29

Faith will let you go places other people can’t. Faith will sustain you in situations that would kill other people in normal circumstances. Who has ever walked through the Red Sea or any sea for that matter?? But because the Israelites had faith God parted the Red Sea so they could walk through it. The Egyptians thought it would be an easy task but how wrong they were. If we rely on our flesh we will fail. If we think we are strong enough or clever enough we will fail. The best of flesh is still flesh. Faith is the only thing that will allow us to do the impossible. Faith is the only thing that will get God’s attention.  So let’s picture this scenario,

The Israelites had faith and they walked through the Red Sea

The Egyptians didn’t have faith in God but thought because they were the strongest and fiercest, they could walk through the Red Sea. They were wrong, dead wrong!

As I end this post I would like to share another scripture:

But without faith it is impossible to please and be satisfactory to Him. For whoever would come near to God must [necessarily] believe that God exists and that He is the rewarder of those who earnestly and diligently seek Him [out]. Hebrews 11:6

Faith is so much more than we imagine. Without faith we will not be able to connect to God. Without faith we are like two people trying to communicate to each other in two different languages. It’s impossible! God responds to faith. God is pleased with our faith. Faith in God is what moves mountains! I am not talking about a faith in self or something like that. I have been talking about faith in God. This is just the introduction. In the next post I will continue sharing insights I got from Hebrews 11. It is really a powerful chapter on faith……..God bless

Rolain

To be continued…….

 

 

The “Accident” & “Community”!

It has been a crazy week for me. I was involved in a car accident and I wish I could say it wasn’t my fault but it was. I never gave way at an unmanned intersection and crashed into a car. It was the first accident I have ever been involved in. I am ok now but I was pretty shaken up yesterday. I was in shock I guess. Anyway we had to go and collect the policeman and bring him back to the scene where he could record the incident. As all this was going on I was telling all my friends what had happened. I was really overwhelmed by the support I got. People called and messaged me asking how I was. It really blessed me. And that got me thinking about community.

Community is very important. We cannot underestimate the importance of community. We are not an island. God has put people around us to complete us. In actual fact, we are all a community! We are designed with the ability to be a community. It is in a community that we get nourished. God wants you to reach your maximum potential and it is in the setting of community that you do that. Please note, I am talking about a community that has your best interests at heart, a community you can trust, one that loves you. We need community and I seen the power of it yesterday and even today.

Let me finish my story. So yesterday I was told I was supposed to go to court for not giving way! I really didn’t want to go to court. I have never been to court and I was not keen on going. I was scheduled to go to court today at 8:00am but as I was about to get processed for court the policeman changed his mind and just fined me which he was supposed to do in the first place! I believe it was because of the people who were praying for me. Yes I prayed but there was power in what the community was declaring as well!!!

I thank God for the people He has brought into my life. You are all truly a blessing and I am writing this post to honour you all. Your value in my life cannot be measured and I am truly blessed to have you in my life.

My prayer is that you don’t take the people around you for granted. They are in your life to be a blessing.

Rolain

Are You Out Of Order?

Every year in my church my pastor releases a word for the year. It’s not just a word he conjures up but it’s a word from God. He prays and seeks the Lord for His direction. This year was declared a year of divine order and peace. This is a year where God wants our lives to be alined to His will. Everything out of order in our lives must be brought to order. So with that in mind God has shown me a lot of things that are out of order in my life. It has been a hard year I must say but at the same time a year of growth. There is one thing I would like to share that I think a lot of people may not realise.
It was an area God showed me that needed dealing with and it is an area where a lot of people need to deal with.

Let us read 2 Thessalonians 3:6-8 which says:

Now we charge you, brethren, in the name and on the authority of our Lord Jesus Christ (the Messiah) that you withdraw and keep away from every brother (fellow believer) who is slack in the performance of duty and is disorderly, living as a shirker and not walking in accord with the traditions and instructions that you have recieved from us.
For you yourselves know how it is necessary to imitate our example, for we were not disorderly or shirking of duty when we were with you [we were not idle].
Nor did we eat anyone’s bread without paying for it, but with toil and struggle we worked night and day, that we might not be a burden or impose on any of you [for our support]. (Amplified)

2 Thessalonians 3:11,12:
Indeed, we hear that some among you are disorderly [that they are passing their lives in idleness, neglectful of duty], being busy with other people’s affairs instead of their own and doing no work.
Now we charge and exhort such persons [as ministers in Him exhorting those] in the Lord Jesus Christ (the Messiah) that they work in quietness and earn their own food and other necessities.
(Amplified)

When I read this it really hit me hard. I had started my own company and I had a few challenges and because of the challenges I shrank back. I was afraid and with fear came procrastination and laziness. But God is gracious and He showed me what I was doing. He showed me that being idle was being out of order.
The gospel if you didn’t know advocates hard work! I have had to relearn this principle. You cannot be effective as a christian if you don’t want to work hard.
Another thing God showed me through this scripture is that when I neglect the work I am supposed to be doing I am also out of order! There are things God has called me to do and by neglecting them I am not honouring Him!
So I was out of order. I have asked Him to help me in this area. I want to accomplish all God has for me but I need to be in order.

So where are you? Are you out of order? Are you a slacker in your work and idle? Are you neglectful of your duty?
If so it is time to get in order. We will not be known as disorderly but instead we will embrace hard work. We will be all God has called us to be.
Amen!

Rolain.P