A morning meditation

I am practicing replacing bad habits with good habits. Instead of waking up worrying about whether I'll get everything done, now I wake up and say this.  It's working...

Today I have been given the precious gift of this day
I can use this day ... or lose it
I can count the moments... or make the moments count
For today is like a soon to be born baby,
A precious gift, a surprise, waiting to be given the chance to breathe
How can I make the most of this precious gift of today

I give thanks
For the sun rose today
I woke up this morning and took a breath
I have a body that is alive

I give thanks
For the ways I will be nourished and fed today
For the unknown, unseen events that are to come today
For the lessons that I will learn and teach

I give thanks
That I may serve and be served today
That I may lead and be led today
That I am blessed and may bless today

I give thanks
That I am forgiven and I can forgive
That today matters to my creator
and I can make today matter too

I give thanks
For I am alive today

I worship Gods ... Beauty ... Wonder ... Creation ...Awe ... Mystery... Love ... Life

What is stopping me from walking in God's love this morning?

I let go of the things that stop me
I give them to God
I ask God to take them
I ask for Gods help to let go

Who will I serve today?
How will I respond to the unknown, new day?
What will my contribution be?

I give my day to God
I ask that I may see God in every moment
I give thanks that I am part of this creation
For this precious gift is about to unfold
And I ask that I am ready to open and unfold with it

Gods Provision

God will provide, ask and you shall receive. Or so we are told. Is this true? I feel like I could do with a hand with the providing some times, so I'm up for the challenge, I'll call it the "Does God provide" challenge.

I am building a business and the opportunity comes up to go to a conference. I can't afford it and it feels selfish to spend so much on my development. Yet I have this longing, this sense of invitation, this sense of opportunity, this sense of "I will provide". I need to find $8000. I do something I have never done in my life. I put it on credit card. I keep building my business, but I can't see where that money will come from in the time frame. I try to trust and not worry. I'm not very good at it though.

Time is ticking, two weeks to go, money's not here, yet I know several times we have got down to the wire on money and it has always turned up the next day. It is part of my reprogramming,and I am grateful for it, but it's new and uncomfortable. This is bigger than my previous challenges, and it's optional, and I put us here, what on earth was I thinking.

I am with a client and I get a text from home. "Guess what, just got paid family tax (a tax benefit we never been eligible for before).

Guess how much?

Yep. $8000.

Coincidence?

Maybe if this was the first time it happened, but there have been so many like this I can't even remember them all. One week we are down to the wire, we are invited to a friends birthday dinner, we agree to go even though we don't have the money but we love our friend, someone unexpectedly pays for us. One time we were nearly out of money, a big consulting job fell in my lap out of the blue, started immediately, paid fast. One week we are down to our last few dollars, a new client signs on and pays immediately.

What do I take out of this? I am enough. Not me, the great I AM. My sense is God is neither a tight arse nor obsessed with making us billionaires. God is abundance, abundant beauty, love, time, friendship, generosity...and yes, money... if only we will ask and then be willing to receive. A different mindset to the one I have lived in for much of my life.

Does God provide? Yep God passed the challenge, I think I still have a way to go.

The Well

I went to the well
To draw water
I really needed a drink
I looked forward to satiating my thirst
But again it was dry
Dry dry dry
There was nothing
Just a drop or two
I used to be satisfied
With that little
Or so I told myself
I thought that was all I was worth
All I could reasonably ask for
All I could hope for
I'm not satisfied any more
It's too small
Too limited
Because I know
The well has an abundance
It is deep and rich and plentiful
Its just not forthcoming or generous
It has tonnes of water
But it only relinquishes a drop
Or two
Or none
For the energy I invest
To bring the bucket up into the light
I shed more drops of sweat
Than the well gives me
I am sick, tired, empty
For two drops of water
The well is being stingy
Perhaps it's time to try a different well

Gratitude

This week I was challenged about gratitude. A woman from my church was very sick. Within hours of getting out of hospital, she sent me a beautiful email, praising God for her treatment and the beautiful sunshine. I felt challenged by this. Here is a woman in poor health and pain, singing Gods praises. How easily I fall into the trap of moaning and groaning, worrying about problems and forgetting to give thanks. This woman had every right to express worry, but she made a different choice, and her action left me feeling inspired and challenged to express gratitude.

So I decided to follow her lead, and I took several opportunities to voice my gratitude. As I did this, something happened. I realized that I couldn't express gratitude and worry at the same time. The two are mutually exclusive.

And then it occurred to me - why should God give me what I'm asking for if I can't even say thanks for what I've already been given? At those times when I don't think I've got anything to be grateful for, am I being realistic, am I looking hard enough?

Gratitude comes from God, from a spirit of abundance, from love. Love is costly, it is self sacrificing. It takes courageous, selfless love to give thanks like this woman did, to see beauty in the midst of her own pain and suffering. She then took action, she expressed her joy to another person, and we were both blessed by the experience. I have learnt from this the importance of voicing gratitude, or we run the risk of feeding our fears. Christians are instructed to BE grateful and not to BE worried. These are states of mind. In other words, we have a choice in how we respond to the challenges life presents us, as was so beautifully demonstrated to me by a very gracious woman.

The sisterhood

As I pull up on my bike to drop my daughter at school, a group of mums are discussing their various holidays to Europe. We live in an affluent area and the conversations about holidays, pools, renovations and cars are endless. I always find these conversations difficult, because I find it all pretty superficial and meaningless. Since I left my corporate job, I find these conversations doubly difficult, because I don't have any money to spend, and it reminds me what I walked away from, a bit like rubbing salt into the wound.

I become aware of the single mother who battles to keep on top of the bills each week, she's just in earshot of all this. What's this like for her, I wonder. I stop feeling sorry for myself.

I get home from the school drop off, my neighbour comes over, she has some sad news, we talk it over with a cup of tea and I make some soup and send it over in the afternoon. Such a different conversation to the one at school. One full of love, sorrow and real human connection. An easy choice if I had to pick.

The conversations at school are not intended to be exclusive, but inevitably they are. They indicate status, and they exclude the status-less; the disabled woman who can't travel, the single mother on a base wage, the woman with sad news. How do we be sisters to one another when we're always comparing and competing?

Since I cut down my work commitments, I have less money and more time, and more of these meaningful, spontaneous conversations take place. They are hugely enriching. I can't help wondering why this is happening. Is it just that I'm more available? Or is it because now I too am status-less? Does that make me more accessible? Is this why Jesus instructed us to turn away from pursuing wealth?

Suddenly the verse "blessed are the poor in spirit" starts to make a lot more sense.

How do I hear God's voice?

So we set out to trust our lives to God 7 months ago. I feel like an addict withdrawing from the needle. I can't believe how central money and security have been. I keep trying to get another fix. As I withdraw, there is a struggle, a battleground. I remember a line that God is "the still, small voice." The word that leaps out is "still". Hmm I need some of that!

The most still place I can imagine is the beach, so I take my daughter and we go to a nearby cove for a swim. When we get there, I stand in the water, looking at the exquisite colorful seagrass just under the water. I notice something sparkling like a diamond. Thinking it must be a lost piece of jewellery, I grasp for it, but as I plunge my hand into the water it disappears. Confused, I look again, there it is! I go again, gone! What's happening? Then I look around and notice several similar shiny things. One is closer to the surface, on closer examination I see that it is .... a tiny fish scale glimmering in the sunlight, something I would describe as "worthless".

I put such a high value on a diamond and a low value on sparkly fish scales that light up and draw attention to the seagrass. I am struck by my own propensity to devalue things of beauty because they are of no monetary value.

The still small voice says as clear as day, "when you try to grab glittery things they disappear just when you think you have them in your grasp".

In my opinion no person can definitively say "God told me..."
I do claim that this is an experience of hearing God, and this is why;

The first clue is that the voice is still and small, yet clear and resonating.
The second clue is it brings both truth and freedom - it is confronting and liberating, brutally honest and hopeful, tough to hear and comforting.
The third clue is that it is wise beyond my capacity.
The final clue is that when I share it with someone, it takes their breath away; it brings love and a blessing to me and to the person I share it with.

God is not to be proven, tested or theorised - these are all things you do to something that's dead. God is to be heard, seen, experienced, listened to, spoken of, loved.

How do we love God? Perhaps in part by hearing the still, small voice and acknowleding that it exists.

Bowing down to what?

Yesterday I ran a workshop for a senior Leadership team. In the morning, before I left, I had been feeling stressed about doing a good job and getting more work, because after yesterday I had no more confirmed work.

So, I physically bowed down and said "God, I surrender, I need work, I give this day and this workshop and my life to you".

It went really well, it was constructive and productive, the participants raved about it as the best day's work they'd ever done together. They we're very complimentary towards me. And then guess what happened. They asked me back to run another day next week. Another day of confirmed work. An answer to prayer?

Don't get me wrong, I get how bizarre it sounds to bow down and surrender. In fact even though I just wrote it, when I read it, it sounds at best submissive and at worst abusive. Yet I cannot deny there is something about surrendering my own will to something greater that is unbelievably freeing and liberating and, well how do I describe it, "aligned". After doing this I am now free to be the real me, not the competing, insecure, self absorbed me. And when one person is truly free from competing and one upmanship, it frees everyone around them. The benefits rolled on. The people around me in the workshop were alive, animated and excited. I had an amazing time with my kids last night. So much human connection.

So have I participated in an extreme bizarre antiquated form of ritual submission, or could it be that this act just makes me aware of what I'm worshipping? Could it be that we are always bowing down and submitting to something, it's just that most of the time we aren't even aware of what it is? Some things, when surrendered to, definately would be abusive.

This weekend I'm going to listen for what am I really worshipping, what do I really bow down to, is it security, control, power, wealth, popularity, privilege? Or is it love, which is God? And then I'm going to watch the impact on others of what I give myself to. Maybe you can join me on this quest.