"Ruin is a gift; ruin is the road to transformation".

Where are the Men?

                     

It was Sharon who brought it to my attention.. “Craig your one, of only a few guys here” , I looked around sure enough a peppering of guys amongst a audience of women. My worst nightmare had come true, the butt of every male joke, and to boot Sharon and a friend thought it was a great joke.

The movie; “EAT PRAY LOVE” starring Julia Roberts. I’m still ticked at the promotion guru's who never warned it was a chick flick. What the heck,  I’ve paid and I’m getting my monies worth, besides it can’t be that bad can it? CONFESSION I enjoyed it, does that mean I’m becoming an all metro-male?

It's said “behind every cloud is a silver lining”?  I reckon that’s true, at least in my experience, every good bad & ugly thing that happens God provides a silver lining, there’s something there if you just look. Back to my Chick Flick, feeling self conscious and now admitting to loving the movie. Ahh who cares what people think. For me there was one line among many brilliant lines that stood out.  

Julia Roberts is in Italy (an amazing place) the camera pans over the ruins of Rome, if you’ve been there you’ll know ruins litter the city. I got to thinking, like my life I have ruins that litter the citadels of my soul, some just innocent errors of judgement, some mistakes I’m just fully ashamed off,  safe in the knowledge that Jesus Loved and died for me because of those very ruins.

So there’s this amazing line as you see all these ruins.  "Ruin is a gift; ruin is the road to transformation".

WOW!!! What a line, what a truth, behind every cloud there really is a silver lining .. God uses everything and wastes nothing.

So here it is, I had a ruinous situation, which I didn’t think would ever lead to any chance of transformation or any good thing. Today I am grateful to God for not only the personal transformation and spiritual formation this has caused in me, its made me a different person on the inside and the outside. Through friends support and huge amounts of prayer, not only is God transforming relationships but is in the process of “Restoring what the locusts have eaten” .. God never does things by halves.

So I’m in this chick flick, sorry bro’s and this one line has been reverberating around in my head  space ever since:  "Ruin is a gift; ruin is the road to transformation".  

I never thought a ruinous situation could be a gift, but I guess in the hands of the creator of the universe everything’s possible. 

Grateful to everyone mostly to God !!

I LOVE a sunny day .. Serotonin PLUS mood enhancer

At congress, Commissioner Don Bell said, “Our faith and our service must not be based upon what God has or hasn’t done for us but on His character” and than he shared, other wise circumstances will determine our faith and service to God rather then a life lived fully in God.

A string of sunny days in Wellington totally theraputic:

I’ve been thoroughly challenged by those words. I find it extraordinary how the weather affects my moods, my service, this is nothing new it’s a proven fact. An unkind word, a disappointment or a smidgen of road rage when I start my day can spoil my day. Are these the circumstances Commissioner Don Bell could be referring to among other things?

Like why is it that what is external and outside of my control can have such an indelible

impact on me. Is it because I have not yet learnt the gift that Paul spoke of in Phillipians

4:11  Not that I speak in respect of want: for I have learned, in whatsoever state I am,  therein to be content.

I’m an emotional person, my family say I always wear my feelings on my sleeve, and to a degree I’ve learnt to accept it, because no matter how I try to hide my sleeve like a well trained cuff it soon rides down to reveal a little of itself.  

Or could it be that my personality is so easily swayed by outside influences because of the way God wired me. Do I need to learn to trust more upon Gods character and to trust in the way he has made me? I’ve learnt to accept the way I am because God has a greater purpose; I figure there’s a whole lot of strengths in this and God wants to take all there is of me.

Is learning to be content reaching a place of self-acceptance while still expecting the Fruit of the Spirit to shape me into Gods perfect vessel safe in the knowledge that I’m made like this because its Gods purpose for me. 

• I’ll reach some that others won’t,
• I’ll do some amazing things that others can’t, because they are not me. 

Holiness is the Fruit flourishing in our lives for all to see. It’s also God taking the best of us and the worst of us-mistakes and all, and making us into something far more transformational, far more attractive than we would otherwise be. What Paul says; “This treasure in vessels of clay.”