Like puffs of wind

Psalms 78:39 "God remembered that they were made of flesh and were like a wind that blows once and then dies down." 

Have you ever thought about how out of everyone God is interested in you? And wants a relationship with you? Never does he write you off as a lost cause, even when you mess up pretty badly. Out of 7 billion plus people he doesn't just give up and move on to the next one. Like in the story of the 99 sheep where the 100th one was missing, the shepard left 99 sheep to go and find the 1. He looked for the last one and saved it. He hasn't given up on you. He's not going to give up on you.

Happily ever after

All fairytales I've heard end with happily ever after. Why is this? Do all people have an innate knowledge that there is such a thing? Is the reason so many people, or at least children, believe that it exists is because it does? Maybe not here, but it does :)

C.S Lewis' quote sums this up pretty well:

"If we find ourselves with a desire that nothing in this world can satisfy, the most probable explanation is that we were made for another world.”

- C.S Lewis

P.S. Whilst writing this one of my friends sent me a message about a fantasied happily ever after :P  

Nefelibata aka. My favourite word

I love words. I love unusual words and at the moment my favourite word is actually not even an English word. It is Portuguese.

Nefelibata.
It's literal meaning is "cloud-walker"
The definition is: Someone who lives in the clouds of their own imagination or dreams; one who does not obey the conventions of society or art.

Feeding plants

"Sometimes I feel useless but then I remember I breathe out carbon dioxide for plants"

As necessary as plants are I'm not quite sure our whole function is to facilitate their photosynthesis. But sometimes when we feel useless we can be exactly what someone needs just by being us and just by being there. Even if we feel like we aren't helping, a silly conversation, a few encouraging words or just showing that we care and are happy to be a part of their lives can be helpful. Perhaps more than is apparent. 

Capturing the moments

I have decided to undertake a challenge. I am quite excited. I am going to try and take a photo a day. There will probably be some pretty silly ones and some rather terrible ones but I think it'll be fun as well as making sure I am using my camera more which in turn will make sure that I learn more.

I've decided to create a new blog to upload them to that is focused on that project. This blog will still be for writing and showing you things as I see them. I'll probably upload the photos on maybe on a weekly basis? Daily could get a bit overwhelming time wise as well as the sheer number of posts that would have to go up.

You can find this project here: http://myviewingoftheworld.blogspot.com/

Capturing the moments that make up my life
 Here is Day 1:

Ichariba chode

As some people know I have a fascination with Japan. I also have a fascination with words. So a Japanese phrase with a nice meaning that I stumbled across whilst scrolling through Other Wordly is pretty cool to me. I thought I'd share it with ya'll :)

Ichariba chode 
   "Though we meet but once, even by chance, we are friends for life."

I met a lot of people when I was overseas that I may never see again which is a little sad, but even so I am glad to have met them. It's pretty cool to have some once-met people across the world that I will always consider friends.

Summer Camp

For 5 days each year hundreds of teenagers gather for a five day camp with the purpose of having fun and growing spiritually. This Summer Camp is held on a farm with tents for housing and venues and recently built ablution blocks. The camp hosts a few hundred people who are eager to have fun, wack each other with pool noodles and sweat in the inescapable heat. Needless to say there are many stories that come out of Summer Camp.


At the end of camp, as quite often in our church services, we were encouraged to think of just one thing in particular that we learnt. I find this quite cool as often there is so much packed into one sermon or talk that to remember it all and apply it all at one time is impossible, so finding one thing that stood out to focus on is helpful. This year from my copious notes (jokes, I only have about 5 pages which is unusual) I found particularly interesting the thought that our walk with Jesus is about the journey and not the destination. I have been trying to apply this idea in other areas in my life and to focus on what is happening now instead of being too focused on the future so that I don't enjoy the present. Realizing that that applies to my relationship with God as well is interesting.

In Luke 9 Jesus is approached by three people who each want to follow Him but each have things they feel they need to do before, or responsibilities they think come first, or want to follow Jesus, but would keep looking back. One says to Jesus "I'll follow you anywhere!" (v57) but as the camp speaker explained it wasn't about the destination, where they were going. It was about the journey, what happened along the way, how they went, the people they met. Sometimes we are too busy looking ahead to see what is in front of us and what opportunities we miss to influence people's lives or just to give them a helping hand.