not hopeful but expectant

So one of the key messages in my life is the pursuit of Jesus - not just his nature but lifestyle too. As I read scripture, I remind myself that the same holy spirit that empowered Jesus empowers us. This morning as I was praying the Lord revealed to me that as I've been pursuing this lifestlye, I've been engaging with it more from a sense of hope, than of expectation. As I've prayed for people, more often than not, I've been hoping that God would heal them. This morning Father God challenged me to live out of a mindset of expectancy rather than hope.

I was listening to a teaching a while ago where the speaker asked the question about whether people in 3rd world countries who were seeing incredible miracles take place had more faith than western christians. He said he came to realise that it wasnt that they had more faith, they just had less doubt!

I want to be a doubtless follower of Christ....a disciple who is expecting...not high expectations...but expectation fullstop!

I believe in the transforming power of God. I don't want to hope for that anymore. I'm expecting it.

Frida - Chosen to die, Destined to live

So I read a book yesterday, yes the whole book, in one day. And before you ask, no it wasn't a picture book! It was a captivating story of Frida Gashumba, a survivor of the Rwandan Genocide...here's the blurb from the book.

"Frida witnessed her family being massacred by Hutu men with machetes and was then asked how she wanted to die. She could not afford a bullet, which they offered to sell her, so instead received what should have been a fatal blow to the head. She was put in a mass grave with her slaughtered family only to find herself still alive and conscious. She eventually climbed out of the pit covered in filth and blood. Frida will never forget her traumas but the healing God has brought is miraculous. Today this young woman has an important message for the world. This book tells the true, dramatic story of life amid the horro of the 1994 Rwandan genocide, but more importantly how Frida's life was utterly transformed by the power to forgive and love her enemies. Despite great adversity, the message is one of immense hope and personal deliverance."

In other words....an amazing story of grace and forgiveness and the determination to overcome.

It is a read that will disturb you as you read of the genocide that took place and the hundreds of 1000's of people killed for no other reason than they were born in a different tribe. It will also disturb as you think about forgiveness. Frida had much to forgive, things that I can never truly comprehend the depth of pain and suffering she experienced first hand. It is both incredibly inspiring and challenging to read her journey towards being able to not only forgive those who murdered her family and friends and tried to end her life, but the vision she began to have for her God given purpose amidst it all.

I heard the other day "Vision gives purpose to our Pain"..... pain is no longer there just for pain sake, but when we have a vision of God's plans & purposes for us, the pain has been given purpose. It is not that God sends the pain to teach us a lesson, but he will use pain in our lives to to teach us and train us.

I would encourage everyone to read this powerful book....but be prepared to be shocked both by the horrific events and the incredible transforming power of God to take that which was for death and destruction and brought life and hope.