When Not To Listen - By Natalie McNee

My daughter was reading “The Trouble with Larry” from the Mess Detectives series to me tonight. This particular story focuses on listening to God, your parents and teachers etc and highlights that trouble occurs when you don’t listen or pay attention. I thought to myself how true that statement was for when you don’t listen to the guidance of the Holy Spirit – trouble seems to flood towards you. I thought that this would be a good subject to write about but then God flipped it and showed me when I should not listen and who I should not listen to – the voice of the enemy. 

His voice loves to pop up and it likes to shout louder than any other voice, sometimes his voice is so loud that you wonder if God is even talking to you at all because you can’t hear it through the racket inside your head. Jesus said that His sheep know His voice and they will not follow the voice of the stranger. He pre-warned us that His voice is not the only one we would hear. We would hear the stranger’s voice too but that we are not meant to believe what the stranger’s voice is telling us.

Unfortunately we tend to believe that strangers voice all too often and it becomes familiar to us and then we find it hard to distinguish who is actually talking to us. As writers we tend to be very critical of our work in the first place, added to our own criticism is the judgements of critique groups and publishers. We tend to take to heart any negative criticisms that we receive and believe that they must be true. The enemy loves to play on this negative feedback, he will often tell you things like, “You’re not qualified to write that” or “Are you sure God called you to be a writer because that was terrible?” or “How can you write about something of which you have no experience?” and so on. He likes to create doubts in our own minds causing us to question whether we really are good enough to be writers.

So how do you determine whose voice it is you are hearing? For me it comes down to two things; is the voice producing fear in me or is the voice filling me with love? The enemy’s voice says that I’m a terrible writer, that I won’t amount to anything and that everyone is going to ridicule me. I don’t want to be ridiculed or be labelled as a bad writer – I fear what others think of me. So clearly this is not the voice of God.

God’s voice encourages you, He guides you and even if you do not quite make it to the standard that you believe you should be aiming for God is proud of what you are doing.  I’d like to remind those that may question their validity to be a writer that God called you to this position. He gave you the gift to write. He qualified you to be a writer. Your validity doesn’t come from the last pay check you received or the last award you won, your validity comes from God who created you and gifted you to write. You are worthy because God says you are worthy. Even if no other person reads your writing, just know that because you wrote it out of a love for God and believing that God told you to write it you are qualified to be titled as a writer.

Photo by: freedigitalphotos.com
By stockimages, published on 17 November 2013
Stock Photo - image ID: 100218374

  
Natalie is a freelance copywriter and ghostwriter servicing the Christian market. She is also proudly a Child Advocate Network supporter with Compassion and volunteers for the Street Chaplains in her free time. To connect with her on various social networks please visit her website www.nataliemcnee.com

How do we receive?

I enjoy analogies and word pictures of spiritual truths but sometimes I find they lack a practical application. For instance I’ve heard speakers talk about the giving and receiving of a material gift as an illustration of the fact that God gives gifts, but we must receive them. With a natural gift we would rip off the wrapping paper, open the box and enjoy the gift. How do we spiritually “rip off” the wrapping paper, open up what God has for us and draw upon our God given gifts and talents? How do we become good recipients of all God has for us?

Firstly we believe that God has gifted us. Even the gift of salvation requires that we believe that God has made salvation available. If we don’t believe God gives gifts we won’t be motivated to discover what our gifts are. 1 Corinthians 12 assures us that we have all been gifted but not in the same way. It is up to us to discover exactly how God has gifted us. Some people seem to automatically know this, but for others it is a process of experimenting. Even if you know your giftedness is an area like writing it still may take time to work out what God wants you to write – short stories, non-fiction, blog articles, academic papers etc.

Secondly, we take hold of what God has given us (Philippians 3:12) and integrate it into our lives. Salvation, gifts, ministry have all been made available to us but we have to show some initiative. We begin to talk, pray and act in agreement with the way God has gifted us. We are to be motivated, faithful, teachable and available as we look for ways to use our giftedness.

Thirdly Paul tells Timothy to “fan into flame the gift of God” (2 Timothy 1:6). Our gifts don’t come fully developed. Usually they require practice, honing and maturing. As we do this we notice that through our gifts others are edified and encouraged.

We become good recipients of God’s gifts when we believe that God has gifted us; when we discover exactly how we are gifted; as we seek out opportunities to use our giftedness; and when we exercise our gifts with the purpose of edifying and encouraging others.

*****

Susan Barnes likes to write inspirational articles, book reviews, and reflections on Bible passages and regularly blogs at: http://abooklook.blogspot.com.au

Begin with thanks

I'm beginning 2013 with thankfulness.

I'm being very intentional about thankfulness this year after having read a wonderful book called One Thousand Gifts by Ann Voskamp. Hers is a story of growing from bitterness to joy through giving thanks for the gifts she found around her in everyday life. She says, "A friend dare me to start counting one thousand things I loved. I took the dare, acepted the challenge, kept track of one thousand things, one thousand gifts - a thousand graces - on a quiet, anassuming blog. Before I knew it, thankfulness to God began to fully change me."

I found this a really inspiring story and a great challenge. I have so much to be thankful for. It's not hard to find things, small and great, every day, that I can give thanks for, even in the midst of frustrations, struggles, or even pain and tragedy. In fact to focus on those gifts really does change my reactions to the hard things of life. There is always something to give thanks for and Ann's book and her journey show that it is so often through gratitude that God can do a wonderful work in our lives. I've taken up the challenge to write down a thousand gifts over the coming months and am already finding it an attitude changer.

This month I've had the perfect opportunity to be thankful as I've just returned from ten days in Cambodia and this has heightened my awareness of how gifted my life here in Australia is. We spent time in a small village which our church supports and I found the people in that seemingly deprived and poverty stricken place, really do understand the graces of God and truly appreciate what we would see as small, almost insignificant gifts.



Happy children despite having so little

 

Three generations in a country where this is rare



Being with these people was truly challenging and inspiring. So what can I do but humbly give thanks and pray we all have a year of seeing the grace of God in all things.

Carol Preston has written a series of historica novels, based on her family history.
The fourth book in this series, Truly Free, will be released in March this year -
for which she is TRULY THANKFUL. 
www.carolpreston.com.au 
www.amazon.com/author/carolpreston