Tag Archives: message mondays

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Message Mondays, Throwback Tuesdays, Worship Wednesdays (Living Life to the Full)

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What does it look like to live each day with abandon? To not hold back in every aspect of our lives, regardless how mundane or trivial these tasks we undertake are? What does it really, truly mean for us to place aside every fear, burden, uncertainty and the like, and jump two feet into what we believe God has in store for us both now and into the future, in spite of our very real and present fears that what we undertake may not look like what we imagine or envisage, or worse still, what we hope God will accomplish in our lives as a result of our big decisions, isn’t what God has in store for us at all, but the exact opposite? Hard questions, I know but sometimes it is these questions that need to be said and discussed. To be asked and dialogued well by all involved, knowing full well that as we open up this forum to those close to us, we have to hope and know that what we say won’t be frowned on or judged. If we struggle with hopelessness, uncertainty, trying to determine the will of God in our lives, or even our plans v. His; regardless of what we lay bare on the table, surely we ought to know that those close to us won’t abandon us, no matter what skeletons rear their ugly heads?

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Message Mondays (When Our Plans Become Awry)

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Have you ever wondered what it means to be fully at peace with your life, currently where you’re at? The moment in your life where, even though everything chaotic is happening around you, you are still at peace, both two feet firmly planted on the ground of certainty and identity, even if everything else around you is crumbling apart? It’s an art, being able to firmly believing that you are loved unconditionally, even if everyone else gives love that is opposite to what you believe. And I don’t think that many of us have managed and discovered that art yet. To answer honestly my question that I posed earlier in the paragraph, no, I don’t think at any moment, I’m fully content and at peace with my life. I don’t think anyone is. And therein lies my point- that even if we cannot be fully at ease with the life we live, we at least can rest in the fact that Christ Jesus has our lives in His hands, and that everything that we experience, good or bad, can and will be used in whatever way the Lord sees fit, for His own glory and our good. Pretty cool, right? Knowing that even if we don’t have our lives all figured out, that we can rest assured, knowing that whatever we experience will be to the betterment of ourselves as whatever we go through will point other people to the God who has changed our lives for the better?

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Message Mondays (What is Love?)

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Sometimes I often wonder what I have done to deserve the love given to me by my Father in Heaven. As a Christian we know that there is nothing we can do to earn God’s favour and glory, yet sometimes I do wonder. What would happen if at the end of the day, the love that we have been given isn’t as unconditional as we once thought it was? What if the love we have been given from the start was in fact love that was conditional? Because frankly when push comes to shove, we don’t deserve the love given to us by God. Truly, we don’t. All of our good works, deeds and loving acts of kindness are indeed overshadowed by all the pain, hurt, disappointment and of course hypocrisy that we have caused ourselves, our family and friends, and God Himself. So to think of all the mess and dirtiness, I will say this again- how can God love us that much to give His only Son as a ransom, so that we can come back to Him and accept His love in the form of a sacrifice, often at times on a daily basis?

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Message Mondays and Throwback Tuesdays (Retail Therapy)

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It has amazed me, and continues to do so, how I see many people latch onto something new. Always whenever I browse the nearest DVD/electronics store in the shopping centre that I frequent, I see many people browsing the latest, whether it be movies, TV shows, CD’s, or even the latest versions of phones, iPads and the latest gadgets like fit-bits and nutri-bullets. And what has continued to amaze me is how quickly we drop that particular thing we purchase after a few weeks, and latch onto the next thing. Since when did we as a human race become so fickle-minded in our purchases? Are we really that bored with our purchases one week that we need to fill that void the next? This is not a griping session, yet in this week’s Message Mondays/Throwback Tuesdays, I delve into the theme of retail therapy, and how sometimes, it can be celebrated and enjoyed, and other moments we may need to take time out, in the view to keep our sanity and the sanity of those around us intact.

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Message Mondays – The Struggle

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One of my favourite Christian bands of late has been quintet Tenth Avenue North. With songs like “Healing Begins”, “By Your Side”, “For Those Who Can’t Speak”, “Strong Enough to Save” and “Worn” to name a few, they have written and sung some of, what I reckon, have been the most underrated, impacting and confronting songs out of any other CCM band in the industry at the moment. In fact, it was, and still is, their 2012 album The Struggle that has impacted me the most out of all albums the band has done. This message Mondays post in particular is devoted to Tenth Avenue North, and what they have to say about their 2012 album, which I reckon is one of that year’s best (out of every album 2012 has ever produced).

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Message Mondays and Throwback Tuesdays: What are Your Untold Stories?

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We all have a story to tell. Whether it is about love and loss, about triumph, hurt, betrayal, happiness, hope, disaster and everything else in between, we all have a story, either painful or hopeful, that we can tell, either as a warning to others, or as a testimony, of the good things that have happened in our lives thus far. It is whether we tell it or not that is a different story. We see people on television sharing what they have with others, whether it is through song, spoken word, film, through science, arts and the humanities. We sit and wonder to ourselves- do I have a story worth telling? Because the question of all questions is this- it’s not that we believe our stories are not worth telling to the world, it’s because we think they are, that we can sometimes stop in hesitation. What happens after? After people know our deepest parts of us? Would we become fame-hungry? Would people look at us differently? Will we still stand for our values and core truths, regardless of what people may think? These are all valid questions, and are all motivators behind whether we believe our story is worth being told, if not to the whole world, at least to the people around us, those who influence and impact our lives the most.

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Sentimental Saturdays and Message Mondays (How Fast do we Consume Music?)

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Gone are the days when you can appreciate music for what it really is- a song to be savoured, a song to be listened to again and again, with every listen a new meaning is imparted to whomever listens. With the advent of Spotify, youtube, iTunes, Amazon, Pandora and every other musical service at your fingertips, skipping songs seems to be the norm nowadays. Listening to a song to death, until another track comes along, seems to be all the rage, when in fact sometimes we are called to just sit and mull over a song more than usual. Often, we may be so hasty to move onto the next new song, that we may skip over things that God may even want to say to us. We may be in fact rushing so fast from one thing to the next (music is a clear example) that we may miss what God may have in store entirely. Which is why this new post for Sentimental Saturdays is about lament, lamenting that how we have listened to music in the past (really listening to the tracks, because without the ease of access of music, we are forced to focus on what the lyrics really mean for us as people) is sadly how listeners of music don’t listen to music now. We live in a now-centred (and me-centred) society, that any hint of anything taking longer than expected is shafted, for the new, quick and convenient.

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Sentimental Saturdays and Message Mondays (Fight Song)

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What has been your earliest memory of your life? It may be of when you were a baby, or maybe a bit older. Maybe you were playing with your siblings, or maybe it was of a traumatic event. Whatever your earliest memory is, what is important about memories and the necessity of us all having and keeping them is in fact that at the end of our lives, our experiences will be just that- memories. We cannot contain our experiences in a box, and relive them again and again if we want to feel a happy moment. Nor can we erase the memories we long to forget. What we remember is placed there, and whether it is good or bad, hurting or healing, whatever our memories about our childhood and adulthood is at this moment, one thing is true of our memories- that what we experience, or rather, what we remember about the events we live through, will deeply shape how we are today, and shape the relationships we have, with our friends, family and even God Himself. Whether our memories of events are way different than the events themselves, memory is a powerful thing. Here in this combined Sentimental Saturdays/Message Mondays post, we’ll delve into memory, and how it is always important to affirm that whatever memory and belief we have, about our past, ought not to hold us back in our future journey and discoveries we embark upon.

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Message Mondays (Stand By You)

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Can a song released in the mainstream music market have just as much passion, heart, emotion, and maybe even a spiritual significance to those hearing it, as a song released solely in the CCM industry? Can a song like “I Can Only Imagine” (MercyMe) or “Cry Out to Jesus” (Third Day) be as impactful compared to songs like “Temporary Home” (Carrie Underwood), “Superman” (Chris Daughtry), “Love” (Jana Kramer) or even the more recent 2015 hit song “Fight Song” (Rachel Platten)? This is a quandary and a conundrum in and of itself. Sure there are some songs that are explicit in language and in what they express to the listener, and there are others that are just plain silly in a fun way, and then there are others the evoke emotions of hope, encouragement and empowerment, but have you ever stopped to wonder, that God inhabits these songs as much as he does when we hear the songs we know and love on our favourite Christian radio stations?

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Message Mondays (Steven Curtis Chapman’s ‘Take Another Step’)

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There are times when I wonder what I would be like if I took a different path. If I studied ancient history instead of modern in high school. If I was more of a sportsperson and decided to something athletic with my life. If I continued pursuing classical music, would I pursue that avenue of piano playing? How would my life look like now if I chose differently? Not that it matters now, because I know we can’t change the past, but I often stop and wonder, and think. All the dreams, aspirations, longings, and hopes that I had way back when I was a child, would they still come into fruition now, regardless of the choices I’ve made along the way, or is it more reliant on the decisions I’ve made over the years, that once that opportunity door is shut tight, what I long for and hope to be is never going to see the light of day?

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