Australia, The Great Adventure

Archive for October, 2007

The daily email from Ransomed Heart today was talking about being resigned to life as we experience it, rather than the fullness of life that we have been designed for. “Resignation is the acceptance of the loss as final. … Evil is no longer suprising; it is normal.”

And it talked about how God takes us beyond that. Not “ever onward and upward” into raptures of ecstacy, but rather He leads us through the dark times of life. In fact He strips away all that we cling to, all the walls that we have built around ourselves to protect ourselves, all the cardboard heroes that we have aspired to, until all we have left is us and Him.

I mentioned to someone yesterday that I was running a fever - have been for a bit over two weeks now, courtesy of this cold I have (which has lasted so long courtesy of this Chronic Fatigue Syndrome that I have!). And he asked if I had taken panadol for it.

Simple question, simple suggestion, simple solution!

So how can I quickly explain that I don’t ‘do’ drugs just to relieve discomfort? The conversation then went little like this:

Me: This would be just the start, then where do I draw the line? I simply choose not to fill my body with drugs.

Here’s something that just came to me yesterday.

When the devil deceives us, it wounds us like a barbed hook. Firstly, when we listen to and agree with the deception itself, that means that we are living under a lie, and being less than what God has intented for us to be.

But the barb is that we don’t realise that it is a deception (that’s the very nature of deception), so we think it was our own idea. Therefore if it is pointed out to us, we feel that we are being personally attacked and so we defend ourselves. Yet in reality we are not actually defending ourselves - we are actually defending the deception!

To RV or to not RV, that is the question…

Since before we decided to bite the bullet and actually set a date for exploring the ‘wild blue yonder’ of Oz, we had pretty much decided that we were going to get a Bus RV, you know, a bus that has been converted into a ‘home on wheels’ that we could use for travelling around the country.

It was mentioned to us the other day that this travelling around Australia is just our way of running away. Hmmmm.

Last year I probably would have agreed with them - we were desperate to get out of our current life and all its hassles and strife - ‘Stop the world! We want to get off!!’ And we were running away (not that we would have agreed), if things had worked out, we would have run all the way to the Mornington Peninsula…and our hassles and strife would have followed us there too!

Carla said today (and I have said many times in recent days), “ok, I understand about this spiritual warfare, and that I have to fight. I know that I have to submit myself to God daily, and claim his victory, and put on the whole armour of God, and tell the devil to get lost. But what do I actually have to DO? Throughout the day? Where is the fight? What is the fight?”

My sister faxed me through something from her morning devotionals today. It was about holding on to God, using waterskiing (!!) as an example.

"Let the boat pull you up!" and "Be strong!". These seemingly contradictory statements made all the difference. I did both - I trusted the boat to do its job, and I hung on with all my strength. ...

When life has you down ... my friend's advice can help. First, let God pull you up by His power (Ps. 54:1-4). Then, hold on to His hand. Cling to Him and “be strong in the Lord and in the power of His might” (Eph 6:10).

Yesterday we went to the RV & Camping Leisurefest at Sandown racecourse. Interesting demographic - lots of retirees, and a few younger families like us.

We had a look through some of the RVs - spent some time at the Winnebago stand - had a look through a few and had a chat with the sales rep.

At the end of the day, even though some of those winnies get pretty big, none of them have what we want. Which is the ability to have the boys go to bed in their own beds (not sharing a double), while Carla and I can stay up a little longer into the evening.