April 2005

I've been doing it a bit tough lately.

Our emotional state can be so up and down, affected by things we don't even realize.

I guess for me it has been partly caused by a bit too much busyness and getting overtired. I really need to watch that I have sufficient time to regroup at a personal level. If I don't, I start to become a 'grumpy old man'!

As Fiona says, "You're like a bear with a sore head!"

Time to preach myself out of the Book of Proverbs like I've been sharing with you.

Proverbs 29:11 'A fool lets it all hang out; a wise man quietly mulls it over.'

Proverbs 13:3 'Careful words make for a careful life; careless talk may ruin everything.'

But even more difficult is taking correction from those closest to you.

Proverbs 13:18 'Embrace correction and live an honoured life.'

How about this for the power of your words:

Proverbs 15:1 'A gentle response defuses anger, but a sharp tongue kindles a temper-fire.'

Proverbs 15:4 'Kind words heal and help; cutting words wound and maim.'

This month I'm particularly sharing on 'Making Life Work'. The challenge is in the area of our everyday relationships. It's easy at one level for me to spout forth from the pulpit; it's another challenge for me to live it at home. That's where the rubber hits the road for my faith.

Similarly for you—words come cheap, but actions speak louder than words!

It's in the way we connect with our friends, in our partnership with others, in our marriages and family life that we most directly discover the strength of our convictions and the validity of our faith.

May these weeks encourage you to live the kind of life that gets better every day so that your everyday living causes others to say, "I want what you've got."

Thank God the Holy Spirit helps us in our weakness. As I shared in my 'Life in the Spirit' course recently, the purpose of the Holy Spirit coming is to enable us to become what we, in ourselves, could never become.

This is the great mystery of Christian life: God at work within the believer, changing and making us into better people!

May we discover this more through April as we " Make Life Work."

Yours warmly from Jesus,
Hans