GOD'S PLAN AND MY PART IN IT

Yea!! I have just finished reading the book of Ezekiel. I am working my way through the Bible. It is taking me a long time but I am learning an awful lot about how all those Sunday School stories fit together. I am reading The Message version of the Bible which is very modern and up to date.

The last part of Ezekiel was hard going. It is very detailed descriptions God's new temple to come. The Lion Handbook To The Bible states that we need to read Ezekiel to be able to understand Revelation. So that will be interesting when I reach Revelation, the final book of the Bible.


My reading today tends to be about trusting God with His plan for us.

In Today's Faithful Daily Read Geoff Thompson writes:

Trust God that he has you in his master plan. What might the master narrator write about the seemingly incidental detail in your day today? Watch for the hand of God and the work of the Spirit as you go.
http://faithfuldailyread.wordpress.com/2013/09/26/bakers-delight/

Geoff  Thompson

I wrote a reply today to the Faithful Daily Read. As follows:

Trusting that God ‘has you in his master plan’ is exciting and takes the fear out of living. I can see ‘the hand of God in my life’. While some things may not seem fair at the time I remember Isaiah 55:8-9 (NIV)

8 For my thoughts are not your thoughts,
neither are your ways my ways,”
declares the Lord.

9 “As the heavens are higher than the earth,
so are my ways higher than your ways
and my thoughts than your thoughts.

Sometimes it is hard to see the hand of God when difficult things are happening but then something marvelous will happen that I hadn’t envisioned.

And I always try to remember ‘that in all things God works for the good of those who love him, who have been called according to his purpose.’ (Romans 8:20 NIV)

Who knows what today will bring. Maybe I will ‘enter and enjoy the good of the land.’ Maybe God will call me home like Stephen. Or maybe it will just be another day filled with the similar ‘seemingly incidental detail’ of most days.
Whatever God has in mind it is good to know I have eternal life and that I am part of God’s master plan.

But I am also aware that we play our own  part in our lives. 

'Remember this: Whoever sows sparingly will also reap sparingly, and whoever sows generously will also reap generously' (2 Corinthians. 9:6)

I don't believe in  karma in the sense we often use it. My husband left me for his secretary some years ago and I was devastated. People tell me that what goes around comes around, and that life will give him his  comeuppance (which by the way I do not want for him. I want him to be happy even though he hurt me very deeply and has affected my life considerably)

I don't think I did anything terribly bad to lead me where I am now, and I don't intend this to be a list of what is wrong with my life. I have done my best in life and if karma was real I wouldn't be where I am now. 

But I still believe it is important to sow good works. Eventually I will reap the harvest. I must be patient.

So in putting it all together I know that God has a plan for my life. I don't always understand it but I know that I must play my part along the way and do the best I can to love God and those around me, and help those who need it. In the end I will be a winner.

FOOD FOR THOUGHT

I have just been looking after my daughter's dog for 4 weeks. His name is Jasper and he is my little sweet heart.

He is a very loving and trusting little dog. And strange as it may be he makes me think of all little animals and whether I should be eating them or not.

I am not a vegetarian but I do eat a mainly plant based diet for health reasons. After reading The China Study  by T Colin Campbell and Thomas M Campbell I was convinced that a plant based diet is definitely more healthy.

 I used to think that it was meat that had made humans more intelligent but now it is generally accepted that it was beginning to eat cooked food. So many more nutrients could be consumed in a smaller time. (http://www.businessinsider.com.au/human-evolution-cooking-food-2012-10 ,
http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/8543906.stm )

Meat is not necessary to survive. My daughter is a vegan and has survived very well on a vegan diet for the last 16 years.

Veganism or vegetarianism has nothing to do with Biblical teaching although Seventh Day Adventists are vegetarian. This was introduced as an emphasis on wholeness and health by the Seventh Day Adventist Church in the 1860's, rather than as a result of strict biblical teaching. And studies do show that Seventh Day Adventists do live longer than their meat eating counterparts. (http://news.adventist.org/en/archive/articles/2013/06/04/u.s.-study-of-adventists-finds-vegetarians-live-longer)

In fact after the flood God gave Noah permission to eat animals. (Genesis 9:1-5)

When  I eat lamb or veal I am eating a baby animal.  A little creature just like Jasper.

 If I had to see that animal slaughtered would I want to eat it? That is questionable. I like all my meat wrapped up in plastic bearing no resemblance to the original live animal.

This video,  Their Future in Your Hands is really interesting.

Their Future in Your Hands

 http://vimeo.com/groups/166612/videos/41915532

So basically I am still undecided. If I had a partner who was vegetarian then it I would become vegetarian immediately. This may seem like I cop out.

I don't know, but just loving a little animal, like Jasper, has certainly given me food for thought. 

PRAYER CHANGES THING