Nothing.is.impossible. WITH GOD.

Luke 1: 36 - 38 (The angel continued:) "Furthermore, six months ago your Cousin Elizabeth—‘the barren one,’ they called her—became pregnant in her old age!  For every promise from God shall surely come true.”

Mary said, “I am the Lord’s servant, and I am willing to do whatever he wants. May everything you said come true.” And then the angel disappeared."

Every promise shall come true.

Yet, we, unlike Mary, doubt.

Sarah, Abraham's wife, laughed in disbelief.

Perhaps, we do not laugh

but hidden in our hearts

we ponder: "Can this really be?

Do I deserve it? Surely, this is

'too good to be true'."

Yet Mary did not, Unlike Zechariah

who also had angelic visitation,

and suffered for his incredulity, 

Mary believed.

Mary was willing.

Mary accepted.

Mary desired that God's word WOULD STAND.

For her, no scepticism, doubt, cynicism, suspicion, distrust, mistrust, wariness, chariness...

JUST FAITH.

Reflections after New Wine

New Wine Guernsey just happened at the weekend: a weekend of remarkable teaching from Ian Coffey entitled Postcards from the Edge: finding God in difficult places, which looked at fear, loss, imprisonment, inadequacy and doubt in the lives of Paul, Ruth, Peter, Jeremiah and John the Baptist.

Thought-provoking and encouraging.

Ian's wife Ruth led a seminar on, more or less, spiritual discipline. Encouraging us to recognise who we are, where we are and how we are growing with God.

One of the people she mentioned was Paul Mallard, who has written a useful book entitled 'Staying Fresh'. A quick glance at the contents page and I am already encouraged:

1 When love turns cold
2 Knowing that we are loved
3 Rejoice in the Lord
4 Counting the cost
5 Fear God, not people
6 Take time to be holy
7 Take more time to be holy
8 Guard your marriage
9 Build godly relationships
10 Preach the gospel to your own heart
11 Use your diary as a spiritual tool
12 Remember you are human
13 Be a good steward of pain
14 Keep an eye on the prize

All kinds of wisdom there.

A shadow of a doubt

Hmmm... phrases repeating themselves. This time, this one: a shadow of a doubt. There's a word missing: BEYOND. 
'BEYOND a shadow of a doubt' ie absolute certainty.  This time, the focus is on DOUBT and the shadow it is casting over our lives. My life, in particular, at this moment.
Renee Swope talks about this: that shadows
"are created all around us when something blocks light. And so it is with the shadow of doubt. When we focus on ourselves and how inadequate we feel, or what others are thinking about us, we cast a shadow of doubt in our minds and block the light of God’s Truth in our hearts.
Our thoughts end up being mostly about ourselves: how we’re performing and what others are thinking about us. It’s not that these thoughts are bad. It’s just that when we focus our attention on ourselves, we turn our attention away from God.
We become too concerned about what others think of us instead of what God thinks about us.
And just as Paul warns us in Rom. 8:6, “the mind set on the flesh is death, but the mind set on the Spirit is life and peace” so something in us slowly dies when we become self-focused.
God created us for so much more than self-preservation or self-promotion. It’s just too much pressure. Even if we achieve success or have a few good days, eventually it won’t be enough.
If we want to live beyond the shadows of our doubts, we have to take our eyes off ourselves and turn them toward the Light by focusing on God’s thoughts towards us. When we feel insecure, we need to think about His strengths instead of our weakness. When we feel inadequate, we need to turn the focus of our hearts to promises that tell us who He is and how He wants to work in our lives.
...a shadow of doubt had been cast over my thoughts and emotions because I had stopped living in the light of God’s promises. That is how I ended up paralyzed by the darkness."

Renee talks about doubts of:
"I’m not good enough.
I’m always disappointing someone.
I can’t follow God consistently.
I’ll never change."
I wanted to add some more, but I think she's got it all covered in those four short sentences.  All big fat lies, of course, but how easily we believe them.

How do we deal with doubt? By..
"Turning away from self – Turning toward God
Turning away from doubt – Turning toward Truth
Turning away from darkness – Turning toward Light

Instead of waiting for God to zap us with confidence and remove our doubts, let’s ask God to use our doubts to draw us into a deeper place of dependence on Him and His promises. It’s not necessarily going to be easy, because it requires turning, but it is possible and worth what it takes to turn.
Turning leads to transforming, as we allow our thoughts to be made new, and transforming leads to believing as God’s thoughts become our Truth. "


Oh yes, I thought. Definitely right. Because Jesus says: I AM THE WAY, THE TRUTH AND THE LIGHT. I read today in John 17, in Jesus' prayer for his followers:
I spelled out your character in detail
To the men and women you gave me.

They were yours in the first place;
Then you gave them to me,
And they have now done what you said.
They know now, beyond the shadow of a doubt,
That everything you gave me is firsthand from you,
For the message you gave me, I gave them;
And they took it, and were convinced
That I came from you.
They believed...       John 17:6ff, The Message

A deeper dependence on God - through turning my eyes on Jesus, looking full in his wonderful face...so the things of earth will grow strangely dim in the light of his glory and grace.
Amen.