silencing unbelief

we cannot help what we see and hear, but our refusal to speak doubt and fear will keep our hearts more inclined to what God can do, rather than to what we cannot.

faith

faith does not deny the reality of a difficulty; it declares the power of God in the face of the problem

up the road...

things i'm thinking about...

an old mentor of mine once said "christians should never have secrets"...

if you get easily frustrated with someone for something you normally wouldn't care about is it because you just don't know how to love them?

season change

on thursday when i woke up everything felt different. that is the best way i can describe it...everything in me felt more alive. it took me nearly all day to work out what was going on. i was in worship at school and started to talk to God about it, the only thing i was thinking is, this feels like the first day of spring. which is kind of weird as it is the start of autumn (fall). And in that thought God spoke to me. He said you are exactly right, spring is in the air, the winter is over now, you have entered spring. so good! there is new life in front of me and i'm excited...
i've found it really hard to get excited about stuff these last few years, i've always wanted to be, but no matter how much i willed myself to be excited i couldn't do it! but now it seems so easy. I'm excited for what each day holds, everyday since thursday has felt like the best day ever! yesterday was amazing, school was really, really good. Bill came in to speak to us, the more he spoke the thicker the atmosphere got with the presence of God, it felt amazing. Then at church last night there was so much joy in the room, the guy preaching could barely get through his talk over the laughter. We had a "joy" tunnel, where we imparted joy to everyone who came through it, i've not had so much fun in a tunnel as i did then. After we were done with the tunnel and most people had gone home the fragrance of the Lord entered the room, it's such a sweet smell, so hard to describe. It was like an oil that appeared on our hands and came in waves, THE most incredible smell. I was left standing in complete awe and completely consumed with joy, so good! the smell didn't leave, even when i washed my hands, it stayed with me till i fell asleep, such beauty.
today i had coffee with an old friend, then browsed books in barnes & noble, had lunch with another good friend, came home to read a book i just purchased, i love today!
I bought the hiding place, it's the story of corrie ten boom i've read one chapter, and already loving it! i feel like it will become one of my favourite books. On friday bill talked to us about knowing the victories that those who have gone before us have already won. so that we don't fight a battle that someone else already got a breakthrough in. I find myself really hungry to know the stories of those who have gone before me. This is where i am beginning...

it's been a while...

so i am firmly set back in cali life, things have been a little crazy busy so blogging has taken a back seat while things settle...
next week it will all be calm...

all i'm going to give you right now is what i hear Jesus say to me everyday....

"Look into my eyes"

leaving on a jet plane...

tomorrow i return to cali for round 2 of x-men school as one of my friends calls it! i cannot wait!!!

bombay bicycle club

discovered these guys today via black cab,
i'm liking their style, they've also worked with a guy i now know which makes them cooler...

black cab sessions

just discovered this site, really enjoying it!

check out the mumford & sons effort, real good!

do you have perspective?

perspective makes preparation significant,
preparation makes room for your opportunity,
challenge is the opportunity for the impossible,
impossible is nothing.
We are redeemed!

testimony

prayed for a lady who had arthritis at the weekend, she felt heat go through her body and said she felt a definate difference, she didn't want to test it further right there even though i said she had nothing to lose and everything to gain. can't force people so... i reckon she got her healing! God is GOOD!

Copyright 2009 JesusBranded

the redeemed

God has really been reminding me of late of which side of the cross i live on. It is so easy to place ourselves on the wrong side, to live with the mind set that i am a sinner, but that is false, i am one of the redeemed. It seems to take a daily check within my heart to remember that, as if i don't i disqualify everything Jesus did on the cross and beyond that.
When i live as though i were on the other side of the cross, before it happened then there are hoops for me to jump through to enter the presence of Father God, there are certain "acts" i must do, goals i must achieve, markers i must reach, it's really hard!
BUT the reality and truth is that the cross did happen and because of it i have open access to the presence of the Father, i can close my eyes, turn my affections towards Him and i am right there with Him. In His glorious presence that saves me every time (isaiah 63:9). I love how easy His presence is, so often we try and make it complicated, but it's not. I just close my eyes and focus on how good God is and i am there. so good!

Copyright 2009 JesusBranded

inspired!

expectancy...

I was soaking to some bethel worship and felt like a i saw a host of angels coming in the winds, they are headed to meet me in cornwall when i am there in a few weeks. It made me want to go this week, but then felt the purpose of knowing now is so that an expectancy within me can build for this time. The joy of knowing now is that i know the hope set before me, that i can position myself for this encounter. So i am dedicating these next few weeks to His presence, soaking up as much of it as i can, waiting expectantly for my encounter...and oh what a glorious encounter it will be!

i laughed...

need

I've been thinking this last week how much we all, if we are honest, want someone in our lives who can say "me too". We all have this need to be understood, but yet often letting people know we want/need this is the hardest thing, why is that?

Last week i had this sick bug, i felt so rough. In the midst of it i was lying on my bathroom floor unsure if i was going to pass out or throw up at any minute, and all i wanted was someone to know i was there. I asked Jesus for help, but what i really wanted was another human being to identify with my pain. I'm staying with my parents right now, so eventually i called out till someone heard me. The next day i found out whilst i was recovering that my friend had exactly the same thing, it was kinda nice to know i wasn't alone in my bug, someone else knew exactly how it felt.

I watched this programme on tv recently where some famous people became homeless for 10 days, the main aim of the show was to raise awareness of what homelessness looks like. The homeless people didn't want someone to come in and solve their situation for them, all they wanted was to know someone cared, that there was someone who could identify with them and not walk past them on the street and ignore them. Obviously this wasn't the main point of the show but it was one thing i took from it.

A couple of days ago i read the quote i posted, that if someone can look you in the eyes and say "me too" and actually mean it - it can save you. Just so much truth in that.

When i look back over my life, over tough things i've had to go through and had zero control over, every time there has been some level where some one has been able to say "me too" just at the right moment, and every time it saved me!
whether it was in their tears, or in their company, or in their smile, or in their words, or in their silence, the resounding "me too" saved me! Deeper than that, the deepest most intimate "me too" has come from the times i have been in God's presence, in that place where there are no words but just eye to eye contact, and a deep understanding of "me too". In that place all fear dissolves and all you are left with is peace. It's like you were looking at this canvas, that was ridiculously busy with colour, so busy that it hurts your eyes to look at it, but if you break through it you find yourself in this pure white, you climb through the hole and you instantly feel safe, the white surrounds you, holds you up and is the safest place you have ever been. so good! there is no place for fear here.

In all of this we have a choice. We all want the "me too" relationships in our lives, but that means we have to allow people to actually come further into our lives than just allowing them to look in through the window, or into the front porch, or lobby.
We need to allow them to come into the inner rooms of our lives, and let them see where we need the "me too". There has to be a place in our lives where we aren't afraid to be vulnerable. Do you let people in? like really far in? or do you just let them keep going round a revolving door so they can see some but not really much. It seems like we get stuck going in circles sometimes with this stuff. We so badly want to know someone cares, or understands, but we are afraid if we truly let them in they wont care or understand so we will get hurt even more. Where is the balance? where do we break this pattern? where does the door to our lives stop becoming a revolving one and become one that can be open to the right people?

I was talking to a friend today about knowing who your key people are, i know who mine are, but i didn't always. They are actually people i chose to trust a few years back, i chose to invest in friendship, i chose to be vulnerable with them, i chose to have fun with them. Now they are my people i turn to when i need to be understood, the "me too", they know me, perhaps can't always identify, but they can always point me to safety of someone who can. I know i am safe in their hands. We all need to know we are safe, we all need community, other people. To have an ease in being in each others presence where no words are needed, because we are known. But what do you do when you don't have that? this is the question my friend asked me today... it's a tough one! but like i said before we have a choice, how far into our house will we let people come, yes there is always risk in that, they might not be safe, but it's a risk worth taking. It all needs to start with Jesus, to begin from a place of intimacy with him and from that continue with the people He has put in our lives to share in this big adventure with. Sometimes we just need to choose some people an get on with it. As there may come a time where all you need to hear is the "me too" and if you don't ever open the door, how can you hear anyone saying it? sound doesn't travel well through walls...

love the stuff these guys come out with...

Copyright 2009 JesusBranded

hey little fella...

rob bell

Jesus wants to save our church from the exile of irrelevance

quotation

when someone can look you in the eyes and say, "Me too",
and actually mean it -
it can save you

ouch...

So i had some major frustration today. I was getting more than annoyed with some of the people who were around me, every time they settled on this one subject it would drive me up the wall! the thought running around my head was "how long till i can get out of here? somebody save me!"

i sat tonight in the car and asked myself what it was that was really grating on me? i then had the hard realization that i was seeing something in them that i know is in me! ouch! the thing that made me so mad was that i didn't know how to conquer this. I mean i can deal with it in my own life but can't change it in them. Only they can do that. But now i've noticed it, it seems to be highlighted all the more. I'm left asking the question when a behavior pattern is so inherent in someone's life do they want the change? especially if they see no harm in what they are saying.
I think the real deal in this for me is the realization of how much life and death comes from the tongue. I mean i know the principal and i know it's true in my head, but i think that only now is it really becoming heart knowledge. It's just becoming so apparent to me how much we really do need to think before we speak...
this was really triggered in me this morning when my brother who i hadn't seen in a few days told me that my dad told him i wasn't speaking to him... now he said it in the context of trying to be funny, but when my brother said it to me it wasn't, and i thought how easily could there be a divide sown between my brother and me, through someone making a flippant comment they thought was funny? thankfully it wasn't, but do you see what I'm saying here?

I've just noticed myself in recent weeks getting annoyed or frustrated when people speak down on other people, in those moments have always come out saying "well we don't know the full story, so we can't really comment" but every time i say it i know that there have been times when i have done exactly the same...and done so in the last few weeks...again ouch!
I guess it all comes down to the heart, as our mouth speaks from the overflow of the heart, i guess there is some grime in mine that i've just become aware of...and I'm seeing how much i need to sit back and wait before i open my mouth, also gotta clean up that grime...

Can our words ever be truly harmless, whether positive or negative? whatever context they are spoken in? I'm just not convinced...

Is there something in our soul that feels a pin prick when someone says something in jest, and we know it is, but somehow our soul skips that and gets injured. Over time these little pin pricks add up, we find ourselves deflated and we realize we are feeling low and we're not really sure why? or how we got to this place.
I dunno, have you ever been with someone who said something to you as a throw away remark that hurt just the smallest bit, but the pain lasted a millisecond so you shrugged it off? I'm pretty sure i have. Well what happens when these milliseconds begin to pile up... and I'm curious, when we hear someone speaking low of someone else does it affect us? do we feel their hurt too? especially if it is someone we really love?

Tonight i have just felt really low, i know part of it has been in the realization that there is some stuff i need to get right in my own life, but i wonder also if part of it has come from hearing other people speak down on people i know?
We can gain so much and equally lose so much through the words we speak and through the words that come out of the mouths of others, it's a tough one....

What do you think?

How do i move forward with this? the first place i am headed is straight into the arms of father God, i need to hear who i am to Him again. I'm also going to stop and think before i open my mouth...this will be a challenge for the extrovert that i am, but i want my words to be considered and to be words that always release life, no matter what the context. I'll let you know how i get on.

Bansky is a genius!

went to the banksy exhibition today. it's immense! don't care what the critics say, he is an incredible artist!
here is some evidence...

it's good to laugh...

Be known for your joy, joy is a weapon in our hands!

rational truth

Truth is not a what, but a who. Truth is the being of God manifested in His creation. Truth is not a set of ideas, it’s a person, it’s Jesus!

John 18 v 27 – for this reason I came into this world to testify to the truth

out of the archives....

i designed this a few years ago, back when i had photoshop on my mac (those were the days), rediscovered it the other day, still really like it, maybe someday i will get round to printing it!


copyrighted by emilia

Copyright 2009 JesusBranded

green

it feels like something little kids would chat about, but honestly green truly is my favourite colour. My parents just got back from vacation and brought me a green scarf, i love it! she said she wasn't sure if i'd like it but she thought of me when she saw it, i like that. I have this other green scarf that i wear a heck of a lot, always been my favourite... when i think of the colour it just gives me such hope, i always think of something new, like it's a life giver. I'm always drawn to green things, i'm a sucker for good design. If i don't think it looks good, whatever it is, not gonna get it! i have bought albums and books based on the cover design before, some have turned out awesome, others not so much. Not sure if it's a perfectionist thing or a creative eye thing, but i can get pretty critical if it looks bad. I guess it all comes down to personal taste. I'm even drawn by book layouts, for example rob bells books, LOVE the lay-outs, how they've been edited and even the colours they use. My favourite book is a book on colour, it's called choosing colour and was out together by kevin mcloud (the guy who does grand designs). It has pages and pages of colour combinations...so nice. I spend a lot of time looking at design blogs, particular favourites being designismine and poppytalk , i also could spend hours pouring over beautiful photography, right now i am loving max wagner, i love how he captures people. well this is a funny place to end up from talking about the colour green, now you know a few more things about me...

p.s. currently working on some stuff about the josephs of the bible, when i feel it's a little bit more concrete i will share...

pier set

feeling very thankful today...i love my life!

2 by 2...

today someone asked me what my God story was of the last week, to begin with i wasn't sure i had one, so i asked Holy Spirit to show me as i knew there had to be at least one!
He reminded me of how when i'd gone for a job interview at the weekend they had given me double what i had spent on gas to cover it, so i spent 30 and they gave me 60. At the time when they gave it to me i thought how generous these people were, never met them in my life before, i spend 15 mins with them and they want to give me a double portion of what i need. Then yesterday i was walking to a friends house and passed a homeless guy selling the big issue, i thought it cost roughly a pound, wanted to be generous so gave him 3, as i walked away and looked at the cover of the magazine i saw it cost 1.50 so i gave him double what he needed. I remember at the time thinking thats how Kingdom currency works, it's double the value we would place on it. In the moment of asking Holy Spirit earlier tonight i felt there was an invitation to be a generous people, to not live by worldly currency, but by heavens currency, the two fold currency... it's that thing of freely we have received, freely give.
It's so easy to hold onto money, but the day we realise that it has no real value to us here, is the day we chose to be generous. This has kind of been my journey the last 5 months or so, i haven't really had any money at all, it was pretty tough. BUT God gave me a vision for this season, which completely justified all the pain i felt
as i knew it had purpose! He showed me that He wanted to loose the power money had in my life that i never felt the need to hold onto it. He showed me this through a simple thing i did, there was a friend of mine in school who was heading to england on her missions trip, i had a fiver in my wallet, i gave it to her for her trip, didn't even think twice about it, what use was it to me in the states...zero! It was in this that God showed me the place he wanted to take me in all currencies. It has been an interesting journey...many, many tears!
I think primarily at the root of this we are dealing with fear, fear of not having enough, fear of not being able to do fun stuff we love, fear of what might happen if we don't have something saved for a rainy day....it's a poverty spirit we entertain in this.
How do we know when we have broken through the fear? well all i can tell you is i have this deep assurance that God will always give me what i need and then double it! I saw this not long into this journey, i really wanted to paint but had no canvas, i asked Jesus if i could have one. The next day my good friend gave me 2 canvases...go figure. Another part of that is that i didn't need to paint, it wasn't essential to my survival, but God cares about the detail, He is a good father who likes to give good gifts. I feel as i said earlier there is an invitation to choose the way of generosity, to engage with heavens currency even though we can't always see it clearly, but to live in the assurance that God's got my back so i need not worry about money...
so here i am processing my thoughts, learning to let go, and chose the way of generosity....so worth it!

Go Kris...

This is one of my pastors from bethel talking about one of his books, if you haven't read it already you should, it's an awesome book. I read it last year and got rocked by it, but listen to this testimony of what's been happening with it the last few months...

i like this dude...

chasing the dream not the competition...

A contestant on Britain's Got Talent was asked why he had come to audition on the show his response was "I'm chasing the dream not the competition". I haven't been able to get this quote out of my head the last few weeks. I realised how easy it is for us to take our eyes off the dreams we are pursuing in our lives and set them on the competition. The competition can look like more than just people around us who may be a threat to us reaching our dreams. The competition can look like any thought, any mind-set, any lie that we believe that would seek to get our attention and hold it away from the dream.

It's a case of hourly/daily/weekly/monthly/yearly looking at what our focus is set on.
In Jeremiah 29 the israelites were still in the desert and were going to be for a while longer, in this time it would have been so easy for them to set their focus on still being in the desert and not having reached the promised land. It would be so easy for them to get discouraged from that dream in their hearts for the promised land. In that time Jeremiah brings them a word from God telling them to settle in the land they are in, to take in the scenery whilst they were there in a sense. But He still keeps the promise of the promised land alive by reminding them He has a hope and future for them. So it's not that the dream is in any way diminished, the way they will get there has just changed. God is giving them the tools they need to maintain the dream until it is fulfilled. Are we looking for the tools?

Sometimes it is so easy to be so set on the dream, that we will do whatever we can, in our own strength do to get to it and miss the tools that God has given us to get there.
It's kind of like being on a train journey and they announce over the intercom that there has been a delay and the train is going to wait where it is until further notice. There is always the one passenger who gets really irate about this and sits in their seat looking straight ahead, almost thinking that them concentrating hard on getting to the destination will get them there sooner. Then there are the passengers who sit back in their seat, take in the view out the window and talk to each other, passing the time together. Then over the intercom the driver announces the delay will be longer so if you want to get off the train and explore nearby you can but don't wander so far that you lose sight of the train. That one passenger stays fixed in their seat and get irritated with everyone else for getting up and off the train, thinking that them getting off the train will delay it even longer. But the other passengers do get off the train, see what there is to see, take it all in, soak it all up... then the call back to the train comes, it's ready to set off...
Sometimes we get so set on getting to a place that we will our time to go faster, we are just so desperate to get there because it is so on our heart, and get cross with people who we feel are taking us on a detour or delaying us by their actions.
But we're missing something, it is possible we are missing out on friendships which will help us in our quest for the dream, people who will stand with us in the chase. People who we can just have fun and laugh with, and potentially people who we can help in pursuing their dreams. We can miss the beauty of the landscape we are currently in, we can take it for granted when there is so much there for us, we're missing that God is giving us the tools we need to get there. It doesn't mean we take our eyes off the dream, we are just trusting in His timing. Trusting that any delay has purpose and looking to see what God has for us in that time. It can seem like sometimes people are holding us back by enjoying the "delay", that them engaging with it is what is hindering us, in all reality we probably just need to join in with what they are doing and we kind of want to even if we don't want to admit it! We can set them as our "competition" but really they aren't and our focus has subtly shifted.

I'm aware that there seems to be a really fine line we can cross between chasing the dream and focusing on the competition, how do we define what is God and what is competition coming to get in the way? It seems to me that we need a daily check, we need people in our lives who know the dream and hold us accountable and can speak into our lives when they witness our focus shifting. We need to know the hope set before us, that remembering God has a future for us, He has our back.
We need to stay teachable, open to new things, new possibilities. I think the biggest check is that when something comes up, something takes your attention, ask the questions..does this take anything away from the dream? does it render it invalid? does it discourage you from pursuing the dream? does it make you consider giving up on the dream to pursue something else? if you answer "yes" to any or all of the above i would suggest you are potentially entering the land of "competition". If you answer "no" to the same questions then i would be asking God if there is a tool He is wanting to give you, if this seemingly distraction is actually something He wants to give you to help you in chasing the dream? When God is brining something or someone into our life that is good, He never asks us to lose sight of the "train" He wont let us wander so far that we can't see it anymore.

The dream stays the same, just how we get there may not look quite how we expected.

So I'm chasing after the dreams and not the competition!

Caught in the mystery...

Hello! welcome to my blog...

this is going to be my place where i journal a little, put down on paper what i'm thinking about, share things i find that i like...you get the idea.

In Proverbs it tells us that it is the Glory of God to conceal a matter and it's the Glory of Kings to search that matter out, this is my place to dig up those mysteries, to get caught up in them.

"If you are not too long, I will wait here for you all my life"
Oscar Wilde

I feel like these mysteries have been hidden for a very long time and are just waiting, patiently to be discovered...
so here we go...