Reinventing the wheel. A glance back at 2023.

Currently, I am sitting on the couch in our lounge, frustrated that the chocolate mousse that I just whipped up, has split, but I’m chilling it anyways because maybe, just maybe it turns out okay, but the Google search I did to enquire about a remedy literally tells me there is no help, this is it, your best hope is to set the mousse and perhaps beat it smooth, but there is no guarantee. Thus, another dark moment in my culinary quest to be adventurous in the kitchen, and to whip up amazing anything, but I also know that the Lord allows these sorts of incidents to happen in my life to teach me valuable lessons.

Not all cream is equal

Yep, you may think that cream is cream, well it’s not, and I can tell you that we have discovered just this year, that this is not the case. Fresh cream will always trump the long-life stuff, and a local dairy usually produces a better quality than some other well-known brands, trust me, I’m realizing this again, right now!!

The Odendaal’s bought a house, wow, and how amazing it has been!! Moving, they will tell you, is stressful, and it truly was. On the very last day in our previous place, tensions ran crazy high, and Cara and I both agree that this was the craziest moment we’ve ever experienced as a married couple, we were both stressed to the max trying to get the last things out of our rental place, whilst the agent was just chilling and refusing to inspect the place until very last piece of our existence was removed. I mean, we understood that, but the weeks leading up to this moment we had moved ‘everything’ out of the house, every day for about 6 weeks we had moved absolutely everything out, and it was in that moment that we realized again, shucks, we have a lot of stuff. But, all things considered, the move went well, and we are loving our 84/85-year-old grand Walmer lady. She has good bones, and we are very excited to be welcoming our first tenant in our downstairs flat, an absolute testimony.

Fresh, room temperature eggs

I am crazy fussy when it comes to eggs, free-range eggs almost certainly always have a nicer, golden egg yolk, its lovely to behold, and I think the ‘fresh’ part is just a given, if your eggs have been around for too long, then just know, please, it’s not like a banana that can become a loaf of sorts, it will fail your baking, and baking in 2023…2024 is expensive enough, so don’t skimp on fresh, quality ingredients.

During 2023 the Odendaal’s also realized that they are snobbish when it comes to accommodation and sleeping arrangements. I think that the word ‘snob’, is most likely too harsh of a word, perhaps its more that we realized what we don’t enjoy as much, we realized this on an impromptu one night away in Joubertina, yes yes, I know…and now recently on a missions trip to Lesotho. Serving the community was amazing, but the ultra-thin mattress on a hard floor, erm…was perhaps less amazing, but looking back now on both of these adventures, well it was just that, an adventure.

Separate the eggs

There are many ways of doing this, but please just always ensure that your hands are clean, you never know when you’ll need to be catching something.

Gosh, we had a lot of other amazing trips away. The most amazing thing about being married is always having a road trip buddy, and someone to be silly with. Hang around us long enough, and maybe you’ll hear a terrible attempt at a ‘posh’ British-English accent. We did a trip towards Knysna, where I ran my one and only half marathon for 2023, and slept two nights in Jongensfontein, which is a beautiful seaside resort, accessed by driving through Stilbaai, another amazing seaside town. We also worked a 3-day creative arts conference into this mid-year break, which was amazing to attend with my wife. In October this year we celebrated a year of marriage, and the road took us to Prince Albert. What a lovely little dorpie, but, I also got very bored very quickly, eish, in 2024 I will need to learn the art of being okay with just being still and not always wanting to be busy with something.

Soft peaks vs. Stiff peaks, know your application

Softer for smoother, stiffer for meringue like.

Being busy with stuff consumes me a lot. The fun thing about owning a really old house comes with amazing renovation opportunities, and we have done a lot of that this year already and will continue renovating for the foreseeable future. The crazy thing about this is that I know that Rome wasn’t built in a day, but I still always want to beet myself up for not doing more, doing better, doing greater etc. Knowing when to switch off is as important, if not more important, then getting the job done!! Don’t believe me, ask my wife. The more time that passes between starting a project and ending such project, the more creative and exciting the project becomes, and the more one also has to look the other way when you realize that the budget is crazy blown, BUT, that the final product is just so much cooler.

The chocolate

All the above may fail, like in my current situation, so please make sure that the chocolate is good. If you won’t eat it on its own, then it does not belong in your baking, period. ‘Cooking chocolate’ is vile, don’t even go there.

Form over function you see!! This is a big lesson I have learnt this year. Functionality is amazing, but form allows you to stop and smell the roses and to create something with purpose and value. I love being handy around the house, around the office in my workspace, and I like to think within our marriage as well. I am obsessed with making worthwhile experiences, but I am realizing again that such an experience could also just be consciously stopping the noise, choosing to step out of the clutter, and then to just shake up any one tiny thing, and to actively watch the crafting of a new result, and that my friends, is how we ARE going to reinvent the proverbial wheel in 2024.

Why a new wheel you may ask, well, in a simple response (and tribute to) my lovely wife loves to give, ‘interesting’, so let’s keep things Interesting in 2024.

And do not be conformed to this world, but be transformed by the renewing of your mind, that you may prove what is that good and acceptable and perfect will of God. Romans 12:2

With all our love, signing out of 2023,

Ryan and Cara

2021 through the lenses of my vivid imagination

Another year has come and gone, and I feel like doing a reflection.

Yet another year has passed living here in Coronaville, and now everything just appears sort of ‘normal’. We moved into this new land on the 27th of March 2020, and I really thought that when the 27th of March 2021 came around, that there would be much more looking back and just being amazed at how we had made it, but this wasn’t the case, and right so.

How do you look back over a year and ‘celebrate’ how far we’ve come, when no end was/is in sight? So, with that said, I want to offer up all my love and condolences to you if you have loved lost ones over this period, had your life completely smashed upside down or if the loneliness of isolation and fear of the unknown has tried to cripple you, or perhaps it still haunts you, I am sorry.

My year started with greeting a great fellow colleague who packed his bags, and his wife, and relocated to the Queen’s land, this was tough, work aside, saying goodbye to people you love, friends and colleagues that become family, is hard, and this, like with many other things that we have been trying to come to grips with over these past +/- 21 months, was hard.

My country was also still deep in the throes of a lockdown that started just after Christmas 2020, which meant that church gatherings were very limited. No more than 50 people per venue, and I remember how crazy it was trying to figure this all out. I was amped to get back into live gatherings, because let’s face it, who was engaging in YouTube services anyways? If you were, and yes, I have heard that there were some, that’s awesome, but this was also hard. We were not made for isolation.

The church connect group that I help lead was also bound to go through some metamorphosis. We had been running a mini-house church for the last couple of years, and so many people (anything between 20 to 30 people) propped into someone’s lounge was just not going to work anymore, but hey, that’s fine, God is never lost without a plan. What we felt to do was to divide into 4 smaller groups and set the guys free to run and go wild after Jesus, and to be honest, it was awesome.

The feedback received of how people who were naturally more withdrawn and who now had found their voice, was great. ‘Community’ has no clearly defined shape or form and cannot subscribe to a set of rules. I think that if people are meeting and having meaningful engagements, that community can be built and that we can keep charging to further His Kingdom.

In March I had the glorious opportunity to go away to Hogsback for a long weekend and this was such a much-needed break. A break from the madness that was getting through the February financial year-end. I love the natural cycles that the world of finance goes through, as creative as I am, I must say that I really appreciate the order that exists in my work life.

Other notable highlights for me for the first half of the year was that finally I decided to start challenging myself a bit more in my CrossFit workouts, moving into the intermediate and advanced workouts phase and then somewhere in April or May, I decided to start running a bit more so as to go and run the Knysna half-marathon, my training was going okay-ish until I woke up in a cold sweat on Wednesday the 9th of June, in the wee hours of the morning.

I knew something was up. At this stage I was also trying to wrap-up a big piece of contract work that I was doing for another firm, and so at about 5am that morning I realized that I needed to finalize billing, as one does. I wrapped up everything, sent all the necessary mails, and reached out to my buddy to say that I wouldn’t see him that evening, describing my symptoms to him.

He replied and said that he had the same. Up until that point I figured I had a stomach bug as a lot of my colleagues were talking about a stomach bug in the last few weeks prior to this, but when he said he feels the same as me, knowing that I had spent the previous Saturday and Sunday night with him, I just knew, it was Covid.

By 9am that morning my doctor had sent the lab forms and I was tested before 10am that day. I started planning my life around what might happen if I get a positive result. I felt too yucky to work that day, so I just made myself as comfortable as I could at home and got to bed early. Insomnia set in again and I was up from way early, checking the lab’s WhatsApp result line every half an hour, finally at about 4 am, there in red text on the lab result it read, ‘DETECTED’, what a relief to just know.

This was now it, housebound for at least the next 10 or 14 days. I tested positive, so did my buddy and a lot of our other friends, some dotted all around the country. A lot of people that I saw that previous weekend also tested positive, and for the first time since the murmurs of a worldwide pandemic had started, the Corona virus became very real to me.

Real in terms of the fact that super spreader events aren’t confined to stadiums or public places, they can happen in homes, also real from the point of view that I was one of the many people that nonchalantly used to think that I had had the virus before, you know…’that one week in 2020 that I was sick, yep, that was it.’

My Covid journey started mild and by the Friday, another buddy had brought me a beautiful chicken wrap from Kauai, and I made some steamed butternut to go with it, life was great, I even told my mom. The next day, the Saturday, all the wheels came off and for the next couple of days I was slammed with such a heavy fatigue that I was struggling to just get out of bed by the afternoon to perhaps manage to eat an orange, just so that I could swallow some vitamins and have my animal medication, you know what I’m talking about.

This journey was rough, and I realize that I perhaps didn’t speak about it enough, but also as this journey started, I decided to log out of my social media accounts, knowing full well that I would be housebound for a while, I wanted to engage more in this journey and getting better, as opposed to just endlessly scrolling stories during my quarantine.

As a side note, I started working on a blog during this period and have yet to finish it.

Every morning started out like a ritual, checking in with all my fellow wounded soldiers. Men and woman that I knew well, and some not as much. People I loved. One by one, some of the people that I draw a lot of encouragement from, were sending me updates of despondence and defeat, and to be honest, I was also there.

I remember the real feeling of fearing going to sleep, not because I feared death, but because I had spent just a little bit of my afternoon feeling okay, and I didn’t want that ripped away from me again as the next day would start with me feeling like hell.

This carried on for an entire week and I was drained not knowing if I would ever feel 100% okay.

All the while friends and even a work client came and dropped off food and vitamins, the realness of Jesus became so evident to me during this time.

My first week post quarantine I worked half-days. Covid brain and mushy thoughts is a very real phenomenon. I didn’t have the strength or mental capacity to host our work team’s morning virtual catch-up, because I honestly couldn’t keep track of thoughts. I was a disaster in conversations and consultations, and this all caused me to withdraw a bit. Both in a good and perhaps, not so good way.

I remember a friend inviting me to a night of ministry and I was very apprehensive to go. I had developed some weird, mini fear of people. That night another friend of ours wanted to pray for me as she said she saw a kind of heaviness on me, and it broke.

I realized right then and there, and many others have confirmed this, that though Covid is physically a very real virus, yet it also attacks us emotionally and mentally. I want to urge you that when you are checking up on your loved ones, also ask how they are doing on this front. My now girlfriend used to encourage me to be kind to myself in my recovery, so please, be kind to yourself and others.

Somehow, with all the ups and downs of lockdowns this past year and having become a statistic of the third wave (delta variant), I felt like I had lost the months of June to pretty much the end of July, I will always fondly remember how I organised to get a bunch of friends together for my birthday (5 July), but unfortunately that fell apart, but let’s be honest, whom hasn’t been inconvenienced? There has been the missing out of so many incredible milestones achieved, or losses suffered that you and I just simply could not attend because of this virus, but hey, take heart, we are a resilient people, and we need to keep on bracing ourselves for our ever-changing circumstances.

In September this year my life took a glorious detour down a path that I wasn’t sure that I would ever find, so here’s a shout out to all my single friends that are hoping and praying for a miracle. I have known the most sincere and beautiful woman since 2018 but thought absolutely nothing about any prospects of liking or even dating her. Through the most tumultuous adventure that started towards the end of 2020, this amazing woman became my girlfriend towards the end of September 2021, and I am over the moon with excitement.

It is now December 2021 and the second last day of the year, a couple of hours from now people around the globe will be singing, ‘should auld acquaintance be forgot, and never brought to mind…’, here in South Africa it will be celebrated at home, tucked away safely in our beds as we respect the curfew, and I for one will be reminiscing once again upon the year gone by. My low moments, which will include my June covid episode and then all the glorious moments, such as this current holiday break that I am on, which has also included yet another 10-day quarantine stint, which I won’t get in to now, tsek Omicron.

Verb. tsek. to check; to mark with a checkmark… (go ahead and Google this…haha)

Naturally with the breaking dawn of a brand-new year, I will dream about and be looking forward to the epic adventures of a new year, but always with a sense of appreciation for the year gone by. In my opinion, its not worth it to write off an entire year because of low and sucky moments, but once again if you do find yourself in this boat, I want to encourage you to find something from the year gone by to remind you that life is awesome, and that you are way more than your low moments. 

In 2022 I want to be more vulnerable, and to be frank, I already feel challenged to start freeing up some of my time to enable me to start living this life of freedom and adventure to its fullest. Just like the spring clean I did of some of my cupboards about 2 months ago, I want to do the same with my time, sometimes one just needs to let go of nostalgia and habits IF it is causing clutter, but hey, this is my journey.

As for you, I trust that your 2022 dreams will be wild and will included some courageous endeavours. You are fierce and you are much loved, go and live out your wildest dreams and have some great coffee whilst you are at it.

Love, Ryan.

The Lost Years (Part 1)

Whilst going for a run along the beach yesterday, Saturday 07 August 2021, I felt the Lord’s voice speak to me loud and clear.

Loud and clear about the journey since I got born-again, and about the here and now, there’s something about coming home that always sparks some sort of down-memory-lane moments for me.

As I was collecting my thoughts on this post-covid run, walk, try not to overexert your heart rate attempt, I suddenly realized that I was on a stretch of beach that is very familiar to me, it’s between Blue Bend and Bonza Bay in Beacon Bay. I often walk or run this section as I really enjoy the ocean, and for some reason I have always been game to run on sea-sand when many have despised it, but I must add as a sub-note, I am by no means a good runner, I just really enjoy running though, but we’ll save this for a future blog entry, the rationale behind this and how it all got started.

The ocean is this wide, vast body of water and I can lose myself for hours just staring at it, how incredible that God created this masterpiece. The thing that I love about escaping to the beach, and especially in East London, is that you have a 360-degree view of nature, pure and simple, un-hindered and un-built-up nature, I get to marvel at God’s creation. This is very different to my home city, Gqeberha (formerly Port Elizabeth), as most of the city’s popular swimming beaches have no sand dunes and are marred by a landscape of sky scrapers, what a let-down when you’re swimming in the ocean and you look back and can orientate yourself by hotel instead of natural landmarks, this is no attack on architecture but rather just a comparison of how two cities are differently laid out, and I get very passionate about protecting our eco-systems.

Now that I have set the scene of my surrounds, it is very easy to understand why I hear and see our Creator so vividly in this place, and I started wondering to myself again, ‘God why do I hear you here so clearly here?’ (Almost a sense of agitation as I just want to run, but my mind is consumed by the Lord.) Then God reminded me of my early days, when I had just gotten saved, how I would devour His word, how I would feel like I wanted to internally combust because I need to share the gospel, and because I felt that I had no audience, I gladly came and preached to these sand dunes.

God was saying to me that because of the foundation that was laid in this stretch of beach, a prayer closet of sorts, that these dunes were literally reminding me and preaching back to me about my first love, Jesus Christ. I make no excuse for how deluded this may sound because I know that many of us experience God, His presence, and His voice in peculiar circumstances, and mine just happens to be at the ocean, and especially this stretch.

Friends, have you become discouraged, burnt out and feel let down? Go back to the start, you might not go a do-over, but perhaps you’ll regain perspective and find the source of forgotten joy.

God is for you. God likes you. God loves you!!

Love, Ryan

UNSUBSCRIBE

Introduction

Today was a good day, a win for my email inbox. Every so often I get fed up with receiving yet another mail from the same service provider that I take that extra few seconds to scroll to the bottom of the email, find the ‘unsubscribe’ option, wait for the browser to pop up and then to see those glorious words, ‘You have been successfully unsubscribed,’ and today I did one of these!! I did it, I won, I am winning, I am taking back my inbox and empowering my life by getting rid of inbox clutter, and I was so chuffed that I actually felt prompted to stop procrastinating, and to write a blog about the significance of the UNSUBSCRIBE.

Greetings

Well guys, its 2021, dare I say it…HAPPY NEW YEAR!! Though, most of the pleasant emails I received at the beginning of this year all started with, ‘compliments of the new season’, sure I’ve probably read this liner before, but this year it’s been hitting me, people are reluctant to wish anyone a ‘Happy New Year’ and I think it’s because we’re nervous, not entirely because we don’t believe that it can indeed be a good year or not, but because we just don’t know where people are at, in their thinking, in their emotions etc.

The simple fact is this, by this stage, most people around the globe in countries where Covid-19 had an impact, have lost a loved one. Whether it be family, a friend or an acquaintance, most of us can draw a line to a deceased person and you know what, it sucks, and so what we’re most probably trying to do is to suppress ourselves just a little bit and we’re doing this out of respect for human life and the loss thereof. This is just sort of my thinking and its cool, I love that we are so deeply concerned for each other that we would consciously change our approaches and responses, so as to serve each other in a meaningful way.

Opening the Door on a Blizzard

Friends, we find ourselves in a very peculiar place, 21-days into the new year and I’m hearing a lot of this chitter chatter of, ‘new year but feels just the same as last year’. I am also guilty of having jumped on this band wagon a bit, but I feel like I need to caution us and encourage us to continue hoping and dreaming.

I also just think that from a logical stand point that if your life goes from valley low to mountain high at midnight on the 31^st of December each year, then you need to get hold of me ASAP and tell me how you do this, but perhaps do it via a message as I need to accurately dissect the 365-day downward slope that takes place from 1 Jan to 31 Dec, each and every year, this sounds a bit like the yo-yo affect, back-and-forth, to-and-fro, no thank you.

Could someone rather hit me up with the secret to living life, consistently, this could work and I would be eager for this sort of implementation instead.

There’s a very simple children’s song that reminds us to be careful of what we see, hear, say etc., because Our Father up above is looking down with love and this should serve as a reminder for us to be mindful of what we’re engaging in.

This is true, in fact there are two passages from scripture that scare the living bejeebers out of me that speak directly towards this,

We demolish arguments and every pretension that sets itself up against the knowledge of God, and we take captive every thought to make it obedient to Christ. 2 Corinthians 10:5 NIV

But I tell you that everyone will have to give account on the day of judgment for every empty word they have spoken. Matthew 12:36 NIV

To be deadly honest, I don’t need to go into a Word study here as its quite clear and simple for me, we are to take our thoughts captive and we are to watch what we speak, in fact the bible also teaches us that the tongue carries the power of life and death and I can give testimony that when I was going into a crazy work situation a few years back, the Lord reminded me, ‘Ryan, as long as you speak life, I will equip you for the rest.’

I took that reminder to heart and often share this testimony, because the days were I started off reminding myself to speak life and destiny into my situations, I felt the Lord carry me and lead me through those days, but the opposite was also true, when I would go for days and weeks without reminding myself to speak that life, I would find myself in a very dark place, with way more questions than answers, and more often than not those questions of uncertainty would weigh me down and would rob me of all joy. So much so that I was over my working situation and conditions, I was plotting plans to leave and surely the Lord would bless it, I thought to myself.

But rest assured, as I drew back to that place of my promised abundance, that place of being obedient to his Word and His voice, I found myself feeling empowered to be able to whether any kind of storm, as I knew that God was literally going before me and shining a light for where I was too tread.

You see, it’s very easy to become overwhelmed when we just let go of the wheel and let all the junk and garbage in, when we let all the spam mail flood the inbox of our hearts and minds, BUT we are not victims in the story of our lives here on earth, we are victors. God is calling you and I, right here, right now at the beginning of 2021, to come into agreement with his thoughts and to take up the challenge to UNSUBSCRIBE from the popular norms that are going on around us.

Friends, for me it’s to watch what comes out of my mouth, cause scripture also warns that this is a pristine indicator of the condition of our hearts, but this then begs the question, do I need to be bridled like a horse, or do I need some one-on-one heart therapy from the one whom Created me?

Mmm…I’m going to leave that thought right there.

So…2021, one thing that I am sure of for this year is that if we would just wholly and fully submit ourselves to our Maker, Christ Jesus, each and every single day, then we will start to see and live out a Miracle each day as Jesus leads. 

Closing

In the words of Buzz Lightyear, “To Infinity and Beyond”.

Love you guys, keep rocking who you are!!

When the bottom falls out

What a week…on so many fronts!! In fact, what a couple of weeks – in South Africa and just in the lives of so many individuals…

This past Saturday morning (Sat, 14 Sep 2019) I flipped open my journal and wrote the heading,‘Where is God when the bottom falls out?’I had no idea why. Also, I read out of Titus 2 – and I had no idea why…well, someone posted an Instagram story and mentioned Titus, so I felt lead to go check it out…spiritual or not, I don’t know, but I just did it anyway J and I’m very glad I did.

The theme of my journaling that morning was that you and I, we, are called to LIVE. We are called to live in submission, we are called to live with purpose and we are called to rule and to reign. We are called to LIVE, and knowing that you have a great destiny and a purpose will cause that great promise of life to be fulfilled, and you will realize very quickly – that it’s not that the bottom has fallen out, it’s just that sometimes we forget that the bottom is there.

When we feel isolated, rejected, hurt and stomped all over – we feel like all our familiar and our comfort has been taken from us, when the truth is, all that we have done is that we have forgotten – and forgetting whom you are doesn’t just happen overnight.

The actual arrival point of forgetting comes through us constantly ignoring whom we are, whom you were born to be…

Fast forward to this morning (Thu, 19 Sep 2019), here I am jumping out of bed – putting the kettle on the gas stove, quick bath whilst kettle reaches boiling point, kettle starts to whistle and I’m out of the bath – chuck tea bag in mug whilst I blend a quick breakfast smoothie that I chug down whilst getting dressed – now dressed, my Rooibos tea has achieved its optimum strength level, and I’m about ready to run out the door with my tea now poured over into my travel mug and I’m just like ‘Lord Jesus speak’!!

This is a very real heartfelt mixed emotion cry of me just needing something to sustain me during my day (this ritual happens way too much btw)– something to kickstart this significant day, significant because I’ll never get it back again, and all I hear in my head is the tune to “What a friend we have in Jesus”.

Haha, I haven’t heard this song in years, but I was desperate for any kind of insight or encouragement for the day ahead so I found the song on YouTube (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8SCorW9r_Is), 36 million views…that’s crazy…I connected my phone to the aux cable and drove off and this is where it struck me, the words to what I considered to be a very elementary tune turned out to be so intensely profound!! Here is the extract:

“Oh, what peace we often forfeit

Oh, what needless pain we bear

All because we do not carry

Everything to God in prayer”

Right here…right in the middle of my rush, in my anxiety driven pursuit of hope I’m being schooled – I realize that I give up peace so easily, and in exchange I welcome pain, hurt, rejection, feelings of sorrow, becoming despondent etc. and all because I don’t carry everything over to Him in prayer.

Quite frankly, this was a hard pill to swallow from a song that I thought was nothing more than just a happy feel good ‘Jesus is my friend’ song, but thankfully Jesus must have been preparing me, because I realized that the only way forward in life is really to involve God in my everyday everything!!

Sure…I’m still going to be rushing around like a madman on most mornings, but this does not disqualify me from living a life that honours God and celebrating everything that He is doing in my life and those around me.

I guess my simple encouragement is this, live a life that truly matters – one where you can stand the reflection of the one looking back at you in the mirror.

You are awesome and you were created to live. So live.

Shedding Light on Life's...sometimes...Confusing Pathways

The easy way…the way down is sometimes more confusing than the harder route…

Somehow, I found this illustration come to me on an afternoon run – I set out, in the rain and on the beach, to run a casual 10km.

Towards the end of the beach leg, there is wooden pathway that leads from the beach to the parking lot – this direction, the upward one – is quite clear and a no brainer, but upon my return – I found myself wondering if I had taken the correct pathway exit in the parking lot…as all of a sudden I was running on a concrete pathway…which then became a dirt pathway, which eventually became a wooden pathway…

The big ‘huh’ moment of this run happened on the dirt section – I couldn’t quite remember this section on the ascent of my run, but the reality is that I did run it but somehow, it didn’t stick out to me earlier.

Earlier on I was so focused on the climb of the pathway, that the actual running surface didn’t faze me – but yet now on my return, on the decline – I was a little bit confused – not for too long, but yet I was filled with a moment of doubt…

Focus shift

This same morning I was sitting in an Easter Sunday church service – it was a glorious morning in church that lead the pastor to make an altar call (this is a public call made for anyone whom would like to respond to the gospel and acknowledge Jesus Christ as their Lord and Saviour) – traditionally during these calls, you will hear a pastor ask that the congregants bow their heads and close their eyes in prayer. At the end of such a prayer, the pastor will ask if anyone wants to respond to this call and if so, acknowledge the response by raising their hands – and at the same time, asking that the congregation please still keep their eyes closed.

This exact call happened this morning – but I was a bit ill-behaved and snuck a peek towards a certain young man that I noticed during the service, sitting some rows in front of me – I feel like he was sort of highlighted to me by the Lord and I just had this sense that he wanted to meet Jesus – he stuck his hand up when the call came – not high up, but that’s sort of irrelevant – Jesus knows…and that’s what counts in these moments.

The pastor continued to close the service and encouraged those that responded to speak to a friend or family member about their decision and then released the congregation – in those final moments, before leaving my seat, I heard the Lord speak to me about His church and the co-existence of generations and how we need each other…great stuff, I love hearing the Lord and how often He randomly encourages me about unrelated things J

The big collision of coincidence

Bringing this plane in for the land – so there I was, not knowing if the path I was on was correct but I proceeded nonetheless, it would have been great if I knew this path or area better, but I didn’t – I stuck it out and it worked out okay…you know this isn’t always the case but I’m happy that today it was…usually I’m grateful when people that have experience or knowledge of a subject and whom have gone before, give me tips and pointers – it doesn’t take away from the experience but rather adds to it.

Just like that young man whom responded to the gospel – I was so amped to try and see if I could speak to him after the service and to encourage him in his decision – to say ‘hey dude, best decision ever, its brave and Jesus loves you’ but before I could reach the guy, an old lady – I must guess late 60s or 70s somewhere…got to him, took his hand and assured him of the most glorious decision ever.

WOW…is this the random piece of information the Lord shared with me…the unrelated haphazard pieces of info He often drops, that I can never seem to piece together…

The bigger picture

After the lady had finished encouraging the gentleman – I was sort of stunned wondering where I fitted in to this picture – I always want to get involved somewhere you know (bull in a China shop…haha) – but instead of what I thought, I ended up stopping the lady to encourage her with what I heard from the Lord and what I just witnessed…

Right there and then, with all the love and compassion in the world she said to me, ‘I had to encourage him in the Lord, just like I would as if he was my own grandson.’

This was a massive WOW moment for me – just like my illustration of that pathway – sometimes in life we need an encounter with something or someone that has a revelation about a situation that we never could imagine – for that young man, maybe it was an uphill battle coming to church this specific morning – like it is for many of us – but how do we go home…and do we know what pathway we are taking?

Lastly, I feel like I want to make a simple encouragement: find an ‘older’ more experienced and knowledgeable individual, whom you can glean from – we’re all writing our own story, but it’s nice to know that there are those whom can encourage us, those whom have a revelation of sticking to the pathway.

Love,

Ryan

So...

…a couple of years ago I had this desktop computer, it was a terribly old machine and nothing fancy – but it was a computer that I pretty much had my whole university career’s information on, and which held countless amounts of other valuable personal documents…

Bits and pieces of information that I had collected, created and stored over the years…you guys know what I mean hey, information that recalls memories…like photos and maybe some written material and just personal info that one needs, just…stuff, you know!!

In fact, it’s funny – cause one of the pieces of information on that PC was a loose sort of journal I kept, a journal of broken conversations that I had, conversations that I had, had with God – dating as far back as 2004!!

Loose and broken, because it wasn’t quite complete records…and I mention this because when I got saved in May 2008, I found these written records the one day and I was blown away by the fact that God had indeed been working in my life way before the day I surrendered all. 

Yes, He loves us even in our very broke, ugly, unforgiving and crazy unrepentant, dirty and sinful state…HOW EVEN??...

But anyways…this is just a side note…back to the story of this prehistoric machine that contained the intricate world wide web of Ryan’s documented digital history and the story of where it all went…

So one fine day, I, Ryan Odendaal, an amateur self-taught computer technician decided to do some much needed maintenance on this old machine and I decided to do a format on the hard drive of this computer – a format, in layman’s terms is like pressing the ultimate RESET button and then having to start afresh, like installing all your software and stuff again etc., – SO…I formatted the hard-drive containing all the software programs so as to perform a fresh installation of Windows etc. to enable the machine to run faster and better…

I knew how to perform this function as I had done it so many times before…and it works, cause to perform a wipe-out and then a fresh installation means you have the power to go back to ground level and build up again, as explained.

So, on this particular day I had just finished my computer maintenance when my heart literally sank and the cold hard truth hit…the reality is that I had just wiped out the wrong partition, a partition being like a section of a hard drive…I had just wiped out the section with all my memories, all my photos, all my documents and everything that I had kept safe for so long…was now gone…poof…just like that!!

NO!! This was a mistake. This was an error. This was more than just mere negligence…it was a gross mistake, it was massive…it was hectic, this had happened and the worst part…was that I had caused it!! I had authored this loss L

But how…there is now no one else to blame, it’s just me and the reality of me having to face my huge data loss!!

No…no no no no no, no no…you don’t understand – taking the blame and the responsibility of such huge data loss is a bitter pill to swallow and so I had to devise something – a plan, a plan to make myself feel better, a plan to carry on, a plan to explain this horrible, sad, tragic event…

I know…

MY COMPUTER WAS STOLEN!!

I actually came in to agreement in my mind that it would be better to make-up and make myself believe that my computer was stolen…WHY…well, this was a better reality than…

…RYAN…YOU SINGLE HANDEDLY WIPED OUT ALL YOUR VERY IMPORTANT INFORMATION…YOU!!

You are the master architect behind the loss of data that bore significance to you as it was information that was important to you…

You see, the moment that anything in your life bears importance = it has value associated to it – and when you lose something of value…your wealth diminishes…and I’m not talking about your bank balance, I mean you as a person…as a whole, when something gets taken from you that you value or you give it up…you have to face the cold hard reality of a gaping gushing wound of some sort – some wounds are bigger than others and some wounds are less intense than others…SO what was this wound??

This wound that had been created was directly linked to my ability or maybe lack of ability to carry responsibility…

WAIT…hold up, press the pause button real quick…how is the formatting of an incorrect hard-drive partition linked to ‘responsibility’…haha, I’ve now taken this creative writing way too far…

WELL, no…the fact is that in my mind I have ‘consciously’…decided to rather believe that this PC must have been stolen, must have been stolen rather than me having created this mess…

…

What is it with me…what is it with us human beings in our frail state that when the pawpaw hits the fan, that we’ll look for and even make up something or someone to blame…no no, one better…we’ll devise a scenario to explain our short comings…?

My story may be slightly comical, but it poses massive questions?!?!

So…my first question is this: where do I start and where do I end?

We love because he first loved us. 1 John 4:19

But he said to me, “My grace is sufficient for you, for my power is made perfect in weakness.” Therefore I will boast all the more gladly about my weaknesses, so that Christ’s power may rest on me. That is why, for Christ’s sake, I delight in weaknesses, in insults, in hardships, in persecutions, in difficulties. For when I am weak, then I am strong. 2 Corinthians 12:9-10

So you see, the greatest confrontation in life isn’t the external fights we pick…the friends we hack off or the family that has wronged us…but the greatest truth tester and limit breaker is our internal governance – what is the thing that leads and directs you…what is your motive…really, what are your true motives and where do they stem from?

In the above passages of scripture I see that where I am today – the love that I first experienced when Christ came onto my scene never really had anything to do with me…it was Him all along…it was the fact that He loved me first, that He has always loved and because of that love…I am drawn in and I can love...WHAT??

Yes, it’s not me…I didn’t make this happen – the pursuit of me, the pursuit of this heart…this crazy complex hardened weirdo of human being was happily going along until one day I was confronted with God and because my guard was down…because my weakness was rife and on display for all to see…well at least within me…I was able to not just meet God, but I was able to climb into all that He had for me – there is an age old saying that speaks of ‘extending an olive branch’…this saying is biblical and its roots mean: an offer of peace or reconciliation, it comes from the Book of Genesis. The sign that the flood was over was an olive branch brought back to the ark by a dove.

Apparently, the offer of an olive branch would suggest that someone is tired of war, whether it be an actual war or a falling out between friends.

In Ancient Greek and Roman times, people would offer literal olive branches. In Rome defeated armies traditionally carried olive branches to indicate that they were surrendering, and the Greeks incorporated olive branches into weddings and other ceremonies as a symbol of peace.

Jesus…JESUS…is extending such an olive branch to you and I today, should we choose to come to the end of ourselves…so if you were ever wondering why it’s a good idea to celebrate your weakness – it’s like the scripture says, that’s when HE is strong and His power is made manifest and perfect in us!! J

Mmm…okay…olive branches, kief…gotta extend grace, got it…but you can’t give what you don’t possess, right…and what you don’t have you can’t give…right? Okay…settle down and quite your mind…

Second question is about Virtues…what are our virtues as a community of believers?

Virtues…huh…well these are our behavioural patterns – to be beyond reproach…this is like Christian ethics 101.

…in all things show yourself to be an example of good deeds, with purity in doctrine, dignified, sound in speech which is beyond reproach, so that the opponent will be put to shame, having nothing bad to say about us. Titus 2:7-8

WHAT does this have to do with my emotional breakdown…caused by my computer trouble – well, it’s simple really…how is my reaction ANDam I owning my reaction – think in general now, about your life as a whole, what are our reactions like when life hands us lemons?

GUYS…we are called to be followers of Jesus Christ – He is the way, the truth and the life – so in Him, what do we see:

1.     What is our way – is it my way or the highway or is it, not my will but Yours be done Father?

2.     The truth – is my situation and my feelings more real than the God who moved Heaven and earth to reach us…what is your reality?

3.     Life – what is life and where is the clearly defined starting point – He knitted me together in my mother’s womb right…so life started even before I was born, even before I was like anything HE was getting ready to knit – He knew me before I was…because he IS. The great I Am is all He says He is and if he says His righteousness becomes ours, then you best believe it…

So let this all sink in for a moment…

…we have the ability to not be reactive but rather CREATIVE in all we do. Creative I say, as we are able to co-labour with Jesus to build towards a better outcome, an outcome of love, joy and generosity – so before you lash out in angst, look at Jesus…what is He busy with and then dare to believe that prayer is your guidance and His Word is your weapon!!

Thirdly…not quite a question, but a question of others, the question of Hurts.

I have been hurt.

I have hurt.

I hurt.

THUS…

I am disqualified.

I am not.

I am not. Answered Peter already on two different occasions…then the third:

One of the servants of the high priest, a relative of him whose ear Peter cut off, said, “Did I not see you in the garden with Him?” Peter then denied again; and immediately a rooster crowed. John 18:26-27

There it is…the ultimate disqualification…the ultimate slap in the face of Jesus. Surely, the thing that will cause Jesus…and rightfully so…to say, “I’m done with you – you two faced, back stabbing hurtful cow, leave me alone…”

Nope, we all know that this is not where the story ends, this is a mere sideshow illustrating Peter’s weak frame and ours too as fleshy beings.

Can you believe the irony of Peter denying Jesus to a relative of the Roman soldier – the solider whom Peter de-eared in a passionate defence of the one he so loved, his Jesus…the Jesus that saved him. The Jesus that accepted him. The Jesus that gave him purpose…now Jesus becomes something so external and so dispensable to Peter…like a dirty filthy rag thrown to the side, this is now who Jesus has become to Peter and I dare to ask myself…who is Jesus to me?

Cause life is tough guys and things happen. So…who is Jesus then at that crunch moment compared to who He was when life was all hunky dory?

He’s the same Jesus always and He’s always drawing us in with love and acceptance. So hurts…does this then mean that hurts become null and void, like I’m just supposed to get over them somehow…NOPE…our hurts and subsequent actions have consequences, and right so…Peter went back to what he ‘knew’, but guess who came after him…the one whom Peter had hurt, yes Jesus.

So what does that mean – it means we are empowered to extend grace and forgiveness, even when we are the ones that have every right to be low in spirit, but why? Cause it’s simple…we are called to be peacemakers…look it up in Matt 5, the first beatitude – be a peacemaker and you will be called a son of God – something of our IDENTITY is caught up in moving in the opposite spirit, try it sometime…make it a habit, you can do it…it’s who you are!!

            

Number four: Surrender...and Succumb…to King Jesus!!

Vulnerability moment alert!!

This past weekend (17 to 19 Feb 2019) I went to Keiskammahoek…guys…as much as I loved the trip…one must realize that there is a cost, there is always a cost!!

We’re inland, it’s gonna be hot – I’m in freakin dorm room – and it’s bound to be smelly and noisy. MY SLEEP!! Oh my sleep, my beloved sleep…listen, this prince needs his sleep.

I remember getting into the guys dorm and choosing a single bed close to the door, it wasn’t a bunk bed, just a single bed right…so nobody rolling around above me, okay things were looking better but then…that night I realized my lil crib had the worst mattress of all the beds in the entire dorm and I felt like a croissant lying on its side…

Oh dear…at one point I was walking to the bathroom and thought to myself, what have I done!? Back home I have a luxurious king size, extra length bed…extra length, guys I’m not even that tall to warrant an extra length bed BUT…I can spread myself out like a starfish and not even reach the sides of my glorious bed…and that’s what got me sold on this bed…right??!!

That’s when I felt the Lord remind me of two portions of scripture…

Jesus replied, “Yes, but remember this: even animals in the field have holes in the ground to sleep in and birds have their nests, but the Son of Man has no place here to lay down his head.” Luke 9:58

“This is why I tell you to never be worried about your life, for all that you need will be provided, such as food, water, clothing—everything your body needs. Isn’t there more to your life than a meal? Isn’t your body more than clothing? “Look at all the birds—do you think they worry about their existence? They don’t plant or reap or store up food, yet your heavenly Father provides them each with food. Aren’t you much more valuable to your Father than they? So, which one of you by worrying could add anything to your life? Matt 6:25-27

The first scripture speaks of the cost of following Jesus…you’ll notice that certainties aren’t too high up on the list and second is the command to not worry.

So, question time: who of you are totally down with not knowing what tomorrow holds and that fact, just does not bother you?

Guys…do you see that this is what Jesus is talking about – a life spent following Jesus is doing just that and being satisfied with Him.

Remember my PC story – so, I lost all my memories, right…So??

I lost interactions between me and God, surely these are NB, So…

I lost stuff that I placed uber importance on, So…

The actual conclusion to point 4, is this: Surrender...and Succumb...to healing and inner peace – you gotta learn to be lekker with the unknown and in that, find peace – Jesus is the prince of peace, so seek Him first!!

Then my last point, point number 5: forgiveness is always gonna cost you!!

John’s disciples told him about all these things. Calling two of them, he sent them to the Lord to ask, “Are you the one who is to come, or should we expect someone else?” Luke 7:18-19

I’m sorry, what?! Someone sounds a bit up tight having been thrown into jail…or what’s going on here??

The commentary in my study bible says that John was confused cause the reports of Jesus were incomplete – in fact in response to John’s disciples, Jesus just gave a report of the outbreak of healings, giving testimony I suppose…Jesus didn’t become rude and short with them, he started sharing with them, that which John would expect to hear of the Messiah, you see, it’s only as you face your doubts honestly, that you can begin to resolve them and the resolve usually starts with forgiveness.

Like the parable of the man who is forgiven his debt and then straight after condemns a man that owes him a little bit of money – so it’s going to be for us – because you have been forgiven, therefore forgive because if you don’t, you will be judged by your own measure and man, you don’t want that.

SO…this wraps up my blog on the title ‘So…’, let us take up our authority and forgive for both self and for those around us, amen.

-->

Leave me a comment below J