let the poor man jump!

hey hey :)

well, i have a had a whirlwind of a week! i don't know about you, but the combination of the initial excitement of holidays and christmas combine to create the craziest time of year, and i find my mind constantly blown at the amount of time i spend being busy when i have absolutely nothing that i actually have to do. just before christmas, i had been spending so much time with my friends, the same group every time, and i learnt very quickly that time virtually evaporates without you noticing when you have an amazing bunch of people and some good coffee.

this is all fine and dandy, living a comfortable life where the only people you see are the same you saw yesterday and the same you'll be seeing tomorrow, but it's not very... dare i say... godly. eek. whilst reading the scriptures, i was shown how jesus lived. he had his base support group, his disciples, but far out did he meet some new people, (and not all of them were people i'm sure he'd like to be hanging around). this challenged me. it wasn't at all that i was sick of my friends. in fact, it was quite the opposite. i told them i couldn't hang out with them for a few days and did something different.
in one week i got back into contact with five people that i don't see very often, two i hadn't seen in four years, and decided that i was going to dedicate some serious quality time with them. one ended up coming to youth group, loving it, and deciding to come every week from now on. one decided, completely out of the blue, to come on church camp. one, i soon discovered, was going to europe to pursue her dreams of being a ballerina and i was going to be the last friend she'd see before she took off for good. i have been used so powerfully over these last few days, not because of my strength or power or courage or anything, but because i simply did what i saw my father doing. when i am standing there as a vessel for god and asking him to use me for his glory, he does! i have had a really rewarding week.
i have no doubt that god is a bit like a professional diver, standing on the end of a diving board above a deep, blue pool. he desperately wants to jump. we wants to show off what he can do and make the crowd gasp, but then there's us, swimming in the water right where he wants to jump. he can't jump if we're blocking him. we have to swim to the edge if we want to let god do his thing. so where are you swimming? is there room for god to jump or are you blocking him off? hmm...

*prayer for the week* - that god will open your eyes to what he is doing around you and that he might use you at grow his kingdom.

i hope this week treats you well and you experience much growth and spiritual maturing.
god bless :)
oliveanddaisyxxx

spilled milk.

morning sunshine!

long time, no blog! i know i know, jordan you slacker! you have a blog and you have been forgetting to write! well, maybe i have saved you, because if i had something really good to blog about, then i would have done it. but i must not have, so i saved you four minutes of your life reading something that wasn't even my gold! well, that's my excuse anyway.

but this is my gold. recently i have been thinking about our circumstances and what goes on in our everyday lives that make us who we are. like, when we spill milk down our tops, so we have to walk the dog five minutes later, so we catch a man who is also walking his dog who is just passing us, so we can have a full length discussion about what it means to be a christian and to be strong in your faith. 

i always think about people who get hit by cars or who have car accidents; if susan had picked up her phone in the evening, she wouldn't have missed a call from her boyfriend and had to call him back, so she would have left for coffee 40 seconds earlier, which means she wouldn't have been crossing the road at that exact time those drunk teenagers were hooning around the corner and she wouldn't have died. ah. 

and now we see how complex god's plan is. if fred's grandmother hadn't been invited dancing on friday night by the man she met briefly in the supermarket, she would have come to visit fred, and fred couldn't have asked emily out because his grandmother would have been there. if fred hadn't asked emily out on friday night, she would have gone to that party on saturday night where she would have jumped into the car with that drunk p-plater and she had a car crash. confused?

so now we see that we are being used constantly in god's plan. like that time when i was in egypt and if the traffic hadn't have been horrible because, well, it's cairo, my family and i would have been home 20 minutes earlier and caught in crossfire between the military and the civilians. we might have died. or that time when my parents sent me to mackellar against my will and i then ended up inheriting eternal salvation thanks to my circumstances there. i could have gone to stella. my life would be veeeery different.

i always question why i have so many friends and such a stable christian family inside my school and why others don't. why do i have encouragement in my faith all day everyday when others have to battle being teased or put down because of their faith. or persecuted christians in places like iraq. why do i live so easily? what about those people who are the only christians in their year at school, and so fall away because they aren't receiving the community dosage they need? why not me? all i can say is that wherever you are is the best place for you, and it's where god is using you most. if you are no longer needed in a place, god will open up new opportunities and move you somewhere else to be used in another place. this is happening to my friend hannah, who is leaving mackellar to start life at newtown performing arts high. after seriosuly wrestling with this, why would god move her and take her away from me etc etc, i have realised that maybe i don't need her as much as i use to. maybe someone else needs her more now, and maybe i should let her go and be a blessing to the newtown community rather than keeping her for myself. although it's hard, god is in the small stuff. and it all matters.

check out this film clip. it's seriously sad, but i do want you to be thinking about where you are being used, and try to find out from god what it is that he is doing around you and what he wants to use you for. there's no use crying over spilled milk, because that milk was always going to be spilled, so that you were late to coffee, so that you forgot to let your rabbit out of it's cage, so that it didn't hop onto your driveway and get squashed under your mum's car. hm.

jason derulo - what if.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4qQCx9mxV9g&ob=av2e

*prayer for the week*- that god will be using you at all times and that whatever he is needing you for, you will serve joyfully and be able to minister to those around you.

god of the weather. god of our lives?

good afternoon my lovelies!

i am adoring this weather, rain in the morning and sun in the afternoon. i love nature's unpredictable personality and how it constantly surprises us with it's power to manipulate our lives. i realised this when we had made plans for a picnic on the weekend which couldn't happen because it was MEANT to be rainy, however the sun popped out from the clouds and it turned out to be a lovely day. who can know the way of the weather? not me, that's for sure. not even the weather man! it is a constant reminder of god's power and almighty reign over all of us, that he decides when the sun shines and when it doesn't and that we will never be able to. we just have to trust that god can handle the weather.
so, while we're handing the weather over to god because we trust that he can deal with the running of our planet, why can't we had over the tiny, minute details of our lives and trust that he can deal with them too? why do we fuss over boys (or girls), exams, money, friends, grades at school, what people think of you... the list goes on. why do we do it to ourselves? the god of the universe asks for us personally to bring our problems to him and he promises to give us peace. why don't we trust him?
i don"t know about you guys, but when i read about people like moses, david and jesus who have such a comfortable, personal relationship with god, i get jealous. i figure that god must like them more than he likes me, that they were just some outstanding people who were blessed with some extra godliness that i haven't got and probably never will have. even though i know i am wrong, it is way easier to say, 'it's completely out of my hands.' than it is to realise that it is me who is actively choosing not to have that same personal, comfortable relationship with god. hmmph.
but i'm busy. i cannot talk to my father in heaven, read his words, be about his business because i, little olive here on earth, i am busy. busy on facebook. watching the brady bunch. going to yoga. eating. i am too busy to be about my father's business. right?
if you agree with the lines above, i am sorry to say that you do not have your priorities straight. if we are not in constant relationship with god, walking like jesus' did, bringing our troubles to him so that we don't have to fuss on them and we can commit to throwing ourselves into his word and in prayer, we are not living the way we were designed to.
he's the god of the weather, powerful, almighty and strong. he deserves to be a priority. so, is he? i have to do a little reshuffle because i know that i am not living with god as number one. are you?

refresher.

hello there, my beloved readers!

i know, you are missing my blogging, my wise words of encouragement, my stories, yes yes yes. i'm joking, but i am sorry for not blogging for so long. as most of you know, i have spent the land month in 3 foreign countries, italy, greece and egypt, travelling, learning, exploring, sightseeing and people watching. what is people watching? watching people. it's my new hobby. i spent so much time just watching how different people behaved and soaking up their culture. in rome, i people watched the roman women and willed myself to transform into some gorgeous, dark, long legged, skinny girls. it didn't happen, but it was fun to watch them. they even wear stilettos on the beach! funny..

so, over he next few weeks, i will be telling you stories from my trip. i will pass on stories i've been told and information i've learnt and hopefully you can soak up as much of it as you can. i hope i tell it all right! something that really struck me was that god isn't just MY god. he's not a god for today, yesterday or tomorrow. he's not king over manly, sydney, nsw or even australia. he doesn't only speak to me and my friends but he speaks to nonna's in pompeii, teenagers in greece and toddlers in egypt too. he is active in all parts of the world and i can't comprehend it because my peanut brain is a bit too small to understand, although this trip has broadened my mind and my knowledge to all sorts of aspects of my god that i didn't know before.

i climbed mt vesuvius, got to the top (puffing and panting) and realised that god made this massive mound. i saw the how he had instilled humans with knowledge and power and determination and that the ancient egyptians knew that they could do anything they set their minds too. i saw so many weird and wonderful things and saw how diverse the earth was, and that my god had made it all! i saw heiroglyphics and paintings on the walls of tombs and read the ancient egyptians creation stories and saw that god was working in them and speaking to them! but i will tell you all that in good time!

mr smith, your postcard is in the mail and you should be receiving it shortly!

wel, i am jetlagged and too tired to type right now, but please do look forward to some... interesting... stories that i have learned during my time overseas and be glad that my trip really was a refresher, and now i'm back feeling better that ever! or at least i will be when i'm not so jet lagged!!

hope you are all well!
god bless,

oliveanddaisy xx

super god!

heey guys!

these last few weeks i have been really busy. like, really super uber majorly busy. i can't even remember what i've been doing, i've just been...well, busy.
i have an awful disease. a dilapidating, painful, stressful disease. it's called the 'ican'tsaynotoanything' disease. it can be defined as the inability to say no to anything and just adding more and more things to your plate. if you're like me, you will also try to do everything with a massive smile on your face and pretend like everything is super fine and that you have no problems or cares in the world. everything is just damn easy.
you might also suffer from this terrible affliction. besides wearing me out and draining me of energy, it also means that my head is constantly filled with buzzing thoughts that get louder and louder until i yell at them to be quiet. not literally. i get more and more busy and more and more stressed until i break in two. i grow further and further away from god because i can't be silent and listen to him because i can't hear him. i talk myself into being too busy to spend time with him and read the bible and pray that i just almost cut off from him.
last week was a tough one, actually. i was doing various presentations to various groups of people, whilst trying to do my homework, whilst trying to keep my sanity, whilst trying to do it all alone. note to self: this is not a successful combination. it got to the point where i yelled at my bin for overflowing and collapsed on a heap on my bedroom floor, sobbing violently. at this point, i screamed out JESUS! HELP ME!, and weirded out the non-christian members of my family (aka all of them). i asked god for peace. i asked god for rest. i asked god to save me from the mess i felt like. and guess what, he did.
i've heard people say before, 'i cried out to god and he came to my rescue.' 'he gave me a bible verse,' or 'a comforting word' or 'i just felt this overwhelming sense of peace and i knew that god was with me.' and to tell you the truth, i'd never felt it. god just never rescued me like he did other people.
but on that night, on my bedroom floor, i felt all of them. he hugged me. he gave me a comforting word from his scripture. he gave me an overwhelming sense of peace. i felt calm again, i was no longer sobbing violently or stressed and nervous about the presentation i had to make.
 'come to me all you who are weary and burdened and i will give you rest.' matthew 11:28.
he does give us rest when we come to him. when we cry out to him in a fluff of tears he is there and he answers. he. gives. us. rest.
i encourage you now, all those who have my disease, when times get busy, make time for god. we know that it is us that is drawing away from god and that he is still there, but we forget that he can actually save us. draw close, call out, find peace.

*prayer for the week*: that even though you are busy with exams or boys/girls or formal or saving the world, that you might constantly remember that god's yoke is easy and his burden is light. you can find rest in him. let god know that you want to remember that.

god bless you all, i hope you have a peaceful and rewarding week!
next time i blog i will probably be overseas!
have a safe and happy holiday!

love oliveanddaisy xx

everything

You're a falling star, You're the get away car.
You're the line in the sand when I go too far.
You're the swimming pool, on an August day.
And you're the perfect thing to say.

And you play it coy, but it's kinda cute.
Ah, When you smile at me you know exactly what you do.
Baby don't pretend, that you don't know it's true.
Cause you can see it when I look at you.

And in this crazy life, and through these crazy times
It's you, it's you, You make me sing.
You're every line, you're every word, you're everything.

You're a carousel, you're a wishing well,
And you light me up, when you ring my bell.
You're a mystery, you're from outer space,
You're every minute of my everyday.
[ Lyrics from: http://www.lyricsmode.com/lyrics/m/michael_buble/everything.html ]
And I can't believe, uh that I'm your man,
And I get to kiss you baby just because I can.
Whatever comes our way, ah we'll see it through,
And you know that's what our love can do.

And in this crazy life, and through these crazy times
It's you, it's you, You make me sing
You're every line, you're every word, you're everything.

And in this crazy life, and through these crazy times
It's you, it's you, You make me sing.
You're every line, you're every word, you're everything.
You're every song, and I sing along.
'Cause you're my everything.
Yeah, yeah

by mr michael buble. the genius.

god's quirks?

heey everyone :)

i was having a conversation with a friend over coffee and i briefly mentioned how odd i was. let's face it, i am a quirky person. i collect owls, i hate people to touch my ears, i watched bride wars 4 times in two days (today and yesterday, yes, that recent), i have wonky teeth and i like to brush my tongue, the list goes on.
although i call this weird, he called it character. it's funny, i had put them down to 'defects'. like there was something wrong with me. something odd and quirky that only i had because i was weird.
note: the negative connotations associated with being quirky. he made me think about something that hadn't previously occurred to me. maybe it's been given to me by god, because it really is part of my character. maybe god is obsessed with owls, and so passed that on to me. maybe he also likes to have a clean tongue, and i inherited that. maybe god too is completely obsessed with the whole idea of marriage and a wedding and so wanted me to share in that delight!
cool, huh. maybe they're not 'defects', but they're given to me specifically because god wanted me to share in his delight too! what are you're odd quirks? a friend i know sticks out his tongue when he concentrates. another friend doesn't like things around her neck. another friend acts like a cat. another keeps socks or shoes on all the time, for fear she may get dirty feet. i want to suggest to you that these are not bad things, and in fact, they are probably quite good things! think about what your quirks are, and get a better idea of the character that god made you to be.

god bless,

oliveanddaisy xx