What is REALLY crippling you?

"On a Sabbath Jesus was teaching in one of the synagogues, and a woman was there who had been crippled by a spirit for eighteen years. She was bent over and could not straighten up at all. When Jesus saw her, he called her forward and said to her, “Woman, you are set free from your infirmity.” Then he put his hands on her, and immediately she straightened up and praised God.

Luke 13:10-13

This miracle was wrought, unasked, on a woman, in a synagogue, and by all these characteristics was specially interesting to Luke. He alone records it.

Here we have Christ’s authority regarding the woman’s infirmity being as the result of demoniacal possession.

There seems to have been no other consequence than her incapacity to stand straight.

Apparently the evil power had not touched her moral nature, for she had somehow managed to drag herself to the synagogue to pray; she ‘glorified God’ for her cure, and Christ called her ‘a daughter of Abraham,’ which surely means more than simply that she was a Jewess.

It would seem to have been a case of physical infirmity only, and perhaps rather of evil inflicted eighteen years before than of continuous demoniacal possession.

But be that as it may, there is surely no getting over our Lord’s express testimony here, that purely physical ills, not distinguishable from natural infirmity, were then, in some instances, the work of a malignant, personal power.

Jesus knew the duration of the woman’s ‘bond’ and the cause of it, by the same supernatural knowledge.

That sad, bowed figure, with eyes fixed on the ground, and unable to look into His face, which yet had crawled to the synagogue, may teach us lessons of patience and of devout submission.

She might have found good excuses for staying at home, but she, no doubt, found solace in worship; and she would not have so swiftly ‘glorified God’ for her cure, if she had not often sought Him in her infirmity.

They who wait on Him often find more than they expect in His house.

Note the flow of Christ’s unasked sympathy and help.

We have already seen several instances of the same thing in this Gospel.

The sight of misery ever set the chords of that gentle, unselfish heart vibrating.

So it should be with us, and so would it be, if we had in us ‘the law of the Spirit of life in Christ’ making us ‘free from the law of’ self.

But His spontaneous sympathy is not merely the perfection of manhood; it is the revelation of God.

Unasked, the divine love pours itself on men, and gives all that it can give to those who do not seek, that they may be drawn to seek the better gifts which cannot be given unasked.

God ‘tarrieth not for man, nor waiteth for the sons of men,’ in giving His greatest gift. No prayers besought Heaven for a Saviour. God’s love is its own motive, and wells up by its inherent diffusiveness.

Before we call, He answers.

Note the manner of the cure. It is twofold-a word and a touch.

The former is remarkable, as not being, like most of the cures of demoniacs, a command to the evil spirit to go forth, but an assurance to the sufferer, fitted to inspire her with hope, and to encourage her to throw off the alien tyranny.

The touch was the symbol to her of communicated power-not that Jesus needed a vehicle for His delivering strength, but that the poor victim, crushed in spirit, needed the outward sign to help her in realising the new energy that ran in her veins, and strengthened her muscles. Unquestionably the cure was miraculous, and its cause was Christ’s will.

But apparently the manner of cure gave more place to the faith of the sufferer, and to the effort which her faith in Christ’s word and touch heartened her to put forth, than we find in other miracles.

She ‘could in no wise lift herself up,’ not because of any malformation or deficiency in physical power, but because that malign influence laid a heavy hand on her will and body, and crushed her down.

Only supernatural power could deliver from supernatural evil and when she believed that she was loosed from her infirmity, and had received strength from Jesus, she was loosed.

This makes the miracle no less, but it makes it a mirror in which the manner of our deliverance from a worse dominion of Satan is shadowed. Christ is come to loose us all from the yoke of bondage, which bows our faces to the ground, and makes us unfit to look up.

He only can loose us, and His way of doing it is to assure us that we are free, and to give us power to fling off the oppression in the strength of faith in Him.

Note the immediate cure and its immediate result. The ‘back bowed down always’ for eighteen weary years is not too stiff to be made straight at once. The Christ-given power obliterates all traces of the past evil. Where He is the physician, there is no period of gradual convalescence, but ‘the thing is done suddenly’; and, though in the spiritual realm, there still hang about pardoned men remains of forgiven sin, they are ‘sanctified’ in their inward selves, and have but to see to it that they work out in character and conduct that ‘righteousness and holiness of truth’ which they have received in the new nature given them through faith.

How rapturous was the gratitude from the woman’s lips, which broke in upon the formal, proper, and heartless worship of the synagogue! The immediate hallowing of her joy into praise surely augurs a previously devout heart.

Thanksgiving generally comes thus swiftly after mercies, when prayer has habitually preceded them.

The sweetest sweetness of all our blessings is only enjoyed when we glorify God for them.

Incense must be kindled, to be fragrant, and our joys must be fired by devotion, to give their rarest perfume.

Abridged from MacLaren's Expositions

Where does God want me?

**In regards to study, employment and life.**

It's not an easy thing to know what you want to do with your life. 

There's the common things like...you want to travel the world, a pretty house, lots of friends, a close knit family, a nice car, a gazillion dollars and a dog called Kevin. But what about what you actually want to "do"? Unless your Great Aunt Prudence leaves you a trust fund in her will, you'll need to go out yourself and earn the money to obtain those things that you want. 

So, you need a job. Preferably something that you at least get some kind of satisfaction from to make the daily grind more bearable. Some people get lucky and they know exactly what they want to do with themselves from a young age, and many others at least have it figured out by high school.

I was not one of those people.  Well I was until I told my art teacher I wanted to study Art at Uni and he laughed...and laughed...and laughed some more.... :-/

I'm an indecisive person by nature - I find it hard to make even fairly simple choices on a daily basis. Harder choices = so much more internal struggle, trying to make sure that the decision I make is the "right" decision. Whether or not it was due to my indecisiveness, I found the whole planning out my entire life process extremely stressful, and tried not to think about it very much. At all.

People always say to do what makes you happy - study something that you love, and I can for sure see the merits of following that advice, so I did, though not straight away.

I sat my TEE exams and received my score, but didn't apply for places at any Universities. My parents and I had discussed it and they said I was too young to go straight to Uni after school, or even after a gap year like many of my friends and classmates. At the time I felt like I was being left behind, but I know now that they were right. At the end of my graduating year I was only just 16 years old (having skipped a grade years ago), and was in no way prepared for what post-school education would be like - mentally, emotionally or maturity wise. So, at the start of my first year out of school, I was offered a job with a lovely lady who owned the Christian cafe/bookshop in our town, and I was there for about 20 months. By the time I left for another job, my parents had taken over the bookshop and were in the process of trying to sell it.

I had applied, interviewed for, and received a traineeship in Events Management with a local takeaway/catering business and I was stoked. I thought to myself, "I can totally do this, this is what I'm going to 'do'."  And I did. For the 5 months I was there, I was the 2IC of the admin side of things, I ran the takeaway store, I helped people plan their events, set up, pack down, waitressing. Everything. But then the news came. They were closing up shop.

I'd been out of school for just over two years, and I still didn't feel any closer to figuring out what I was meant to be doing with my life. My best friend had packed up and moved away to Perth to study something horrendously smart, and I was stuck. Sure, I had a piece of paper saying I had a qualification (Cert IV in Hospitality), but I was at a loss.

I began the search for a new job, and after a while, I was offered a cafe managers position in one of the local shopping centre's. That place opened my eyes up to what dealing with other people in the big, wide world can actually be like - and it wasn't very nice. I was only there for 5 months before I handed in my notice. It was the shortest amount of time I'd ever been at a job and it was the first time I'd ever resigned. Both times previously that I'd ended up jobless were due to the closure of the business. I drove home after my last shift at that cafe, and I felt so relieved to be done with the constant stress and negativity that had been sitting on me for the last five months - I still didn't know what I was going to do, but I didn't mind. I knew that the hospitality industry had been ruined for me now, but that was okay too. Hospitality is one of those things that you have to absolutely, positively, without a doubt need to love what you do with all of you, otherwise you end up all angry and "I hate my job" like so many others.

It must have been about mid to late January and I hadn't been out of my job very long when mum mentioned to me that now I had left a job I really didn't like, and I had no new one lined up, maybe now would be a good time to explore Uni options. I always knew I had wanted to get there eventually, but I still didn't know 'exactly' what I wanted to study. Mum and Dad said they'd support me financially while I was studying externally so I didn't have to get a job or move away, which was really great of them. Even so, I still needed to decide what I wanted to study. I was stuck between cyber forensics so I could be like the tech guys in CSI and NCIS, or making video games so I could get my dream job at EA and have my name in the credits of The Sims 75. 

Dad said that I should do something involving children, but I didn't want to. In my mind "something with children" translated to childcare/daycare, and I knew for certain that I didn't want to go down that avenue, so I ignored him - despite the multiple times that he told me that he saw that I was gifted with children (whether or not because I kind of just learned how to be good with kids because of all my siblings or maybe just because that's the gift God had given me). It was a typical "You don't know me, let me make my own choices" type deal.

I enrolled in a Cyber Security degree which turned out to be not what I thought it was, I discovered after some digging during the year - so after the first year I transferred into Games Programming. They were pretty closely related disciplines, and I was lucky to not have to start from scratch as all the first year units were the same in both degrees. I didn't foresee any problems. I had really enjoyed my first year. I loved learning how to count in hex and octal and binary and learning all the maths that goes with it all. I learned basic Java coding and I learned how to be the middleman between a client and a web developer (that wasn't as exciting, but it was interesting seeing things from that perspective). I learned a lot of things and I was thoroughly excited for my second year so that I could start creating things. In my mind, doors were opening left, right and centre and the entire world opened up to me.

The second year didn't prove as easy. First semester went pretty okay. Second semester is when things got rocky. Things weren't coming to me as easily any more. It wasn't the same maths and programming jargon that I had soaked up in first year, and I started freaking out. I had four units in that second semester and all four units were full of theory. Mass amounts of text that I needed to be able to remember in exams and I just couldn't do it. I was struggling to understand why I even needed to know these things, and how it was relevant, and why couldn't it all just be hands on? Of course, it wasn't my place to question, so I tried to commit as much as I could to memory and headed off to my exams. They didn't go so well, but that was alright. Surely not every single person to have ever gone to university had passed every single unit the first time? Surely someone, somewhere along the way had failed? So I picked myself up and I tried again...and I didn't fare much better. Something needed to be done. With the way things were going, I was going to end up with a huge HECS debt and no degree.

I needed to do some soul searching. Something I've never been very good at.

I enjoy painting, but I'm not very good at it - I wouldn't pursue it as a profession. I enjoy singing, but I'm also not very good at that either, and as much as I daydream about becoming the next Australian Idol or X-Factor sensation - it's not going to happen, it's not realistic. In the plan I had made for myself, making games was meant to be my reality, but it was clear that the direction I was trying to head in wasn't bearing fruit.

Ultimately, what made my final decision for me was the thought that I wanted to do something that I knew I could succeed in. Realising that I had failed at what I had planned to spend my life doing was a huge blow, and I just wanted to be able to 'do' something. So I grasped for the one thing that I had been told I was good at. 

Kids.

Two years previous I had ignored my dad's advice. Probably because enrolling in uni was a huge step towards the rest of my life and I didn't want to look back down the track and regret that I'd let my dad talk me into doing something that I was sure I didn't want to do. And also because for some obscure reason my brain limited "working with children" to daycare and I didn't want to spend my days changing the pants of kids who weren't mine (major, major props to those who do work in daycare. You are high up on my list of role models.) 

Those two years gave me the time to grow up a tiny bit more so that when my plans went south, I could look at myself and say "Hey, maybe you should take an actual look at what you've been told you're good at, what you might be "gifted" at. To varying degrees, I've taught my siblings how to count and say the alphabet. I've taught them colours and body parts and how to climb up ladders and then slide down the slide. My mum frequently calls me the baby whisperer (though sometimes I don't always live up to the name. You win some, you lose some), and I will admit to enjoying watching Sesame Street. Dad told me a few years ago something along the lines of "I can wholly rely on you to look after our children properly, but I can't rely on you to turn the oven off when something is burning" (Sorry mum).

I was resistant to what I now believe to be my calling, because I wanted to forge my own path.  And God would have blessed me in forging my own path, but it wouldn't have been the blessing He had planned for me. 

In saying that though, I don't believe that I personally could have come to this decision any other way.  I strongly believe that God has had His hand on this from the very beginning and that everything happened according to His plan.  

If I hadn't tried to do my own thing, I wouldn't have hit a wall. Without that wall I wouldn't have asked "God, where do you want me?" 

I wouldn't have willingly come to the realisation that God wants me with children & made the decision to study to become an Early Childhood teacher - and I wouldn't have been a hundred percent happy with my decision, like I am now.

I am where God wants me.

My Gramps.....Part 1

My mother sometime opens up & talks of her hurt at losing her father in her early thirties, at an age where her friends were coming to terms with losing their grandparents.  My mothers grandparents have been gone for decades, except Nana Campbell who held on until the ripe old age of 97, but spent the last 10 years lost in the world of Alzheimer's so for us, and especially for Gramps, she was gone years ago.

You see Gramps lived a whole life time before he started his family with my Nan. He was 39 when my Uncle was born, and 43 when my mum was born. Mums grandparents were old enough to be her Great Grand Parents, and her Grandfathers sadly died early coming out of a tough post WWII era....

When my mother had me so young, the pattern was repeated; my Gramps was a father figure to me, from my birth, but he was old enough to be my Great Grandfather.

Gramps' age was never really a 'thing', when I was small I just assumed that everyone's granddad was like mine - because he didn't seem old to me. I remember him teaching me how to ride a bike in the visitors car park of the caravan park they lived in, and him taking me for scooter rides around the caravan park at Christmas time to look at the lights the guests & residents had put up. 

He blew up those crazy shaped balloons at my 3rd birthday party; actually he blew up balloons at almost every birthday party thanks to mums phobia, and him and Nan would come over to our place every Easter Sunday morning wearing bunny ears and carrying baskets of eggs. 

I got to spend a lot of my early childhood years with them.  They were years my Gramps did not get to spend with his own children as he had been busy working when they were young. The presence of the age gap for Gramps and his own children at times made it difficult for him to bond with them, especially as teenagers. But as a young child and with him in the role of Grandfather, none of that was an issue with us.  He was wiser & had the time to share that wisdom with me.  He had the time to do the things a dad would normally want do with their child.

There were a few other male influences in my life, such as my Uncle and a couple of mutual friends of my mother and my uncle, who took me under their wing in a positive way, and their families did too. I gained another Grandmother. Grandma Broccoli who has been in my life for 18 years. 

I could spend a lot of time wondering "why me?" Why didn't I have a dad like other children? 

But it never really was a negative experience for me because I had my Gramps to mostly fill that spot.  I had friends through the years who also had no dad, or their dad had left, or worse they were dealing with a horrible step father. I listened to the stories of what they went through. I've had my experiences there too. 

But my Gramps was above and beyond all of that. God put that man in my life for a reason. I can see that. I may not even yet fully realise why he was who he was to me and for me.  But I knew him. I loved him. He was my first visitor after I was born & I was one of his last visitors before he passed. And together my mother and I lost our Father.  God has given us that bond that will hold strong through time.

My mother had me young and sometimes suffered for it. Looking back neither of us would want to change that.  Was it always meant to be that way? Maybe. But we as people do make our own decisions and God protects and blesses those decisions, even if they were not the blessing He had planned for us, He makes a new plan based on our choices.

Gramps never saw me graduate high school, he will never walk me down the aisle or see me get married. He was not a man of great faith as so many other Granddads have been for their Grandchildren but that was not the role God picked out for him.  There is so much of my life, special moments in my life that Gramps did share & I can see Gods hand in that.

Some children only meet their Grandparents once or twice, some never.   

Because I was born exactly when I was, I got to spend 15 wonderful years with my Gramps, before he sadly passed in 2009; before my Uncle had even met his wife & started his own family.

God has blessed me.  He blessed me with this special man before He even knew me.

Gordon Campbell 

14 Nov 1933 - 12 Feb 2009