Monthly Archives: July 2026

GOD STILL SPEAKS…THE WRITTEN WORD – 9

Bible Study, ,

I have often wondered why, in my quiet life in this beautiful, tranquil, secure retirement village where I now live, God placed me here. His leading, the story of which is too long to tell, was so clear and unmistakable that I can never doubt that it was He, not I, who chose this place for me in my final days. I sometimes even feel guilty for being here while so many of God’s children are in dangerous places, persecuted…even under the threat of death for their faith. 

For many months, even years, I have not heard a word from God in my spirit as I have in the past. Why does the Lord seem to be silent? Have I grieved Him so much that He no longer speaks to me? 

Abraham’s story gave me the answer. 

There is not record of any word from God after Abraham had obeyed the Lord in a dramatic way. To the point of raising the knife to kill his son, he finally obeyed God’s instruction fully and without question. He lived for many years after that, remarried, and even fathered more children. When God said, “Now I know…” seconds before Abraham plunged the knife into his son, He was saying, without another spoken word, “Abraham, you have passed your final test!” From that moment on, Abraham simply walked with God. 

Can it be that God has chosen to stay silent because He is teaching me to walk by faith in His written word…that He still speaks but in a different way…and that He only speaks in the way He has done in the past when absolutely necessary…when He needs to give me specific instructions, or to intervene to stop me from doing permanent damage or trespassing into dangerous territory?

God’s silence is not abandonment or indifference. That would be contrary to who He is. I think that His silence is the expression of trust…He is teaching me to follow His word…not spoken in my spirit but written on my heart. 

God’s promise to His wayward people through the prophet Jeremiah, fulfilled in the New Covenant in Jesus Christ, was that His word would become the internal compass by which His people would live…not laws and rules imposed upon them but truth freely and deeply embedded in their hearts and lived out in their character. 

As I reflect on those times when God spoke directly into my spirit, I realise how much I needed those words…to rebuke my foolishness…to forgive my sin… to correct my waywardness…to steady my wavering faith…to redirect my wandering heart…and to reset the course of my life. Did those words matter? Did they accomplish God’s purpose? Have they done their work? Yes, when I obeyed Him, they did. 

God made a promise to His people millennia ago…

“The rain and snow come down from the heavens and stay on the ground to water the earth. They cause the grain to grow, producing seed for the farmer and bread for the hungry. It is the same with my word. I send it out, and it always produces fruit. It will accomplish all I want it to, and it will prosper everywhere I send it.”

‭‭Isaiah‬ ‭55‬:‭10‬-‭11‬ ‭NLT‬‬

If the soil is ready to receive the seed, it will grow and produce a harvest. 

So, I continue, day by day, to hide God’s word in my heart. His word, from cover to cover, from Genesis to Revelation, is the lamp for my feet and the light for my path. No longer a child, I do not, it seems, need to rely on interventions to keep me on course. My direction is set towards God’s goal for me…and for every blood-bought son or daughter of God…to be transformed into the likeness of His Son. 

“And we all, who with unveiled faces contemplate the Lord’s glory, are being transformed into his image with ever-increasing glory, which comes from the Lord, who is the Spirit.”

‭‭2 Corinthians‬ ‭3‬:‭18‬ ‭NIV‬‬

It is this word, and many like it, that is the “true north” of God’s compass…His written word that He is inscribing on my heart. As my unhurried days, with their normal ups and downs, come and go, I am steadily moving towards the day when I shall be like Him when I see Him as He is. 

“Dear friends, now we are children of God, and what we will be has not yet been made known. But we know that when Christ appears, we shall be like him, for we shall see him as he is.”

‭‭1 John‬ ‭3‬:‭2‬ ‭NIV‬‬

“Therefore we do not lose heart. Though outwardly we are wasting away, yet inwardly we are being renewed day by day. For our light and momentary troubles are achieving for us an eternal glory that far outweighs them all. So we fix our eyes not on what is seen, but on what is unseen, since what is seen is temporary, but what is unseen is eternal.”

‭‭2 Corinthians‬ ‭4‬:‭16‬-‭18‬ ‭NIV

Like the apostle Paul, I am slowly, and sometimes painfully, learning to let go of the temporal and stay on course towards the eternal. 

“Brothers and sisters, I do not consider myself yet to have taken hold of it. But one thing I do: Forgetting what is behind and straining toward what is ahead, I press on toward the goal to win the prize for which God has called me heavenward in Christ Jesus.”

‭‭Philippians‬ ‭3‬:‭13‬-‭14‬ ‭NIV‬‬

As my grip on this life weakens, eternity beckons. Beneath my feet is the solid foundation of God’s love, and inscribed on my heart the word of God in which is my hope. Ahead is the promise of the celestial city which God has prepared for His people…and inside me is the guarantee, the Holy Spirit, God’s “engagement ring”, that declares that I belong to Him. 

“The Spirit is God’s guarantee that he will give us the inheritance he promised and that he has purchased us to be his own people. He did this so we would praise and glorify him.”

‭‭Ephesians‬ ‭1‬:‭14‬ ‭NLT‬‬

To be continued

GOD STILL SPEAKS…RETIREMENT -8

Bible Study, ,

At the age of sixty four, after eight years of running my B&B, I decided to call it a day. My business was neither a roaring success nor a dismal failure. Rather, it was another season in the school of life. God had been faithful to me, steering me through difficult days, meeting every need despite the challenges, and preparing me for the next phase of my journey. 

In 2004, my business was sold…and I launched into another of my dreams. For years I had longed to serve my Master in a more structured and full-time way  inside my church’s daily functions

…so, I approached my pastor with a bold request. I asked for a position as a volunteer…an office in the church’s admin section…and a small apartment in the playschool building which had been set aside for accommodation. 

He agreed to all three requests! After a short visit to my eldest son in the USA, I settled into my new routine with deep gratitude to the Lord…for rest from the daily grind of business and for the joy of working alongside Christian brothers and sisters…and doing what I loved to do…write. 

I spent twelve happy and wonderful years…finally joining the staff as a paid pastoral assistant. Among many tasks, I wrote teaching materials, taught discipleship groups and even published four books… and flourished spiritually in a safe and tranquil environment. 

…but…the time came, at the age of seventy six, for me to move on. 

My third son and his family lived on a smallholding outside a nearby city. Both husband and wife worked. I decided to join them, to live in a “granny flat” attached to the main house…independent but adjacent to them… and to take over some of the household chores. 

My busy and productive life after twelve years, suddenly shrunk to a small rented apartment on an isolated plot outside a city. From a busy routine in the church office, I was faced with aloneness all day. 

My pastor had given me…as a farewell gift from the church …a Yorkshire terrier puppy…a tiny companion to love and care for in my solitude. I named her Tosca. She was eight weeks old…a real handful…but a darling whom I loved dearly. 

One morning, as I sat in my recliner in my living room, my puppy at my feet, my handwork on my lap, I was overcome with a feeling of isolation…abandoned, and useless.  After twelve years of being busy and productive, I was doing nothing of real value, so I thought.  I cried out to the Lord, “What am I supposed to be doing?”

I am a task-orientated person. I lean towards doing something…being busy and useful…rather than towards connecting with people. Solitude never scares me but…doing nothing of value seemed like a punishment. 

God’s voice, as clearly as I have heard that voice on many previous occasions, came to me again…a startling, surprising reply…just three words with a world of content…

“Enjoy your puppy!”

In those three words, God was releasing me into new experience…a retirement that included rest from routine, pressure…into a life that I could regulate without any authority over me. 

In this three words, I understood something of great meaning. I was not what I did but who I was and who I was becoming. My worth lay, not in what I could accomplish but in what God thought of me and could do in me. 

A few months later, I acquired a second puppy…a tiny dachshund called Molly…a companion for Tosca and a partner in crime! After a few months of loneliness, Tosca and Molly joined forces to become a gay and lively pair. 

Tragically, Tosca died under anaesthetic at the age of six months. Molly became my sole companion. Molly and I have bonded to the extent that she speaks English and I speak “dog”!! She understands my verbal instructions…even my rebuke or correction when she steps out of line…and she clearly displays her displeasure when I annoy her! 

With those words of release, on that day when I felt so useless, came words of caution. Retirement after years of living inside the boundaries of authority and submission, as part of a chain of command and a structured life, I was free to do my own thing. However, I was not free, under God, to lapse into complacency. 

How much I needed those loving words in this new, uncharted season of my life. For the first time, I had no one to tell me what to do…no parents…no superiors…no authority over me…only God to whom I was accountable. 

In the years that have followed, ten years to date, I am learning to submit to the greatest authority of all, not so much in activities but in attitudes…to Jesus as Lord…my supreme Authority. My life until my retirement, had aways been

under delegated authority. Now I am free to listen for the voice of my Shepherd without interruption or intrusion. 

“My sheep listen to my voice; I know them, and they follow me.”

‭‭John‬ ‭10‬:‭27‬ ‭NLT‬‬

Something has occurred to me in these final years of my life…and I say “final” because God has placed me securely in my “departure lounge” to await His call. 

To be continued

GOOD STILL SPEAKS…EXPLANATION -7

Christian Life, ,

Why does God sometimes speak directly into our hearts the clear words that our spirits hear? Is it because there are no words in Scripture that match our own situation? Is it because our thoughts are so loud that we cannot hear God’s voice?  Is it because sin is so entrenched that our spirits are too dead to hear His soft whisper?

I don’t know the answer but I do know that God is too loving, too committed to finishing what He started to give up on us, to let us get away with our foolishness. 

My disastrous marriage left a deep void in my heart…a deep longing to be loved…not “loved” in the sense that I was just there,  my presence taken for granted… to care for my home and children but truly loved by someone who knew me intimately and loved me for who I am.  I couldn’t diagnose the reason for my emptiness then but…I felt the ache that needed to be filled. 

Of course, my sinful, old nature would find a way…and I sought help in a so-called “friendship”that pretended to be a solution…a substitute for the one who should have been my soul mate.

One morning, years later, in my kitchen at my B&B, my mind began to dwell on those days of pain and loneliness. Why did I follow a path that eventually led nowhere? Why did I think that human companionship outside my marriage could satisfy the ache in my heart? The friendship was still there but also the same familiar feeling of emptiness and dissatisfaction. Why?

The Holy Spirit dropped a gentle word into my heart, so clear that I could not miss it. “You were drinking at the wrong fountain!” Instantaneously, I understood. 

Jeremiah, the ancient prophet of Israel, wrote words that expressed the sorrow in God’s heart when His people, times without number, worshiped idols instead of their own loving God. 

“This is what the Lord says: “What fault did your ancestors find in me, that they strayed so far from me? They followed worthless idols and became worthless themselves… “My people have committed two sins: They have forsaken me, the spring of living water, and have dug their own cisterns, broken cisterns that cannot hold water.”

‭‭Jeremiah‬ ‭2‬:‭5‬, ‭13‬ ‭NIV‬‬. 

Water! In Scripture, love is often spoken of as water, drinking water from a fountain. Solomon advised his son… 

“Drink water from your own cistern, running water from your own well.”

‭‭Proverbs‬ ‭5‬:‭15‬ ‭NIV‬‬

I remembered Jesus’ encounter with a Samaritan woman at a well outside her village. Jesus knew that,  after a series of failed marriages, five in all, she had shacked up with a man she could leave at any time if it didn’t work out.  

Jesus didn’t judge her. He didn’t condemn her. Instead, He offered her “living water”…a love so pure that it would completely satisfy her craving for authentic love…love that would last…never fail…disappoint…or degrade her in any way. In simple, wordless words, He explained, “You are  drinking at the wrong fountain!” 

How precious is the Spirit of God! He didn’t judge or condemn me. He simply explained my foolish behaviour. “You were drinking at the wrong fountain!” From that moment, my guilt and shame were obliterated. Like all sinners, everywhere, throughout all time, I had foolishly tried to slake my thirst at the wrong fountain. 

Jesus cried out, to His own people, who were trying, desperately, to drink God’s pure love from a fountain tainted with their own self-righteousness…

“On the last and greatest day of the festival, Jesus stood and said in a loud voice, “Let anyone who is thirsty come to me and drink. Whoever believes in me, as Scripture has said, rivers of living water will flow from within them.””

‭‭John‬ ‭7‬:‭37‬-‭38‬ ‭NIV‬‬

Jesus offers love…flowing from the heart of God…so pure, so strong, so eternal, that anyone who comes to Him, who drinks from the fountain of His Spirit, will be satisfied forever…God Himself abiding in the heart. 

Not only did the Holy Spirit explain. He transformed! That was the moment when I began to seek the love He offered…the same love that I had felt so warm and strong when my baby died inside me. 

Jesus alone is the fountain of divine love. Only He can slake the thirst of a heart created for Himself Human love will always fail…fickle…self-gratifying…falling of short of the enduring faithfulness found in God alone. 

What captured my heart in this personal encounter with God’s Spirit in that quiet moment at my kitchen table was simply this…the Spirit of God NEVER beat me over the head with condemnation. He didn’t enforce my guilt. He didn’t highlight my sin. He came to me with a simple explanation and a new direction. How precious was that revelation. He called me back to who I was in Christ…a beloved daughter who had wandered off the path. 

This is true repentance…not just the realisation that I had grieved the Father’s heart… but the loving call to come back home. God never discards the sinner. He forgives, cleanses, and restores. 

Since that day, I have been learning to drink at the fountain of living water…Jesus Himself. His love is pure, everlasting, and fully satisfying. 

To be continued

GOD STILL SPEAKS…BUSINESS WOMAN – 6

Christian Life, ,

God was good to me, a faithful Father…counsellor…and protector. Three years before I left my home, I returned to work at the hospital where I had worked at the end of my training. I had not practised as a trained nurse for 21 years. Everything had changed. The  drugs I had learned as a rookie staff nurse were mostly obsolete. I was in charge of a ward with a little experience and a whole lot of insecurity. 

Before I put on my uniform on my first day of work, God gave me a promise…

“Do not be afraid; you will not be put to shame. Do not fear disgrace; you will not be humiliated…”

‭‭Isaiah‬ ‭54‬:‭4‬a NIV‬‬

…a random Scripture out of context but, oh how He kept His promise. I remember on one occasion, early in my new position, when I was about to make a serious mistake with a patient’s medication, I felt a caution inside…a voice that said, ”Look what you are doing!” I looked again and quickly corrected my mistake. How grateful I am for a Father who was so intimately involved in my life!

For seven-and-a-half years, I worked, learned, and grew in confidence and experience as a trained nurse. Through great responsibility, God did much to heal me. I returned to work feeling like a “non-person”. Then, I slowly gained a new perspective of myself, my capacity to carry out my duties faithfully, with skill and integrity, as a child of God with God grace and help.  As I was given more responsibility, finally being in charge of the maternity department until I resigned, I became more of a whole person than I was during the toxic years of my marriage. 

In 1994, South Africa transitioned to  democracy and, with the change came a subtle change in the attitude in many of the hospital staff, an arrogance that defied authority. Nurses were often non-compliant, resisting instructions, acting as though they were in charge. 

As a white sister in charge of a department, I found difficulty in running my ward efficiently. Nurses would disappear, attending union meetings without asking permission, leaving me alone on the whole floor to handle everything including patients in labour…

but…I had a dream…a desire to run my own Bed-and-Breakfast. The situation in the hospital spurred me on to pray my dream into reality. I wrote, on a card I placed in my Bible, all the details of what I wanted and what I prayed for.  Ten months later, every detail of my dream was fulfilled. 

So, in 1996, I resigned from the hospital and launched into my great adventure…I, who had absolutely no experience of running a business, was solely in charge of a brand new enterprise…I, with no knowledge and no back-up…ran my B&B for eight years!  

One situation stands out clearly during that time. My finances were in deep trouble. I began my business with a bank overdraft. My B&B, in a relatively small town,  was at the mercy of much stronger players, influential men who had more clout than I had in the town. I, and other small players, lived on the dregs of the customers they left for us. 

The result was that my overdraft was eventually in overdraft! I was desperate. I wept my mattress wet day after day but nothing changed. I was even too afraid to buy a load of bread! 

One morning, as I sat in my car outside my church, waiting for the opening of the church for our weekly early morning prayer meeting, I cried out to God…” Why do I feel so rebellious?” God spoke, in my heart…as clearly as I am communicating with you.  “Because you think I have failed you!” 

Wow! Did that shake me! It was true. In the deepest part of my heart, that I was not even aware of, I was charging God for failing me! Think of that! I!!! Holding God guilty for not doing what I wanted! How arrogant of me! 

Like Paul said…

“But who are you, a human being, to talk back to God? “Shall what is formed say to the one who formed it, ‘Why did you make me like this?’ ”

‭‭Romans‬ ‭9‬:‭20‬ ‭NIV‬‬

I was mortified, melted…once again. God never rebukes to destroy. He rebukes to correct…and He needed to correct me because my attitude…my unbelief…was blocking something that was on the way…and I needed an open heart to receive it. 

Two years after I sold my business, I received a communication from the South African Revenue Service (SARS) that I needed to pay capital gains tax on the sale of my business. I was devastated. I needed every cent of my investment to live on. I visited the legal adviser at SARS to find out the details, and then awaited with trepidation for the assessment on my capital gain. 

A “window” envelope from SARS eventually arrived in the post…I trembled to open  it. Finally, I plucked up the courage to read it. At the bottom of the page, in the line marked “due by you” were four round zeros…00.00. 

The overdraft that had caused me so much grief was my salvation. No profit…no tax paid.  No tax paid, no capital gain.  My overdraft had saved me. God was vindicated. He was working in my darkest moments. Thank you, Father God! 

What a lesson…painful but effective. 

To be continued

GOOD STILL SPEAKS…MARRIAGE – 5

Christian Life, ,

My stormy marriage of 26 years yielded many lessons and many opportunities for God to speak…and He did…sometimes in clear words and sometimes in the things that happened…things that He allowed and things that He orchestrated…all for my good and His glory. 

The rift between my husband and me began to widen. His anger…for him a protective shield against the pain of his own suffering as a rejected son, which I did not understand…and my stubborn independence and reactions to his rages dug a chasm that only became deeper as the years went by. 

Oh, how I wrestled with my own bitter resentment towards him, conveniently forgetting that there are always two in the equation. 

Our caravan became my refuge. 

Wherever we were, first in the city, then in the town where my husband ministered in a small church, and then in my own home town…where we relocated to be with my eldest son whom we had placed in a boarding school, close to my parents…the conflict continued and the chasm widened. I spent agonising times in the caravan, locked away in secret, to weep and cry to God for deliverance from this prison of anger and fear. 

I was terribly afraid of the rages that exploded with volcanic violence at the slightest provocation. Even worse was the fact that one of my sons who clearly had his father’s  genes, angered him so much that one night, after a trivial incident, he threatened to kill him. 

I clearly remember, on another occasion, as I sat in the bath bewailing my ever-recurring resentment towards my husband and the depth of my own sinful heart,  “How can you put up with me?” I cried out to God. 

The words of the Lord came to me, clearly in my heart…”I can handle your blunders but I cannot handle your pride!” What a rule to live by! God’s words hit me between the eyes. 

I must confess that, though the message was clear, I have not anyways remembered it to my detriment. Isn’t pride the most lethal of our attributes as descendants of Adam? 

Our marriage finally ended in divorce in 1991. I had promised the Lord that I would never take  the initiative in a divorce. I would wait for him to deliver me…and He did. After a particularly explosive situation, my husband ordered me to get out of the house and never come back…and I fled! 

By this time, three sons had left home to make their own way. My youngest son was sixteen…and I had to leave him to the mercy of his father…so much damage occurred during that time that I only became aware of much later in our lives. 

In those thirteen months before the divorce was legalised, God spoke to me in clear directives on more than one occasion. Let me enlarge on one of them…

I left my home that night with a suitcase of clothing, my sewing machine, and a motor scooter for transport. My youngest son was left with his father because I was homeless. I spent the first few months of my exile in the Nurses’ Home of the hospital where I worked…in a small room which was the sum total of my space at that time. 

After weeks of frustration with only a small table to do my sewing, and much prayer,  one Sunday morning I fell on my knees beside my bed and cried out to God, “What are we waiting for?”  God’s response shook me. He said “You are not waiting for me. I am waiting for you!”

In a flash, everything became clear! That’s how it is when God speaks. It was about my attitude. I was impatient, angry with God, frustrated because He was not doing anything to help me…so I thought…but He was! He was waiting for my surrender, my trust, my willingness to submit to His leading, His timing, His will. 

What he said to me next was the directive that changed everything. He said to me, clearly, unmistakably, “Pay off your car,” and, “You will not go into debt.” 

My father had lent me the money to buy my friend’s small car. Living in the Nurses’ Home was cheap which meant that I could repay the balance of my loan in five months instead of two years. 

On that same Sunday morning, after God’s word had come to me so clearly, a friend’s husband who lived on a small holding on the outskirts of town, met me in town and told me of his intention to convert a disused double garage into a cottage for me! 

God’s love and mercy had been at work all the time…and so, a few weeks later, I moved into a two- bedroomed cottage on the farm where I lived happily for four years. 

As I reflect on those turbulent years…tossed out…homeless, and yet…I had a Father who was lovingly caring and providing for me, day by day nurturing my faith in Him and preparing me for my greatest adventure. 

To be continued