Listening

Listening

Dear Friends,

I pray this finds you all well. I am very confident that God continues to give you the energy, zeal and passion to do the work you do. Team Nhaka is inspired by the feedback you send us through emails about our work, blogs and the goings on of the organization and how we are working to fulfil our mandate. On a cold, bleak morning, when all the chips are down and I am wondering what really is going on, the thought of that little child walking 3 kilometres to school or the child who doesn’t know what they are going to eat at home and the expectations laid on each of us to support the less privileged in our midst among other things spurs up renewed hope and confidence in me.

I realise that what I do ceased to be a job a long time ago. It is a passion, driven by the desire to ensure that every child lives a life full of possibilities and opportunities that they can take up to enhance their lives. It makes me realise that by the small difference made by an exchange student coming from abroad for a season, the $1 a day paid towards school fees for one child, the feeding program ensuring that a child has a guaranteed meal each school day and the love exuded by all the people involved in these efforts, changes the lives of thousands of children daily. What future do we want for these children? One with love towards one another? Tolerance? Respect? Recognition? Peace? If this is all in the affirmative what are we doing on a daily basis to ensure that these objectives are met? Are we praying and asking God for wisdom to deal with difficult situations? Are we spending time supporting others? Is our development more important than that of others or at their expense? Friends I feel we need to always look at these aspects and reflect a little bit more and let God speak to us and help us.

A few days ago during morning devotionals with two young men I am mentoring, we were discussing on how we hear God speaking to us… This subject brought a lot of intriguing responses but the bottom line was are we listening when God speaks to us or we are just too busy playing the pipe that we are not bothered at all.

I know for sure for our friends in Zimbabwe and true for other parts of the world, one wakes up and is on the go. The only time they settle down is when they sit to have their dinner and probably halfway through it sleep creeps in and before long it is morning again and the cycle begins. I encourage us all to take time out to meditate on the word of God, just have some quiet time reflecting, taking a long walk or finding something that brings a sense of peace and through all this be able to listen to the still small voice.

I am also on a journey. It took a severe headache and fever to put me in bed at 4pm on Monday 22 April. As I lay there shivering and trying to figure this fever out…the still small voice said listen……listening I am!


Blessings,

Patrick

How useful are you?

Dear Friends,

I hope this finds you well. In the course of the past two weeks I have learnt a lot on how to have patience, peace in the middle of a storm, perseverance, long suffering and extending grace to those people that do things not expected of them. Reflecting yesterday on the grace and mercy of God I could not help but really be inspired by the daily reading I went through.

Each one of us is on a mission to complete an assignment that was given to us by our Maker. We are created in the image of our Lord and Saviour and through Him we can do all things. What is the one reason why you exist on earth? Is it to minister to lost souls, provide a soup kitchen for the hungry, be a minister of the gospel, take care of widows and orphans in your midst or are you just a food being? The latter being people who just lazy around without any clear mission or purpose designed for them by our Creator, the best they can do is consume food. They may have good jobs, nice cars and the like but still not be able to impact meaningfully on the lives of people around them.

A week and half ago, my best friend over lunch asked me, “why do we  as Christians make money”? “why do we run our businesses to make a profit”? for what purpose in the Kingdom? I was too hesitant to answer at first but as I thought more about it I managed to respond. As God prospers the works of our hands we too have a duty to ensure that the weakest link in the chain is made strong. By remaining tight fisted and not supporting the growth, development and success of other people we too become guilty of not moving the Kingdom agenda forward.

Ephesians 2:10, gives another very clear indication of what  is expected of us. “ for we are God’s workmanship, created in Christ Jesus to do good works, which God prepared before hand, that we should walk in them”. Whose I am should reflect in my daily walk, the work I do and the value I add to the lives of people around me. The things that we go through are designed to be used as an experience either to help someone we connect with or to teach us valuable lessons about the things we ought to be doing or not doing. The different gift sets that we possess have been given to us to make a difference in “your” world.  We each have an assignment given to us, pray about it, find it and begin implementing it.

As you wake up to a new day, realise that you have the necessary tools to tackle each and every challenge that comes your way. I always say find what ever excuse to be a blessing in someone’s life each day. As you go out today doing various chores, be sensitive to the Spirit of God, He is saying something and you can only be aware if your antenna is tuned in to the right frequency.

God is at this moment making various moves to ensure that your life connects with someone and that you make a difference OR that a difference is made in your life.

Blessings,

Patrick