An occasional thought pops into my head... :-) I can't guarantee the origins!

God made the world big enough for everyone's gifts to be needed.

ALL ARE INTELLIGENT
We are all intelligent, all needed... Not just the academics who do well at school, for we'd be dead without practical people to give us our food, clothing and shelter; - and we'd have nothing to live for, without our creative people.

Emotions can be as valuable as thoughts in making sense of our world. And thoughts can be as unreliable as emotions! They are good servants, but when we insist they are all the truth, we can be in danger of making big mistakes.

It is sad that we Westerners pride ourselves on our logic, yet run our lives primarily on unacknowledged emotions.

It isn't our service to mankind that makes us important, it is actually our existence. We are already of utmost importance to our Great Creator, the parent of us all.

- So much so, that when nothing else could save us from the mess of mankind, he came as a weak insignificant being - a babe, in an ignominious setting - a smelly, dirty stable; to an insignificant family - a carpenter from the back country, and a young girl pregnant before the wedding; to a conquered people - the Jews. This child grew up amongst lowly people, was himself a carpenter, then an itinerant teacher - who wasn't above a servant's job of washing his follower's feet. He died the most base death on a Roman cross between two criminals, hanging naked and wounded, the flies buzzing, the crowds jeering - for us, for us, for us - so we could be healed in our bodies, in our minds and emotions, and in our spirit - healed of our insignificance, to see once more we are sons and daughters of the King of the universe!

THE SABBATH BELONGS TO THE LORD!

- a day to love God, family and friends
- a day to rest and relax
- a day to seek his face, to fast and pray, to think why, where, what, who you are doing things with...

A glad, solemn day...

TWO CULTURES

We are tangata whenua (people on the land before we got here)
And tangata tiriti (people of the treaty) - who emcompass everyone who has settled in New Zealand since the Treaty of Waitangi

New Zealand will not be whole and successful until we acknowledge that the Maori people welcomed us and our ways, learnt them better than we knew them ourselves (at that stage - many people couldn't read and write, and didn't know the Bible. Maori were avid learners, and also quickly learnt to grow the new crops brought in.)

We do need to acknowledge the lack of respect that has so damaged Maori self-esteem, and the fact that they were our hosts!

>+<>+<>+<>+<>+<>+<>+<>+<>+<>+<>+<>+<>+<>+<>+<>+<>+<>+<>+<>+<>+<>+<>+<>+<>+<>+<>+<>+<>+<>+<

Don't make the ideal your idol
or the perfect your prerequisite
Live comfortable with the incomplete
Life is real

Idols are man's attempt to create a god to control.
But idols are idle in their ability to make good miracles
Our fear, rejection and pride
Create idols of ourselves
God's grace needs us to let go self
To be able to work.

Goals are mountains to climb
not gods to worship
enjoy the journey
the end is the icing on the cake

Deb Burton