Do you ever feel overwhelmed by life…caught up in the craziness of what’s going on around you? Unable to think clearly, frazzled, anxious? Perhaps, like me, the break-neck speed of Christmas craziness, and the endless purchasing of back to school supplies has been enough to sidetrack you! 🙂 Life can often leave us feeling frazzled and spiritually depleted.
At our women’s retreat God challenged me about not getting caught up in the busyness of life. As I sat down at the boatshed I watched the current moving at a fast pace. I felt God speak into my soul about my need to be anchored in Him and not be caught up in the swift moving current of life. I don’t often get prophetic pictures for people but as I prayed for a lovely friend, I saw a cyclonic whirlwind swirling around her like a huge dust-storm. She couldn’t see, it was chaos around her, but there she was at the centre of it all, on her knees before her Heavenly Father. A picture of total dependence on God, of positioning herself at the feet of the only one who could help her get through the chaos.
Over the last 3 years there have been many moments when I have felt totally out of control, totally overwhelmed and not sure how to get through the chaos and turmoil that has surrounded me. Even now, we have things going on that we have no control over and that picture of setting down anchor and positioning myself before God has bought courage, strength and determination. In the early days of my husband’s diagnosis of cancer I remember thinking about how I was positioned to get through it. I knew this was not the time to give up going to church, even on those days I was in the depth of emotion. In the words of a dear friend, if we can’t cry at church, where can we cry? 🙂 I knew I needed the encouragement and support of my faith family and I knew I needed God more than I had ever needed Him!!!
This year God has reinforced that picture of being anchored in Him with a scripture from Jeremiah 17:7-8 “But blessed are those who trust in the Lord, whose confidence is in Him. They will be like a tree planted by the water that sends out its roots by the steam. It does not fear when heat comes; its leaves are always green. It has no worries in a year of drought and never fails to bear fruit.”
Ephesians 3:17 encourages us to be “rooted and established in love” Why? So that we may “grasp how wide and long and high and deep is the love of Christ, and to know this love that surpassess knowledge- that you may be filled to the measure of all the fullness of God.” (v.18-19). Bigger on the Inside!
So, how do we put this into practice? The start of a new year is always a great time to evaluate where we are and where we want to be. Let’s not just have a desire, let’s put some things into place to make that desire a reality. I have found Rick Warren’s framework of ‘divert daily, withdraw weekly and abandon annually’ really helpful in my personal desire to be anchored in God. I have subscribed to a daily email from ‘Proverbs 31 Ministries’ to help me divert daily to God. I looked at my weekly routine and picked a day where I can spend 2 hours withdrawing with God and I have a retreat and a spiritual conference scheduled this year to help me abandon the craziness of life and give God a solid block of time for growth.
But I want to leave you with one last question…where do you find yourself positioned for 2015. Do you find yourself carried along by the craziness of life, or like my friend, do you find yourself on your knees before your Heavenly Father. Are you positioning yourself well? are you anchored, planted, are your roots down deep into Christ’s love? My prayer is that this is truth for you and that we will find ourselves positioned well to meet all that life throws at us. Blessings!!!
Tammy
Abide 
When I use to receive your powerful words through my personal email I always felt you were talking just to me.. I would sit there and wonder how did you know what I needed to hear.
Tammy you have an amazing gift and interestingly enough when you mentioned you don’t often get a prophetic picture it prompted me to think that we all receive in different ways and you definitely receive through prophetic word. Hence why it always feels like you are speaking directly into my life and current situations.
Thanks for sharing this amazing gift Tammy so many people will be blessed and changed through your blogs.
I am truly excited to journey this with you and look forward to the next Blog.
God Bless
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Thanks beautiful lady! You have been such an encouragement to me throughout this journey of writing! xx
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good one tams!
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Thanks love! x
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Beautiful and timely.
Thank you
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xx
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Beautifully written, so much truth in your words
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Thanks lovely lady x
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Awesome word for the new year of 2015 Tam.
I was inspired to search anchor. And have summarised what I just learnt.
We have HOPE that is our ANCHOR in our life storms because our GOD proves that He does NOT lie, and He ALWAYS keeps His promises-because He swears by His own OATH. If your soul is restless…….put your hope in Him. He will not & can not disappoint, and you will have the bonus of finding RECONCILIATION with your creator.
Hebrews 6:14-20The Voice (VOICE)
14 “Surely I will bless you and multiply your descendants.”[a] 15 And after Abraham had endured with patience, he obtained the promise he had hoped for. 16 When swearing an oath to confirm what they are saying, humans swear by someone greater than themselves and so bring their arguments to an end. 17 In the same way, when God wanted to confirm His promise as true and unchangeable, He swore an oath to the heirs of that promise. 18 So God has given us two unchanging things: His promise and His oath. These prove that it is impossible for God to lie. As a result, we who come to God for refuge might be encouraged to seize that hope that is set before us. 19 That hope is real and true, an anchor to steady our restless souls, a hope that leads us back behind the curtain to where God is (as the high priests did in the days when reconciliation flowed from sacrifices in the temple) 20 and back into the place where Jesus, who went ahead on our behalf, has entered since He has become a High Priest forever in the order of Melchizedek.
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🙂 Hebrews 6:19 is the verse that sits on my bedside table: ‘We have this hope as an anchor for our soul, firm and secure’!
x
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A great message for the start of the year,I prray that I can live up to it
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You’re gorgeous!!! 🙂
Hope this is an encouragement to you and not another ‘to do list’. Our relationship with God is the greatest relationship we can invest in and the way we connect can look different for all of us. But it’s certainly easy to get caught up in the busyness of life!!! This has helped me bring some balance and growth to my life. Many blessings!!!! x
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