Betlehem focuses on how you have to be faithful in the natural things, before you can expect God to give you responsibility for spiritual things. Here we need to realize that our outward life as Christians should reflect the excellence and servanthood of the spirit of God within. During our stay in Betlehem we must learn how to reign over ourselves and our families, how to take up our responsibilities in the community we are in, wheter these responsibilities seem inconsequential or not. Being faithful in the natural things opens the door for revelation in spiritual things and brings opportunities in our lives we would have missed otherwise. Our stay in Betlehem is not to humiliate us, but to teach us the value of being faithful. When God looks for someone to send, He does not care how rich or talented you are. He looks for the faithful servants,the people that are willing to serve at the very bottom, because they understand the responsibilities given to them.

As we move on from Betlehem to Adullam we learn to help other people in need even when our need is greater, thus teaching us the valuable lesson that we are not here for what we can get but what we can give. These people may not neccesarily have your welfare in mind or even want to commit to your vision. The purpose of an Adullam experience is to teach you to focus and rely on Jesus no matter the circumstances. Here you learn to grow your roots and anchor yourself in God to make you secure in His provision for your every need.

During your stay in Hebron you learn to build covenant relationship with fellow believers. You learn to be faithful in your relationships. You learn to relate to people in recognition of God’s work in bringing you together. It is not easy to get to Hebron, because it is on higher ground. You have to go out of your way to go there. Going to higher ground also means having higher faith and higher vision. Higher ground also means higher commitment. Hebron is the place where small beginnings grow to greatness. After getting to Hebron it is not very difficult to get into Zion, however you must be careful not to want to get there prematurely. If you get your inheritance too early, like the prodigal son, then you might end up squandering it, because you did not have the maturity to use it wisely. When you go to conquer Zion, you must be ready to take it all. A partial victory mentality is a partial obedience mentality. Zion teaches us to be faithful in ruling, as we learn to live as Jesus lived.

The most important thing that I have learned from reading this book is that you cannot seperate your spiritual life from your natural life. If you are not faithful in the natural things how can you expect God to trust you with the spiritual welbeing of His children. I also learned that you do not have to be perfect when you are chosen as a leader in God’s kingdom. He only
looks for faithfulness in you. He is the One that wil shape you and provide you with the tools to carry out the task He has given you. I want to become more faithful in my everyday things, finishing my homework on time and with excellence, cleaning my room even if my there are no one checking up on me, being dilligent and faithful in every little natural thing that needs to
be done.

I do not only want to receive my inheritance from God, but I also want to have the wisdom and spiritual maturity to know how to manage it.

One book that particularly caught my interest was a book with the curious title of “The name of this book is SECRET“. I like books with titles that make you wonder about the contents.  So I took a sneak peak at the introduction inside the book and almost forgot that I’m in a bookshop and that I probably need to buy the book before reading it.  Luckily I had somewhere else to be so I managed to drag myself from the shop and left the books behind.

This little trip to the bookshop just made me want to buy and read MORE books. Though seeing as the semester started again and I have other responsibilities, I probably won’t get much time to read, but I can always MAKE time.

Why the sky is blue - bookcover

This is the first time I have read anything by Susan Meissner and I must say I was pleasantly surprised.  I love her writing style and definately do not regret buying this book.

The book is about a Christian woman who after having been brutally assaulted by a stranger becomes pregnant as a result.  When her husband confesses that he can’t be a father to this child, she decides to put the baby up for adoption although it goes against every motherly feelings she has for the unborn child.

The book is divided into two sections, portraying first the mother, Claire’s perspective of what is happening to her and secondly her daughter’s experience of this adoption (her daughter was 12 years at the time of her assault).

I will do a two part posting for this book, first on Claire’s perspective and then on Kate’s (her daughters) perspective.

There have been better attempts at marching, and they had been made by penguins. – about a group of raw army recruits

The change in the man was a whole-body event. He seemed to get smaller, as if every cell had said “oh, dear” very quietly to itself. – on a man being shot by an arrow

I found this book quite enjoyable, had a few laughs as well.  The two quotes above being some of the reasons for my laughter.

This book is about a young girl disguising herself as a boy, so she can enlist in the Borogravian army to go search for her brother who was enlisted in the army. Later on in the book she discovers that all the recruits in her regiment is women disguised as men for their own personal reasons.

Polly and most of the regiment are able to infiltrate the Keep, by disguising themselves as washerwomen and they free the Borogravian soldiers.

There is a part in the book, where she explains to one of the freed majors that they are in fact women:

Polly sighed. “We all are, sir”. Really women. Not just dressed up as women. And right now I don’t want to put any trousers on because then I’d be a woman dressed up as a man dressed up as a woman dressed up as a man, and then I’d be so confused I wouldn’t know how to swear. And I want to swear right now, sir, very much.”

The surprising part (or maybe not so surprising) and hugely amusing part was when Sergeant Jack Jackrum (who is also later revealed as being a women) exposes at least half of the army leaders as being women.  All of them thought they were the only women never realising they were never alone.

I recently finished Terry Pratchet’s “Monstrous Regiment” and will hopefully soon have a post on that.