FW: The SEEDS Of CHOICES =)

Take a look at an apple tree.
There might be five hundred apples on the Tree, each with ten seeds.
That's lot of seeds! We might ask, "Why would you need so many seeds to grow just a few more Trees?" Nature has something to teach us here. It's telling us: "Most seeds never Grow. So if you really want to make something happen, you better try More than once." This might mean: You'll attend twenty interviews to get one job. You'll interview forty people to find one good employee. You'll talk to fifty people to sell one house, car, vacuum Cleaner, insurance policy, idea... And you might meet a hundred acquaintances to find one special friend. When we understand the "Law of the Seed", we don't get so disappointed. We stop feeling like victims. Laws of nature are not things to take personally. We just need to understand them - and work with them.

~ ~ ~

YOUR CHOICES To the world you might be just any person, but to one person you might just be the whole world. Being is not the breaths you take, but it is the freshness you put in the breath of others. Growing older has no choice, but growing up has choice. Being born has no choice but Living life has choice Falling sick has no choice, but Keeping healthy has choice Getting caught through storm has no choice, but Efforts for safe landing has choice. =)

Fw: What is Marriage? =)

Marriage has multiple meanings as stated below:

- Marriage is a relation between man and woman, which the independence is equal the dependence mutual and the obligation reciprocal.
- Marriage is a Ministry
- A divine Institution
- A paradox which feels sometimes like a state of confusion
- A total commitment of the total persons for a total life
- A three-sided relationship consisting of husband, wife and God, which is also known as “progressive togetherness”

Generally, marriage is a basic task or burden you have to carry throughout your life as husband and wife. Your partner will not always please you by 100%, due to your biological or background differences & also because he/she is not an Angel.

A husband’s protectiveness over his wife also saves her from spiritual attacks. Marriage, most especially when a woman lives under the protection of her husband, she can move with great freedom in spiritual things as well as all other matters.

BASIC NEEDS OF MARRIAGE:
The basic need or requirements in a marriage is “compatibility”.
Without compatibility, marriage can never stand or live in peace and harmony. Moreso, its’ mostly enjoyable (partially) when they both have similar vision.
Pray together constantly for stabilization of sincere love. Stick to your marriage vows despite all the odds and attractions in the society. Endeavour to isolate from whatsoever that could lead you into a trap that may tarnish your marriage.

Men side:
As a man you should be in best position to support and encourage your wife along the line of her vision, knowing that she’s the weaker vessel and not celebrating her few mistakes, exaggerate her challenges or keep silent on her successes. IT’S VERY WRONG!

As a husband or even those in courtship, have to plan things with your wife, not you planning alone. This will enable her know your level of forwardness and in that case there won’t be any misunderstanding. Learn to plan things ahead of time along with your wife. Be the chief reminder & organizer of every of your family and personal – (Wife & Husband) celebration & learn to appreciate her.

Note: The law of focus says: Anything you meditate on grows inside you, what you spend the majority of your life thinking about is what you end up becoming. Therefore, think about each other daily, the way you usually think about your job or business.
You need to spend quality time with each other to enable you know your dos & don’ts, so that you can avoid critical misunderstanding. Often share your view & ideas together.

BUILD YOUR HOME/MARRIAGE WITH CHRIST:
“We wouldn’t think of building a stone fireplace without stones or of baking an apple pie without apples. Why then are so many people trying to build Christian homes without Christ? They try to maintain Christian principles, establish a Christian home & even use Christian terminology, but without the presence of Christ, there cannot be a Christian home. The great and holy God must be fulfilling in that home. He must be leaving in the hearts of those who call that house home.
Constantly allow Jesus to be the “extra ordinary strategies” in your marriage. And be fully hypnotized by HIS Words.

IN CASE OF CONFLICT OR CONFUSION PERIOD:
Learn to use “I” message instead of “you” message.
“I” messages makes us communicate our own feelings and take responsibility for them. They give others & mostly your spouse information about us. It simply means – we’re being more open. They suspend blame and improve trust & also help good communication.

“You” messages do the opposite & “get at” other people and make critical judgments.
They give little information about us & block further discussion.

THE SECRETE OF MARRIAGE:
The secret of marriage is simply - “Mutual understanding”.
Understanding bridges the dialogue of misunderstanding & grant you an enjoyable & peaceful marriage.

Spending time together & talking helps to prevent misunderstanding, but lack of communication builds up resentments. When we are open to each other & give more information about our inner thought & feelings, it usually improves our understanding & makes us slower to blame.

All these above explanations are mostly what marriage is all about. Unfortunately some who are not yet married only focus on saying –
“I want to get married”, thinking that marriage is just all about bed of roses, without knowing the real meaning of it. Including those already into marriage, still not fully aware of the broad meaning of marriage and these are part of the reasons why some are collapsing in this our recent society.

Anyway, I’m sure you have gained from this teaching & I hereby advice you to start applying it in your home from today, to enable you enjoy a romantic & peaceful marriage, to the glory of God.

The Lord will see you through!=)

Joy Ulumma Levi
joy_onlineministration@yahoo.com
www.joyulumma.blogspot.com

Fw: You Are Not an Accident =)

I am your creator. You were in my care even before you were born.
Isaiah 44:2a

God doesn’t play dice
Albert Einstein

You are not an accident.

Your birth was no mistake or mishap, and your life is no fluke of nature. Your parents may not have planned you, but God did. He was not at all surprised by your birth. In fact, he expected it.
Long before you were conceived by your parents, you were conceived in the mind of God. He thought of you first. It is not fate, nor chance, nor luck, nor coincidence that you are breathing at this very moment. You are alive because God wanted to create you! The Bible says, “The Lord will fulfill his purpose for me.”

God prescribed every single detail of your body. He deliberately chose your race, the color of your skin, your hair, and every other feature. He custom-made your body just the way he wanted it. He also determined the natural talents you would possess and the uniqueness of your personality. The Bible says, “You know me inside and out, you know every bone in my body; You know exactly how I was made, bit by bit, how I was sculpted from nothing into something.”
Because God made you for a reason, he also decided when you would be born and how long you would live. He planned the days of your life in advance, choosing the exact time of your birth and death. The Bible says, “You saw me before I was born and scheduled each day of my life before I began to breath. Everyday was recorded in your book.”

God also planned where you’d be born and where you’d live for His purpose. Your race and nationality are no accident. God left no detail to chance. He planned it all for His purpose. The Bible says, “From one man he made every nation,….and he determined the times set for them and the exact places where they should live.” Nothing in your life is arbitrary. It’s all for a purpose.

Most amazing, God decided how you would be born. Regardless of the circumstances of your birth or who your parents are, God had a plan in creating you. It doesn’t matter whether your parents were good, bad, or indifferent. God knew that those two individuals possessed exactly the right genetic makeup to create the custom “you” he had in mind. They had the DNA God wanted to make you.

While there are illegitimate parents, there are no illegitimate children. Many children are unplanned by their parents, but they are not unplanned by God. God’s purpose took into account human error, and even sin.

God never does anything accidentally, and he never makes mistakes. He has a reason for everything he creates. Every plant and every animal was planned by God, and every person was designed with a purpose in mind.

God’s motive for creating you was his love. The Bible says, “Long before He laid down earth’s foundations, he had us in mind, had settled on us as the focus of his love.”

God was thinking of you even before he made the world. In fact, that’s why he created it! God designed this planet’s environment just so we could live in it. We are the focus of his love and the most valuable of all his creation. The Bible says, “God decided to give us life through the word of truth so we might be the most important of all the things he made.” This is how much God loves and values you!

God id not haphazard; he planned it all with great precision. The more physicists, biologist, and other scientists learn about the universe, the better we understand how it is uniquely suited for our existence, custom-made with the exact specifications that make human life possible.
Dr. Michael Denton, senior research fellow in human molecular genetics at the University of Otago in New Zealand, has concluded, “All the evidence available in the biological sciences supports the core proposition….that the cosmos is a specially designed whole with life and mankind as its fundamental goal and purpose, a whole in which all facets of reality have their meaning and explanation in this central fact.” The Bible said the same thing thousands of years earlier: “God formed the earth….He did not create it to be empty but formed it to be inhabited.”
Why did God do all this? Why did he bother to go to all trouble of creating a universe for us? Because he is a God of love. This kind of love is difficult to fathom, but it’s fundamentally reliable. You were created as a special object of God’s love! God made you so he could love you. This is a truth to build your life on.

The Bible tells us, “God is love.” It doesn’t say God has love. He is love! Love is the essence of God’s character. There is perfect love in the fellowship of the Trinity, so God didn’t need to create you. He wasn’t lonely. But he wanted to make you in order to express his love. God says, “I have carried you since you were born; I have taken care of you from your birth. Even when you are old, I will be the same. Even when your hair has turned gray, I will take care of you. I made you and will take care of you.” Isaiah 46:3-4

If there was no God, we would all be “accidents,” the result of astronomical random chance in the universe. You could stop reading this, because life would have no purpose or meaning or significance. There would be no right or wrong, and no hope beyond your brief years here on earth.

But there is a God who made you for a reason, and your life has profound meaning! We discover that meaning and purpose only when we make God the reference point of our lives. The message paraphrase of Romans 12:3 says, “The only accurate way to understand ourselves is by what God is and by what he does for us.”

This poem by Russel Kelfer sums it up:

You are who you are for a reason.
You’re part of an intricate plan.
You’re a precious and perfect unique design,
Called God’s special woman or man.

You look like you look for a reason.
Our God made no mistake.
He knit you together within the womb,
You’re just what he wanted to make.

The parents you had were the ones he chose,
And no matter how you may feel,
They were custom-designed with God’s plan in mind,
And they bear the Master’s seal.

No, that trauma you faced was not easy.
And God wept that it hurt you so;
But it was allowed to shape your heart
So that into his likeness you’d grow.

You are who you are for a reason,
You’ve been formed by the Master’s rod.
You are who you are, beloved,
Because there is a God!!!

Points to Ponder: I am not an accident.

Verse to Remember: “I am your creator. You were in my care even before you were born.” Isaiah 44:2

Question to Consider: Knowing that God uniquely created me, what areas of my personality, background, and physical appearance am I struggling to accept?