What On Earth Is Possessing You?

When you downsize from a large 4 bedroom house and yard to a small 2 bedroom unit you soon learn a lot about possessions. You also learn a lot of unexpected things about possession!

Now when people talk about "being possessed" their immediate thoughts turn to satanic evil spirits, all things supernatural and the head spinning ability to see everything in a creepy 360 degree panorama. Seldom does anybody's thoughts turn to the everyday things lurking quietly in your house, yard, and garage - unless you are downsizing or somewhat tangential in your thinking. Or, as in my case, both.

We think in terms of owning stuff, but the truth is, it is the stuff that possesses us. And the more we own the more we become possessed. How many have saved up the money to by a flash new car, only to realise that suddenly they have to pay more of their hard earned dollars on insurance, services repairs and petrol. Not only that but suddenly every second weekend finds you in your driveway washing, polishing and vacuuming trying desperately to maintain that fresh, shiny, luxury new look you just paid so much for. You may have a flash new car and be the envy of the neighbourhood, but suddenly you find a not insignificant slice of your time and money and life has now been possessed by your car as you try to keep it in the manner to which it has rapidly become accustom. Then for some mad insane reason you think it would look so much better if it was towing a flash new boat. Suddenly another large chunk of your money and weekends disappears into "asset maintenance" as you somehow squeeze looking after the car and boat into the weekly routine of mowing, weeding, watering, vacuuming, leaf blowing, pool cleaning, etc., etc.

Then eventually you wake up one day and find you have succeeded in having everything you ever  dreamed of - except the time, money and energy to enjoy it. Your waking hours and weekly budget are spent looking after and maintaining all you have. Your life is no more your own. It is owned by the things you possess.

The short of it is, that when we buy stuff we are often just paying for the privilege of being thereafter enslaved to it. Now sometimes the benefit we derive from the stuff we have outweighs, or at least breaks even with, the costs, effort, time and energy needed to maintain it. But there are times when we would be better off using the money, time, effort, and energy elsewhere. Those times greatly increase the more we own and the more of our lives we need to set aside for maintaining it. It is exceedingly easy to reach a point where everything we do is for the sake of everything we own.

We use to have a pool, until we realised we spent an extraordinarily greater amount of time and energy cleaning it, repairing it and maintaining it than we ever did actually in it. It is a really nice garden now. Likewise we use to have a 4 bedroom house surrounded by 1,000 square metres of lawns and gardens and an inordinately large portion of our lives and budget was just spent doing nothing more than maintaining it all. But eventually, after our children had grown up and had places of their own, there was only the two of us there and we only lived in three and a bit rooms. Our lives had become possessed by the upkeep of things we really did not need. So we downsized to a two bedroom unit by the water that takes all of ten minutes to vacuum if you try hard enough and no yard-work at all.

But downsizing was only the process. What we were really doing was upsizing and refocusing our lives by downsizing the things that possessed it. All that time energy and money we spent maintaining what we really did not need we can now invest in the things that really are important and meaningful to us .... And to the Lord.  For who we are and what we value most, especially in the eyes of the Lord, is not about what we possess, but about what we do with what we possess.  And in the end all we really possess is .... the life He has given us. What will you do with the one He has given you?

"Do not store up for yourselves treasures on earth, where moth and rust destroy, and where thieves break in and steal. But store up for yourselves treasures in heaven, where moth and rust do not destroy, and where thieves do not break in and steal. For where your treasure is, there your heart will be also. (Matthew 6:19-21)

D.J. Ludlow

Provided it is done freely and without charge

"What On Earth Is Possessing You?" may be copied, used and distributed

(in its entirety only, including this notice)

by brothers and sisters in Christ

to the profit and glory of The Lord alone (ttpagoTLa)

By special permission of 

D.J. Ludlow copyright 2016

#smallgiftsministries #ttpagoTLa

SEACHANGE: Episode 4 - Restoration Begins ...

 “Behold, I will do a new thing, Now it shall spring forth; Shall you not know it? I will even make a road in the wilderness and rivers in the desert.” (Isaiah 43:19.)

"In that I command you today to love the LORD your God, to walk in His ways, and to keep His commandments, His statutes, and His judgments, that you may live and multiply; and the LORD your God will bless you in the land which you go to possess." (Deuteronomy 30:16)

My serious ongoing health issues have always been a major part of our seeking from the Lord a way forward. A path toward healing and restoration of my health was vital if we were to have any future beyond a mere struggle for survival.

With careful management and strict avoidance of the vast array of triggering chemicals that pervade our modern world my health had improved, but only to a point. I was considerably better than I was when first diagnosed in 1996, but along with the MCS, several other serious health issues from pesticide poisoning remained and life continued to be an ongoing battle on many fronts for myself and my precious, ever supportive wife. But we knew the Lord had a bigger  plan for our lives than a daily battle to retain what health I had and to strictly avoid any trace of a very long and largely unknown list of chemicals. We just didn't know how to get to it. As normal in a life lived by faith we had to quite literally wait upon the Lord to show us the way forward to the life He had planned for us. So we waited, not always patiently I must admit, looking for His leading and when we saw it we followed it and ended up here in a waterfront unit on the coast. We were amazed at the string of miraculous events (covered in the previous "episodes") that guided us and enabled us to get here, But we soon found out that even more miracles were yet to come.

Although my severe allergic reactions to a large range of chemicals still occur if I encounter them, as soon as we arrived here on the coast many of my other worryingly persistent health issues began to rapidly ease. My life-threatening sleep apnea disappeared literally overnight. (Same bed, same linen, same pillows. Only our location changed.) My ongoing allergic conjunctivitis did the same. Then after being here a couple of weeks ( the longest we had ever stayed in this area) I "suffered" a massive detox event and my body just seemed to dump a whole heap of accumulated toxic "rubbish". So much so that my body even went through something like withdrawal symptoms (sweats, nausea, shakes, fever, chills, the whole bit).

But at the end I felt better than I had for ages and my persistent edema related (fluid retention) problems began to disappear rapidly, especially in my ankles and lower legs. It left me a bit "saggy baggy" and wondering what the heck was happening for a few days but things are re-adjusting themselves a bit better now. Still trying to get use to a trimmer healthier, fitter me but feeling more full of life than I have for a very long time.

I am sure doctors and other medical experts will have all sorts of theories and explanations as to why so many long term chronic health issues suddenly started clearing up overnight by simply moving. But we were led to move here by the Lord amid many earnest prayers for healing and soon after arriving here a lovely couple at the local church spontaneously laid hands on me and also prayed for complete healing. I know to whom my praise and thanks will always go. Thank You Lord for all things and the faithfulness of Your promises and leading.

That is the last of the "Seachange Episodes" (or perhaps I should have called them moving miracles). But the experiences of downsizing and moving has given me plenty of insights for other articles that I will add to my blog as and when it seems right. Back soon Lord willing.....

With love from Christ in IslandBard.

Seachange: Episode 3 - We Do That How???

 “Behold, I will do a new thing, Now it shall spring forth; Shall you not know it? I will even make a road in the wilderness and rivers in the desert.” (Isaiah 43:19.)

"In that I command you today to love the LORD your God, to walk in His ways, and to keep His commandments, His statutes, and His judgments, that you may live and multiply; and the LORD your God will bless you in the land which you go to possess." (Deuteronomy 30:16)

Feeling led by the Lord to downsize and move to the coast is one thing. Figuring out how to do that is quite another. But you know a vision is from the Lord when unexpected miracles begin to happen to make that vision a reality.

The first miracle had actually already happened. A year or so earlier we had finally decided to bite the financial bullet and renovate both our kitchen and bathroom / laundry area after years of thinking about it. What we didn't realise at the time is that not only did it make our place more sellable but it made it sellable at about the same price we could by a unit on the coast. We thought we were investing in our house. We were actually investing in our future home. Therefore it was a total surprise when we asked a real estate agent to value our place and he came back with a figure much higher than we thought possible. One that made a move to the coast within our financial reach with a small loan from the bank.

Only later did we appreciate the perfect timing of the Lord. Having a brand new kitchen and bathroom / laundry areas our house would only lose relative value the older they got and the older we got the harder it would be to get a loan. It was a now or never time to move for us and the Lord had chosen this very time to show us a way forward through a door that would also soon close.

Now selling and buying a home when you need the proceeds from the one you sell in order to buy the other one is tricky at the best of times. It is increased a hundredfold when you have MCS. The place you own is the only safe place you have to live at the time. Your new place not only has to be available at the right price and time, it also has to be one of the few that will not make you sick. And the only way to find that out is go and spend as long as possible walking around in it and in the streets around it.

To make matters even more difficult we have a dog and not all unit and townhouse complexes on the coast are pet friendly we discovered. But even here the Lord had already gone before us. A very recent court ruling now makes it almost impossible for Body Corporates to prohibit owner occupiers from having small dogs under 10 Kg. Not only is our dog 7.8 kg but the place the Lord eventually led us to is one of the pet friendly ones.

So with much prayer and seeking after the will of the Lord we put our house on the market and began a string of visits to the coast, unit hunting. Apart from learning that a lot of townhouses and units and even locations are not safe even near the coast the other lesson you quickly learn is that in the eyes of real estate agents you may as well not exist until your current house is under contract. Until then you are just a browser, not a buyer. Unless you already have a 6 digit bank balance (in black, not in red) and a better than average chance of a loan approval for any shortfall no seller is going to seriously consider entering into a contract with you.

This is where we really began to gain an even deeper appreciation of what it means to take a step of faith with the Lord. We had no option but to enter into a binding contract to sell our home before we could even begin to secure a new safe place to live. We faced the very real possibility of being homeless for an unknown length of time with nowhere for me to stay. But it was the step we believed the Lord wanted us to take so we pulled a Nike and just did it.

Selling a house is fun and exciting ..... for about a week. After that it is just an ongoing grueling task of decluttering, downsizing and prepacking whilst endlessly keeping the house and yard spick and span and inspection ready for prospective buyers, while still regularly taking seven hour round trips to the coast to look at properties.

Our real estate agent put a surprisingly good value on our house and land but a small, quiet voice kept telling us to drop the price a little to a certain figure, so we did. The housing market where we were was extremely sluggish with some places being on the market for months on end and some over a year. Our 25 year old house (give or take) was not the best or most modern on the market but the wisdom of that small quiet voice prevailed. Our house was under contract in about 6 weeks. But come settlement day a mere 6 weeks later we would be homeless unless we could secure a safe place down on the coast we could move to.

On a previous visit to the coast we had driven across a small bridge near the beach and an overwhelming feeling came over me that this was the place we were meant to be. It turned out that our future home was on the very next block but we took a very long complicated path to get there. We looked at many places. Some were very, very nice but unaffordable. Some were very affordable but unlivable without major renovations. Some made me very, very ill. But there was a very small number in the "Goldilocks zone" (just right).

This was where we learned a whole new aspect of how the Lord leads his people. Like the good shepherd He is, sometimes He leads from the front. Going ahead of us as we follow in His footsteps. But there are times when He leads from beside and behind. Gently preventing us from straying this way or that from the path He has laid out before us. Encompassing us about with love and preventing us from wandering off or being led astray.

We seriously considered several units where I did not appear to be affected but there always seem to be something to prevent us from purchasing. Some we put offers on only to have them declined. Some sold before we could make an offer. At one point we even entered a contract to purchase a 3 bedroom townhouse in a nearby suburb that we thought the Lord had led us to but it fell through on a very bad building inspection report. But that left us with just one month exactly to find and buy a new place before we became homeless. The Lord had a place set aside for us and was ensuring that we did not end up anywhere but there even though we were rapidly running out of time to find it and secure it.

So we began a new search for the place we knew the Lord had set aside for us - if only we could find it. Settlement on our existing home was due 6th June and on 7th May we once more made the 7 hour round trip to the coast with a worryingly short list of properties to inspect. One place not on that list is the place we now live in. We had seen it on realestate.com.au several times but had always dismissed it based on the floor plan included in the listing. It simply did not look big enough. But we did have on the list another unit in the same complex. It was the very last property on our woefully short list. We did not know at the time that all the units in the complex have the same basic floor plan and were all of a similar size.

When we got there we liked the layout, the size, the location, and the look of the fully refurbished unit on the list. We made an offer only to be told that the unit was actually already under contract to another buyer. But then we recognised the layout of the unit. It was the exact same layout as the one we had dismissed so many times. We pulled out our smart phones and not only was the other one still on the market but the price had been recently dropped to be considerably lower than the unit we were inspecting. So while at the complex we phoned the estate agent handling the other unit and about 15 minutes later we were inspecting it. It was exactly what we had been looking for in the exact location we had hoped for and while it needed some refurbishing the savings on the price neatly covered the cost of most of the more important renovations. What is more I had no reactions at all to the unit or the complex around it. By 12th May we had a contract on the unit a mere 25 days before we had to move out of the only safe place I had to live. In addition the unit was vacant and we were able to arrange simultaneous settlements on the 6th June. But it still had to pass the building and pest inspections and we still needed a loan from the bank. It passed all inspections with flying colours and the bank was happy to approve a loan in 14 days instead of the usual 21 days. Equally miraculously it worked out after all the buying and selling negotiations involved in both sales that the difference between the selling price of our existing house and the purchase price of the new place was a mere $1,500. Almost a straight swap over.

From facing the very real likelihood of homelessness we ended up walking out of our old home and straight into our new home just one block from the bridge where weeks earlier I had the overwhelming conviction that this was the place the Lord wanted us to be.

But the miracles did not end there and what happened next was beyond our wildest expectations. But that is for the next episode. Lord willing I will be back soon to tell you all about it.

With love from Christ in Islandbard.

#smallgiftsministries #ttpagoTLa 

Seachange: Episode 2 - It All Began When...

Twenty years after chronic pesticide exposure left me with Multiple Chemical Sensitivities (MCS) and multiple ongoing health problems there seemed little prospect of getting any better than I was. Despite all I could still do, ministry opportunities were becoming fewer and further between until only those I do on-line remained. But even these were beginning to suffer as maintaining a large house, lawns and gardens seemed to increasingly demand more and more of the limited time, energy and health I had.

Doors were closing but none were opening and I began to pray to the Lord to open a door and show us a way forward.

Unknown to me my dear hardworking wife was praying the same thing as she watched the toll it was taking on my time and health to maintain a large house and yard we no longer actually needed as she contemplated her own array of closing doors.

Then early in 2016 the Lord spoke in a small quiet voice, and my wife was listening. As often happens with such life changing events it began with a simple daily devotional and a Bible reading.

 “Behold, I will do a new thing, Now it shall spring forth; Shall you not know it? I will even make a road in the wilderness and rivers in the desert.” (Isaiah 43:19.)

"In that I command you today to love the LORD your God, to walk in His ways, and to keep His commandments, His statutes, and His judgments, that you may live and multiply; and the LORD your God will bless you in the land which you go to possess." (Deuteronomy 30:16)

And somehow my wife knew she had just been told that the Lord was preparing a way through the current wilderness for us to a place we are to go to possess. But where and how remained a mystery. The only things we knew was that we needed to downsize and that I always seemed healthier down on the coast than where we were living.

Years earlier the Lord had led us unexpectedly to a safe set of beachfront holiday units down on the coast managed by a very helpful couple who soon became good friends. Equally important it was an area I could safely walk around in each time we visited. But it was only now that we began to realise why the Lord had led us to that place all those years ago. When you have MCS the most important test for a safe place to live is also the most difficult to apply - the test of time.

About the same time we also discovered there was a nearby church that not only maintained a website but which also made podcasts of its sermons available online. A spirit filled church that appeared to be sound in both doctrine and Biblical teaching. It was even of the same denomination we were currently fellowshipping with. A place where we might find like-minded fellowship and opportunities to serve the Lord together.

Some might call it all a fortunate coincidence but when you believe in the Lord you stop believing in coincidence and begin to see the work of the mighty, and provident, hand of the Lord. A hand that seemed to be pointing very decidedly to the "where". But as to the "how", that was yet to be revealed. But that is for the next episode.....

Lord willing, back soon with the next part.

With the love of Christ in IslandBard. 

#smallgiftsministries #ttpagoTLa

Seachange: Episode 1 - It Begins

OK, the reason things have been a bit quiet here of late is because we have been up to our eyeballs in the myriad complexities of simultaneously selling our old "MCS friendly" place, buying a new "MCS friendly" place, downsizing our life from house dwellers to unit dwellers and moving from an inland rural town life to a coastal city life. It has been an "interesting", if at times somewhat harrowing, couple of months as we vacillated between not being able to sell (and therefore not able to buy) and the very real risk at times of being homeless with no safe place for me to live either there or here. But we are in the new place now and with all praise and glory to the Lord it continues to prove safe for me. I suppose technically we are still moving in with one room still full of boxes and "stuff" waiting to be unpacked sorted and "downsized", and a few things we still need to do to keep the tradies employed and assorted government authorities, utility companies, and all the other organisations with a vested interest in our life, happy.

Still, with all praise, thanks, and Glory to the Lord here we are now in a nice "cosy" unit on the coast. Our only neighbours to the East of the complex are seagulls, pelicans, fish and other assorted marine life - and the odd houseboat dweller. But for an MCS sufferer a clean, fresh breeze from nothing but open ocean is about as safe as it gets.

Through it all we have seen the awesome hand of the Lord at work and I am hoping to share it all with you here over the next few weeks or so. Too many amazing things for a single blog so expect a "mini-series". Hopefully back soon with the first "episode".

With the love of Christ in IslandBard.

#smallgiftsministries #ttpagoTLa 

The Church In My Garden

Around my house is a thriving, somewhat over-exuberant, garden. Once it was all pine bark chips over black plastic with spindly, sickly looking sticks with leaves in something that pretended to be soil, with a PH level approaching that of caustic soda. It was not a garden, it was not happy, and it was definitely not thriving.

It had not been designed to thrive, but simply to suppress weeds and grass. But a garden, like a church, is about life and cannot thrive if in the desire for control you suppress the very things that bring life to it. The secret to a thriving garden is not control, but a gardener who, waters, feeds, protects and nurtures each of the god given lives in it. Even pruning is not about control but the health and wellbeing of the plant.

First I released the plants from the shackles of pine bark, plastic, and a growth destroying alkaline environment. Then I fed and watered them, giving them the freedom and  resources to do what they had wanted to do all along - to grow and thrive.

And I have added to them. Some are brought at great price. Some rescued from sure death elsewhere. Others are the offspring of distant gardens, or blow-ins and grow-ins from next door, and still others are born here. Some have been moved several times in search of the place where they will thrive rather than struggle. And it is all natural and organic. They grow and thrive as God intended them to grow and thrive. Each free to be what God made them to be.  And as they are freed and encouraged do all this the most amazing things happen.

For instance you do not have to control weeds much at all. Once thriving your plants will do that. The bigger, stronger plants shelter and protect the smaller ones. They even help feed those whose roots cannot reach the deeper places by providing leaves and fruits as nutrition for all. And just by each one being as God intended them to be and rejoicing in it together they become a beautiful and refreshing place to be in.

D.J. Ludlow

Provided it is done freely and without charge

"The Church In My Garden" may be copied, used and distributed

(in its entirety only, including this notice)

by brothers and sisters in Christ

to the profit and glory of The Lord alone (ttpagoTLa)

By special permission of 

D.J. Ludlow copyright 2016

#smallgiftsministries #ttpagoTLa