I have been getting very depressed at the number of friends who are initiating the emigration process, some to the UK but most to Australia or New Zealand.
My mood today though has been one of “God is good, all the time…”. Not only was the sermon today excellent, and beautifully applicable to thoughts of emigration but I was just blown away at how God can use a message from Habakkuk to such a modern predicament.
I have always heard how relevant the Word of God is to us today as it was to those who read it for the first time since it was written.
“Behold, is it not from the LORD of hosts that peoples labor merely for fire, and nations weary themselves for nothing? ” (Hab. 2:13 ESV)
I would recommend taking a trip down to http://www.midrandchapel.za.org and downloading the sermon for a listen.
So the question begs, Why do I remain in South Africa? What is it about this country which makes me overlook all the negatives, the negatives which the entire world is putting in their newspapers? Well I am not too sure, after today’s sermon I can safely say that every decision that I have made so far in my life has been without real worry. I have always had the notion that things will always sort themselves out. Over the last couple of months I have been through some very interesting times and learned allot, but one of the major realisations that I have come to over this time is that God is totally sovereign, and as long as I have faith in His sovereignty, the Will of God will play out in the end. No matter what mistakes I make in any decisions that I may take. So no, things will not work themselves out, but God will work them out in my life.
So that is pretty much what keeps me here, I know God is working in my life and at the moment I am just on a roller coaster ride. At times I do feel that I am not in control and it does stress me out in times of weakness. I guess the past few days has been a time of weakness but from this morning I have been tempted to quote Philippians 4:13, however I would be using it very charismatically and totally out of context. The truth is though that I do feel strengthened by the power of God and even though verse 13 is Paul talking about his own weaknesses and how God strengthened him, I feel that if God could strengthen Paul in his time of need, then God is more than capable to strengthen me as well.
This post is turning into quite a large one so I think I should start to conclude it now. But I will say this one final thing, if you have found this post and are thinking of emigrating from South Africa, I don’t have a definitive answer for you whether you should leave the country or not. There are many people who would offer their advice and tell you how bad this country is. They site things like Power cuts (Germany is saying that power cuts are coming for Germany soon because of the lack of generating capacity), Zuma (God places all leaders into power and we are to submit to their authority), or crime (my sister has been robbed more times in 4 years in the UK than our family has been robbed in 28 years), but I don’t have any advice, the reason being that I do not make decisions for you, you need to make them yourself. Your situation is unique to you and your family and no one can make any decisions on your behalf. Whether you emigrate or not is something between you and God, so take the decision to God and let him deal with it, and stop worrying about it. If you continue to worry yourself sick about it then you need to hand over everything to God so that He can deal with it in His way and in His timing.
Well that’s me, I am out
I am JMR and this is My Little Corner on JMRPub.com
Wow what a sermon this morning. I really recommend taking a trip to http://www.midrandchapel.za.org and downloading the message.
As Christians we tend to get complacent with our lives. We read our bibles, pray about our friend’s and our own problems and we live our lives happy in the knowledge that God sent His son to do all the hard work for us and all we have to do is accept it. Well there is a commission given to us by Jesus Himself. Check out Matthew 28:16-20 and get yourself a copy of the sermon.
Here is a pretty good video as well, from a movie called The Most, which translates to The Bridge.
I am JMR and this is My Little Corner on JMRPub.com
Well it is already 13 days into the new year and I am now only making the first post of 2008. I have been doing a lot of analysing and trying to determine the lesson that I should be learning through the situation I mentioned in previous posts. Let me just say that there is a bundle of lessons that I have learned. I am coming back on track with my recovering introvert status but I still have to work on some areas which are taking longer to sort out.
Anyway since this is the first post of the new year I would like to give you a few tips to handle your money bette. Everyone knows these three easy steps but very few people actually put them into action. With prices increasing all the time, saving money can be harder and harder to do.
1. BUDGET – Get one and stick with it! And set aside at least a small portion for savings while you’re at it; savings for your future, your retirement, your education, your vacation, whatever. Head to your local office supply store for planning workbooks or budget sheets to use. Or head to your favorite search engine and type in, “budget planning” for hundreds of sites with articles, free downloads, tips, ebooks and other resources to help with your budget setup and follow up.
2. PLAN AHEAD – Make sure to plan for emergencies and the unexpected, like an appliance break down or garage door malfunction. Even if you can only set aside $50 or so each monthly, place it in an account and earmark it for this “Miscellaneous” fund. Then when things go wrong, and they will – nothing’s perfect – you’ll be better prepared.
3. NON-MONTHLY ITEMS – Work out a monthly payment for items that you don’t pay monthly and set this up in your regular monthly budget. For example, for items like annual home owner or renter insurance, quarterly water bills and automobile insurance payments and annual trash bills, take the amounts and determine what they would be monthly. Then list the items on your budget log and pull these amounts aside, saving them in your account for those purposes. This way, when the bills hit, you won’t be caught off guard and have to scrounge for the payments.
What works well, instead of handling multiple savings accounts for each company owed, is to use index cards and one savings account. Create one index card for each bill. Then simply log the amount you’re setting aside on the card and deposit it into your savings account. Keep the index cards with your savings passbook to remind you what the balance covers. The total of all your index cards should equal the balance in your savings account. (Make sure to create an index card for your regular funds that you are saving each month in step one above and a card for your Miscellaneous fund in step two above).
So next time you get paid, take three giant steps forward. Grab your index cards, follow your budget and invest in yourself and your future. Get a grip on your money handling.
I am JMR and this is My Little Corner on JMRPub.com
Wow what a Christmas to remember. I hope all my readers had a great one and a happy upcoming new year too.
My Christmas unfortunately is not one which I really care to remember but it will probably stay with me forever, I placed myself in a situation in which the end result bounced me back a few steps in my recovering introvert status. I think it zapped me back by about a year so there is a lot of ground to cover to try and catch up.
Anyway I think I need to keep this short as I do not feel comfortable really talking about the situation. I will say this though, anyone who thinks life is easy is going to come in for a landing soon and will realise that life doesn’t issue any landing gear so get ready for a real bumpy landing.
Sometimes someone comes along and simply makes the world look very wrong. This 13 year old named Logan is one of those people. Listen to his call made to a Christian radio station.
I am JMR and this is My Little Corner on JMRPub.com
When the world shows us temptation, lets show them Christ
When the world shows us suffering, lets show them Christ
When the world shows us enmity, lets show them Christ
When the world shows us a helpless baby, in a manger, protected by a donkey, showered with gifts of earthly riches,
Lets show them a Son, hanging on the cross, taking OUR temptation, OUR suffering, OUR enmity
and DEFEATING them all by rising from death.
I am JMR and this is My Little Corner on JMRPub.com
Can you believe it, as of Friday last week, this planet has held on to me for 3 decades. I thought my 30th birthday would be the same as any other, but it turned out to be a real stressful time. I won’t go into too much detail at the moment but I have hinted in previous posts about the exact thing that was keeping my mind occupied the whole weekend.
I am going to keep this a short one because I am still feeling a bit miff (Sorry, thats a South African word and I don’t an english word which quite describes the feeling adequately.) and don’t really feel like posting but wanted to get my blog updated again.
I am JMR and this is My Little Corner on JMRPub.com
My personal opinion is no. First of all these sites are the future of the internet, coined Web 2.0 by those who feel they can name the internet, social engineering sites have exploded in as little time as one year. But what does that have to do with your children? Well take a look at the article from USA Today and see what the opinion of a youth pastor is.
Please parents, take an active role in your child’s online life, because there are some real sickos out there just waiting for your childs personal details.
I am JMR and this is My Little Corner on JMRPub.com
Wow if I believed in modern day prophecy I might just call myself a prophet
If you recall my post entitled spam rants about a month ago, you may remember that I mentioned the possibility of hearing from the spammer’s lawyers, well today I received a second legal notice from his lawyers regarding my complaints about the spammer.
I must admit today’s letter was worded a bit better, however it is plain that the legal firm has very little knowledge on the internet. They demanded, and I quote “that [I] contact the administrator of gmail that you used and retract the statements made and post an apology”. Their idea is that I can ask Gmail to recall the email that I sent to the spammer, even though he has already read my mail.
It really annoys me that a company can be allowed to bully a potential client like this. How much does it hurt the company to write a personal “Hey there buddy, I got your details off xyzwebsite.co.za and thought you may be interested in our product. If you are not interested, don’t hassle, you will not receive any further correspondence from us unless you specifically request it.”
Now that is a perfectly legitimate commercial mail. It tells me where they got my details from and does not automatically assume that I am interested in the product, they give me the option to sign up or ignore this once off mail. Instead I get this mail from a spammer, assuming that I am definitely interested in his product and only gives me a link to click to unsubscribe. Everyone knows that 90% of the unsubscribe links simply confirm the address as a “hot address”, in other words, a valid email address checked by a real person, and the spammer sends more mail to that address and possibly sells the list to other spammers. Now I am not saying that this particular spammer that I am talking about falls within that 90%, he may very well fall within the 10% who has a legitimate unsubscribe process, but I need to ask myself, do I really want to take that chance? I have a 1 to 9 ratio of success, so the odds really are not in my favour.
Therefore I decided to take the legal route, to challenge the spammer according to the South African Electronic Communications and Transmissions act. He simply responds that I am giving his business a bad name by doing this, and threatens to sue me if I lay criminal charges against him.
Well I guess we are going to see what happens, I am going to print off all his mails including the headers, and go and open a docket with the police tomorrow. That docket will then be escalated to the Commercial Crimes Unit and said spammer will receive a calling card from a detective whose job it is to evaluate the conduct of the business activities of the spammer, and hopefully he receives his rightful sentence.
As a South African I stand against spam, and I call everyone, South African or not, to stand with me. If you have any legal qualifications in this regard, I invite you to contact me by commenting on this post and I will send you my contact details. I would like to get some advice on where I stand with this issue.
I am JMR and this is My Little Corner on JMRPub.com
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