‘Remain in me, as I also remain in you. No branch can bear fruit by itself; it must remain in the vine. Neither can you bear fruit unless you remain in me.’

and i also love o use Psalm 46.10 which talks about being still and knowing that I [God] am God:

‘He says, “Be still, and know that I am God; I will be exalted among the nations, I will be exalted in the earth.”’

and lately i’ve been hearing myself speak [write] them and then being hit mid sentence by the fact that i’m not really living them. i mean i kinda am, but not really. i’ve been distracted by the IPL fantasy dream league cricket which has happily coincided with my waking up times [finished today – hooray!] and then the day hits and carries on until bed time. and i steal moments away for God, and take time to remember important people and situations in prayer [as there have been a lot of them lately] and somehow use that to justify or get me through the day. but i know better.

this isn’t a new thing. i feel like i have a distractionary personality or tendency, which does not mean i am blaming how i am for how i have been – and it doesn’t have to be a specific distraction either, which maybe makes it harder cos it’s not about getting a handle on Words with Friends or Mousehunt or Poker or whatever the next thing is, cos it seems like there will always be a next thing… it is more about being aware of what the tendency is and putting in the hard work [and more importantly discipline, and schedule often helps for me] to avoid getting into those spaces. and also to remind myself daily what the priorities are: God, my beautiful wife Valerie, my family and friends, kingdom things…

i feel like it is so important to live the preach before i preach the preach cos the definition of a hypocrite is pretty much the opposite of that. the word hypocrite incidentally came from the word they used for actor [a person pretending to be something they are not] and so it is very apt.

i certainly don’t believe that i need to have it all together before i speak or write or challenge, but i need to be at least walking that road.

and today was a bit of an injection of that for me today – i don’t think it was a case of a whole bunch of time with God and so now i’m okay – more like a Red Bull sip of God and so i have the energy to get me to the place where i need to be to put in the work to get things back to being good with God. but it was a great start. some good worship vibes. some inspiration to film a couple of the next walk through Mark videos i’m doing and suddenly it started to all come alive again. i always find when i’m speaking out Truth it becomes or feels the most Truthful to me. so that was great.

it’s a start. a getting back on the road. a little bit of dusting off. and it’s good. looking forward to this week ahead.

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