pramnesia [which is why we got to pray, just to make it today]

“Just part one ocean in front of me, once, God, and i will never doubt you again!”

that’s how i think sometimes. but a huge part of me knows it unlikely to be true. it wasn’t enuff for the Israelites [a day later they were whining about water so God made  it appear out of a rock, then it was food and God made bread appear six days a week, then it was about the fact that it was bread and so God sent meat and then finally when Moses goes up the mountain to meet with God they get tired and ask for an alternative God to worship…  [it doesn’t end well]]

but it’s a nice thought to have anyways – if God just does this big amazing impossible thing then i will believe-Him believe Him for ever and ever.

tonite, in the room of inspiration, i came up with the term ‘Pramnesia’ which i think a lot of us are inflicted with:

Pram.ne.sia

/pramˈnēZHə/

Noun

A partial or total loss of memory linked to matters relating to answered prayer.

we see or experience God answer prayer [in some small or big way] and then the next time we are faced with an obstacle or a difficult person or a huge loss, we forget completely how faithful God has been to us and either rail against Him, or forget about Him completely while we try sort the thing out in our own strength, or just completely fall to pieces.

now this becomes a ‘thing to hold in tension’ or a ‘the mystery of God piece’ when we add it to the fact that God is not a big one-armed-bandit in the sky – say the prayer, pull the leaver and instant win… sometimes God’s very real answer to prayer is “No!” and other times it might be, “Yes, but not now” and even other times it might be, “Absolutely yes, but completely not in the way you are expecting.”

another part to hold on to is this description of God in Ephesians 3.20: ‘to Him who is able to do immeasurably more than all we ask or imagine, according to His power that is at work within us,’

actually, the Message sums it up pretty well: ‘God can do anything, you know – far more than you could ever imagine or guess or request in your wildest dreams! He does it not by pushing us around but by working within us, his Spirit deeply and gently within us.’

and therein lies the point: God is able to do IMMEASURABLY MORE than ALL WE CAN HOPE OR IMAGINE.

i say this a lot, but i want to encourage you to start believing that perhaps we need to start hoping or imagining bigger. or at least more consistently.

so if you have been struggling with pramnesia, then my advice is to stop it.

let the answered prayers of the past be the catalysts for the bigger prayers you are going to pray for this day – i’m not talking prosperity doctrine at all but about kingdom doctrine – His kingdom here on earth as it is in heaven… or another way to look at it, ‘what this earthly kingdom would look like if God was King here.’

why not try this… for the next week, at the start of each day, pray a simple prayer inviting God to present an opportunity for you to: show Love to someone who is feeling down/speak to someone about something God has done in your life/have a conversation with someone you know by name but whose story you have never heard/highlight a person who you need to forgive or ask forgiveness from… whatever it is doesn’t matter, but pray a prayer inviting God to action in your life… and then be on the look out for the opportunity and take it.

and i’d love it if you returned here and shared some of those answered prayers once they’ve happened…

 

How to Love your husband/wife better: The Parts

these are a series of posts i am sharing that i have taken from a series called ‘How to Love your Woman/Man better’ from a while back and also a series titled ‘One way to Love your spouse better’ that i ran more recently [with the input of some friends] – there are many incredible gems here that can help you as you look to contribute to a healthy and thriving marriage and i hope you will find them useful and if so, please feel free to share and pass on…

Arguing Well

The Defining of Love

Small Intentional Sacrifices

Verbal Blessing

Halting the Movement of the Sun

Amnesia

Choosing This Day

Saying It

When my “yes” sounds like a “NO!”

doing the next right thing [Dalene Reyburn]

my beautiful wife Valerie [tbV] wrote a couple of thoughts on how to love your man better and so i thought these would be good to include here as they have a distinctly different flavour:

How to love your man better – “Just love him…”

How to love your man better – “Respond to his character”

How to love your man better – “Be Nice”

april 8 brett andy quotes to be voted upon…

so one of my favourite funny people in life is a guy called Jack Handey who used to write one liners that were used on SNL such as:

“Whenever you read a good book, it’s like the author is right there, in the room, talking to you, which is why I don’t like to read good books.” [Jack Handey]

and:

“Laurie got offended that I used the word “puke.” But to me, that’s what her dinner tasted like.” [Jack Handey]

or even:

“It’s too bad that whole families have to be torn apart by something as simple as wild dogs.” [Jack Handey]

some random, some funny, some randomly funny, some just clever and i really dig most of them. So much so that i decided that it is time for me to reach deep within my misdirected randomised humour machine and see if there is anything lurking there that might make people smile or gently laugh and hopefully even one day create a legitimate laughing out loud experience [milk or coke out the nose and i’ll have arrived!]

so i’ve started writing some brett [my first name] andy’s [shortened form of my last name, to avoid being sued] and i’m keen to have some feedback… this is my second list of brett andy’s to assess and i would appreciate it if you could read through them and highlight which ones you think really work and which your funniest one or two are [one of them i think is really horrible but overall i think as a whole they’re better than my first list]

“I wonder if Bono would have mixed reactions today if he stumbled upon that misplaced item from the past because, yes, I finally have found it after all these years, but the song has gotten pretty big.” [brett andy]

“It really messes with my mind that I’ve got memories of the last time I had amnesia.” [brett andy]

“Slinkies, the series ‘Friends’, Facebook, Terry Pratchett, microwaved chocolate, Johnny Depp, tall wild mochas, Survivor, polaroid sunglasses and astro hockey have all come into existence since the initial dividing up of our bread into toastable pieces. All I’m saying is, it’s high time we update that saying.” [brett andy]

“I sometimes wonder if the very first accident actually involved an axe and the groove that was formed in some surface due to the mindlessly casual swinging thereof.” [brett andy]

“I don’t understand why I have so much bellybutton fluff. I guess I’ve just been incredibly lucky cos I only really started collecting seriously a couple of months ago.” [brett andy]

“I really hate how Coffee keeps me up every night. Why my neighbour had to call his german shepherd that, I don’t think I’ll ever understand.” [brett andy]

“I wonder who the first person was who said, “Hey, why don’t we push a stick through a marshmallow and hold it over the flames and then eat it once it’s melted in the middle,” because that didn’t turn out so badly, did it?” [brett andy]

“I did a search for Spiderman on the web the other day.” [brett andy]

“A mare is simply an adult female horse. I’m just not sure why seeing them after the sun has gone down is so scary.” [brett andy]

“Walking underneath a ladder, after breaking a mirror, is considered to bring you extreme bad luck, especially when there are vicious snarling black cats, that haven’t been fed for a week, standing on every single one of the steps of that ladder. Oh, and also you’re a mouse.” [brett andy]

and another guest Mjandey from MJ:

“The problem with having female tribal leaders is that everyone would always try and make a pun out of Ms. Chief.” [Mjandey]

[to go straight to next page of brett andy’s click here]

How to love your woman better part ‘Amnesia’

If you had to ask me what is one of the key principles in loving your woman well (whether it be wife or girlfriend) i would say to you, “I don’t remember.”

No i mean that’s the answer… intentional amnesia

In the Bible, Paul writes ‘Love does not keep a record of wrongs’ and that is a solid principle to employ in your relationship with your loved one – it also works for friends and family but in terms of that special woman in your life it is not even an option or a would-be-nice – it is an absolute.

If Val does something to hurt me and i respond with a line like “you always…” or “you never” it screams to her that i have not forgiven her for times in the past when she has hurt me and i have said that i have forgiven her. No, instead i am keeping a mental record of all her past transgressions and making another mark in that same column.

Choose to forget. And forget doesn’t mean not having the mental capacity to remember because it’s not like we can affect that so much, but rather it means not holding that thing against the other person. So when Val hurts me i need to treat it as if it is the first time she has hurt me in that way and not bring back all the other similar-themed times where it happened in the past.

[what makes this all a lot easier is your starting point which can be difficult to return to in the moment of anger or frustration… but my starting point with Val is knowing that she would never intentionally choose to hurt me as i would never intentionally choose to hurt her – sometimes it is done by mistake, sometimes it is caused by selfishness or pride or laziness or tiredness or context-affected emotion or whatever. But if i can take a step back from the incident or words uttered and go back to the starting point of ‘Valerie-Claire Anderson loves me and would never intentionally choose to hurt me” then it becomes so much easier to get over what may often be my pride or reaction in response and let go of whatever the incident was.]

Which is why if you had to ask me what is one of the key principles in loving your woman well, i would say to you, “I don’t remember.”

for the next part in the ‘How to Love your woman better’ series – Choosing this day – click here.

why God doesn’t suffer from amnesia

i was chatting to my buddy rob today about a talk he heard where the guy said ‘when God forgives your sin, He forgets about it completely and it’s like it never happened’

and i don’t think that’s precisely true. i think the point is that despite not forgetting about your sin (if God is all knowing then surely He still remembers that you did sin) He chooses to treat you and regard you as if you had not sinned (if you have repented and received forgiveness) and i think that is a more exciting and overwhelming thing

if i hurt my wife – the beautiful Val – by dropping a scaffolding on her car for example (almost a true story) then if she was to develop amnesia and forget that the whole incident happened she would treat me as if i hadn’t done anything wrong (and to her i wouldn’t have) BUT, if she, knowing and remembering that i dropped a scaffolding on her car, still chooses to love me and forgive me and not hold it against me (not continually bringing it up and whining about it and using it against me) then that is a much bigger thing of greater significance and promises far greater relationship.

so i don’t want a God who is amnesious (it’s a word!) [now.] but a God who, despite knowing all the horrible things i have done and do – and all the amazing incredible things i fail to do – still chooses to love me and call me His son and treat me as if i hadn’t and never hold that sin against me (again, assuming i have confessed and repented and accepted the free gift of Jesus dealing with the sin in my place) then that is just a mind-blowing thing

and that has to compel me to go and do likewise…