Has waiting paralyzed you?

I don't know your situation, but maybe you are waiting to start your own business or ministry or plan... maybe yo are waiting for the right moment, the right people, the right money to come your way. A healthy and biblical measure of waiting and planning is good for any dream to succeed, but sometimes we wait so long that we end up doing nothing at all... Has waiting paralyzed you?

War of the worlds

If I mention the country Serbia, what picture comes to mind? What do you know or remember about Serbia? To be honest with you, I do not know much about this country that used to be Yugoslavia and was torn apart by a bloody civil war. Yet, it is right there, in the middle of Europe.

Although news media may have painted a negative picture of Serbia, we are not afraid to stand up for them and we have started a project with our organisation Traveling Light, because time moves on and we must look ahead. A new generation is being raised up, a generation that wants a positive future and is desperate for God. Yes, new believers are added to the number of Christians every day. Sometimes they come to Jesus from a life of drugs and alcohol abuse. That is why 12 years ago Sasa and Svetlana Ivanovic started a rehabilitation home for people with life controlling habits, all under the flag of Teen Challenge in Southern California, where we were members of the Advisory Board in Ventura. This is so much more than getting people off of drugs, it is basically a discipleship program that forever changes men and women once they have an encounter with the living God.

Up till now most of their support came from faithful supporters in the USA, but we believe there is a shift taking place. It is time for Europe to step up and take responsibility for their own projects and initiatives. We, as Traveling Light, are taking humble steps by planting seeds of hope in as many countries as we can. We are in URGENT need of help for Serbia, please check our weblog! We believe a person, a family, a street, a town, a country... yes, all nations will be changed by the love of Jesus Christ and the power of the Holy Spirit.

About trees and people

Prophetic vision

During His life on earth Jesus healed many people from all kinds of diseases and oppression. The book of Acts (10:38) recalls,

He went everywhere, doing good and healing all who were under the power of the devil, for God was with Him.

Quite of few of these healings were written down by eyewitnesses and some of their accounts are actually quite funny when you read them at first. This one for example:

One day the people bring a blind man to Jesus and ask Him to touch the man and heal him. Jesus takes the man by the hand, leads him to the outskirts of the village and spits him in the eyes. "Can you see anything?" Jesus asks curiously. The man's answer is quite comical: "Yes, I can see people, but they look like trees walking around." Jesus touches him again and he saw everything clearly from that moment on. I love this story. It teaches me that it is okay to tell God your prayer wasn't fully answered, that it's okay to ask for healing one more time and that divine healing doesn't always come by a medically approved method, haha!

The thing I like most about this story however, is the fact that the man's spiritual eyes were opened before his natural sight returned. He saw people that looked like trees and I believe that the Lord gave him prophetic vision. In the Bible people are often compared with trees, so what the man saw was not crazy, it was spiritual insight. Let me back that up with a few scriptures:

Blessed is the man...He is like a tree planted by streams of water (Psalm 1:3)

But I am like an olive tree flourishing in the house of the Lord (Psalm 52:8)

The righteous will flourish like a palm tree, they will grow like a cedar of Lebanon (Psalm 92:12)

No good tree bears bad fruit... the good man brings good things out of the good stored up in his heart... (Luke 6:43-45)

Trees and men, at first sight we don't have much in common, but the Bible says we do. A few things come to mind:

1. Life consists of seasons, the dark period will end!
2. I must stay near the living water!
3. I need to shed some leaves to make room for something new!
4. I will bear fruit!