Reflection

Recent

15 years doom and gloom dissipated like morning mist and the sun broke through

Anne, who came to see us at wits end, sent the following testimony:

“After my children were born, I noticed my state of mind worsened year after year. Now I know I had postnatal depressions after each childbirth, but at the time I had never heard about it.

Trust God

Dora tells her story:
“I want to quickly tell you about a recent special blessing, a blessing that is directly connected to the sow-box. At the beginning of the service on Sunday (on the day the Fatherheartschool would begin) I noticed I only had some small change and one 20 euro banknote left.

After the service I was to join the association that promotes physical exercise for women having had breast cancer, for their annual walk at 1:30pm in Korbeek-Lo. In between I would bring my daughter to a friend, so no time left to find an ATM to get some money. Soon mixed feelings troubled me. On one hand I usually put something in the sow-box on the other I knew that meant I would be without money after the walk.

John, the disciple Jesus loves

For me and for many others, this is a stumbling block in the Bible. What to do about it? So Jesus seemed to love one of the disciples more than the others. Some even claim that Jesus had a homosexual relationship with John. But if you really want to understand the core of this verse, you just have to think twice and read carefully what it says. What's important is that it's not Jesus who makes this statement, but John. And nowhere in the Gospels do we read that Jesus says that He prefers one to all others.

So the saying and the conclusion come from John himself. Did he receive a special revelation? As far as I'm concerned, over the years it happened occasionally that someone said: "God is happy with you". It was a statement that I kept in mind because I was used to hearing sometimes "God loves you". But according to me there is a difference between loving someone and being happy with someone.

Recently an elderly lady came up to me after a meeting and said God told her to tell me He is happy with me. Usually I forget such a sentence quite quickly. But this time I began to think about it. I did not have a special revelation, but I did have the Word that clearly states that God loves us and is happy with us. So I decided to just accept that word.

Maybe the same happened to John. Maybe he was so proud that Jesus loved him that he felt the need to make it known, while the other disciples weren't so concerned about telling it. Nobody knows exactly how it went. It seems clear to me that Jesus did not love John more than the others. But one thing is for sure: John knew for sure that he was the disciple Jesus loved.

I just wanted to bring this to your attention and hope you will think about it. I wish you a lot of blessing with it.

Hugo, the disciple Jesus is happy with.