joyancejames

Tag: #adventure

  • Rain Stopper

    The sky was overcast, yet the obstinate sun rays managed to sneak through, continuing the delusion that the downpour wasn’t imminent, although I could hear the thunder rumble at a distance. I was about to leave home to pick up my daughter, Faith from her school as I faced a dilemma whether to risk the rain and take my e-scooter or listen to my wiser wife and take the car.
    Finally, I decided to ride to the school and asked God to hold up the rains for 15 minutes till I reached back.

    The rains obeyed their Creator. (Thank you Elijah for giving us a precedent in rain-stopping prayer).

    We started from school and enjoyed the scenic ride back across a small lake and since there wasn’t any rain, we decided to indulge in some shopping too. But what I mis-calculated was my 15-minute-rain-hold time was over, by the time we stepped out of the shop it was pouring! We managed to have an adventurous ride back where I covered Faith with my huge raincoat like a Batman’s cape (picture a hen covering her chicks). Her father’s cape had kept her dry but I was soaking wet!

    Many times we tend to test the limits of divine favour. We lean on our own understanding even when we know better. Father’s favour cannot become an excuse for our foolishness. Favour doesn’t always equate to protection, it includes correction too. 

    On brighter days – without the cape

    King Solomon’s words to the wise – 

    Proverbs 3:5-12 MSG

    [5-12] Trust God from the bottom of your heart; don’t try to figure out everything on your own. Listen for God’s voice in everything you do, everywhere you go; he’s the one who will keep you on track. Don’t assume that you know it all. Run to God! Run from evil! Your body will glow with health, your very bones will vibrate with life! Honor God with everything you own; give him the first and the best. Your barns will burst, your wine vats will brim over. But don’t, dear friend, resent God’s discipline; don’t sulk under his loving correction. It’s the child he loves that God corrects; a father’s delight is behind all this.

    May the Father’s favour keep us dry, protected & corrected. 😊

    God bless!

  • Step & Stride

    Lessons (orthopedic) from the walk

    Step length while walking is the distance between the point of contact of one foot and the point of contact of the opposite foot.
    Stride length is the distance between the successive points of initial contact of same foot.
    Stride involves two steps, hence it’s twice the length of single step.
    Cadence is the number of steps per minute.

    *Aggarwal, Abhinandan & Gupta, Rohit & Agarwal, Ravinder. (2018). Design and Development of Integrated Insole System for Gait Analysis. 1-5. 10.1109/IC3.2018.8530543

    When I walk with my daughter, she has to take couple of steps in order to match my stride length. At a little above 6’1″, my normal stride length will be somewhere between 1.5 – 1.9 meters, depending on my speed, etc, while for my daughter who stands just above my hip, the stride length will be approximately a 1/3rd of that.
    So for every step I take, she’ll take two or more, that increases her cadence (number of steps per minute).

    In our walk with Abba, so many times we take few steps forward but still feel He is not moving. That’s the difference between the human and the divine step/stride.
    Isaiah 55:8-9 NLT
    [8] “My thoughts are nothing like your thoughts,” says the Lord. “And my ways are far beyond anything you could imagine.
    [9] For just as the heavens are higher than the earth, so my ways are higher than your ways and my thoughts higher than your thoughts.
    https://bible.com/bible/116/isa.55.8-9.NLT

    The times when we feel, He’s not moving or working, we must remember that He’s always working, always moving just the divine cadence is different.

    The other aspect to it is that more often than not, I subconsciously take smaller steps while walking with my daughter in order to match her pace. When I reduce my step and stride length, she can walk comfortably & unhurriedly. In our life’s path, when we feel the pace of things is too slow, it would be wise to call to remembrance that Abba has to slow down intentionally so that we can walk comfortably & unhurriedly.

    a daddy-daughter walk

    Matthew 11:28-30 MSG
    [28-30] “Are you tired? Worn out? Burned out on religion? Come to me. Get away with me and you’ll recover your life. I’ll show you how to take a real rest. Walk with me and work with me—watch how I do it. Learn the unforced rhythms of grace. I won’t lay anything heavy or ill-fitting on you. Keep company with me and you’ll learn to live freely and lightly.”

    https://bible.com/bible/97/mat.11.28-30.MSG

    Happy walking! God bless!

  • The rapids!

    Here comes life lessons inspired by the rafting along the Ganges river in Rishikesh. The decision to go for the approximately 14 km long rafting in the Ganges had to brave lot of apprehension and fear from my best-half Shalom Philip, before her final half-hearted approval. We started on the calm waters, before proceeding to the rapids. The rapids with their increasing grades of severity along with their equally creative names are at first a horrifying experience for the newbies.

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    Brave-hearts: Smile before the scream!

    rafting 1
    In action: not so calm waters

    After a couple of rapids we realized that it required all of us in the raft to keep the raft afloat in the rapids and we needed to balance the weight. Panicking and freezing we realized were the most counter productive things one could do in a rapid, when we need to row all the more harder. Once we got the hang of it, we began to enjoy the rapids and much to my surprise, Shalom not only craved for rapids more than me but also scoffed at the less severe ones which could barely rock the raft at their best. Next we knew, we were eagerly waiting to get over with the calmer intervening waters and for the rapids to give us the adrenaline rush.

    Life is so much like the raft on the river: rapids interspersed with calmer waters in between. The calm waters allow us to catch our breath, enjoy the scenic beauty around, socialize with co-rafters and wait for the on coming rapids with anticipation. The rapids give us a much needed jolt to break our reverie, break the monotony of the life and bring a new perspective. Once used to the calm-rapid-calm-rapid routine, nothing can exchange the experience the rapid offers.

    God feeds the birds but He doesn’t put it in their nests, they need to exercise their wings for it. All birds are born with wings but they need to be thrown out of their nests in order to fly, sometimes we too need to be thrown out of our comfort zones to discover our full potentials. In a similar vein we need to exercise and flex our muscles in the much needed rapids of our lives to thrive and live a much fuller life.

    It is not during the day that the light-house shines the brightest to guide the ships, sometimes darkness is essential to shine the brightest and fulfill the purpose. But for Goliath, David would have never known what he was capable of. We too need challenges bigger than our fears, rapids fiercer than our imaginations to push us beyond the limits we have placed on ourselves, to realize and unearth our truest selves, to become what God created us to be.

    Brace yourself for the adventure, embrace your challenges, love the rapids, don’t just live, you were meant to thrive!

    rafting 2
    On the beach- much needed break!

     

  • Life in the 2nd gear!

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    Up-hill!

    Slow and unhurried, life in the 2nd gear is best described by the word, “despacito” (people understand more easily, courtesy Luis Fonsi), Spanish for slowly. This writing came out of my first hill driving experience, a drive with my beautiful best-half, Shalom to Morni hills, an hour drive into the hills from Panchkula in Haryana.

    The hills are where you realize the 4th or the 5th gear are not gonna take you anywhere.

    Hills are where cruise control doesn’t work.

    Hills can’t afford slacking off, demand alertness and dexterity and hard-work not to forget the motion-sickness for the sensitive. The constant paranoia of a land-slide on seeing huge rocks and the fear of going off the road into the valley is unsettling, adding to the misery. Life on the hill terrain is a constant pendulum change of gears from 1st-2nd to 3rd and never beyond that. The feet engage in tap dancing with the accelerator, clutch and the brake (unless you’re driving on hill assist on an automatic transmission vehicle).

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    Contrast it with a 4/6 lane highway drive, life is cruising  at speeds faster than the fastest cheetah all the while allowing luxuries of popping a pop-corn, taking a blink-small nap, tapping or grooving into the latest single or even stealing a kiss if you’re flanked by somebody as beautiful as my best-half! Cruise control is the ultimate luxury on a high speed highway. Life is easy, life is fast and life is good.

    But this is for all who’ve experienced the hilly terrain and for those who drive geared vehicle or at least have driven one, life on the hilly territory is hard-work offering little or no opportunity for the drive to admire or appreciate the beautiful landscape. But there’s good-news for all of us on the upward journey, beautiful, breathtaking sights await us at the top and it’s just a matter of time and distance. The top-of-the-world view and the feeling make us forget the arduous and nauseous journey (if at all it was one in the first place). Not to forget the down-hill drive this doesn’t require accelerator, thank God for gravity!

    At times the 2nd gear gives us the power and the control which the 5th gear can’t offer. Enjoy the way on the way, all through the way. Remember He is sovereign period.

    Ain’t no mountain high, no valley too low, when you’ve the grace and the favor of the Lord and a beautiful company beside you!  

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    Wanna join me for the next hill drive?

    Wait, gotta ask my wife!

    Joyance Shalom James

  • Never alone!

    All His promises saying “I will never leave you…” came alive in a new dimension when my work commitments as a Doctor took me to a mission hospital in a remote, nondescript village (read jungle): Jagdishpur in the Indian state of Chhattisgarh. The remoteness of this place can be gauged by the fact that this place even baffles Google when you inquire about it! On reaching my destination on the first day my mobile network betrayed me leaving me disconnected with the world outside the hospital and it took me a couple of days to establish connection.

    It is in this solitude that I realized that Christ is enough and I learnt that “Whatever I have and wherever I am I can make it thorough anything in the One who makes me who I am” (Philippians 4 The Message). I realized as the lyrics of the song by Hillsongs says, “Christ is enough for me, and everything I need is in you.”

    When we stare at the sun for a moment, all else around us fades, similarly when we focus on the Son (Jesus), everything else fades into oblivion. As the lyrics of the famous song, “When all things surround me become shadows in the light of you…” I experienced the solitude & social seclusion fade away when I fixed my eyes on Jesus.

    Then there were night calls from the hospital which I’d to attend and walk the distance from my room to the hospital in the dead of night sleep-walking on paths carpeted by autumn leaves. Every rustle of the leaves would quicken the senses fearing some creeping or crawling fiend would jump out with my next step. In those eerie moments He filled me with a fuller measure of His love and reminded me of this beautiful song:

    “Even though I walk through the valley of the shadow of death
    Your perfect love is casting out fear
    I will fear no evil for my God is with me and if my God is with me whom then shall I fear?” You never let go by Matt Redman

    Another song that I’m reminded of as I now muse over my experiences is:

    “You were singing in the dark
    whispering Your promise
    even when I could not hear
    I was held in Your arms
    Carried for a thousand miles to show
    Not for a moment did You forsake me” Not for a moment (after all) Meredith Andrews

    Indeed when His loves fills our hearts to overflowing it also fills us with the assurance of the surety of His promises. As John puts it best, “Perfect loves casts out fear”.

    Certainly once in Christ, we’re never alone!

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    The lake at Jagdishpur