Happy Dance

Tarore... A story of reconciliation

In the 1830s a Maori girl called Tarore lived in the Waikato. She was about 12 years old. Her father, Nga kuku, was a ranga tira - a Maori chief.

Life was uncertain. People traded for guns. There were tensions. War parties could strike at any time. If people were killed revenge [utu] was expected.

Some missionaries arrived with God's written Word, the Bible. These missionaries, Rev and Mrs Brown, wanted to teach people to read, so that they could read the Bible and learn about God's love.

Tarore had heard about their school, so she asked her father, "Please, can I go? I'd like to learn from the book". Nga kuku agreed. At school Tarore learned about Jesus. Jesus was different.  He had great mana. [means Authority or Power/strength of mind.]  But Jesus didn't fight back, even when his enemies were going to kill him.

Instead, Tarore learned, Jesus loved people. From the Bible, Tarore learned that Jesus, helped people love each other and taught them to love God. She learnt that Jesus was the Son of God, and that he died on a cross and rose again. She learned that, by his death and rising to life again, Jesus defeated all the dark powers of the world and put us right with God.

Tarore decided to follow Jesus.

At this time, the first parts of the Maori Bible were being printed. One of the first was Te Rongopai a Ruka - the Gospel of Luke. The Browns gave a copy to Tarore. As Tarore read from her book to her people, Nga kuku her father stood nearby and listened to his daughter.

The message about love and peace was new, but it had impact as Tarore's people thought about the hate and pain of war. Fighting was never far away.

Nga kuku decided to take his young people over the Kaimai mountains to Tauranga. They stopped to spend the night by the Wairere Falls. The group gathered around the campfire. Perhaps Tarore brought out her Gospel and read to the group. Then, putting her book under her head, she slept.

But up the valley, warriors watched smoke from Tarore's camp rising above the trees and made their way quietly towards the sleepers.

Crack! A branch broke. Ngakuku was instantly awake. "What was that!?"

Crack! There it was again.

"Quick!" shouted Nga kuku, "Into the bush and hide!" Nga kuku grabbed his little son and led the way. But where was Tarore? When it was safe Nga kuku went back, afraid about what he would find.

By a tree where she had slept, Tarore lay dead. - Nga kuku wept.

" UTU... Revenge!" cried others in the group. "No!" said Nga kuku, "There's been enough killing!"

"Where is Tarore's book?" someone asked. But it had been taken.

U ita had taken the Gospel. Thinking it must be a great treasure, he took it back to Rotorua. But no one could understand the strange marks. No one, that is, until Ripa hau arrived. Ripa hau was a slave from Otaki who had been taken to the Bay of Islands. He had been taught to read by the missionaries there. His master had died and now he was returning home.

"I will read it." said Ripa hau. Others gathered around to hear. As he listened U ita found the words were a special message for him. "Love my enemies? But I killed the wahine [girl] who had this book ... I want the peace Jesus brings." So U ita sent a message and asked forgiveness from Nga kuku. And there was peace, not through force, but through the power of God's Word.

Ripa hau left and went on to Otaki. There he taught Tami hana, son of the great Otaki rangatira Te Rau par aha and his cousin Te Whi-whi. He taught them to read from Tarore's Gospel. But Te Rau par aha himself was a fierce man of war. People feared him.

One day Te Rau par aha's son, Tami hana said, "I do not want war! I want to follow the way of peace." He taught his people from Tarore's book.

Te Whi-whi went to Pai hia to bring a missionary to teach them more about Jesus. Even Te Rau par aha began to change his ways. Tami hana looked across at the South Island. People lived there in fear of wars and revenge.

He said, "I will take them the message of peace."

So he set off in a canoe to the very places where the name of his father was enough to make people grab their weapons. There he told the people the things he had learned from Tarore's book - how Jesus had taught that the way of peace was better than the way of hatred and war.

Six years later Bishop Selwyn took his missionary journey through New Zealand. No European missionary had been to the South Island, but Selwyn found the people living in peace and following Jesus. Many people had learned to read and write. The only textbook they had known was Tarore's Gospel of Luke and two pages from the Maori Prayer Book.

What about Nga kuku and U ita? Rev Brown records in his journal that, in 1842, Nga kuku and Uita met:

"In the evening, they were engaged together in worshipping God at their prayer meeting and were apparently on the most friendly terms. -

Who but the Christian loves their enemies?" wrote Brown.

Give It To God And Allow It To Become A Pearl

1 Peter 5:7

Casting all your care upon him; for he careth for you.

I have found that very often it is not the crises that happen in my life that wear me down, but it is the continual little irritations of life that do the damage, or what I perceive to be damage.

Maybe if we were to see those irritations of life as something more positive then we could really reap the benefits of those experiences in our lives. We can learn some good lessons about irritations from the humble but beautiful oyster.

There is a story I read about the oyster and it goes like this...

There once was an oyster whose story I tell,

Who found that sand had got under his shell;

Just one little grain, but it gave him much pain,

Now, did he berate the working of Fate,

Which had led him to such a deplorable state?

Did he curse out the government, call for an election?

No; as he lay on the shelf, he said to himself;

“If I cannot remove it, I’ll try to improve it.”

So as the years rolled by as the years always do,

And he came to his ultimate destiny -- stew.

And this small grain of sand which had bothered him so,

Was a beautiful pearl, all richly aglow.

Now this tale has a moral -- for isn’t it grand

What an oyster can do with a morsel of sand?

What couldn’t we do if we’d only begin

With all of the things that get under our skin?”

How does an irritating grain of sand become a pearl?

The oyster changed its attitude about this annoying grain of sand and made a choice to allow this irritation to grow into something positive in its life.... A beautiful and precious pearl.

We can do that, with the irritations in our lives.  We can allow them to annoy us and to fester into something unpleasant and drag us down and ultimately away from God, or we can make the choice to give it to God and allow Him to make it into a pearl in our lives...

We proberbly will not enjoy the irritation at the beginning, but as we allow God to work on it,  we will one day enjoy the positive results in our lives...

Those pearls that make our live so meaningful.

Whatever irritation we have, be it a broken heart or a feeling of loneliness, or pain, whatever it is, no matter how big or how small, we can give it to HIM.

Remember the story in the Bible about the boy that gave Jesus his five loaves and two fishes, the disciples said.... “What good is that to feed such a large crowd“...?   Look what Jesus did with that offering!

We underestimate our God so many times... Nothing is impossible to Him; He can take any negative thing in our lives and turn it into something beautiful.... Those irritations can become our precious pearls.

How often do we hold back thinking.... “What would God want with that problem, or that is not important enough for Him to be concerned about"....

However, we know that He is interested in every part of our lives, every irritation, wanting always to change that irritation into a pearl that will be something beautiful in our lives and will strengthen our walk with Him.

He will use whatever it is we offer to Him, He will use it for our good, and He will use it for His glory.

When we can learn to give all those things to Him, we also learn faith and trust in Him, it brings us to a place of truly recognising who He is....

And that blesses Him, and then we can offer that ‘blessing’ that pearl back to Him.

Blessings

Les

It has been a long time since I have attended a church regularly, for various reasons. I did go to a local church a few weeks ago, in response to an invite given to me by a friend to share in fellowship and worship with other brothers and sisters.

I belong to a home group and there are about 10 of us that meet every Wednesday evening for study, prayer, and fellowship.. We also share communion each week.

So I do have good Christian fellowship and sharing ... But I also love worshipping with other brothers and sisters in Christ as well, and that is the part I really miss about not going to a church.

I was thinking on this today...

Why do we go to church?
Is it out of a need to somehow be connected with other believers?  If it is, then I guess that is ok, but, if we are not careful, that can sometimes lead to being ‘us’ centred instead of ‘Him’ centred.  And that is not how our worship is intended to be.

I guess it means,  who is this all about?   Is it about Me and what I want or can get out of going,  or is it about HIM and what I want to give to Him?   It should be always HIM first.

Before I came to Christ, life was all about me and my life and my family etc, and my wants. Now that I am a believer in Messiah, if I don’t dethrone my self, then I will end up using God in the same way, to provide and fulfil my wants, whether it be praising, or praying or giving or anything else at all.

Ever heard anyone talk about going to church to ‘get something’ or coming out of church and saying I did not get anything there today?

I am reminded in Scripture of what God asked of Abraham. (Gen 15:10 One day God appeared to Abraham and said, “I am your shield, your very great reward “

And this is how Abraham responded to God; (Gen 15:2) “what can you give me?” Abraham missed the whole point, much like we all do at times, much like I do at times!

God was saying to Abraham “When you have me, you have everything you need.”

When God tested Abraham a second time (Gen 22:2) He said “Take now, your only son Isaac, whom you love, and offer him for a burnt offering... this time Abraham passed with flying colours, Why? Because now, Abraham understood something really important, that if we do not value something, and we then offer it to God, we will then find out that God is not interested, He just does not want that which has no value to us.

If what we offer to God does not mean anything to us, then it wont mean anything to Him either. Whether that be our time, our love, our selves, our families no matter what, we need to give to God those things or feelings that are precious and highly valued to us.

Does that mean we do not get anything out of worship?
No, we benefit the most from our worship to Him, but HE must always be the object and reason of it...

(Rev 5:13) Blessing and honour and glory and power be unto HIM

When I can take all those things that are precious to me and pass them on to Him, then I am learning to become a real worshipper, no matter where I am.

Worship is all about God, it is about Him and to Him, He is worthy and I can do that 24/7, whether I am in church or wherever I may be.

"Many of us Christians have become extremely skillful in arranging our lives so as to admit the truth of Christianity without being embarrassed by its implications.

We arrange things so that we can get on well enough without divine aid, while at the same time ostensibly seeking it.

We boast in the Lord but watch carefully that we never get caught depending on Him."

A.W.Tozer

Today is the  8.8.08

"We turn to God for help when our foundations are shaking

only to learn that it is God shaking them."

- Charles West