What Do You See? Inspirations from the Journey of Life.

By Martha Matsvai

This book is an invitation to the reader to stand back and observe life and all its trappings from a vantage point of faith in the inalienable and unfailing Word of God as seen from the experiences of people who walked with God, with Genesis as the backdrop. The call is to renewed perception that sees the handiwork of God even in the mundane and in the excruciating season of pain and doubt. It reverberates with the salient message that “in this season, God wants to regenerate, revive, and restore us” with the prayer that the Lord God may open our spiritual eyes that we might perceive things from his point of view. This perception keeps the believer buoyant even when one is at dire crossroads like Abraham when he was called to sacrifice his dearly beloved son Isaac who was the crown of all his hopes. Martha extends an invitation to all the readers as she says, “Join me in my journey as you go through these inspirational series which have really made an impact on my life as I was compiling them and hope they will bring inspiration in your life as well.”

Dr Paul Matsvai Series Editor

• Language: English
• Publisher: AuthorHouse UK
• Release date: Dec 29, 2020
• ISBN: 9781665583121

Martha Matsvai

Martha Matsvai is a Christian who accepted The Lord Jesus Christ as Saviour 46 years ago while still in High School. She is married, a mother of four and grandmother of four lovely children, one girl and three boys. She is a nurse by profession who was born in Zimbabwe, Africa, and currently lives in the UK. She published two books in 2014: ‘Whose Report Will You Believe?’ and ‘Gugu (Precious): A Dialogue with Betrayal and Hope’. Her most recent publication, ‘Chemakanda The Storyteller’, a book on folklore was published at the beginning of 2020. Her books are based on realism inspired by her own life experiences and observation of people and things around her from which she draws life-giving and insightful social narratives.

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© 2021 Martha Matsvai. All rights reserved.

No part of this book may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or

transmitted by any means without the written permission of the author.

Published by AuthorHouse 12/26/2020

ISBN: 978-1-6655-8311-4 (sc)

ISBN: 978-1-6655-8312-1 (e)

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Scripture taken from THE HOLY BIBLE, NEW INTERNATIONAL VERSION ®.

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CONTENTS

Chapter 1     What do you see?

Chapter 2     Stand!

Chapter 3     Remain standing

Chapter 4     It is not over until God says it is over

Chapter 5     The season of fountains in barren lands

Chapter 6     How much do we trust God?

Chapter 7     Blessed is the man that trusts in the lord

Chapter 8     Without the right directions!!

Chapter 9     Christian who do you trust in?

Chapter 10   Become as little children

Chapter 11   Why are we afraid?

Chapter 12   How strong is God’s love?

Chapter 13   God is Love

Chapter 14   Do you have faith like little children have?

Chapter 15   Quicken your faith

Chapter 16   What then is faith?

Chapter 17   He knows best

Chapter 18   When we face barren situations in our lives

Chapter 19   Regeneration!!!

Chapter 20   Being led by the Master’s Great hand

Chapter 21   There is fire on the tracks

Chapter 22   Effectiveness of transportation vehicles What is slowing you down?

Chapter 23   Do not lose your saltiness

Chapter 24   Now is the time for alignment

Chapter 25   The freezing point depression

Chapter 26   God is speaking to us continuously

Chapter 27   Mistakes to avoid when the waiting seems too long!

Chapter 28   Oh God open my spiritual eyes that i might see you

Chapter 29   Let Go and let God have his way

Chapter 30   Christian do you know who you are?

Chapter 31   You are more than a conqueror

Chapter 32   The steps to healing

Chapter 33   See the deliverance of the Lord

Chapter 34   Peekaboo

Chapter 35   The fear of the lord is the beginning of all wisdom: Obedience the ultimate route to blessings

Chapter 36   Teach us to number our days

Chapter 37   Be restless and break those chains binding you

Chapter 38   The Lord is on your case

Chapter 39   You are the apple of God’s eye

Chapter 40   Hear the voice of the LORD your God: He is calling you from the valley of the shadow of death to the King’s highway

Chapter 41   The Lord is our refuge there is no need to fret or fear

Chapter 42   Oh Lord Save me from being self-destructive

Chapter 43   Go back where you had your first encounter with God

Chapter 44   Called to be fruitful, to multiply and subdue the earth

Chapter 45   When God commissions no one can succeed in opposition. Wait on God, know his will and do not resist it

Chapter 46   Praise will pave your way out of the bonds of fear

Chapter 47   You are blessed

Chapter 48   The dream shall come to pass no matter what!

Chapter 49   Nothing just happens: God’s strategic planning

Chapter 50   Time for acceleration is now

Chapter 51   Read the manual

Chapter 52   Where are You?

Chapter 53   Dream killers versus dream enablers

Chapter 54   Do you have power to reboot yourself?

Chapter 55   Spot the difference

PROLOGUE

Jesus’s conversation with the blind man in Mark 8 is salient in many ways. The man’s encounter is captured thus in Mark 8:

"²² And they came to Bethsaida. And some people brought to him a blind man and begged him to touch him. ²³ And he took the blind man by the hand and led him out of the village, and when he had spit on his eyes and laid his hands on him, he asked him, Do you see anything? ²⁴ And he looked up and said, I see people, but they look like trees, walking.²⁵ Then Jesus[c] laid his hands on his eyes again; and he opened his eyes, his sight was restored, and he saw everything clearly."

How we see things is especially important to God. Both the Old and New Testament seem to be crying or shouting out to us to see things from God’s point of view. The blind man narrated in Mark 8 had to have his eyes touched twice for his vision to be fully restored.

The first step Jesus took in verse 23 as part of the man’s miracle was to draw the man out of his barriers, the crowd and their different perceptions or voices. The second step of spitting on the man’s eyes might be perceived as gross, but how many times have we spat on things in a process of cleaning them? I remember my policeman dad spitting and breathing hot breath onto his boots to make them glow. The third process was the anointment phase through the laying of hands and followed by confirmation through the testimony or confession of the man. What barriers do we have that stop us from seeing things from God’s point of view?

I once had a dream/vision where I was walking in a plantation full of trees, but they seemed all lifeless. All the trees had very thick wide metallic bands round their trunks. Then I saw the bands being broken and immediately as soon as the bands were removed, the trees sprung into life starting with the area where the bands were. It was the loveliest picture I have ever seen, as I witnessed the trees sprouting to life.

In similar parlance to the impaired perception of the blind man, there are bands of distraction to how we see spiritually that have led to distorted perception for many believers. These have fastened on our hearts, to such an extent that growth has not only been retarded but our energy has been sapping out and many of us are at the point of dying.

In this season, God wants to restore us. I pray that the Lord may open our spiritual eyes that we might perceive things from his point of view. Perception itself is multifaceted as it not only involves all the senses that is touch, taste, smell, sight, hearing and our instinct which is the sixth sense. But it also involves concentration as well as feelings such as anger, fear, insecurity, love, and hate. Spiritual dimensions embrace the length, depth and width at which we look at things. Perception itself can be distorted by our mental state for example a person experiencing hallucinations or illusions can perceive things which are non - existent. Being overly anxious, afraid, insecure, angry or suspicious and even hate can also lead us to having our perception distorted and to making irrational decisions in life which we might live to regret and at times never recover from. These can impede our development and make our lives malignantly cancerous as everything around us becomes poisoned by our perception.

The Bible in 2 Timothy 1:7 tells us of the type of Spirit God has given Christians as seen from the Amplified version below.:

2 Timothy 1:7 For God did not give us a spirit of timidity or cowardice or fear, but [He has given us a spirit] of power and of love and of sound judgment and personal discipline [abilities that result in a calm, well-balanced mind and self-control].

My insights on the efficacy of perception were very much brought to the fore after I had a fall quite recently and hurt my face badly. The first day, as I looked at myself in the mirror and as I saw the expression of those around me, I felt miserable. My face was like it had been divided into two longitudinally, with one side normal size and the other side hideously swollen. It was like I was seeing beauty and the beast as the two sides seemed to have been separated by a depression. What I am describing are not the feelings but depression of the bone. So many thoughts went through my head as I looked myself in the mirror then I remembered the word ‘regeneration,’ this is one of the topics we will be looking at later. My mind was instantly filled with the peace of God which surpasses all my understanding. I remember my son coming from work and when he looked at me, he fell prostrate on my lap repeatedly saying, Mummy oh mummy. I kept on reassuring him that I was ok and that all was well. The following morning my face was much improved with the swelling only over areas which had injuries; these were around the right eye, forehead, right cheek, and upper lip as I had had sutures on my upper lip. I do not remember how many times I looked at myself in the mirror or the number of times I did cold compresses and applied antiseptic cream over the grazed areas but each time I looked in the mirror I saw progress and regeneration.

After a few days, the superficial injuries had healed, and the deep grazed areas had formed scabs which were drying off starting from the edges of the wounds. After about a week I was able to go back to work and, in my view, achieving such feats in so short a time was ‘regeneration’ personified.

God wants to regenerate us, restore us, and revive us in this season, I would like you to join me in going through these inspirational series which have really made an impact on my life as I was compiling them and hope they will bring inspiration in your life as well.

A seminal question to ponder is: Who created you and for what purpose? Now is the time to fulfill that purpose of why we were created. What do you see in you and all that is around you? I pray that through these inspirational reflections, the Lord may open our spiritual eyes that we might perceive things from his point of view and live our lives in abundance.

Chapter One

WHAT DO YOU SEE?

I am blessed with four grandchildren. Each one of them presents or behaves in a way that makes me marvel at what God has deposited in us human beings. When my granddaughter was about a year old, I observed her looking at herself in the mirror. She seemed pleased with what she was seeing although at the stage she was, she could hardly say much. I saw her touching the reflections, smiling, and saying ‘Baby.’ This made me think about creation when the Bible narrates in the Book of Genesis, Chapter 1 about God creating the world. After narrating the creation events, Genesis 1 verse 31 ends with the following words:

God saw everything that He had made, and behold, it was very good, and he validated it completely. And there was evening and there was morning, a sixth day.

Yet among those creatures he created were clean and unclean animals which he gave a second chance to restart life again to multiply and replenish the earth after the floods during Noah’s time. Read Genesis 6-8 for the background of the story and Genesis 8 verses 13-19 highlighted below.

Genesis 8: 13 Now in the six hundred and first year [of Noah’s life], on the first day of the first month, the waters were drying up from the earth. Then Noah removed the covering of the ark and looked, and the surface of the ground was drying. 14 On the twenty-seventh day of the second month the land was [entirely] dry. 15 And God spoke to Noah, saying, 16 Go out of the ark, you and your wife and your sons and their wives with you. 17 Bring out with you every living thing from all flesh—birds and animals and every crawling thing that crawls on the earth—that they may breed abundantly on the earth, and be fruitful and multiply on the earth. 18 So Noah went out, and his wife and his sons and their wives with him [after being in the ark one year and ten days]. 19 Every animal, every crawling thing, every bird—and whatever moves on the land—went out by families (types, groupings) from the ark.

God’s amazing creative flair is also seen when the psalmist in Psalm 139 declares the following in verses 13 through to verse 18:

Psalm 139 verse 13 For You formed my innermost parts; You knit me [together] in my mother’s womb. 14 I will give thanks and praise to You, for I am fearfully and wonderfully made; Wonderful are Your works, and my soul knows it very well.

15 My frame was not hidden from You, When I was being formed in secret, And intricately and skillfully formed [as if embroidered with many colors] in the depths of the earth. 16 Your eyes have seen my unformed substance; And in Your book were all written

The days that were appointed for me, when as yet there was not one of them [even taking shape]. 17 How precious also are Your thoughts to me, O God! How vast is the sum of them!

18 If I could count them, they would outnumber the sand. When I awake, I am still with You. Do we see how wonderfully and fearfully we have been made? So much uniqueness, wisdom, creativity, and innovativeness has been embedded in us. Genesis Chapter 1 from verse 26 to 31 from English Standard Version (ESVUK) when talking about creating man God said, 26 Let us make man[h] in our image, after our likeness. And let them have dominion over the fish of the sea and over the birds of the heavens and over the livestock and over all the earth and over every creeping thing that creeps on the earth. 27 So God created man in his own image, in the image of God he created him; male and female he created them. 28 And God blessed them. And God said to them, Be fruitful and multiply and fill the earth and subdue it and have dominion over the fish of the sea and over the birds of the heavens and over every living thing that moves on the earth. 29 And God said, Behold, I have given you every plant yielding seed that is on the face of all the earth, and every tree with seed in its fruit. You shall have them for food. 30 And to every beast of the earth and to every bird of the heavens and to everything that creeps on the earth, everything that has the breath of life, I have given every green plant for food. And it was so. 31 And God saw everything that he had made, and behold, it was very good. And there was evening and there was morning, the sixth day.

God created us in his likeness. If God spoke and everything came to be how much more his people? With our mouths, we have power of life and death. What do we see? Are we seeing death in our situations or life? Let us speak life. I speak life in your life and mine. This season is a season that everything which you and I touch shall prosper. It is the season your mouth and my mouth will be filled with laughter. It is the season people will see God restoring your fortunes and my fortunes. All that the canker worm has eaten, all that the evil one has stolen it is all being restored, and I believe it. Declare it and receive it in Jesus Name. How about you, what do you see?

God is the same yesterday, today and forever. He does not change, but the challenges we face often alter our perceptions. We think we can do things on our own. He wants us to trust in him and wholly lean on him.

In Habakkuk chapter 3, Habakkuk stands in awe of God’s doings. He requested God to repeat them in his times. I believe at the end of that chapter he enjoys a cathartic moment as he confesses that all the unfortunate events which can happen around him cannot stop him from praising God as he says:

Habakkuk 3 verses 2 O Lord, I have heard the report about You and I fear. O Lord, revive Your work in the midst of the years, In the midst of the years make it known; In wrath [earnestly] remember compassion and love. 17 Though the fig tree does not blossom and there is no fruit on the vines, Though the yield of the olive fails and the fields produce no food, Though the flock is cut off from the fold and there are no cattle in the stalls, 18 Yet I will [choose to] rejoice in the Lord; I will [choose to] shout in exultation in the [victorious] God of my salvation! 19 The Lord God is my strength [my source of courage, my invincible army]; He has made my feet [steady and sure] like hinds’ feet and makes me walk [forward with spiritual confidence] on my [e]high places [of challenge and responsibility].

Yes, let God be your strength and mine. Let him make your feet and mine be like the feet of a deer and may he enable us to tread on the heights set before us in this season and come out victors in Jesus name I pray. It is our season to write the vision making it clear. God is reigning in our lives and we are more than conquerors through Him in Jesus name. Amen.

Chapter Two

STAND!

It was one of those very wet days, I was coming from work and I was on the bus going home. The bus stopped a few stops from where I had boarded it. The bus had lots of seats which were not occupied. At one stop an elderly couple got in as well. The lady quickly went and sat down on the nearest available seat and to my surprise the gentleman remained standing. I found it quite intriguing as the floor of the bus was literally covered in water and I thought ‘Is this person out of his mind? Is he not aware that remaining standing risks him to falls?’ To my surprise as the bus continued on its route turning and having sudden application of brakes resulting in jerky movements, the gentleman appeared unaffected as he remained standing and even seemed to show off by standing on his heels. Then I looked at his feet and I smiled to myself, the gentleman had the right shoes on which allowed him all those maneuvers without pausing himself a risk. The above observation made me think of Bible verses which talk about standing; to my surprise when I looked up the verses I found them to be many both in the Old and New Testament.

Here are some of the verses I found ministering to me: Ephesians 6 verses 10-18 (ESVUK)

10 Finally, be strong in the Lord and in the strength of his might. 11 Put on the whole armour of God, that you may be able to stand against the schemes of the devil. 12 For we do not wrestle against flesh and blood, but against the rulers, against the authorities, against the cosmic powers over this present darkness, against the spiritual forces of evil in the heavenly places. 13 Therefore take up the whole armour of God, that you may be able to withstand in the evil day, and having done all, to stand firm. 14 Stand therefore, having fastened on the belt of truth, and having put on the breastplate of righteousness, 15 and, as shoes for your feet, having put on the readiness given by the gospel of peace. 16 In all circumstances take up the shield of faith, with which you can extinguish all the flaming darts of the evil one; 17 and take the helmet of salvation, and the sword of the Spirit, which is the word of God, 18 praying at all times in the Spirit, with all prayer and supplication.

In Exodus 14 after the children of Israel had been let go by Pharaoh, they saw themselves in a situation which they considered as a trap. For in front of them was the mighty Red Sea and behind them was the mighty army of Pharaoh as they pursued the Israelites to bring them back to slavery where they had been for four hundred and thirty years. They started crying and accusing Moses of having taken them from Egypt to let them die in the wilderness. There is need for us to stand in the Lord no matter what situations around us are dictating. The Egyptians with their horses and chariots were in hot pursuit and the children of Israel were now trapped: in front of them was the Red Sea and the Egyptian choicest army with all sorts of weapons of war rapidly gaining ground and almost catching up with them. All what they saw was death and this is expressed by the children of Israel’s statement starting from Exodus 14: 11 They said to Moses, Is it because there are no graves in Egypt that you have taken us away to die in the wilderness? What have you done to us in bringing us out of Egypt? 12 Is not this what we said to you in Egypt: ‘Leave us alone that we may serve the Egyptians’? For it would have been better for us to serve the Egyptians than to die in the wilderness.

God had to calm the situation by speaking the words below through