Something God has been challenging me on the past few weeks is the subject of gratitude.
We always celebrate Thanksgiving as a family. Living in the UK, it's not a holiday like it is in the US, so we choose a Saturday either before or after that works best for all of us, and this becomes our family Thanksgiving Day.
We usually invite another family - they are people we've done life with for more than two decades now, and like family to us. And we
often invite other friends, or Americans (or Canadians) from our YWAM centre who are away from family for the holiday.
We have the usual turkey and stuffing, and all the usual side dishes and deserts. It's fun introducing new people to pumpkin pie! Now that our children are grown up, we run it as a "bring and share", which each of us providing something for the meal.
But giving thanks isn't just for Thanksgiving, it's for life! God calls us to give thanks on a regular basis. Throughout Scripture, the phrases "Give thanks", "thanksgiving" and "gratitude" appear a whopping 269 times! Why is this so important to God?
Gratitude builds relationships, for one thing. Expressing gratitude to one another connects us. It makes us feel appreciated. Seen.
It has the same affect on our relationship with God when we express gratitude to Him.
Today, studies have shown that a daily practice of gratitude actually rewires our brains physically. Thoughts are as much habit patterns as biting your nails is. We form new habits by doing something over an over. The more we focus our minds on positive things - things we are grateful for - the more our brains become hardwired towards more positive thoughts.
God was definitely on to something when he again and again told us to “Give Thanks!”
Sandi
September 2024
Hi ya!
Hi ya! I don't know about you, but with Christmas on the horizon, life gets busy.
Thankfully, I've been able to give a day each week towards working on my new book, Family Snapshots: A Story Through Time. This is a historical novel based on one family - a real family, real people who are part of my husband's family tree - exploring all the challenges they would have faced, surmounting the various
crises, pressures and tumult they lived through.
So far, I've escorted them through nearly two centuries!
I'm still also working on the next @ChatsWithSandi Discipleship Guide, Let's Chat About Prayer. I have probably 50% of the content finished, with an outline of the rest. I'd hoped to have it out for 1 Dec, but didn't make my target. Watch for adverts for the actual launch date!
In this crazy season, I find taking time away to write acts like a bit of an oasis for me, sending me into my inner world to co-create something with the Holy Spirit.
How can you find an oasis with the Holy Spirit when things are busy?
What does it mean to “know God”? Can we know Him? What does it mean to be a Christian? And how can I grow as a follower of Jesus? All these questions and more are answered in Let’s Chat About KNOWING GOD! Whether you are new to faith or a long-time Christian, there’s always deeper to go in knowing Him.
In Let's Chat About KNOWING GOD, we look at God’s plan for His relationship with human beings – us! This study guide contains 15 chapters, taking a deep dive into the Scriptures and how they apply to our lives today. Each chapter finishes with several questions to aid personal application and group discussion.
Jesus said that everything God wants of us can be summarised in two statements: loving God and loving others.
If this is your goal,
Let's Chat About BLESSING and
the @ChatsWithSandi Discipleship Series is for you!
There is a lot of talk about blessing – it seems that everyone wants to be blessed. But what does 'blessing' really mean? What did God mean when He 'blessed' Abram? What 'blessing' was Aaron meant to pray over the people? What did Jesus mean when He made His famous 'Blessed are' statements in the Sermon on the Mount? And what difference does it make in our lives today?
In Let's Chat About BLESSING, we look at what this word meant by those who used it in the Bible. This study guide contains 15 chapters, taking a deep dive into the Scriptures and how they apply to our lives today. Each chapter finishes with several questions to aid personal application and group discussion.
Jesus said that everything God wants of us can be summarised in two statements: loving God and loving others.
If this is your goal,
Let's Chat About BLESSING and
the @ChatsWithSandi Discipleship Series is for you!
Jesus told us that everything God told His people to do could be summed up in just two points: loving God with all we are, and loving others in the same way.
Chats With Sandi is all about this very thing – connecting people with God, and connecting people with one another.
Find @chatswithsandi
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Find @neurodivergentdisciples
on Facebook and Instagram!
Some of us find the whole group church experience difficult. For those of use whose brains are wired a bit differently, the stimulus of bright lights and high volume, along with the chaos of social interactions can be confusing, overwhelming, or even debilitating.
Neurodivergent Disciples provides discipleship content for those who want to be more like Jesus, but struggle to access this through church or group fellowship settings.
Jesus said that everything God wants of us can be summarised in two statements:
loving God and loving others.
If this is your goal, the
@ChatsWithSandi Discipleship Series
is for you!
Designed for both individuals and groups, each chapter dives deep, discussing the principles, looking at the original language to discover the real principle behind the words., with application questions at the end for "Thinking it through, making it real…"
Find the @ChatsWithSandi Discipleship Series on Amazon - available in both paperback and Kindle!
As we hit the first ‘Lockdown’ of the Covid Pandemic, God gave me a challenge. I was to take
what He had taught me through the years and pass it on to others. Thus, with the help of the media team at Youth With A Mission Derby, Growing With God began!
“One day, God will let me do something the normal way!
Three quarters of the way through her bachelor’s degree in biology, Sandi Hobbs felt God calling her away from her childhood dream of being a veterinarian, sending her life on a whole new trajectory.
Through InterVarsity Christian Fellowship at Rockford College, several very different jobs, three tours across three continents with the Reach Out Singers, and serving God in Youth With A Mission for more than thirty years, Sandi has built friendships with Christians of all kinds. She loves exploring different cultures, different languages, different cuisines and different ways of seeing the world.
She describes herself as a Christian who is saved by an amazing God; as a missionary, but that is just her ‘job description’; as a daughter, wife and mother, but these are just where she sits in relationship, not her identity; and as a teacher and encourager, two traits which are always looking for outlets, but Sandi is so much more than that.
When she and her husband were in the midst of adopting their first child, Sandi discovered that she was also adopted – but that’s just part of her story, not who she is. And at the age of 58, she discovered that she is autistic, which answered many questions in her life. But even this doesn’t define her.
The message God has driven into her life is this: For we are God’s workmanship (sometimes translated “masterpiece” – that work which displays every facet of one’s skill) created in Christ Jesus for good works, which He has prepared in advance for us to do.” (Ephesians 2:10) This is who she is, although at times she does still need reminding!
Sandi and her husband Rob refer to their family as “the family from four continents” because they are – God hasn’t even built their family the “normal” way!
They currently lead a YWAM team in Derby, England, focussed on reaching out into their community with the love of God.
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