pray like crazy!

I don’t know about you but I’m sensing that we really have to pray harder than ever for the transformation of this world?

Seriously pray like crazy.

And when I say crazy I mean pull out all the stops to pray over the nations that cover this planet.

The recent events in Norway, horrendous in proportion, are part of an ongoing onslaught of evil that is wreaking havoc throughout the world causing tensions, war and death that leaves millions wounded, devastated and even destitute.

What do we do about that?

Humanly I really don’t know.

Humanly I feel powerless.

But I write here what I believe God has moved my hand to write.

We have to run towards the conflict not away from it. We have to run towards it with spiritual eyes, run to it with unbridled love, grace and mercy. We have to run towards it with the opposite Spirit. And we have to run towards it without fear and with Holy Spirit fire in our being.

God is calling prayer into a prominency unprecedented in recent times. And he commands us that this is not the time to over complicate our prayer. He commands his disciples to pray for the coming of the kingdom. It’s a kind of praying that is often overlooked. But God says, pray this, “Your kingdom come.”

As evil runs like a sickly lava flow from an angry volcano crushing all that gets in its way. The Kingdom is the only power that will stop and disperse this flow.

Why?

Because the kingdom is transformative. When the Kingdom touches lives it changes things.

Your Kingdom come?

Praying for the coming of the kingdom is prayer in high definition.

Charles Elliot in his book, “Praying the Kingdom,” says, “The coming of the Kingdom implies transformation of human society, its politics, its economics, its personal, group, institutional and international relationships.”

If that is true, then that is good news for the world as it screams out its painful cry to be transformed.

So it makes massive sense to pray “your Kingdom come” on every aspect of life.

That is a big task!

So it’s amazingly generous of the King of Kings to give us a simple plan on how to transform society through prayer.

What if we prayed, I mean seriously prayed, your Kingdom come on our schools, our governments, our workplaces, our families, ourselves?

What if we made it a priority to pray for the coming of the Kingdom on every aspect of human society?

It makes so much sense because the kingdom, when it touches earth, will bring transformation to millions.

And it can be so exciting, so fulfilling so utterly and deliciously missional.

It might mean we have to be ultra creative in our approach to praying for the coming of the kingdom, it may take doing crazy things that don’t seem to make any earthly sense. Like the time I was leading Liverpool Boiler Room. One night a group of us were worshiping late into the night. I don’t know how we even came to this decision, but out of prayer we all suddenly felt that God was calling us to go down to the river Mersey and plant his word in the waters.

It made no sense.

No sense at all.

We discussed how we could do that.

Someone said, we could stand along the river and shout scripture over it, some else said that we could write scriptures out and drop them in the water. But then someone else said in a very serious voice, “I think God means we need to throw whole bibles into it.”

We all laughed!

She didn’t! She was serious.

So we knew we had a box of very old and damaged bibles, about a hundred of them, that I had once rescued from a closed down Church.

We all took a few bibles each, and about thirty people ventured out at around midnight in a convoy of cars down to the City centre, and specifically to the water front.

We parked the cars and all stood in a long line along the rail that marked the water’s edge. It was a beautiful calm night and the lights of the City threw there coloured beams onto the still water.

We were parked in a favourite spot of lovers, and I could see a few steamy windows being wiped for a better view of these strange people standing along the water’s edge.

They must have thought we were mad!

We began to pray out loud, all of us, at once.

Then someone said, “After three.”

On the third count, we began to throw these old bibles into the black water as far as we could throw them. People were shouting and you could hear the flutter of the pages as they whizzed through the night air.

Amazing!

We planted the living word of God direct into one of the main shipping gateways to the rest of the world and to the city of Liverpool that is the Mersey.

We had great fun. And even though we had no clue why God had called us to do this crazy thing, it doesn’t really matter.

Crazy? Yeah.

Your Kingdom come? Yeah.

We really do need to get even crazier with our praying, take risks, and be creative and innovative to bring the coming of the Kingdom to this mad world.

I believe God is calling those who would pray to raise our game.

To pray like our lives depended on it.

To stand against the rising tide of evil in this world.

To stand with the armour of love and compassion.

To stand against the violence and destruction with none violence.

To love the world through our prayer.

The way the world is? We Jesus followers can easily slip into a state of powerlessness.

As I said, humanly we feel powerless to do anything?

But that’s a deception.

Not by might nor by strength but by my spirit says the Lord. (Zech 4: 6)

The Spirit of God obliterates our feeling of powerlessness.

So we can get on with his amazing work.

I also think God is calling the praying people to the streets. Of course there is nothing less powerful about praying in our buildings, but out there in our cities, our communities, we sense and see what God is sensing and seeing.

The time is now.

Run towards the conflict not away from it. Run spiritually towards it with a kind of backpack full of prayers!

Prayers for the Lost, prayers for the broken, the hurting, and the needy. Prayers for the violent, the corrupt, the controllers of this world.

Pray hard with all kinds of prayers.

Pray Your Kingdom come.

Pray like crazy.

It will change everything.

The Insider

She sat opposite me after getting her coffee from the kitchen. She looked brighter than I'd seen her before but still painted a fairly distressing picture.

She leaned on the arm of the black leather couch and looked directly at me.

This was Theresa, a girl who has been coming most days to Sanctuary 21 for a while now.

She is addicted to drugs and alcohol.

As I looked at her what did I see?

I will describe what I saw exactly as I saw it.

A pale, tired looking 26 year old. Her speech is badly slurred. She has dirty clothes, her arms are needle-scarred, the scars look livid and sore. Her hair is matted and out of shape. Her eyes yellow where the white should be with a vibrant blueness in the middle.

Your human side sees her as an "other". Your eyes want to look anywhere but straight at her.

On the face of it, she looked hopeless, a lost cause.

I guess a bit like people looking at Jesus hanging on a cross may have seen him. They probably didn't want to look him in the eye either.

Theresa looked at me with sad eyes. She has been doing really good recently. Wanting to know about Jesus, writing loads of prayers on our walls. Her prayers are devastatingly moving and challenging, in language probably offensive to lots of Christians. They are massively expressive and authentic.

But we've known for a little while she has a court case coming up this next week. And she believes she will probably end up in prison for a few months. Oh, she's been there before so usually I guess it would be no big deal to her really.

But this time she seemed to be resigned to it, but I think she was looking at this as the last time.

She is trying so hard to sort her life out.

She turned to me and said something which really startled me. "Will you and Dawn visit me?"

I said of course we would.

As I thought about that request I began to see beyond the confines of that question.

Will you visit me?

I felt the cry of every human heart in that request.

My mind went to the film Elephant man, to the scene where a mob corners John Merrick in a train station toilet, and the mob take the bag he covers his deformed head with, and they only see his deformity, which they think makes him different from them. He cries out, "I'm not an animal, I'm a human being."

And as Theresa asked, "will you visit me," I felt that same cry beyond her words. I am not a statistic, I am not a sex object, I'm not a drug addict, I'm not a none Christian, I have a mind, a have a soul, I feel things, I think things, I care. I am a human being.

Will you visit me?

I saw Jesus in Theresa.

The world tagged Jesus and still does with all kinds of labels.

And Jesus says, will you visit me? Will you help me? Will you tend to me?

I remember reading somewhere that one of the sisters that worked with Mother Theresa was asked while painstakingly picking maggots out of the infested wound of a person in her care, "How can you do that?" She looked up and said, "because I am doing it to Jesus."

When we see Jesus in others that's the moment we start to take back stolen ground, where we start to make all our mission, evangelism, activism, whatever other "ism" there is effective and useful.

If we can't see Jesus in others then none of that, yes none of that stuff will be useful to the kingdom at all?

Seeing Jesus in others is the powerful antidote to the evil that runs through the world.

He is the insider. He's inside us and he's inside others

He is in the cries of a messed up society. Not only should we hear the cries we should start seeing the cries too.

Do we just look at the world as it is and just criticise or even worse give up on it? Do we just let people like Theresa who are in trouble just fade away into the background where we don't have to see them?

Do we?

I don't think so.

The church shouldn't think so either.

Or?

Do we see Jesus in the tears of the broken or in cries of the messed up?

Seeing Jesus in others will turn everything this world has become on it's head.

Why?

Because Jesus is born in all of us as we see him in others.

This poem, I've no idea where it comes from, is scrawled on the wall of one of our prayer rooms at Sanctuary 21.

It says it all really.

You are the caller
You are the poor
You are the stranger at the door
You are the wanderer, the unfed
You are the homeless with no bed
You are the man driven insane
You are the child crying in pain
You are the other who comes to me
Open to another, you are born in me.

Theresa has gone now. I watched her go out into the street with her to go coffee that she always takes. I'm glad I see Jesus in her, because it kind of makes me surely know today that he is born in me.

Drenched

The clouds were so black they darkened the whole panorama that lay before me. On a clear day what an amazing panoramic view it would have been.

Just last night, with a friend, I was visiting a place I had long wanted to visit. Since reading the story that I will share with you now I have somehow felt drawn to this place, like something was pulling me towards it.

Heavenfield, near Hexham is a pivotal site in the spreading and enabling of Christianity to the North of England.

It is in the middle of dramatic countryside, close to the remnants of the Roman architectural wonder that is Hadrian’s Wall. Heavenfield is a tiny little enclave seemingly in the middle of nowhere. There are a couple of houses set at great distance from each other, pretty and quaint in appearance. There is a tea shop and a church in the middle of a field, and that’s it.

At the entrance to the gate that enters the field, that leads to the tiny remote chapel, that supposedly marks the actual spot where the following historical incident I will share with you happened, stands a thick and tall wooden cross with a plaque carved in stone sitting at its base.

The stone plaque reads;

“ Where King Oswald being about to engage in battle erected the sign of the Holy Cross and on his knees prayed to God and obtained the victory as his faith deserved. A.D. 635 Laus Deo”

This is the story of that battle.

Oswald, leader of a small army, met Cadwallon, who had a much larger army, in battle at this very spot. Before the battle, Oswald had a wooden cross erected; he knelt down, holding the cross in position until enough earth had been thrown in the hole to make it stand firm. He then prayed and asked his army to join in prayer with him.

Adomnán, in his Life of Saint Columba gives a much longer account, which includes that Abbot Ségéne had heard from Oswald himself. Oswald, he says, had a vision of Columba the night before the battle, in which he was told:

“Be strong and act manfully. Behold, I will be with thee. This coming night go out from your camp into battle, for the Lord has granted me that at this time your foes shall be put to flight and Cadwallon your enemy shall be delivered into your hands and you shall return victorious after battle and reign happily.”

Oswald described his vision to his council and they all agreed that they would be baptised and accept Christianity after the battle. In the battle that followed, Cadwallon and his army were routed despite their superior numbers; Cadwallon himself was killed outright.

I stood on this field looking at the cross.

The rain began to fall from the kind of green-black sky that hung over my head.

The rain became torrential within seconds.

As I looked at the cross I imagined how Oswald must have felt faced with this massive battle. A battle that on the face of it he couldn’t really win. Yet he put the cross first, he prayed and he obeyed God without any chance of renegading on that.

He put faith ahead of his own life.

I began to think of the battles that I face in my life especially my ministry and indeed have faced over the years. I think particularly of the last few years ministering in a very tough geographical area and how spiritually dry I have felt at times.

But I’ve managed to hold on to my faith. Put the cross first, pray through the dry times and because of that have seen the same sort of victory as Oswald experienced.ie overcoming seemingly big enemies that on the face of it could have finished me off altogether.

But I’m still standing.

The rain was hammering down and I was soaked in an instant, and I wasn’t exactly dressed appropriately either.

In an attempt to get out of the rain we dashed over to the little remote chapel looking for some shelter. We tried the door and to our relief it was open. Inside it was a very simple small ancient church space, with that old church aroma a mixture of wood and mustiness that hung thickly in the air. I walked up to the front and was drawn to a simple lectern with a carved Celtic cross on the front of it facing the old wood pews. On the lectern there was a big old bible and it was open.

It was open at Isaiah 35.

1 The desert and the parched land will be glad; the wilderness will rejoice and blossom. Like the crocus,
2 it will burst into bloom; it will rejoice greatly and shout for joy.
The glory of Lebanon will be given to it,
The splendour of Carmel and Sharon;
They will see the glory of the LORD,
The splendour of our God.
3 Strengthen the feeble hands,
Steady the knees that give way;
4 say to those with fearful hearts,
“Be strong, do not fear;
Your God will come,
He will come with vengeance;
With divine retribution
He will come to save you.”
5 Then will the eyes of the blind be opened
and the ears of the deaf unstopped.
6 Then will the lame leap like a deer,
and the mute tongue shout for joy.
Water will gush forth in the wilderness
and streams in the desert.
7 The burning sand will become a pool,
the thirsty ground bubbling springs.
In the haunts where jackals once lay,
grass and reeds and papyrus will grow.
8 And a highway will be there;
it will be called the Way of Holiness;
it will be for those who walk on that Way.
The unclean will not journey on it;
Wicked fools will not go about on it.
9 No lion will be there,
Nor any ravenous beast;
They will not be found there.
But only the redeemed will walk there,
10 and those the LORD has rescued will return.
They will enter Zion with singing;
Everlasting joy will crown their heads.
Gladness and joy will overtake them,
and sorrow and sighing will flee away.

As I stepped outside the Church, the rain was lashing down even harder than before. So I stood at the door for a moment looking out over Heavenfield, the battle field that once hosted an horrific event, and how parched and bloodstained and barren this same piece of land must have been afterwards.

Yet, the grass and the trees, having being hit by massive clear raindrops looked fresh and green and amazing. I thought of the first verse of the scripture I had just read. The desert and the parched land will be glad; the wilderness will rejoice and blossom.

I suddenly wanted to be out in the rain.

To be drenched.

To be drenched in God, immersed in his supremacy.

I had contemplated past battles, especially the spiritual dryness I have had to battle against since being in the North east.

But I also had contemplated Oswald’s impossible situation and how his extreme faith had resulted in a massive victory.

And God declares in his word that the parched land, the parched land of our daily battles will be glad.

If you are feeling dry and out of the loop with God, erect a cross on your personal Heavenfield today, on the field of your battle.

Pray.

The battle will be the Lord’s.

The battle will be won.

Holding on to faith means the victory is ours.

No matter how big the enemy may seem.

Because God always wins.

His strength is perfect

I'm sitting in my usual Saturday morning breakfast joint. I relentlessly hit it every Saturday I possibly can. I enjoy coming here because it is another thin place for me. I come at 8am which means I have two hours before I need to start work at S21 sitting with the homeless who will have had another night on the streets, the alcoholics who won't be feeling to good this morning, and the drug addicts who will be anxious to secure their next fix.

I love Saturdays.

But before work I love coming here especially because for those two hours I have coffee and a nice breakfast . I then sit back and use the couple of hours to just engage with God.

This morning I sat back with my coffee, and with earphones in, and blackberry switched on to one of my self selected playlists aptly labelled "intense." intense because it contains some of those gorgeous long chilled anthems that are seriously directed towards the majesty of God.

As I worshiped, I migrated easily into prayer, and into the depths of my love for a one on one with God.

Sounds so lovely and amazing doesn't it?

It is.

But this morning, just as I began to speak to God, I had one of those moments that I guess every Christian that ever lived has from time to time.

A moment that cut through my connection to God like an interference to a wireless network. Those annoying interferences that interrupt your Internet connection?

The moment came in the form of a bout of doubt. Doubt raises questions, and they came with a flourish.

Is anyone up there listening to this? Am I doing this right? Do I really know how to pray and worship God? I speak every week either on platforms or one to ones to lots of people about God, do I actually know what I am doing? Do I actually believe what I am saying is true?

And Right at the moment I was thinking of these things I felt pretty much, well, weak really.

But without knowing it I think maybe these questions formed a genuine prayer?

Just as I was thinking these thoughts, a song started out of the depths of my intense playlist. It was CeCe Winans singing "His strength is perfect."

His strength is perfect?

Yeah, I guess it is.

I moved my prayer on and said to God, "I'm sorry if I am not sure how to pray or indeed if I look deeply into my heart, I'm not sure if I worship you in the right way either."

It sounds so weak doesn't it?

But God being God, as always put a thought straight into my head.

It was this.

"Just be you. Just do what you do. Just love me and then love others."

I picked up a book that I am reading in preparation for my masters dissertation looking at prayer and mission. The book is called Prayer, does it make a difference, by Philip Yancey.

As I opened the page to where I'd left off last time, I began to read.

Amazingly these were the first sentences I read.

I was teaching a class at a church in Chicago, when a young woman raised her hand with a question. I knew she was a shy, conscientious student who attended faithfully but never spoke. The rest of the class seemed surprised as well and listened intently. "I'm not always sincere when I pray," she began. "Sometimes it seems forced, more like a ritual. I'm just repeating words. Does God hear those kinds of prayers? Should I keep going though I have no confidence I'm doing it right?" I let the silence hang in the room for a moment before attempting an answer. "Do you know how quiet it is in here?" I said. "we all sense your honesty. It took courage for you to be vulnerable, and you touched a nerve with others of us in the room. You seem sincere, unlike a salesman, say, who gets paid to give a spiel. We're tuned in, listening, respectful, because you are being authentic. And I imagine it's the same with God. More than anything else, God wants your authentic self."

This was no coincidence this morning. And it resonated with me straight away. And I guess it inspired me this morning to write this blog that maybe will resonate with others.

John 4: 23-24 says something amazingly true.

Yet a time is coming and has now come when true worshipers will worship the father in spirit and in truth, for they are the kind of worshipers father seeks. God is Spirit, and his worshipers must worship in the Spirit and in truth.

Yeah, I feel today that authenticity, being oneself in front of God, being vulnerable and expressing truly how we are is the basis of worshiping in Spirit and in truth. If we have to put on a show in worship then thats not being truthful is it?

So I guess today being truthful before God, telling him I'm not sure if I'm getting this right, is a great thing in my relationship with God because His Spirit takes the bits of me that aren't sure and moulds them into something good.

He turns weakness into strength.

And His strength is perfect.

His strength is perfect when our strength is gone.
He'll carry us when we can't carry on.
Raised in his power the weak become strong.
His strength is perfect.

So today if you are struggling to pray, to worship, to connect with God?

Just be authentic. Just be you, just bring where you are right now before him.

His strength is perfect.

Passion Remix

"Where has our passion gone?

The elderly Salvationist leaned back on the chair he was sitting on, looked into my eyes, and I could see the expression of pain on his face was genuine. I asked him, what do you mean? He Lowered his eyes, now filled with tears, and with a slight shake of the head whispered his response. "There was a time when all we could think of was reaching people. All we did was for the master and we would try to reach anybody, anybody who was in need, no matter who they were and where they came from. Now all we seem to think about is how we look, whether we are on time or not, how many meetings we attend, how many people attend those meetings determines whether we are a "big corps" or not. Where has the passion gone?

He had a genuine dejected look on his old weathered face, a face that had seen much over the years, and if his skin could speak, could probably reel off a million stories.

Where has the passion gone?

I was speaking to this old Salvationist after a meeting I had attended just a few weeks ago.

Driving home in the car from this event, those words kept repeating themselves in my head.

This faithful old guy had a point.

He was reflecting something wise, something Godly, something prophetic. Something we probably would rather not talk about.

But hey, let's do it anyway?

Passion is a seriously strong word. It's a word applied to people who show unbridled fervour towards something they believe in.

As I thought about what he had said, I could kind of see that there was passion, but it could it be possible that it gets directed towards the wrong fight? I know that I've been guilty of that in the past for sure.

Instead of the fight for souls, maybe it gets directed to the fight to keep the rules and the regulations and the religion that restricts movement and kingdom progression. The kind of religion that drove Jesus scatty!

People can be passionate about that alright.

I'll never forget at my commissioning as a Salvation Army officer, hearing a Salvationist lady who had been at the commissioning service, at the end of the day saying that she couldn't concentrate because the uniform skirts that the female cadets had on were different lengths! And she thought that was unacceptable! And added that " A few of the women cadets had make up on!"

She was passionate about that alright.

Passionate that she would have liked to have seen perfectly straight skirts and shockingly pale ladies, because obviously that would really please God wouldn't it?
It's just absurd!

It's pure absurdity!

I reckon that kind of attitude, if we are honest, is maybe still fairly wide spread around all kinds of denominations. And of course there is a lot more to this attitude than what I mention here!

I suspect it may be a bit of a substitute?

Why do we so often let our passion become drawn to absurdity?

Is it because it is a safe haven in the middle of two important issues for the church?

One extreme is that we can get fearful of the glory of God. By that I mean we can become a bit nervous about God touching us? The other extreme is we can get fearful of engaging with the world.

The thing is if We deflect God's touch we will never be able to engage with the world in terms of standing up for Jesus in it.

So we can easily migrate to the middle ground, we can substitute passion for God with passion for the machine. The religion, the safety net of rules, commitment to the machine, we make sure we look right, we say the right things, we talk the right talk, we get the make up off ( well not me personally), we get the Daz out to make sure our shirts are brilliant white so no-one thinks we are slacking! We leave the Jewellery at home in case anyone thinks we are going astray!

We get passionate about it!

It's absurdity.

It's really really sad.

I'm not saying that people can't look smart or be the best they can be or anything like that, that's really not what I am saying.

Daz washed shirts are really amazing, and probably a blessing.

Neither am I using this as a "ban the uniform" advertisement. That's not the issue! Not the issue at all.

It's a passion issue.

Can you imagine if that kind of passion was directed towards a broken and confused world?

Imagine that instead of defending a pair of toe capped shoes we defended the person who has nothing, who is so poor materially or spiritually that they scream to us for help? For salvation?

Can you imagine if we directed our passion away from the middle ground out to the extremes? Firstly and most importantly to God. And we let him in. We let him touch us in whatever way that entails even if it seems alien to us?

Because when the Spirit of God touches a life, or a corps or a denomination or the whole of Christianity for that matter, passion happens!

SPIRITUAL PASSION HAPPENS!

Fervent, passionate, engagement with God that compels us to the broken. A passion that means that all we can think about is how we can increase the kingdom in our own lives and the lives of others.

When passion is directed towards the spiritual, transformation happens.

The kingdom happens!

We will look at the world as Jesus does.

No longer will we look at the world and live in fear of it.

We will want to reach out to it, feed it, clothe it, slake it's thirst.

This story I think will help what I'm saying.

It comes from Yevtushenko's autobiography.

He describes how in Moscow in 1941, the streets were lined with people, mostly women, waiting for a great parade of German prisoners. The atmosphere of hatred was palpable. Nearly every woman had lost a husband, father, brother or son, and now was their chance to desecrate the symbols of those who had killed their men. The Germans came into view, they were thin, unshaven, wearing dirty bloodstained bandages, hobbling on crutches or leaning on the shoulders of their comrades. The streets became dead silent. An old woman pushed through the crowd, past the police cordon and, taking something from her coat, pushed it into the pocket of an exhausted soldier. It was a crust of black bread. And now suddenly from every side women were running towards the soldiers, pushing into their hands bread, cigarettes, whatever they had. The soldiers were no longer enemies. They were people.

When they saw the need, they forgot they were enemies and were compelled to reach out to them.

While we are angry sticking to the middle ground, defending it, boxing ourselves into it with a passion, it's usually because of fear. Then we are in trouble because we cannot move, we become immobilised. If these women had boxed themselves in to the passion they had for hatred for those who had killed their loved ones, they would never have reached out to them.

More than that, we loose sight of the one true hope for the world.

Jesus Christ.

This is seen in this scripture.

His parents went to Jerusalem every year at the Feast of the Passover.
And when He was twelve years old, they went up to Jerusalem according to the custom of the feast. When they had finished the days, as they returned, the Boy Jesus lingered behind in Jerusalem. And Joseph and His mother did not know it;
but supposing Him to have been in the company, they went a day’s journey, and sought Him among their relatives and acquaintances. So when they did not find Him, they returned to Jerusalem, seeking Him. Now so it was that after three days they found Him in the temple, sitting in the midst of the teachers, both listening to them and asking them questions. And all who heard Him were astonished at His understanding and answers. So when they saw Him, they were amazed; and His mother said to Him, “Son, why have You done this to us? Look, Your father and I have sought You anxiously.” And He said to them, “Why did you seek Me? Did you not know that I must be about My Father’s business?” (Luke 2:49 NKJV)

The thing is here, Jesus parents would have gone on this trek, this pilgrimage, every year. They did what they had always done.

But they had there eyes so fixed on the tradition, they were so immersed in the middle ground that something inevitable happened.

They lost sight of the son.

And he, as he reminded them was about his fathers business.

Jesus had a passion for his fathers business.

We can so easily keep our eyes fixed on what we've always done, what we think is the right ways of doing things.

We can direct our passion towards what we've always done.

But Maybe we should be passionate about our fathers business.

Kingdom business, transformation of this world type of business!

Where has the passion gone?

Maybe it's the wrong question.

Maybe the question is, where is our passion being directed?

Massive God-favour on you today!

Reactions

Today I felt a strong desperation to be a light in a dark world!

Before you think about that, I want to say that I know that statement sounds so cheese on toast! It's a saying banded about Christianity all too easily. Easy for people to profess to be lights in a dark world?

I have to admit I don't always understand what that entails?

But praying in the City today somehow turned my whole being towards the thought of being a light in a dark world.

And I wanted more than ever to be one!

I guess I noticed more than ever today the world as it is.

And once again I guess it shocked me.

It started on the way to work today with a car so close to my back bumper that I could actually see the hairs hanging out of the drivers nose. He was waving frantically for me to move out of the way, I was obviously going way to slow for his liking.

Later on in the car park lift, a group of young kids had pressed every button on the panel meaning that when I was alone in the lift it stopped at every floor level on the way to the floor I was located on.

Watching the news no one could fail to get cranked up by the horrendous practice of phone hacking by journalists vying for the best exclusives.

As I was walking along the pavement I had my earphones in listening to music on my Blackberry. I stopped to change the album. As I went to start walking again I almost bumped into a lady who was rapidly walking towards me. She was not moving out of the way and I just managed to swerve her unstoppable advance. Her face was like a bulldog chewing a wasp as she issued a volley of expletives obviously unhappy that I was not concentrating. I so wanted to say something back but I managed to control myself, and I just said "I'm really sorry." this seemed only to fire her up more and she issued a parting shot, something about earphones should be banned.

A little taste of the world as it is?

And all that before 9am!

What stopped me from reacting to any of this?

It was a moment that week in my downtime with God.

I'd heard a talk on you tube by Matt Chandler calling us Christians to be image bearers. In the talk he challenged people to see others as people with a soul. For instance he says when he goes to Starbucks, his barrista is not there just to serve him his coffee, she has a soul. He says that when people are angry towards you, we have to remember they have a soul. They may be angry because of brokeness. We are image bearers, we bear the image of Christ which means we have to be different. He went as far as to say if a waitress is nasty or off hand with you, give her a bigger tip! Why? Because she has a soul.

We have to react differently to the world as it is.

And for me I guess this is the secret to becoming a light in a dark world.

Its how we react to things, how we respond to the world as it is.

If we are image bearers then that means round the clock vigilance. It means training ourselves to react in the right way to all kinds of situations.

It means learning to see everyone we ever cross paths with as having a soul.

Even those who we consider enemies, even those who drive us crazy, even those who hurt us.

They have a soul.

And we are image bearers as Matt Chandler says.

I'm desperate to be just that.

An image bearer.

A light in a dark world.

I pray today that I will be one. I'm desperate for that.

I pray for all of us today who are part of the church. I pray we will get it! We will get that we have a massive responsibility in our reactions to the world as it is now.

It is desperate for us to be lights in it's overbearing darkness.

Cell

Inside the room the cold bit hard. 

In the simplicity of this room, the ultra minimalistic space spoke volumes about the past, the present and the future.

I was standing alone in the centre of a long-abandoned intact monastic cell set amongst the ruins of a ninth century monastery set in astonishing landscape deep in the heart of the UK.

It was a room where many moons ago monks would have lived out their lives in this space.

The room was square. Set into the wall opposite the doorway was a large fireplace. There was no window. It was dark, lonely and deadly quiet. You could not hear a sound.

That was it.

I had come to this place to think.

I was struggling with some things that hung around my life that needed sorting out sooner rather than later. So, I had travelled to this place so I could face up to myself, and connect with God more intimately.

As I stood in this icy cold, dark space my mind began to relate to the cell, the space that monks spent hours alone with themselves.

This was the place where they would have faced their demons. Where the inner struggle that lay deep within their life would be at it's peak. This is the place where intense inner battles would have been fought, won, and lost. 

Armed with hours of liturgical prayer, deep Lectio Divina, back breaking work either in the scriptorium or in garden, maybe endless chapter meetings that were a bit tedious after a while, would keep a monk busy and engaged. 

But here in the cell?

It was just you and God.

My battle started as I began bring before God my dilemmas and my issue.

Inside the cell I wrestled and I fought. I knew I needed to let go of some stuff but wanted desperately to hold on to it. It was plainly obvious that to carry on my journey, going from glory to glory, and stepping up to the next level in my relationship with God, I had to sort it. The demons that were holding on to me were fighting for my life. And I was happy to try and hold on to them, but needed to get rid of them.

In the middle of that battle. I realised I was facing my issues head on.

They had come out in the room and faced me.

And in the quietness of that cell I felt the strength flow into my body and my heart. 

I was ready to face them.

In those moments God gently enabled me to let go of them, to expel them from my life and the room.

I thanked God and then the space just fell silent.

The silence of the room closed in on me, in a good way. Gods arms cut through the silence and wrapped around me. 

Battle won.

This got me thinking recently. We so need a cell.

All of us.

We need that space where we can face up to our demons.

A place we can be alone with God.

The early Monastics knew this well.

Just lately, I have been busy doing all kinds of stuff. As you do! The thing about busyness is that you are able to cover up your inner struggles. As long as we are busy we can just put things that need to be dealt with aside. As long as we are working really hard or playing really hard then we convince ourselves we will be OK.

Where is our cell?

Where is our space to be alone with God?

It's not always a peaceful space.

If it is a place where we confront our demons then it won't always be peaceful.

Maybe that's what keeps us out of our own space with God sometimes?

But the cell leads us to prayer. To that intimate engagement with God. It leads us to contemplate, to think, to decipher our inner stuff.

It's a place where there is silence. The atmosphere is silent. And silence is sometimes necessary to think straight and to listen.

It's a place of retreat, of relationship, it's a spiritual battle ground.

It's also a place to grow, to reenergise, to re-shape your life.

Where is your cell?

There are no distractions. God can deal with us in the cell.

We can examine our inner being in the silence, in the solitude.

Maybe lately you have been way to busy. Maybe there are things that need to be sorted in your life? Maybe you have innocently thought that you need to keep busy to keep your mind off things?

Ask yourself today is that really the best thing to do?

God is always available. So I guess the time to deal with things is now?

But maybe solitude is the best destination for that?

I pray that you will find your cell.

Your own space where self examination can take place, and from there allow God to heal, transform, re-shape and renew you.

Pathways

London is an amazing city. I'm a scouser and love Liverpool more, but London comes very close.

I love the fast, vibrant activity that spins around you 24/7.

It makes me function better somehow! Its almost like it puts everything into HD, 3D, and Blu-Ray all at the same time.

On this occasion, sitting in my car, in a car park in London, the city seemed far from inviting.

It was a fair few years back now.

Dawn and I were dropping our daughter Bailey off at her placement for her gap year.

My little girl was leaving home!

And in my heart I knew it was forever.

There would be university straight after the gap year, then as it turned out marriage, so on that day? It was saying goodbye to my precious baby and releasing her into the realities of life.

And that realisation hit my heart badly.

And suddenly London, a place I adore, seemed big and brash and bad!

As she walked up the path towards the door of her new apartment where she would be staying. I smiled as I waved, trying my best to appear calm and kind of not too bothered. She waved back (she really wasn't that bothered!) we pulled out on to the road, drove about fifty yards and had to pull over because the tears were blurring both Dawn and Gary's vision, which isn't a good thing driving in London!

Sitting this morning in a deep dark corner of Starbucks, I began to reflect on why God had kind of presented this picture? A picture I'd rather forget really?

The one thing I thought clearly was how my daughter has survived the gap year, then the university, and is now married and working and still serving God.

She is doing great!

I thought how amazing it is how God carves out our pathways?

If we trust him enough that is?

I remember the day I realised Jesus was my only hope in life, I opened the bible and I read a scripture. It was the first time I had ever read from the pages of the bible and been hit with a kind of electric jolt. A drab, going nowhere existence that I led suddenly became transformed. A grey hazy life suddenly metamorphasised into shockingly bright technicolour!

The scripture was Isaiah 45: 1-3.

“This is what the Lord says to his anointed, to Cyrus, whose right hand I take hold of
to subdue nations before him and to strip kings of their armor,
to open doors before him so that gates will not be shut:
I will go before you and will level the mountains ;
I will break down gates of bronze and cut through bars of iron.
I will give you the treasures of darkness, riches stored in secret places,
so that you may know that I am the Lord , the God of Israel, who summons you by name.

I know all the theologians say you must never "just open the bible and read it, that's not the way to do it." How sad that ultra-limiting stance is? It's the LIVING word of God for goodness sake!

And a living God speaks living words.

As I read these amazing words about God going on before breaking through impossible blockages like mountains, and gates of bronze, and bars of iron. I kind of saw a pathway clearing before my very eyes. It wasn't a self created pathway, it was a God created pathway that led somewhere amazing?

Direct to the City limits of the new Jerusalem.

Heaven itself.

As I stepped onto that pathway right at the start of my journey as follower of Jesus, I understood something simple but essential.

God is going before me!

You know that is so fantastic it's too much to try to express that in words.

These simple biblical truths that we know don't always sink in.

But it's true.

And in my corner of star bucks,(incidentally I've just found five pound coins down the side of one of the comfy chairs! Yeah man! I can afford a blueberry muffin as well now!) I am thinking about the future.

There are some exciting times ahead for Dawn and I.

God has led us both along a particular pathway in our ministry. One that seems full of blockages and risks.

But yet another door has opened this week! New possibilities are on the way, exciting and earth shatteringly life changing for Dawn and I and others!

I shouldn't be surprised because God says in this scripture, he will open doors before us that gates will not be shut!

I needn't have worried about Bailey. Even though it was hard to just let her go? God had it sorted.

He carves out pathways.

Obviously this doesn't mean we can sit on our posteriors ( sorry I couldn't think of a better word, well I could, but I guess it's best not to write it here!) and just do nothing. We need to push doors, move forward, test stuff. That means that sometimes we will hit closed doors and gates of bronze etc that God doesn't want us breaking through. But if we keep trusting that God is going before us, and he is, because he has declared it and spoken it over us in his word, then we will soon pick up the God carved path once again.

I don't know why God wanted me to write this on my blog today?

I suspect that maybe there is someone out there who can only see a massive blockage in front of them?

That blockage seems like it's an impossibility to shift?

Listen, you may not be able to move the blockage!

BUT GOD CAN!

Fix your eyes on the God who can level mountains.

Try trust! It works!

If you have to let go of something that's hard to, trust God and let go! If you need to push a door that is seemingly closed, push it anyway! If a decision needs to be made that you are struggling with, make it!

Why?

Because It's been spoken. The mightiest power, the highest power, the most adorable, amazing, incredible power, the father, the son and the Holy Spirit, the electric trinity, is going before you.

And I would never trust my future to anything other than that.

Massive blessing on your life today!