Healing: The bigger picture

I was talking to a girl at our Sunday service this morning.

She is an amazing girl, who has an incredible story to tell of a victory in her own life of epic proportions in terms of her conversion to Christianity from a very different religious background.

Her dad is in hospital and he has to undergo surgery tomorrow, open heart surgery to be precise. 

She is hoping for a miracle, that he would be healed even before the scheduled surgery.  

I could see her pleading heart through her eyes today. 

We talked together about the miraculous. The situation changing power of God.

I had a flashback to my own former pre-conversion life. I was suddenly in my scrubs around the operating table in a Liverpool Hospital. 

I was reminded about how I used to assist surgeons who were so skilful, I used to watch in awe as they brilliantly performed their intricate operations on human hearts.

People's lives were literally changed and saved as a result.

I used to think that was miraculous.  

People were healed from life threatening disease. 

And.

As we talked. 

I shared with Hannah about how we can't really truly box up the miraculous healing power of God. 

We easily, and very much humanly, lay down before God what we think the outcome of the miracle we are asking for, needs to turn out like. 

The trouble is?

God's God!

In Psalm 53:2 it says God looks down from Heaven on all mankind to see if there are any who understand, any who seek God.

In other words.

God sees the bigger picture.

I've seen people healed without medical intervention. I've seen people healed through the sheer dedicated skill and care of health professionals. I've seen people healed through the  selfless actions of a kind person. I've seen people healed through death. 

I could keep going with that list.

So.

I guess we can't really define what defines healing. 

Because.

God's God.

And he sees the bigger picture. 

And that's precisely why we should trust him.

Hannah will pray for her dad relentlessly right now. 

I will too.

And we both had a sense that the miracle will happen, we expect it. How God brings that about? Is best left in trust in his hands. 

Because. 

He sees the bigger picture. 

I pray this will help someone today. 

Gaz

Magnitudal shift re-run (A word for the whosoever)

This morning as I pray God turned my mind to this blog post I wrote back in early 2012. It showed me that God is doing more than we dare ask or imagine. 

He's doing it right now. 

Prophetically I feel more than compelled to re publish it today.

I had been doing a lecture on silence at a university. The students were then asked by their overseer to go into a silent retreat for the rest of the day. I was invited to stay. 

In that silence, God really spoke to me. And asked me to share this prophetic word on my blog.  I think its relevant to me right now but God again asked me to press the publish button.

So here goes, I pray it is the right word for someone today as it is for me today.  

I'm sitting today in a silent retreat. 

It's excruciatingly silent!

Amazingly I have gone straight into a deep connection with God. I feel his presence on my life like the river that makes glad the city of God. 

So I feel compelled to write something down. 

The Spirit of God is speaking. 

And even though I don't want to write this, God says, write my boy, write, because I want you to share something. 

I see pictures in my Spirit of hard ground breaking. Compact, hard,dry ground. 

It's so hard that it seems unbreakable. 

But it's breaking up. 

As the earth cracks, great chasms appear in the ground. They are so wide and of epic proportions. 

Shafts of brilliant white light are shining through. The light is so bright that I see people running towards the light. 

An Army of people. 

Being drawn to the chasms in the dry ground. 

I feel Gods voice as I see people embracing the light and being drenched in it like white rain. 

The Spirit of God says, "There is a magnitudal shift coming. Salvation is near. The ground is breaking, i am breaking it with my power, the hardness will be gone. The cracks are starting to appear. run towards the light. Do not run away from it. Run! Run for your life! This is a time of change, of righteousness, the light will make you bold. The light will give you the ability to risk everything for my cause. Be drenched in it, let it rain down on you. I want to take your heart of stone and give you a heart of flesh! It's a straight choice, dry ground or the light. the light will stretch your dreams and visions far beyond the natural. The light will build an Army with an effectiveness not seen in past history. The light will compel this Army to the lost with an abandon to self unprecedented in the book of time. Run towards it. Run! A magnitudal shift has begun. The light will resource you beyond finance, strategy and human vision. The light will draw those who do not yet know me. This light from the chasms in the hard earth will change everything. It's coming. So start running."

Wow. 

God asks me to share this word. 

So guys pray about it. 

Test it!

I believe God is speaking to us as a Salvation Army worldwide here. 

But praise God I'm just the messenger.

So, as I write I feel the hand of God on my life right now. 

I pray God will speak into the life of whoever reads this today. 

Blessings in bucket loads. 

Enough is enough?

Yesterday I hit a watershed moment. 

Yeah.

One of those points where I had to say enough is enough. 

Since coming to this new appointment in London, an appointment that involves a  big responsibility to re-develop the Salvation Army's work in West London, but also means we are based in a Corps that frankly has been heading for the permanency of oblivion for many years.

I have had one humongous battle inside myself to connect to this responsibility at all.

To the point where I felt like walking way from it.

The development of  anything new and effective seemed a million miles away. 

And my head was telling me that this just is a hopeless cause.

And I just couldn't bring myself to commit to it. 

To changing it.

To leading it.

To developing it. 

And yesterday.

Enough was enough. 

Another petty and resistive act by someone, had made my head say just get out of here Gaz, get yourself back home to Liverpool and live your life. 

Alone in the main hall of the Church, a place that looks like a Salvation Army museum, it's ante rooms stuffed with pointless clutter, a piano with a daft red cloth on it that makes it look like a grotesque coffin standing at the font of the hall. Filthy walls that haven't had any attention for years. A carpet that has so many dirty stains on it that it looks like a map of the universe. Damp patches depicted by a kind of mushy mess cover different parts of the building. Blue chairs that look frighteningly austere and cold. Locked doors everywhere, locks on everything that opens, doilies' on the tables, I so hate those old lace cloths that people think actually look nice, but look so hideous. Yeah, standing alone in the hall, my 'enough is enough' point came. 

So with everything I had, I got on my knees and prayed. 

I was about to say to God, "Please get me out of here because I want to go desperately."

But.

I heard the voice of God penetrate my prayer.

"I want you to commit to this."

My eloquent prayer line was "you've got to be joking God."

I kind of forgot for a second that God doesn't say stuff he doesn't mean!

But.

His voice was really excessively strong.

"I want you to commit to this."

That started a two hour struggle on my knees because I didn't want to commit to it. 

God reminded me of the vision he has given Dawn and I, and I had earlier that morning had a word from someone who had said to me, "the vision is God's and you are just carrying it out on His behalf" 

We carry that vision into West London.

Yet this seems the least likely place out of all the places we've been and planted and developed Houses of Prayer to carry on the work he has set us.

But deep down.

As I prayed.

I knew. 

I couldn't resist his voice. 

I knew it was useless to fight any longer. 

If God implies you to commit to something, it's no good battling it.  

So kneeling in the middle of a place that desperately needs reformation, restoration and transformation? 

I committed to it.

I shouted it out.

I committed.  

To the vision.

To the cause.

To the Mission of God. 

To joining God in breathing life into a lifeless place. 

I stood up from my knees and felt free.

Free of the pain I've felt this last few months.

Free of the struggle.

Free to really grasp a hold of my ministry once again.  

Dawn and I have some very difficult work ahead. 

The only way the vision will come to fruition is to totally trust God, and to be in constant prayerful and worshipful connection with him.  

So it truly begins for us in West London.

A very mountainous road ahead.

But what God ordains he does not go back on. What he speaks out he carries through. What he orders will be done. 

I guess there are those struggling in exactly the same way. Your head tells you it's mad to continue, but in your heart a very different message is stirring. 

The one thing I've learned is I wish I hadn't struggled this long.  

If God wants you for a task. 

We are required to commit. 

If we don't, if we wrestle with it, it will get us absolutely nowhere. 

The task remains undone.

Even if the task seems futile, hopeless, pointless, daunting or whatever?

It's not any of those things in Gods eyes, in Gods world, in the Kingdom. 

Nothing ever is.

Nothing.  

So I pray from the dust of yet another dying church, I believe God will raise his Army. A surging spiritual hothouse. A place where many lives will be changed. A place that God will restore what the locusts have eaten away. 

I commit to that. 

And from wherever you are now? 

Is it time to stop struggling and commit?

A rock in an ocean of deep need

So I'm sitting in Ealing Hospital, in the Costa Coffee, waiting for Dawn to complete her appointment with an endoscopic surgeon. 

Watching people.

Coming and going. 

I see a lady attached to a drip stand heading outside for a smoke. I see people of all different races and religions coming and going. I see nervous looking people as well as the more confident ones. I see a guy being pushed on a trolley, probably to the X-ray department, he doesn't look too well at all. Doctors, Nurses, and other health professionals are getting about their business early doors today. 

Ealing Hospital London is very busy.  

Very busy indeed.  

I sit and I am thinking. I'm sitting in a colossal hotbed of sickness. A place where hopes can be raised and dashed in the blink of an eye. A place where hi- tech healing is developing at such an incredible rate as new discoveries continue to mount. A place where illness and injury, physically and emotionally, can be unloaded and treated.  It is definitely a place of hope an immense rock in an ocean of deep need. 

And there is a constant coming and a constant going. The main door is a revolving door that never seems to take a break from revolving. 

Thousands.

Thousands of people all with their different needs coming to the rock of hope in an ocean of need. 

And it clicks.

In my head.

I remember a word given to Dawn and I by Debra Green, a serious prophet in our time, right before the start of our ministry. This was the picture she gave us.

Gary and Dawn I see you in a City. You are in a kind of medical establishment. It is very busy. Dawn you are in a nurses uniform, mopping up blood from the floor. Gary you are constantly carrying injured and sick people into the place, carrying them literally over your shoulder, one by one. The Spirit of God says you are to build a house of prayer and justice. In cities. You are to create places where the broken and the hurting, the dying and the lost can be treated. God is the healer. You are to bring them to God. God is giving you and Dawn a spiritual backpack. He will give you all you need to do this. Go and do it. 

And We did go and do it.

And that spiritual backpack seems to have an unlimited amount of tools in it. 

But.

Since coming to London. 

I've lost sight of the backpack.

I've put it down and not picked it up.

It's the hardest situation we have ever inherited in all of our officership.

But the vision remains.

God has not told us to put it down.

So here I am in a place of great hope.

A hospital.

With all the coming and going.

And the Spirit of God says to me.

Pick up the backpack. You will build a rock in an ocean of need. And it it will be a big rock. It needs to be because The ocean of deep need is bigger than you know. There are people drowning in a sea of no hope. But there is hope, I am the hope, I am the healer, I am the renewal of body spirit and mind that this world searches for. The divine scope of my love is out of your understanding, but nevertheless I need you to pick up that backpack that you have laid down and build me a rock. In West London. A rock of hope in an ocean of deep need. Stop looking at the barriers and turn your eyes towards the immeasurable and infinite possibilities that only I can offer. Start work. Today. 

So the work starts. 

Today.

That's why I have wrote this on my blog.

To launch myself back into the light of his power. 

So from today we will build our third house of prayer and justice. Sanctuary 21 is a rock in an ocean of deep need up there in Durham. Liverpool is now many rocks in a many oceans of deep need. This morning as God has made me sit and watch the immense coming and going of people with great and real needs, I feel my creative and initiative spirit returning. 

It's simple.

God needs places that are open, are praying, are loving, and untroubled by the bad side of religion.  

Whatever's in the way of that?

It will be moved by God. Because he declares war on anything that stops people from knowing him.

So what about you guys? 

My readers?

Wherever in the world you are. 

What are you guys doing with the dreams and visions God has set you to work on? 

Is it time?

Time you put yourselves under his care?

I finish off with this amazing scripture I got yesterday. 

Psalm 36: 7-9

How excellent is thy loving kindness O God! Therefore the children of men put their trust under the shadow of thy wings. They shall be abundantly satisfied with the fatness of thy house. And thou shalt make them drink of the river thy pleasures. For with thee is the fountain of life. In thy light shall we see light. 

Put your trust under the shadow of His wings. 

Go and build a rock of hope in an ocean of deep need. 

Massive Blessings today. 

Free from the ego

I was watching a Programme on TV Saturday night. 

A traditional fixture annually that we have over here in the UK.

It's called, Last night at the proms. 

Some people must like it. 

I was flicking through the channels looking for something to watch when I hit on it.

The only reason I was drawn to it was because a singer who was obviously this years chosen soloist, was singing my football teams anthem, You'll never walk alone, it made me feel a bit homesick. 

The singer was a famous opera singer from the USA called Joyce DiDonato. It was weird hearing "You'll never walk alone" sung with a wobbly voice as opposed to thousands of Scousers packed into Anfield. 

I looked the singer up on my iPad.

I read a transcript of an interview she did in a magazine. 

She was saying how she doesn't like to teach students singing techniques, but likes to give them advice. 

She said this.

"So I tell them that it’s not about us, the singers, it’s about the music. We’re just the messengers, the vessels, and the freer we can be from our own egos the more of Mozart or Handel then can come through.”

I was kind of struck by this statement. 

And I felt God switch it around in my head to a word for the now. 

So.

This is how the statement turned over in my mind.

"So I tell them it's not about us, the Christians, its about God. We're just the messengers, the vessels, and the freer we can be from our own egos the more of Jesus then can come through."

My ego does my head in.

Always trying to muscle in on my ministry.

Thankfully. 

I've learned to push it back. 

Here's the thing.

Jesus can't be seen in us if our egos is in the house. 

That town ain't big enough for the both of them. 

An ego takes control. Wants to be top dog. Wants to crush others to get what we want. Wants to direct the path of our lives.  Wants to be in charge. Doesn't want to listen to other points of view. Doesn't have a heart or a conscience for that matter. An ego makes sure that we believe we are right all the time, we can't be wrong. An ego loves to get us in a head lock and not let go.  It traps us and imprisons us. 

But.

When Jesus is I control. 

When Jesus controls our lives. 

When Jesus is in the house. 

We can be free of the ego. 

Then he will come through us and touch the world we live in. 

So.

Here's that word again.

"So I tell them it's not about us, the Christians, its about God. We're just the messengers, the vessels, and the freer we can be from our own egos the more of Jesus then can come through."

Be a messenger.

Be a vessel. 

Drop the ego.

Be free.

Blessings. 

 

Where I belong

The boats were breathtaking. 

Well when I say boats, I mean small ships really. 

Really expensive small ships.

White, with their backs open displaying lavish decks with flat screen TVs,   Abundantly ladened oak dining tables, with people dressed in the finest clothes smothered in the finest array of gold, silver and diamonds I've ever seen.

Then.

There was the Sports cars and prestige cars parked along the curbs of the tight streets. Cars that cost hundreds of thousands of pounds. 

Then.

There were the onlookers.

Packed in their thousands.

Gawping in at the wealth of it all. 

People who do not have the financial clout available to keep up with this level of extravagance. Staring at the rich and possibly famous eating their amazingly exotic food and sipping their very expensive wines on their ludicrously expensive gleaming white boats. 

Dawn and I had been brought to this lavish Spanish town near Marbella for a meal.

I should have been happy. 

But I felt a heaviness in my heart that kind of broke it. 

I have no gripe with people who aspire to be rich. I would not want to judge them  at all. Definitely not.

In fact my heart went out to those who are saturated by the wannabe spirit. And to those who have everything materially possible. I sensed a different kind of sadness there, but that's maybe another discussion for another day. 

But. 

As I wandered through these streets that seem to be awash with gold?

I kept thinking of the nights and days I've spent with those who have nothing. I just couldn't help it. Those who are desperate just to get a food parcel off the Salvation Army. Those who I've literally had to give shoes to so they won't suffer. Those who are trapped in the most hostile of worlds, the world of drugs, sex and crime who cannot get out of it easily. I think of the night I sat with a homeless guy and he was crying because the cold had gone right through his skin and penetrated his bones. I see the garage where a group of homeless were sleeping, a lock up with no running water or services, where they had to light a fire to get warm, with a sharp smell of urine and vomit lingering in the air. I thought of a prostitute I'd met and the pathetic sadness that engulfed her whole being, the shame, the guilt, the repulsion of herself. I pictured the time when Dawn sat with a young drug addict who was crying for her mother who had long abandoned her. I saw the dead eyes of a guy who had died, homeless, lonely and freezing. They seemed to stare pleadingly at me as I walked among the white boats in the blistering night heat. 

But in them moments I at least knew where my heart lay. 

I pictured in my hearts eye a massive lavish banquet. With Jesus sitting at the table. All those needy people I've ministered too so far were there, happy, wanting for nothing, receiving, sharing, eyes wide with the wonder of it all. 

And in that moment I knew. 

I have to be round that table too. 

Forever. 

I desperately want the privilege of sitting around that table. 

Whatever happens to Dawn and I in the future regarding our ministry, the one thing we both know with an assurance that can't be broken, is that we want to be where the most need is. 

To see those desperate dead eyes awake with life, to see the shame and guilt leave those girls, to see the cold man warmed with the love of a Saviour. To see the hungry have enough food to eat. To witness the releasing of those on captivity to a very different world. Freed in their spirit. Released from their chains, the chains of injustice and indifference. 

Free at last. 

It's where I belong.