Still

This morning is a rare chance to take a break from my ever increasing busy schedule.

So.

I take a corner seat in an atmospheric coffee shop in West London and let my mind wander.

A couple of scriptures fly about in my head.

Both of them about being still.

Be still and know that I am God (Psalm 46 :10)

And.

Only be still and the Lord will fight for you. (Exodus 14: 14)

Being still is really hard.

Anyways what does it mean to be still?

To me it means just stop!

Step out for a while of the madness of life.

Sounds great on paper!

Not so easy in the real world.

Yet lately im learning this more and more.

Take my transition from the safety of ordained ministry in the Salvation Army, into a paid job for a while and now of course working self employed.

I want to share this with you because its kind of important.

The first thing I was faced with was I had to make some very difficult and brave choices (Some people may say stupid and daft!) But I remember reading Soren Kierkegaard’s take on the wheel of indecision saying basically if you don't make decisions you will go mad. He described a wheel of indecision that kept going round and round and challenging people to step of it. 

After all I'd gone through stepping of that wheel to step out pf officership in the SA, recently I was faced with leaving a secure, well paid job to develop and carry on with my call to speak. I was on the wheel of indecision again knowing I was carrying my marriage, Dawns ministry, and a secure life financially. Yet my calling is massive. And I knew I had to step off. 

So I handed in my notice. 

Just like that.

I had no clue what the future held.

I actually didn't know where the next penny would come from!

But hey.

I could not stand being on the wheel of indecision so hey I just jumped off.

Dawn and I hit the prayer room at the Sanctuary in Ealing on the first day of my new venture.

We prayed the Aaronic blessing over my business.

The Lord bless you and keep you

The Lord make his face shine on you and be gracious to you.

The Lord lift up his countenance on you

and give you peace.

We declared that the business was God's business.

The same day my trusty Blackberry passport started to ring.

Someone wondered if I could do a funeral for them.

For the three months that have followed?

My phone rings everyday with new work and new challenges.

I am working every day speaking into the lives of those who are in need.

Im being asked to speak more and more into loads of differing situations, and the Lord has showed his increase on Dawn and I.

Really?

Its pretty miraculous.

The thing about all this im sharing with you is this.

For someone today I really felt that they needed to hear this. You may be trapped in a job, a relationship or a situation that you really need to put an end to. 

Here is the thing.

Be still. 

Right now!

As hard as it is.

Stop what you are doing.

Stop fighting it.

Let the Lord fight for you.

Know that he is God.

Step off that wheel of indecision.

Don’t try and get the future taped up.

Just enjoy a new identity, a new journey.

You WILL be fine.

Act

I turned the page.

Psalm 107.

A completely beautiful piece of the reality of God’s massive love for us.

I needed it, you know, to be reminded.

To be reminded of the fact whatever type of distress, however dark the situation, however much we can’t see the way ahead, when we cry out to him he listens.

And.

Acts.

This Psalm written to celebrate the Jews return from exile in Babylon speaks about some of the different types of darkness they will have encountered in Babylon. Deepest gloom, iron chains, peril on the seas, affliction, loneliness, hopelessness amongst others.

But.

Hope that reaches epic proportions flows from these words.

The Psalm gives us the message that however extreme our calamity may seem, God is able to break through to help us.

Verse 6 & 7 kind of sum this up.

“Then they cried out to the Lord in their trouble and he delivered them from their distress. He led them by a straight way to a city where they could settle.”

So.

Hey.

If you feel in distress today.

If you feel pretty hopeless or like nothing is going right for you.

If you feel unsettled or restless.

If you feel discouraged or even disillusioned.

If you feel trapped or claustrophobic.

If you feel like you are kind of losing the plot completely.

Don’t think about it, just cry out for God and then let him shower you with hope.

However extreme your thing is?

Let God help.

Smooth

Snow fell onto the pavements and roads.

The view through my window at home in West London was soothing and reassuring. The city seemed to be that little bit more silent even though it was as busy as ever on the main road where I lived.

I was thinking.

Thinking very hard.

So the smoothness of the wintry evening outside helped to keep my mind clear.

And.

I needed it.

Yeah.

I needed a clear mind.

I had a major decision to make. I had been a Salvation Army minister for close on fifteen years including my stint at College in London.

The feeling I had was that it was time to move out and move on was so overwhelming that I was having trouble trusting my feelings. I was wondering in my heart where the Salvation Army in the UK was heading. My overriding sense was that it was heading into a place called nowhere really. But that was probably just me and the circumstances that I found myself in at that time. However, the reality was I didn’t do well with insane decisions leadership made time after time. I didn’t do well with the archaic regulations that only serve to stifle not affirm. I didn’t do well with theologians who if they are good sound like they have the key to eternal life themselves. In short I didn’t fit very well as a SA minister.

I love simplicity not complexity.

While I was deep in thought, being tossed about the shall I leave or shall I stay question that I was asking God to help me with a flashback came from nowhere.

A flashback that had the clarity of a UHD Movie.

I remembered the night I had to make another big decision! I was on a freezing street in Liverpool City centre when I came across a homeless guy in a doorway. His head was blue with cold and he only had a thin jumper on. Something told me this guy was in trouble and that he could actually die with those type of temperatures. Earlier that day I had bought myself a really nice coat that had cost a lot of money. I had it on that night. I felt an argument start in my head. Shall I give him my new coat or should I keep it and walk on. I had no choice! I gave him my new coat.  I gave him my coat and took him to McDonalds for a coffee and some food.

Maybe a simple act of kindness would save a life?

As I remembered this.

I knew I had to step away from the complexity of organised religion. I knew a simple faith, a simple mission, a simple love was God requires of me.

I know there are many ministers who operate in the organised religion of the denominations are brilliant at doing so and could easily argue that they live and operate a simple faith, and please this is only my experience that I am sharing, but I wasn’t really cut out for that stuff.

So since I have stepped out in faith, out of the security of the Salvation Army with its comforts and safety, I have found some perspective, I have found some peace, I have found my relationship with God has developed in a completely new way, more like a friendship than a theology.

And.

I think I needed that.

I think soon I can return to the church a different person, stronger, more resilient and more effective.

The simplicity of a relationship with Jesus is massive. Religion complicated it way too much for me to handle. It seems to me when I grasped the real essence of a relationship with God, breathed it in, allowed it to change me, my task to help people to know Jesus has become easier and way more understandable to a world who need to know. 

Hey.

So.

If my advice counts for anything with you? I would ask yourself, “How complicated is my relationship with God?

If it is pretty complex.

Have a clean out.

Get rid of the clutter and enjoy the friendship of Jesus.

Hey thanks for reading.

Standing

My blog has gone on the back burner for the last ten months.

A lot has happened in terms of realigning and readjusting where I am regards my calling and my ministry.

I have had to do a severe reality check following my years as a Salvation Army Officer. I had to step out of that bubble and shake off the fallout from some pretty shoddy treatment over the years I spent there. Yet I wouldn’t want to say it was all bad because it wasn’t, and I believe God used Dawn and I to help many people in my fourteen years as an officer.

The outcome of my soul searching?

I will always be a minister.

In whatever capacity.

I have the credentials.

That’s the thing I can’t get away from.

God won’t let me, no matter how far I have tried to run from it.

All this inner examination has culminated in me leaving my job at the funeral directors which was a temporary measure, and going freelance as a speaker and a writer while conducting funerals as a freelance minister.

God is doing massive things in my life.

I am so grateful to Andrew Homes and Son in London for giving me a job which paid very well and gave me chance to see the world in a new light.

How I needed that.

To step into the pain of people who have lost loved ones, to see horrific death of people taken too young, to be able to help people to function in their time of deep need.

It helped me to see that the pain of the world really needs Jesus.

So I stepped out and said “here I am God use me.”

It is so amazing how when you step out of the security of a job and decent pay to follow what God really wants for your life how he provides. Straight away I have had bookings every week to speak or to do funerals. And the funerals have been massive opportunities to minister to extremely needy people. I have embarked on my calling to write a book which is filling the gaps between speaking engagements.

My one to one prayer ministry and counsel has led me into the lives of some very troubled people who I can speak into their respective situations and bring some comfort and help to them.

During the last two years I have fought hard.

I have fought depression, I have fought to make a living, I have fought some very strong attacks from the forces of evil.

And.

Here I stand.

Ready to do.

Ready to fight on.

Ready to do what I can to help people.

Ready to help others discover their true identity.

Ready for anything