We all want to belong. As we read in Luke 1: 5-17, Zechariah and Elizabeth had spent their whole lives feeling like they didn’t fit in with the other families. Unable to have children, they faced their disappointment with a passion and focus on God. Zechariah’s name means ‘God remembers’ and here we discover how God answers his and Elizabeth’s prayer for a child. One possible translation of verse 13 includes the sentiment that it is a prayer he’s stopped even praying any more. Nevertheless, God crashes in to Zechariah’s world with a surprisingly timed answer. The child Elizabeth would bear wasn’t one for fitting in with the crowd – and yet he was the one God used to prepare the way for Jesus to belong in people’s lives.
Mary’s faith and willingness to give God her ‘yes’ is remarkable. (You can read her story in Luke 1: 24-45.) She was taking a tremendous risk in embarking on this adventure, as a woman betrothed to be married to Joseph. Not only would she have been afraid of losing this loving and honourable man, but also of repercussions from the community and perhaps hers or Joseph’s families. Her life could have been in danger. Yet God provides the prophetic encouragement from Elizabeth she needs.
This Advent, why not pick up the burden of prayer for one another by sharing with a trusted friend the prayer you no longer pray? Zechariah went into the temple but there was a crowd of people praying outside. Let’s be the crowd who create a cloud of prayer that leads to one another having our moments of encounter with God, and our unspoken or abandoned prayers answered.
In times of crisis like this, the world is waiting. Every eye is watching. Each day this year we’ve hoped for the newsreader to announce: “a vaccine has been developed!” Now we hope it will be quickly effective. We all want to know when the story will get better; when we can all (literally) breathe a collective sigh of relief. The world is waiting. And actually long before this crisis the world has been waiting.
For the creation waits in eager expectation for the children of God to be revealed. — Romans 8: 19 (NIVUK)
This is a time for the church – God’s children – to be revealed! There’s this wonderful link between our sonship and daughtership being made known to the world, and Jesus Himself becoming obvious and real in people’s experiences. This time, through our prayer, words and actions, Jesus gets to be revealed – and God’s intention for His people too.
During Advent 2019, shortly before Christmas, we gave our worship teams at St Mary’s Church the Sunday off in preparation for the busy run of Christmas services. I was leading one of these services and had to find some worship songs online to use in place of having a band, and I found this moment of live worship at Bethel Church:
Jesus, the joyful announcement. Jesus the hope for mankind. These two lines captured my imagination so much in the run up to Christmas. I prayed and encouraged the church with me to pray for the revelation of Jesus to those in the area around our church building. He is the joyful announcement! In this time of waiting for good news, we are also waiting for the headlines to tell stories of JESUS in people’s lives! Stories of how the church brought creative solutions, how healings happened, how people found comfort and hope.
And indeed, like the arrival of Jesus to a grubby cattle shed on the outskirts of a village in occupied Israel 2,000 years ago, many of the announcements about Jesus in this time will go unreported. And yet they will not be entirely unnoticed, because there’ll be angels appearing, and wise men searching, and ordinary folk recognising Him because He comes in a way they can know Him – through answered prayers and the acts of kindness and encouragement of God’s people.
Unsurprisingly, the words ‘advent’ and ‘adventure’ both have the same roots in the concept of arrival, of something to come, of something about to happen. During this season of advent (probably my favourite time of the year, even more so now I’m somewhere where I can go out in December without a coat on!) I want to share with you some of the moments both recently and over the past couple of years where I’ve felt words from Holy Spirit land in my life, words that have shaped me in some sort of way.
This is a season of the year when as a Jesus-follower I celebrate that the Son of God, the Word of God made human, arrived on the scene of our world. I’ll be posting some Advent reflections here in the run up to Christmas so please check back or subscribe to have new posts delivered to your inbox… it’s kinda like an advent calendar only less fattening! My hope is that these words will bring your mind and emotions closer to the reality that Jesus is always wanting something to happen and that there’s more to come with Him.
I have some good news to share: as I write, I’m moving to the United States for a while!
As I wrote in my last post, during this strange season I’ve been learning to live in the grace of a day. Over the summer, I journeyed with God through some things from my past and during the process of this I was impacted again by some of the teaching and talks from Bethel Church in California. I say again, because in fact I’ve visited Bethel a number of years ago and the ministry of some of their leaders has encouraged and inspired me since. In fact, inspiration from this church has been alongside me in my own journey of transformation with God at many key moments and seasons. And so this summer, with the freedom and grace of a day each day ahead of me, I wondered about spending the coming year doing Bethel School of Supernatural Ministry (BSSM) in the USA!
The process of exploring this has been slow going, with a number of twists and turns – at various points it’s looked like it may not be possible – but now here I am, writing to you as I finally embark on a physical journey to another land, as I’d planned to do initially this year!
Currently BSSM is operating online due to high covid rates, but I am hoping that in a few weeks I’ll be able to begin attending in person lectures and worship sessions at the school. Obviously in the current global situation the experience will be different than usual, but I believe God has laid this choice ahead of me and I am keen to embark on something new, discovering more of Jesus’s perfect nature, and setting out on this next leg of the voyage of freedom, in friendship with Him.
I will be living in the small city of Redding in Northern California until May 2021. I’ll be continuing to write and post on this blog about what God is up to in my life and what I’m learning. A huge thank you to supporters who have made it possible for me to get this far! God has provided so much already through your generosity! And if you would like to be involved in supporting me or are impacted by what I write here, please do be praying for me or use the PayPal link on the homepage if you’d be able to support me financially. I can’t have paid work while in the US so will be relying on God and the generosity of His people for my living expenses.
Thank you for tracking my journey so far, and I’m looking forward to sharing more with you in the coming months! If you’d be interested to know more about BSSM you can check out their website, bssm.net.
If you’d like to pray for me, prayer for these things in particular would be great:
> Building strong friendship with my new housemate and others, and not feeling too lonely in a new city under restrictions
> That the things God is teaching me would find fertile soil in my heart to grow to full fruitfulness
> Getting hold of furniture quickly… my room is completely unfurnished and due to quarantine requirements on arrival, I won’t be able to go to the store for 10 days… a mattress and bedding in particular would be wonderful!
Finally… a couple of updates since I wrote the post on the plane: Covid cases in BSSM have decreased dramatically and so this week I’ve been able to attend some in person sessions! And tonight I assembled a bed so I now get to sleep on a proper bed again!
During lockdown, I’ve periodically taken a ‘break’ from the regular structure I’ve put in place for each week to have a ‘retreat week’. Retreat has been a practice that I felt God challenge me with many years ago, and around 4 years ago (prompted by the Arrow Leadership Programme that I was participating in) I actually got round to doing it. The truth was, it was an assignment on the course. Yes, the assignment was take some time on retreat! If you’ve not discovered a rhythm of retreat in your life, let this be the season where you find a way to build it in – even if for just a morning each month or two.
While on this recent retreat (which of course was spent in the same four walls as every other day) I was reminded of this amazing interview that I’d watched a couple of years ago, with author of bestselling novel The Shack, Paul Young. If you’ve got time, DEFINITELY watch this interview – it’ll be worth your time!
I realised, I don’t live in the grace of a day. I’m always trying to control the future. Early on in lockdown, as the disappointment of losing my plans for ministry trips abroad set in, I thought to myself ‘The future seems much less certain now.’ Then popped into my head the reply: ‘The future is as certain as it’s always been.’
Because the truth is, actually, none of us knows what is going to happen tomorrow, or next week, or next year. Of course we have to make plans and get on and do stuff, but the idea that it’s certain is pure illusion. Or at least, the idea that it’s certainly going to be as we imagine is pure illusion. The future is no less certain than it’s always been – it’s always uncertain from our perspective. But from God’s perspective, it’s as certain as ever. He’s not taken aback.
Revelation tells us that Jesus is the Lamb who was slain from the foundation of the world. From before that ill-fated day when an apple met Eve’s lips, there was already a plan for redemption. In fact, in a sense the sacrifice had already been made – because to love is a sacrifice that will always cost eventually. Jesus’s destiny was already sealed as the Lamb who was slain, before a day ever came to be. Father, Jesus and Holy Spirit are as certain about the future as they’ve always been.
And so what does this mean for us? Paul Young, in the interview above, describes how having gone through a lengthy and unimaginably painful process of de- and re-construction in his inner life and relationships, he and his family then lost all their financial security. Living in crowded accommodation and working three jobs, he describes how:
“Joy had become a constant companion. That’s what happens when you live inside the grace of a day. You don’t run away from joy. We are so geared to be future trippers. That’s what we do when we can’t trust. We create imaginations that don’t exist and we spend real grace that was given for us for today on things that don’t exist.”
Jesus is detoxing me from being a future tripper. In this season, not much planning has been possible. So I am forced to change the way I live. To begin to live in the grace of a day.
In this time, I think Holy Spirit is giving us an invitation – to not worry about tomorrow. To allow today’s grace to minister to our needs today, trusting that because His mercies are new every morning, there’s gonna be new grace for tomorrow.
So may you leave the life of being a future tripper, and discover the grace to be fully present in today, whatever comes.
And I’d appreciate your prayer as I seek to move into whatever is next, but not rushing ahead, rather taking one step at a time. I’d love to know if you’ve been discovering the grace of a day – let me know in the comments below!
I realise it’d be easy to read this blog and maybe think that somehow I have dealt with the disappointment of my plans being shattered by coronavirus by simply reading Scriptures and writing positive blog posts. So here’s a little piece that’s simply a ‘reality check’ to let you into a bit of what happens behind the scenes of my life.
I’m not posting this for sympathy (although I’m not dissing right-hearted sympathy) or as a cry for specific help… as you’ll discover I have good help in my life already. But I’m posting this because another word for ‘truth’ in the Scriptures is ‘reality’, and so we could say as Jesus did that ‘reality will set you free’. Here’s a bit of my reality, in the hope that it brings you a bit of freedom to travel your own journey with God.
When the news that my trip with Tearfund to Bangladesh was cancelled, I was devastated. So many things had come into alignment for the trip to happen, I’d received a stack of direction from Holy Spirit which all seemed to be leading me there, and people had donated, and I had spent, a lot of money to get the trip set up. Added to all that I’d left my home and my job, work that I truly loved. There were many aspects to the disappointment I faced but I really did grieve – anger, tears, fear – the lot.
I also reached out to trusted friends.
I took time with God. Sometimes just angrily stating why I thought He should’ve warned me. Sometimes just sitting in confusion and trying to work through, what is going on?
I read the Bible. I read the Psalms. I read some bits of books (but I’m not a great reader so not a lot).
I spoke to friends some more. I asked people to pray. I went on walks. I went on drives (before lockdown).
I am still journeying. I don’t have all the answers yet, but I have some hints of answers to some things. There are treasures I’m discovering here. There are also still moments of sadness. I am still talking to friends about it. It seems to be getting better but there may be more stages yet to go through.
Although I might look and sound stoic, I’m actually pretty emotionally expressive and I feel things deeply. And grieving, and disappointment, and emotions, are messy. And I’m not through it yet.
So this post is about the honesty. This is about saying leaders or whatever aren’t always ‘there yet’. This is about saying I still love Jesus but there’s hurts that aren’t healed yet. This is about reality: so may you discover the freedom of being real with God and with trusted others. May you know the space to not be ok sometimes. And may you and I discover how to journey on and be made strong in the Saviour’s love.
Prayer pointers: I’d love you to pray for me…
> That I will live well and find contentment in the days I’m in
> That I’ll know what opportunities to take in the days to come
Kindness is a surprise, and kindness also has a direction.
Kindness leads somewhere. The Bible puts it this way: “God’s kindness is intended to lead us to repentance” (Which means changing our minds about God.) [Romans 2:4 NIVUK]
Here’s the way another translation puts it: “God is kind, but he’s not soft. In kindness he takes us firmly by the hand and leads us into a radical life-change.” [Romans 2:4 MSG]
Kindness leads us to change. It is meant to melt our hearts and lead us to a new world with God.
Have you ever experienced kindness like that? Sometimes kindness is challenge. Sometimes it’s not soft, although it’s always tender-hearted. I don’t think you can be ‘cruel to be kind’ but you can be ‘bold to be kind’.
Kindness isn’t the way we expect power to work… but it’s what we see in the life of Jesus:
“Jesus entered Jericho and was passing through. A man was there by the name of Zacchaeus; he was a chief tax collector and was wealthy. He wanted to see who Jesus was, but because he was short he could not see over the crowd. So he ran ahead and climbed a sycamore-fig tree to see him, since Jesus was coming that way. When Jesus reached the spot, he looked up and said to him, ‘Zacchaeus, come down immediately. I must stay at your house today.’ So he came down at once and welcomed him gladly. All the people saw this and began to mutter, ‘He has gone to be the guest of a sinner.’ But Zacchaeus stood up and said to the Lord, ‘Look, Lord! Here and now I give half of my possessions to the poor, and if I have cheated anybody out of anything, I will pay back four times the amount.’ Jesus said to him, ‘Today salvation has come to this house, because this man, too, is a son of Abraham. For the Son of Man came to seek and to save the lost.’” [Luke 19: 1-10 NIVUK]
Zacchaeus was shown kindness by Jesus, and the kindness led to a turnaround in his life. He’d been known for working for the hated occupying power, Rome, and for lining his pockets with extra money defrauded from people in collecting taxes. He was also known for being short. But a bit of him had enough of a desire to see Jesus that Jesus saw him – saw through the money, the fancy clothes, the jewellery or whatever else rich people spent their money on in first century Palestine – Jesus in kindness says ‘I think I’m safe to say you got enough food in your house for me… I’m coming over for dinner.’
To come into someone’s home in that culture was to value the person whose home it was. It was to say, I accept you. I am willing to be associated with you. I am willing to accept that you have something to give to me. Think about it, all Zacchaeus has ever been known for was taking from people. Jesus is saying, you’ve got something to give me.
The invitation is one to a different kind of life. It is kindness because it carries that hallmark of being unexpected – a twist in the usual story. And it is kindness because it leads to Zacchaeus changing his mind. Reevaluating his life, his priorities, his relationship with God.
Jesus’s kindness is extended today. He says to Zacchaeus – quick! I must be a guest in your house, today! There’s no time to waste for Jesus in showing kindness. It’s for today! He doesn’t want to wait until tomorrow, He doesn’t need time to think about it, He is sure that today is the time for kindness.
[This post and the previous one are taken from a message I gave at St Mary’s church in August 2019. I felt now would be a good time to reshare it. Hope it was helpful!]
David had had a tough ride. He was living an amazing life now he was king, but it hadn’t always been that way. He was holding onto a promise that one day he would be king, but in the meantime he had spent years being chased down by the current king Saul, hungry for blood, raging in jealousy. Finally for David, the tables turned, and Saul’s vengeful actions were brought to an end. Saul and his sons were killed in battle – not by David – and all of a sudden, David became star of the show.
In the ancient world in which he lived, it was normal for one king to fight against another, and the winner would be pretty brutal to whoever was left of the old king’s friends. Acts of cruelty often followed a defeat and escalated, with every member of a defeated king’s family being slaughtered.
But David chooses another way. Having been fiercely loyal to God’s anointing on the king, David didn’t gloat over the death of Saul and his sons – far from it. His dearest friend Jonathan was one of the king’s sons, and he grieved for him. He then asked this question: “Isn’t there anyone left of Saul’s family, who I can show kindness to for Jonathan’s sake?”
Deep in David’s heart was a kindness that led him to give a place at his table – providing all the needs for life – for a guy called Mephibosheth who was disabled. In a society with no welfare and no inclusion of disabled people, David extended generosity to Mephibosheth and brought him into his own family.
At the end of his life David was described in the Bible as being a man “after God’s own heart”. He was fierce, a warrior, and yet there are moments like this where we see his kindness – after God’s own heart.
Kindness is a surprise.
Kindness is a twist in the plot which no one is expecting.
Kindness is the currency of family, of heaven. It’s paid forward, it’s invested in others, and it earns interest when it’s treasured up in our hearts.
Think about it – when people say something ‘restored their faith in humanity’, what are they referring to? Kindness.
Kindness can restore faith.
In this unusual time there may be ways we’re limited in showing kindness, but we are also seeing a move of kindness in communities. Recently on the news a woman shared how a complete stranger had bought her a washing machine, as since lockdown she couldn’t go to the laundrette and hand washing everything was time consuming and difficult with looking after children. Kindness looks like something.
What would kindness that restores faith look like today? How is God moving on the earth to restore faith right now? Let’s pray for kindness to rise up!
For a number of years when asked what God has called me to, I’ve tended to sum it up like this: that the church would be radiant. I believe the church should be the most life-giving, love-oriented, creative, inspiring collective on the face of the earth! It’s where culture should emanate from, where the next great contributions to society should originate, and where the challenges of our time should find innovative solutions. The reputation of Jesus in the church should be such that church is the first place people would think to come when they need healing, or breakthrough, or purpose. It should be known for being the epicentre of real life.
Confetti surprise during Christmas services 2018 at St Mary’s Church
I have loved moments over the years where I’ve encountered surprise at the church. The moments where having refurbished our church building at St Mary’s and launched our Fuel youth congregation, parents would come to collect their young people at the end of a Friday night and their jaws would drop as they looked inside an old stone building with stained glass windows, and found an open space inside, full of colour and life and young people. Surprise gets under our skin like few other things. Surprise forces us to reconsider our preconceived ideas and reevaluate our worldview. The church should be ever surprising to the world.
In this time, in this season, it is time for the church to be radiant! When things are at their darkest people are looking for light and we steward the light to the world as a church! We have a unique moment in which to bring the surprise of good news to those snowed in with bad news.
Why not use this fantastic song by Jenn Johnson as a prayer today for Holy Spirit to work through you? You may not be able to step out of your front door but if you’re reading this blog, you can certainly contribute to an increase of kindness on the earth.
And I’d love you to pray for me today, as I continue to work out my next step, to go with the kindness of Jesus to another place when travel becomes possible again.
There are few people who faced more disappointments than Joseph in the Old Testament of the Bible. Although better known for his technicolour dream coat, he actually journeyed through situations where to be honest, I think I would have given up. Sure, he starts off pretty arrogant, declaring to his brothers and his parents his dreams where they all bow down to him, but still, what happens next is pretty harsh. Having been sold into slavery by his brothers, he then finds employment in the house of an important guy, but that falls through when this guy’s wife takes a liking to Joseph and when he resists her advances she screams and accuses Joseph of assaulting her. He’s thrown into prison without trial and spends years there.
Think about that. He hadn’t done anything wrong. He’d already ended up in slavery, and now it had actually gotten worse. In prison, he uses his gifts to lead and interpret dreams, and this looks like it could lead to him being freed from prison, but that falls through too. From that point on he faces further years in jail, forgotten. The disappointment of being forgotten again must have been crushing, and yet somehow Joseph endures. Finally, his freedom comes when he is remembered and the king calls on him to interpret a dream.
And here comes the part of the story I love, where Joseph is given freedom, authority and ultimately, the fulfilment of his dreams all those years ago. With the wisdom and insight he has from God, he leads a strategic response to a global emergency that results in his (adopted) nation being saved and the surrounding peoples coming to Egypt for supplies.
When his brothers come to buy supplies during their famine, and realise this great leader is in fact their little brother Joseph, they are shocked and afraid. Grovelling, they hope to find forgiveness. Joseph’s response is remarkable: “You intended it for evil, but God meant it for good”.
Is it possible that in this time, God is repurposing for good what was intended for evil?
Jesus is clear that the enemy comes to steal, kill and destroy. There’s been finances stolen, lives killed and destruction spreads across 24 hour news coverage. It’s pretty clear to me that disease is from the enemy of our souls. And yet I believe God is still working in us, in the church and in the world, repurposing for our good what was intended to destroy.
Cities of our world where many die each year due to pollution, are currently surrounded by air that’s clear as crystal. A friend was telling of her neighbour, an elderly woman, who’d been estranged from her daughter for many years, but who’d last week received a call, “Just wanting to see if you were ok?” How many other relationships where brokenness spans decades might finally be reconciled as people face their own mortality and the clarity of what really matters? And some would have said of the church that it’s slow to change or that it doesn’t know how to adapt to reach people in our world today, and yet in four days we saw the biggest change to patterns of Sunday worship to have happened across all streams of the church in many years.
God is repurposing this disaster for our good, that we would see what is possible. Our environment can recover. Relationships can be restored. The church can change quickly. The enemy is the thief of hope but the thing with hope is that there’s always more, because its Source is limitless. In a week where fear went on a rampage, hope ramped up!
Because actually this is always what the Lord is doing. We see this in the death and resurrection of Jesus. The enemy thought with the death of Jesus that he’d won, but actually it was his undoing and defeat! Everything seemed lost at the time but actually it was the moment where we gained everything. God is so smart that He always manages to outwit the enemy of our souls… so as the enemy storms the globe with coronavirus, God actually turns situations for healing and reconciliation and hope and restoration and the enemy looks back tearing his hair out because the church has advanced and God has been glorified by His people who stood defiant and sang praises in their living rooms, connected by the internet in solidarity and devotion to Christ!
This of course does not minimise the very real fear we all feel as disheartening news rolls in on our apps and TVs like unwelcome waves in a relentless storm. Nor does it cancel the very real losses many face as their businesses or loved ones’ lives hang in the balance. I still have many questions: why didn’t God warn us? Why weren’t there words to help us prepare? And it means questions for me too – like what do I do next? Having planned to travel but ended up grounded, what should I do? How I handle my own disappointment is still very much a work in progress, and maybe I’ll write about that from the other side in future.
But let’s keep pressing into Holy Spirit together, because resurrection day is coming! And of course, let’s comfort one another knowing in this way we fulfil the purpose of Christ.
Adventures with God 