Fight the good fight

I don't want to give too much time to our enemy, but this week I have become keenly aware that it is in his interest to make me unefficient and unproductive in what God has put in me. It is his interest to deceive me into thinking that I am not really worth anything. And it is his interest to help me forget how goooood life was when I was dwelling with God, and how incredible the Holy Spirit is, and it is his interest to minimise my belief of what I could achieve if I took hold of the Holy Spirit in my life. It is his interest to deceive me into thinking that many of my relationships are a little sour, that others really dont care for me that much, or want to hear from me, or that I've got nothing of importance to say to these people, or to hear from them.

I am going to stand on the side of my Saviour. Who looks upon each of His beloved, His bride, His church, as intimate creations who He knows through and through. That includes me, and I stand on this rock when I am struggling to believe in myself. And that also includes all who I meet, and what I do to one of the least of those I do to God... because God created them! They are His beloved! His heart burns for them - how can I criticise?? He IS my Glorious King, He is utterly good in everything all of the time, and I will stop believing the lies that my circumstances can dictate how good God is.

And I will ask for more of Him, more of His Spirit, because I believe that the Holy Spirit is the promise of Jesus by which I will gain strength to live the life that He has called me to. I will settle for nothing less.

Please join with me in noticing the lies that you have been believing. We are being deceived into unproductivity! Ask Holy Spirit to reveal these things to you now, be released.

Difference of opinion?

Am really aware this week of how arrogant I can be with my opinions, specially on spiritual matters. I figure, now, that I don't know it all. It's just that sometimes people seem to settle for something that seems to me to be unsatisfying. Maybe I am judging what they believe though, and need to give them some time first. I realise I've got to take the good out of everybody's theology, and realise that I'll never have it all right! Too bad!

I preached last week, please listen: southsidechurch.org.uk/downloads.htm
and there I think I said most things that are really important to me. Interested to know if there's some things that I think that others disagree with? I suspect so. (although thats the first time I've realised it!!)

God is most glorified in us when we are most satisfied in him (Piper) - I wanna be satisfied. Not quenched, that will never happen, but satisfied. MOST satisfied. I don't know how to get there, but I endeavour to delve closer, every day of forever...

Sermon on the Mount

'The Sermon on the Mount is intimidating Scripture and a standard of perfection I usually saw as unrealistic and unattainable. Probably like most believers, I never expected to see very much fulfillment of it in the lives of leaders and ministers, much less in my own circle of experience. In fact, it was discouraging to ask teachers I knew too many questions concerning the Sermon as I was so often told to be practical and that these teachings don't quite mean what I thought they meant. Perhaps no scriptures have been "watered down" as much as these, so grand and glorious is the picture they paint of the righteousness in the power of the Holy Spirit, sustained by the unquenchable, everlasting, burning flame of the life of God Himself...

'Still, in my own experience, the lofty flights of spirituality I had heard and dreamed of seemed out of reach. And even years of academic specialization in biblical studies and theology did not seem to bring me much closer to a hope of walking in the glorious liberty of life in the Spirit as Jesus described in the Gospels. In my case, I needed encouragement. I needed a real-life example of Jesus living in someone to such an extent that I would be inspired and motivated to consider living the Sermon as not only realistic but also the only viable way to approach life and ministry in the Lord.'

Rolland Baker in the Forward to Heidi Bakers book, Compelled by Love.

This passage, that I read four months ago, has stayed with me ever since. The whole book was fantastic. Call it unrealistic, but have you ever wondered what life would look like if you really gave someone your shirt when they asked for your coat, or walked with them two miles when they asked you for one... by no means, I'm sad to say, does this reflect my life at present. But I am again inspired that we should aim no lower.

I pet 2:21-23 (NLT) "Follow in his steps... He did not retaliate when he was insulted. When he suffered, he did not threaten to get even. He left his case in the hands of God." Do we entrust ourselves to God, justice, mercy?? wow.

Soaking

'Soaking' is a concept that I am very excited to talk about./blog about.

At my job at the pub, if I want to clean my tables at the end of a busy night, I get my cloth. I can go to a table that is soiled and rub and rub and rub, but when my cloth is dry it is to no avail, perhaps moving the grime around but certainly not cleaning it.

At 10.15 ish each night I begin cleaning tables. I get some cloth, soak it under the tap, and then clean tables starting at the top of the restaurant area. And you know what, after 3 or 4 tables, the cloth is dry. Those 3 or 4 tables are lovely and clean, but the next will be less so if I carry on without getting a good dunking for my cloth. So I walk all the way back to the bar, soak the cloth again, and carry on. It's hassle walking all that way so many times to re-soak the cloth! But my tables simply wont get clean unless I do it!

In the Christian sense, I'm not sure we really 'get' soaking... but it's just another word for another quite ordinary thing! I think too often we disregard it as some wish-washy meditation/emotional relief for the weak. You know what, soaking is the only way to live! Or we will be dry and no use at all!

When I have had a long days work, or a long summers day of fun, I often come home and just soak in the bath. I need it! Not only for the cleaning purpose, but for the relaxation, for the rest and peace... the fruit of a long bath to me is cleanliness but also, de-stressing, a good thinking time and so better perspective, sometimes nothing at all but some sleep, and hopefully sometimes I smell pretty good after too!

The fruit of the Spirit are love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, gentleness, faithfulness and self control. (Gal 5v22??) Soak in our beautiful Lord and His Spirit! Come and be washed! be cleansed, be relaxed, get some perspective again, and become effective once again for the purposes that you have!

I have found that sometimes I'm really struggling to know truths, lies are coming in.... and whatever I do, I can't kick it. So come soak. Just rest into the presence of our Lord. Just drink of His goodness. and the truths so often just come! Sometimes other people can help, or the Bible, or worship, but sometimes just come empty and with no agenda, possibly even in the bath, and ENJOY. It's an adventure!

anxious about tomorrow?

Soooo I had a fun revelation this week! For background information, I am considering taking a trip out to Oklahoma in February. Although I'm not particularly rich, I have a few savings and student loan etc and am not against using this money in a way that honours God, and so I have spent a very good amount of time looking at all sorts of flights to Oklahoma in Feb.

It struck me the other day, that it would be folly for me to be looking if I didn't have any potential of access to this money. I know we all like to dream, but does anyone in their right mind sit down and look for holidays, looking up cheaper options and a variety of flights, finding out the details of the hotel, looking up what the town might have to offer,,, if they have 100% no access to the money to buy it.

If someone who knew you really well offered to choose and buy you a massive holiday, what would your response be? You could try dropping hints on the kind of holiday you like, but I'm not so sure it would be of any use at all for you to sit there looking in detail at loads of holidays out of your own budget.

Does this make sense?! When someone else is choosing, what good does it do to have a go at choosing for yourself?! It might be quite fun, BUT you put youself at risk of atleast one bad thing - getting excited about a type of holiday that you're not going to have (and would not in fact be right for you). When the friend who IS buying knows exactly what they're doing and therefore what is going to suit you perfectly.

"Therefore I tell you, do not be anxious about your life, what you will eat or what you will drink, nor about your body, what you will put on. Is not life more than food, and the body more than clothing?
Look at the birds of the air: they neither sow nor reap nor gather ino barns, and yet your heavenly Father feeds them. Are you not of more value than they? And which of you by being anxious can add a single hour to his span of life?
And why are you anxious about clothing? Consider the lilies of the field, how they grow: they neither toil nor spin, yet I tell you, even Solomon in all his glory was not arrayed like one of these. But if God so clothes the grass of the field, which today is alive and tomorrow is thrown into the oven, will he not much more clothe you, O you of little faith?
Therefore do not be anxious saying, 'what shall we eat?' or 'what shall we drink?' or 'what shall we wear?' For the Gentiles seek after all these things, and your heavenly Father knows that you need them all.
But seek first the kingdom of God and his righteousness, and all these things will be added to you. Therefore do not be anxious about tomorrow, for tomorrow will be anxious for itself. Sufficient for the day is its own trouble." Matt 6v25-34

Revelation of the day

It's a good one! Ha!

So I'm looking after a house with a cat (thanks for this lovely opportunity to recover from my chest infection with the luxury of a sofa and large tele!) who is a rescue cat, relatively new to the household. And so she's pretty shy, and isn't really yet used to being picked up and relaxing, she always jumps away when you try to really 'pet' her.

I was just going up to bed last night and I leant down to stroke her good night (haha that sounds funny) and as she lept away I caught these exact words coming out of my mouth 'I wish that you would understand that it is my intention to love you and not to harm you!'

Suddenly, bam, because of affection for a CAT of all things, God is revealing His heart for me. When He reaches out to me so often I leap away, I dare not accept the loving stroke because after all I am so much like a rescue cat! Not that I blame people here for having treated me badly yet in my sinful nature I simply don't understand that when someone reaches out for me they can have a pure intention just to love me.

You know what, that cat had just pooed on the carpet too. Maybe she knew she'd done something wrong - am I overestimating the intelligence of cats? - although I'd not voiced it. Yet, somehow, I wasn't at all mad I just wanted to love her and say goodnight. Are we so often like this? We do something wrong and assume that God's going to be mad at us although He never voiced His anger, so we find ourselves shying away from His affection towards us...

I'm going to try to learn to accept God's incredible grace for me, and His desire to love me not to harm me. much like Lily the cat.

Some great snippets!

Here's one from Brennan Manning, The Ragamuffin Gospel (which is my commuting book, for when I'm focussed... it is AMAZING! i know I say that about every book I read and every preach I hear and every worship time I attend... but it's just true!!)

We repent because we're forgiven, it's not that we're forgiven because we repented... (let that sink in a little.... IMMMMMENSE TRUTH!)

And some from Banning at the JesusCulture night tonight in Southampton...

... our capacity to love God is only possible as a response to His loving us (Banning gave a brilliant illustration that I'm not eloquent enough to repeat, shame)

.. when we cry out to God, He cannot resist it! So pray, and He loves you so much He'll come!

... 'If no one else goes, I'm going anyway' - the attitude of a revival starter - a leader not a follower.

Hoax

Does everyone feel like a hoax as much as me?? I guess that sounds like a stupid question, haha. I was commuting into London this morning as I am on placement there, and sitting on the train ... this is something that I have spent a lot of my life dreaming of doing- having some high rising London job where I can dress smart and commute to a 9-5 job and just generally feel quite important. So anyway, there I was, book open on my lap, dishevelled attempt at smart clothes, a far too slovenly slouch than is proper, amongst lots of other commuters who all on appearance were doing a better job than me at looking important and interested in their various papers.

Anyway, I was not focussing well on my book, and found myself picking my face (one of my worst habbits) but suddenly I froze, thinking, 'oh no! They might be onto me! I can't do ugly things like pick my spot on my forehead on the train to LONDON! They'll realise I'm a hoax! They'll notice that I'm not really a mature, posh, wealthy, good looking, with etiquette high-rising London worker!'... It didn't take long to realise that my dishevelled slovenly appearance had probably already given me away...

Then I started (secretly) eyeing up the chap next to me. He had the times open (well, not open, it was the front page), and it took him quite a while to turn into it so I'm not sure he was focussed either. He had all the right appearance things going for him. Quite humourously he did sneak in a pick of the nose whilst I was observing... I wondered if he wondered if anyone was 'onto him' too?

I wondered if that train was full of people hoping that no one would notice that they weren't actually good enough, cool enough, popular enough, fun enough, good looking enough, posh enough...

Having always aspired to be someone who had a good job and dressed well and commuted to London, I thought that's what it looked like to 'make it' in this world. I thought it would probably feel special. And there I found myself feeling like a child in her mum's high heels at a cocktail party... but maybe that's all it is! Maybe there's some people who've been at it long enough that they've convinced even themselves that they've made it... but I'm not sure.

I'm not really sure whats the point of that, but it really made me stop. I think each time I grow up (which is happening very, very slowly) I realise that really I need to grow down, becoming great in this world's eye's is really not all that...

I am so glad that my value is in something other than making it in this world, because I would definitely be a hoax!

The benefits of having a mum in the office...

I love how every day life can bring such amazing revelations!

This week I've been on placement in a new part of Bedford's maternity unit, with a different midwife from usual. I need to give a little background, I work as a student midwife and do placements all around Bedford Hospital's maternity unit, with a specific midwife/mentor in each place. And one thing that the whole hospital has in common is computers, and as with every job we have plenty of paperwork and computer systems that we update continuously to show what care we've given to who and so on.

As you can imagine every so often 'hiccups' occur in these systems and me and my midwife/mentors are often clueless on where what we're looking for could be found, or how to undo what we've just done wrongly... you know what I mean. And there's a lovely lady who works in the office who is that person that just knows everything! She knows everyones phone numbers, she knows where things are all the time, she understands how the computer systems work and why! She's one of those people it's good to get on with, and I'm often sent to her office to try to sort something out.

The difference is that on this placement I've been working with a midwife who happens to be this lady's daughter. Almost before we encountered problems she was just saying 'call mum' or 'ask mum' or 'mum will do it'... problems were resolved quickly, phone numbers found, lost items retrieved... not that the lovely office lady doesn't willingly do this work for every midwife, but when working with her daughter we had extra permission to be a little bit cheeky in what we were asking for, to push boundaries a little, and to ask and ask again! I worked out why this was...

Because my midwife already had a good relationship with her mum!! She spent time with her, they laughed together, they helped eachother out, they had a genuine relationship that meant that asking for help was completely allowed.

I guess you figure where I'm going with this. Our Father, in heaven, is just like this office lady. He sorts everything out, and we get to ask of Him lots. But when we come as His children, with a background of relationship, we can refer every situation we encounter with to Him, we can ask of Him all the time, because He loves us and we love Him!! wow.

Good God!

My God is in a good mood all of the time! I am so struck by this right now. I am tired, exhausted, discouraged, anxious, stressed, angry, must I go on? So it was easy to get in my car and shout/whine at God about the situations and why I'm annoyed... then it just hit me, 'forget about me, look at Him!' He is SO beautiful and loving, He is full of joy and laughter, He longs to take my burdens (He never gives us situations to just expect us to cope with them - He gives them to us just so we can offer them right back to Him!)

And so, driving back from uni, I just started laughing at myself. "Rejoice in the Lord always, I will say it again, REJOICE! Let your reasonableness be known to everyone. The Lord is at hand. Do not be anxious about anything, but in everything, with thanksgiving by prayer and supplication present your requests before God, and the peace of God - which surpasses all understanding (!) - will guard your hearts and your minds in Christ Jesus." Philippians 4 somewhere 'Version of Ryland'... His peace surpasses ALL understanding! I will never understand why I can have peace in all circumstances, but I know that I can. I want to be like the woman in Prov 31 who laughs in the face of times to come... with my family dressed in purple and ready for whatever lies ahead. Maybe not always dressed in purple!

Wow. What freedom and release. So on with my slightly manic life, but with my head held high and my shoulders back because I am not burdened but lifted up! PRAISE GOD!!!!

Relationship not function.

I was challenged recently that we should live for relationship and not function. Plenty of big stuff has been going on since that time, but specially today I'm drawn back to that same point.

When asked the greatest commandment Jesus said to love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your mind... not to serve Him with it. If we serve God without loving Him it becomes a chore and we get pretty slack... if we love Him first we end up serving Him anyway without trying!

So much of my time is spend with my God cos I want to get something out of Him, I want to get something to share with others.. But I intend to learn to better spend time with Him just because He's great and greatly to be praised. Isn't He?!

lesson not yet learnt...

Maybe I'll never blog again?! I'm not getting over what I blogged about last time. I don't know if I can move on from that place. I don't know if I'll ever make a discovery that will become so significant in my day to day life. And yet how difficult even to put something that is so important into practice every day... the very things that He asks me to do I just don't seem to get around to, the very things that He hates, are the very things that I always stumble into! (to quote Shawn Mcdonald, probably badly!)

I love God. And I want a relationship with Him for the rest of my life that will take me through things that I daren't even dream or imagine right now, but that I will be strong enough for by His strength. And yet this shall be a daily battle.

In France right now, where the grass is green. I don't know what tomorrow holds, more than ever, now I am uncertain. I just hope to get up and run again tomorrow, and all the tomorrows after that.

So next... the experience thing. Sorry if you're reading from the top down, I'm writing a few posts today. I think that makes them the wrong way around.

A year ago I was a different person. I remember going to Christian events where people laughed or fell over or cried or shouted in the Spirit and I found it really hard to deal with. I had no idea what it was, and why I didn't have it. I knew that I was filled with the Spirit, and I spoke in tongues which is a Spiritual language God gives us to help us engage with Him in a deeper level. A bit wierd but I could cope with that. I have always read my Bible pretty religiously, well since I was 16, not that I gain loads from it every day, but I feel like a better person as I have read, I've blogged about this before. Anyway, I've not been 100% about all this Spirit stuff.

I used to think that if God wanted to move in this way in me, then He'd have to do it against my will, i.e. I actively didn't fall or laugh or whatever just so that He'd be really proving Himself if it happened to me. I didn't want to miss out on it if it was something good that others have, but I am not the kind of person to fake it to fit in. It was hard times. I used to argue that we shouldn't base things on experience, as we're just emotional people and emotions can't be trusted.

WOW.

So I don't know when, but at some point in the last 6 months ish I changed my heart. I heard teaching by Rhys Scott on the Holy Spirit, and how much like a father can say that he loves his son but the son doesn't know it until he experiences the embrace, so also it is with the Holy Spirit. The bible teaches, we know that God loves us, but it is through the Holy Spirit that we can gain the experiences that demonstrate this love to us.

So I stopped actively not responding to God. Instead I just drew near to Him, not seeking the experiences for experiences sake, but seeking from my heart to truely understand and be overwhelmed by His Spirit. and this is the journey that I now find myself on. It is so much more fun! The Bible, exposed by the Holy Spirit, teaches that we should be drunk on the Holy Spirit. It was through the power of this that Peter preached on the day of pentecost, and I want to do mighty things too so I need this power!

I have stopped taking myself, and my religiousness, so seriously. I refuse to be legalistic about my aproach to God, what is friendship when you only spend time together because you feel you should - and therefore do it begrudgingly, quickly and rarely! No, I have a Saviour who made a way for me to enter in to His Glory! And I will do so every day for the rest of my life! And as I draw near, forgetting myself and my inhibitions as blogged below, I let Him minister to me in what way He would like. Sometimes circumstances just become funny from this point of view, the heavenly perspective makes me realise how rediculous I am, and I find myself stumbling around and laughing. Sometimes His power seems to surge through me. I don't get it, it doesn't fit a pattern that I'd like to write, but it is SO GOOD! And my understanding of God grows each time I encounter Him and His Spirit, my joy in relationship grows, my desires come in line with my Fathers desires.

Please, I beg you, don't take yourself so seriously that you miss out on the experience of the Holy Spirit in it's fullness. Read your bible, desire to know truth, and dwell with God the Spirit.

What a couple of weeks!

i HAVE NO IDEA WHERE TO START!

Firstly, I shall learn how not to delete whole posts that I write before I've posted them! But now... what a couple of weeks! I may have to do several posts so as not to overwhelm.

I know where to start. A few months back I was supposed to be going for a night out at ministry of sound London, although it never happened. I was pretty gutted, I love clubbing. I remember when I was about 16 I went to a gig back home, and it was one of them where some people there know the music and just start throwing themselves around, arms flailing everywhere, eyes shut, lost in the moment... and I always envied something about that ability to get completely lost in their bodies, caught up in the music...

Since then I've had this fascination with the times when you're in a club and the music is so loud it shakes your whole body, and you're so rammed in you can barely breathe or move, and the lights are flashing so you don't know quite what is around you, and it's so easy just to get caught up in it... i LOVE it! And God spoke to me around the non-ministry-of-sound-attending day that He wants me to seek to get completely lost in my worship in the same way as this. Not just in an internal way, but externally, to lose all inhibitions about who is around me, and to dance and sing in a way like those people at the gig when I was 16.

Anyway. I shall have to write another blog about the experience thing. In the mean time, for the first time, at the Heaven Touches Earth conference in June at the worship time at the end I found myself in the edge of this place. I have never danced like that. I'm sure it wasn't much to look at, but it was joy bubbling and overflowing, presence of the Glory of God and His Spirit moving me... It was everything that I had hoped it would be. Anyway, these moments have increased in my life, and I AM LOVING IT! seek it! On you're own, at church when no one bares tap their big toe, give yourself over to the love of the Lord your God. He is worth every ounce of our energy! Whoop! Watch this space to see me doing this, I hope to not be held back by Britishness forever!

Prayer...

Sooo... I have just listened to the following sermon: http://vimeo.com/5294550 as Simon Holley had something about it on his facebook and I remembered and saved it for a day off! And WOW would truely recommend it! The things that mainly stuck out to me were:

-Prayer is built on what God has promised to do

-Prayer is the vital pre-requisit for the release of God's power

-We are invited to pray, God has chosen us to ask Him for things... we should be asking in order to get!

We need to get specific in our prayers. We must take hold of things that God has promised to us and ask until we get, with conviction that He will give!

I'm reminded of a recent story, when I was at a conference I bumped into a couple I met at the Rendezvous conference in France last year, and I asked if I would be seeing them again this year.. unfortunately they had not been able to commit as they were unsure of the future of the husbands job. I was convinced that we needed to pray for this, and was certain that it would be fine. So we got around and prayed, and I have since heard that first God provided a way for them to go to the conference anyway, and then he heard that his job was safe. How exciting! I had prayed quite a lot, and of course was glad to hear the news, but it many ways I was confident of this before I even heard from them. I long that this be my experience with prayer more often!

A quote from my book Great Revivals by Colin Whittaker 'Billy Braithwaite... prayed, "Lord, give me souls or I shall die". A farmer who overheard Billy's raised voice left his ploughing to discover who was quarrelling behind the hedge, but found only one man with the tears running down his cheeks. It filled him with wonder and it still rings down the years as a challenge to us all.'

Wow.

My favourite verse.... for now.

Rejoice in the Lord always; again I wil say, Rejoice. Let your reasonableness be known to everyone. The Lord is at hand; do not be anxious about anything, but in everything by prayer and supplication with thanksgiving let your requests be made known to God. And the peace of God, which surpasses all understanding, will guard your hearts and your minds in Christ Jesus.
Philippians 4v4-7.

Also: 'Delight yourself in the Lord, and He will give you the desires of your heart.' Psalm 37v4...

So aware of my constant pride covering self-pity or otherwise self-pity covering pride... I wish I could get it to be in the middle with being happy about myself though not proud. Satisfaction in my relationship with God always brings the greatest fruit, focus and joy! I get so distracted by what God has given me, or what He hasn't, before realising that it's all meaningless anyway. Not to say life is meaningless, just that without God it pretty much seems to be.

Jesus or 'magic'?

Been reading 'Surprised by the Power of the Spirit' on my breaks at work lately, and this quote has to be shared...

We have been saved that we might passionately love a Person. We have been redeemed to serve a Person, not a set of principles. We are called first to please a real Person, not perform a ministry. It's so easy to fall in love with principles and ministry, and fall out of love with a Person.
Here's where the magic comes in. When we fall out of love with God but continue to use the principles of the Bible in order to make our lives successful, we have entered the realm of magic. When we read the Bible morning after morning but don't allow God to search our hearts with his Word, we are practicing magic. It's so easy to fall into the habit of reading the Bible in the morning to get our "God stuff" out of the way, so we can get on with our real lives. At times, I have read the Bible in the morning with absolutely no ense of God's presence, totally bored with the whole experience, my eye on the clock waiting for my scheduled time to lapse, and then actually felt good when I was finished. I don't mean that I felt a sense of relif that the boredom was over--I felt satisfied with myself, with my discipline and perseverance, and I felt God was satisfied with me too. I thought my day would be better because I had read the Bible. That kind of experience is closer to ritualism and religious magic than to New Testament Christianity.

pg 291, Jack Deere, Surprised by the Voice of God.

Hmm, I am worried about where I am on this journey, and concious that it is probably closer to the previous Jack experience of 'ritualism' than the new revelation. A set of prinicples or a relationship. I know which one I'd rather have, I just hope I can learn to remember that each day.

Grace and Faith

Julian Adams said at the conference this weekend that there is a link between a growing understanding of grace and the faith that we have to see God move today. It's the first time I've ever thought about it, but I think that is so true. It was at a conference called Rendezvous in France last summer that I felt like I really got my hands around grace, and what it means for me, and that it is by nothing that I have done but all by what Jesus achieved on the cross... (aside, I love how we always have more to learn about God! We think we've got it and then BAM a whole new revelation)... it really transformed my whole thinking since last summer.

Oddly coincidental, that same conference was where for the first time I thought I'd go for healing prayer for my lower back pain, which had been crippling on occasions for the previous 2 years. I think it was postural, I'm not sure, but by the end of a day sitting down I had to lie on the floor just to straighten it out. I had gone to the physiotherapist and they had given me exercises but these didn't seem effective in the long term...

So when Terry Virgo offered to pray for lower back pain for anyone present I decided, having seen several friends healed of this problem, that this would be my turn. After waiting a while and seeing many french people healed, Julian came to pray with me and held my legs out. My right one was shorter than my left. We started praying, and I felt a change on the left side of my lower back like muscles were adjusting, and felt the legs align together to be the same length. Praise God I was healed. Since this time I have never suffered from regular back pain...

So this weekend, when hearing about the link between understanding grace and raising faith I decided this has proved true so far in my life. I want to keep reminding myself afresh of the grace of God and what it has achieved in my life, and know that the same power that raised Christ from the grave is available for us today when we seek Him for healing. This was demonstrated by some fantastic healings at the conference this weekend, but I intend to get some more recent stories for this blog as the weeks go by... watch this space!!

Good times

It's been a great month. I went to spain with my girls that was pretty amazing. I've worked an awful lot, and then I went to a caravan with people from my small group. Monday morning I was in a horrenous mood, I felt a little like giving up, not because life isn't amazing but because sometimes I wish I could be in heaven where health is certain, happiness normal, relationship tension impossible, and God abundant. Maybe it's only me, but I get really fed up with how this all isn't the case on earth!

Anyhoodle, as ever, prayer answers all so a good sesh with a friend and then a good sesh on my own seemed to adjust perspectives so that I am reminded of my purposes in this place at this time, even if simply to become more intimate with Him. It's not good just to let seasons pass us by as we wish on the new ones, yet we so often do it.

And now I'm attending the Heaven Touches Earth conference and am reminded of God's promise in Philippians 1v6 'And I am sure of this, that he who began a good work in you will bring it to completion at the day of Jesus Christ.' I have so many dreams of ways that God would use me, to see more people healed, to bring joy where there is brokeness, hope where it was lost... and sometimes, ironically, I lose hope that any of this will ever come to pass. BUT GOD has promised to keep on working on my imperfect self until the day of Jesus Christ. Praise God!

I have also seem tremendous freedom where there was previously unbelief. Did you know that God longs for us to have JOY in His presence. Well, you probably did, but I fail to live it, or I used to.

A man with a nose bone problem that meant he couldn't breathe through it since birth got healed today, and a breast lump disappeared, amongst many other things that my silly mind has forgotten. What a good God.

This certainly isn't a boring lifestyle that I have chosen! There is so so soooo much more to come! MORE LORD!!!

New thought

So I haven't written anything since my first post, mainly cos I didn't know how to follow that one, also cos I've had no time. But tonight I was struck by something... timeless fact, new revelation...

God is reallllly good. Like I'm not sure I can describe quite how good He is. I didn't really understand when I was young why God could ask us all to worship Him, why it wasn't a bad thing for Him to want 'glory' or 'praise' for Himself. If we aren't supposed to be selfish surely He shouldn't be either?! But one day it just clicked. I think I was watching a sunrise, or something, and I was so struck by how beautiful it was. And then I started to have friends who I really cared for, more than just because they helped me pass time, but because I think I was learning what the friendship kind of love really is... to care about someone, and want to see them happy, and looking forward to seeing them, and seeing something and wishing they could have seen it because you know they would have appreciated it...

what I mean to say is, as one of my friends would say, I started to enjoy the finer things in life. I saw things that were really good. I really enjoy a delicious meal. I appreciate the beauty of nature (when I remember to look). And it dawned on me, that I believe there is a Creator, and therefore He made all of these beautiful lovely good things. And if He made them, they came from Him, and are a reflection of how beautiful and lovely and good He in fact is. So when He asks us to worship Him, it is not Him being some selfish do-badder trying to big himself up in pride, it is a perfect God wanting us to enjoy His perfection by enjoying it, ie enjoying Him! Appreciating good things is worshipping God. His Kingdom coming on this earth is good things happening on this earth. It is sickness being healed, it is broken relationships being fixed, it is hurting people turning into joyful people...

When people see my faith and think that it is a list of rules that I sometimes stick to but feel bad if I don't, they're wrong. My faith is that I have been given permission to spend time with a God who is perfect and good and lovely and beautiful and delicious and sunny and made everything that I love.... and some of that means that He sets standards, for example not to gossip, not because He wants me not to have fun, but that gossip spreads hurt and not healing, and God is a God of healing not hurt. Or flirting with all the boys, and flirting endlessly without committing does not reflect God, as He is a God of faithfulness and longs for us to understand this through our relationships with others.

I suppose this post brings questions of why there are bad things as well as the good things... that will have to wait for a future post. I'm just excited about seeing more of God's good Kingdom come on this earth.