Category Archives: Autobiographical

Autobiographical, Discipleship Series, General Principles, Wisdom

Resting in God’s Protection

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The Psalms have several recurrent themes. One of them is that God’s protection is around those who trust in Him (see for example Psalm 125:2).

I have found that trust is an active thing on my part – I have to actively trust God by committing things to Him, praying to Him, spending time with Him and, very importantly, obeying what I believe He is saying to me. I can’t just carry on my own way and then say that I am trusting God.

There are things I have to do deliberately to ensure that I am trusting Him. One of these is to discipline my time so that I have set aside times in the day and the week to spend time praying alone with Him and reading the Scriptures. Another is to obey the commands that I am not to worry or be afraid, that I am to rejoice always, pray without ceasing and in everything to give thanks (1 Thess. 5:17). These are not always easy commands to obey and work is required to carry them out.

We have just finished a series of studies of James at our local church, Open Arms. Works and faith go hand in hand.

Autobiographical, Discipleship Series, General Principles

Not my will but yours be done

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Wouldn’t it be great if our wills and God’s were always perfectly aligned like Jesus’ will is?

Oh, wait, he did say “Not my will but yours be done” on one occasion (Matthew 26:39). I guess then that makes him more like us than would otherwise be the case.Prince of Peace Hillsong

“Not my will but yours be done” I’ve said to my Father about a thing I don’t want to do.
Just so you know, it doesn’t compare in any way with what Jesus had to go through, in fact if I told you what it was you would think, wow, can I do it instead if you don’t want to? In fact I am competing to do it. The only similarity is that I don’t want to do it but I believe my Father wants me to do it. Mind you that wouldn’t be the first time that happened sadly.

No one – except God – can really share your pain and neither can anyone really know your joy (Proverbs 14:10). We are all so different. But His love surrounds us when our thoughts wage war and all our emotions are like a volcano inside. He is the Prince of Peace.

Not my will but Yours be done!

Autobiographical, Discipleship Series, faith, General Principles

No Law!

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Paul has said this a few times now:  When there is no law there is no sin:

For until the law sin was in the world, but sin is not imputed when there is no law.

Romans 5:13

And you, being dead in your trespasses and the uncircumcision of your flesh, He has made alive together with Him, having forgiven you all trespasses, 14 having wiped out the handwriting of requirements that was against us, which was contrary to us. And He has taken it out of the way, having nailed it to the cross. 15 Having disarmed principalities and powers, He made a public spectacle of them, triumphing over them in it.

Colossians 3:13-15

This morning I woke and spent time with God. Wonderful time with God. This is always a good thing.

This morning I realised that any law anyone might have written or spoken against what I am is null and void. I’m accepted in all my complexities and peculiarities.

I am consoled though that I am not alone in this. We all need levels of acceptance and freedom from sin that only the cross can bring. I’ve died with Christ (Galatians 2:20). The law doesn’t apply to me any more. Go and take a run and jump accuser.

Autobiographical, General Principles, Law & Grace

Tainted Windows

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Yesterday my teenage daughter came to me and said she was bored and needed money and could I pay her for washing the windows of our house? I explained to her that I could get a professional window cleaner to do the whole house inside and out including the conservatory for less than €50. I also explained that it was not a simple job and that it would take her several hours just to do the downstairs windows inside and out to the standard a professional would do. But she insisted and we agreed on a price and I helped her out with some tips. Only I forgot one and that was to ensure that the cloth she used for buffing was clean – or use newspapers which also works.

So she got through a lot of windows. At the back of the house is our conservatory which is mainly glass. The sun sets on that side and here in these northern climes we get long evenings of low sun. Having spent 2-3 hours cleaning windows the sun began to reveal things as it does when shining low into windows in the early morning or late evening. Every smear mark, every missed part of every window was shown up.  Needless to say she was quite discouraged.

However in the morning I came down to the conservatory. It was a bright morning but the sun was on the other side of the house. No joke, you couldn’t see any of the smears without looking very closely. All the windows looked clean!

Yesterday I also was listening to a man giving a TED talk. He had done more good in his life for more people than many a Christian man. He claimed to be a humanist and gay and had helped raise millions for charity. By some light he seemed a good man. But still I wonder, if the Son shines His gaze on his life, will it look as well as in the duller light of our understanding of good?

Isaiah said all our good works look like dirty underwear in His sight. (Isaiah 64:6)

I think I’ll trust in Jesus for my righteousness. I’ll also let Him do the judging about what that means in my life or in anyone else’s. What about you?

Autobiographical, Discipleship Series, General Principles

Perfect Love

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John mentions perfect love in 1 John 4:18 in a way that seems to indicate – taken along with the rest of his writings – that he had first hand experience of it.  I’m not sure I have now because I experienced a level of love I have never had before both mentally and emotionally last night and it has left me realising that I have a lot more to know.

It wasn’t a mushy thing nor a cold, crucified kind of love.  It reminded me more of the kind of love that Paul talks about in Ephesians 3:17 – a rooted and grounded kind of love.  Like all God things ultimately it is a revelation.  It sounds simple when you describe it but the experience is profound, moving and revealing all at once.

I fancy myself as a bit of a mystic.  My mind is on heavenly things a lot.  The truth is that it is probably on earthy things more often but, as I said, I like to think in mystic ways.  I’m partial to Akiane Kramarik’s way of thinking about things and I would have a lot of time for the ideas explored in the various Star Trek series and movies.  Thankfully as someone impacted by Jesus in an experiential and life changing way I don’t have time to explore that kind of mysticism much.  As Paul says (in 1 Corinthians 8: 5) there are many gods and many lords and they are all more powerful than me without Christ – or at least most of them are I guess.  I’m better off ensuring I know the Lord of lords and God of gods first and it will take me a lifetime to do that.

But that kind of mystical tendency has left me floating a few inches above the ground most of the time I think.  Or at least that is what it seemed like when God showed me His love for me in a fresh new way last night.  Being rooted and grounded in love is to be totally in touch with the here and now.  God showed me last night that in the here and now He has done nothing but protect, love and esteem me for the last 35 years.  It is just in my imaginations that I have been fearful, imagining what suffering together with Christ might mean.

Autobiographical, Discipleship Series, General Principles

15 Minutes

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Whether it is because our lives are too busy, or because our attention spans have dropped away due to social media, but for whatever reason it seems increasingly difficult to find time to do anything – at least if you mean by the word “time” anything greater than about 15 minutes.

We can all usually find 15 minutes:

  • 15 minute coffee break
  • 15 minutes on Facebook (normally turns into 30 though)
  • 15 minutes over a meal (which should be at least 30 but often isn’t)
  • 15 minutes power napping

So recently I’ve been trying 15 minutes praying (having been prompted about this in a number of ways). First thing in the morning before doing anything else, sitting on the edge of my bed. When I get home in the evening from work. Last thing at night. Seems to work. You should try it.

Now it has taken me 15 minutes to write this blog (including time being distracted by someone’s birthday on Facebook) which is enough time. Anymore and you will probably not read it.

Next 15 minutes of exercise. Hopefully I’ll also get 15 minutes of teaching myself the electric organ before the day is out.

Isn’t it amazing what you can do with 15 minutes?

Autobiographical

Chosen Part 2: A Strange Flight

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I was sitting on the third bus on the Dusseldorf Airport apron and it was going nowhere.

Next, someone is calling my name. I see an official on the apron with my bag in front of him. He explained to me that 121 people had been booked into the plane when in fact there was only 119 seats on it. He apologised for the inconvenience but they had been asking for volunteers and only one person had come forward. They then chose me from the other 120 passengers! They would compensate me for missing the plane by giving me free accommodation, a meal, a flight back the next day (Saturday) and £150 (which was quite a lot in 1996). And they hoped that was OK. No explanation as to why they chose me.

I stood forlornly on the apron waving goodbye to the other 119 passengers and joined my fellow detainee for the meal back at the airport hotel. I can’t remember much about the meal. My fellow inmate explained that he had volunteered to come off the plane partly because of the £150 but mainly because his fellow passenger was his boss from the Dept. of Transport who was in a foul humour at being messed about so much by Aer Lingus.

I rang Olive again, and again, and again. Some things don’t change much over the years and my wife’s tendency is still to either not have her mobile phone or to have it on silent or buried in her handbag where she can’t hear it. Bless her. Anyway, she could have saved herself a trip to the airport if she had decided to turn it on before she reached there. When she did eventually reach the airport she rang me with rather a strange opening line: “Hi love, I see your flight has been cancelled…” I was about to say: “No, I’m just not on it.” but that didn’t make sense so I checked with her again. It had definitely been cancelled.

I looked up at my fellow prisoner and told him. By this stage we had been about 2 hours at our meal and the cooks had gone home. So we wandered up to the hotel reception and sure enough, there were the other 119 passengers and the crew coming in the door. They had spent 3 hours on the tarmac only to discover that there was a technical fault with the airplane.

Sadly for those who weren’t chosen, a technical fault is not one that Aer Lingus compensated passengers for at the time. So the next day I got home on an earlier flight than they did and happily took my £150 compensation.

120 to one. Not bad, Dad.

Autobiographical

Chosen Part 1: A Strange Airport

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This is a true story.  Sometime in mid 1996 I was in Kiel, Germany at a GSM standards meeting. It was Friday evening and I was on my way home, looking forward to the weekend.

The first leg of the journey was by train from Kiel to Hamburg Airport where I took a plane to Dusseldorf. It was then that things began to become a bit surreal. When I got off the plane I got onto a bus which brought us to a tent/ marquee. Everyone got off the bus and calmly walked into the marquee as if there was nothing unusual about using a tent to receive passengers from an airplane in a first world country. I was wondering was there a special wedding being planned or something.

Things got even more surreal after I entered the tent. The first thing I saw was a conveyor belt with luggage on it. The thing that was different about this conveyor belt was that it wasn’t a loop – if you didn’t get your luggage off it, it fell into an ever increasing pile at the end of the belt! I watched this for a while a bit bemused. I could see the airport employee loading the belt from behind a tent flap. He saw me looking at him with my bag. The dream like nature of the whole experience was reinforced when he pointed at the bag and signed that it was going straight to Dublin, which it was….

I walked on. At this stage it had begun to rain. Water was dripping down between the joints in the marquees. I walked from the arrivals marquee towards a check-in marquee. There was a long line of what looked like hot dog stands stretched out the length of the tent with queues of people at each one.
I walked along the line looking for my flight number. These were written on sheets of paper in thick black felt marker and tacked to the top of each stand. I queued up with some others at the stand with my flight number on it. At the side of each stand was what looked like a bathroom weighing scales with a couple of wires out of it. People were putting their luggage on the scales.

Dusseldorf Airport Passport hotdog stand The girl behind the stand looked a bit flustered. She almost seemed to be crying when I asked her what happened: “Oh” she said, “we only got the franchise to manage the Aer Lingus luggage two weeks before the airport burnt down!”
I had been out of the country and had missed the news about the airport burning down. On the 11th April 1996, a fire broke out inside the passenger terminal at Dusseldorf Airport and 17 people were killed. I arrived a couple of weeks later.

Things made a bit more sense now. After getting my tickets I walked on to the X-ray machines which were sitting on pallets on the grass and towards the duty free tent. I pointed at what I wanted for Olive and the woman behind the counter entered the value into a handheld calculator and put my money in a grey petty cash box. I don’t think I got a receipt but then nothing was surprising me much any more. I walked over to the departures tent, found departure flap number 11 and sat down on a wooden form at the back of the area.

Much and all as I wanted to get home I was in no rush to get on the plane so I let the first and second bus leave and got on the third one.

That bus sat on the apron outside the tent and went nowhere. I could see a man remonstrating with an Aer Lingus official further along the apron.  I didn’t know it but things were about to get even more surreal…. (to be continued)

Autobiographical, Discipleship Series, faith, General Principles

Faith comes by hearing the Word of God (Part 2)

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I was sharing my last blog with my family the other night and my eldest daughter (14) challenged me to sum it up in one sentence.  So here goes:

Faith comes by hearing Jesus Christ speaking by the Holy Spirit the Word of God into your heart and mind and not just by seeing words on a page or hearing them from someone else.

So here are a few first hand examples:

I know a man (as Paul might have said in 2 Cor 12:2) who was in a middle eastern country some years ago living in a rented accommodation with his wife.  The landlady lived on the top floor of the same apartment with her brother and sister. When the man went up to pay his rent for the first time he was asked about why he and his wife were there.  So he explained that they were there primarily to help Christians in the country.  At her sister’s prompting the landlady then asked if the man could pray for her since she had a continuous head ache/ migraine that she could not get rid of by any medicine or doctors.  So the man prayed and God showed him clearly the reason she had the headache.  She had the headache because there was someone who had done something in the past to her that she had never forgiven him for (a word of knowledge 1 Cor. 12:8).  After the man had got up the courage to say this to the landlady, her sister immediately piped up and said, “Yes, you know so-and-so that did such-and-such to you 13 years ago!”  So the landlady prayed forgiveness for the person and was healed of her headache.  A few weeks later she was still thanking God for the healing and telling others.  That could have been the start of a series of healings except that the man through whom the healing had come said to the first of the cousins that came with sick children that they could pray themselves, they didn’t need him to pray for them.  However the problem was that these people didn’t know how to hear God speak to them.  He often wondered what would have happened if the selfishness and false humility hadn’t kicked in just then, over 25 years ago now.

The above is an example of where the word of God in response to a prayer was “yes”.  Not long after that we were involved in another situation where the answer to many prayers that looked for the answer “please heal” was “no”.

In the mission organisation we were involved in, one of the wives of a missionary in North Africa was seriously ill.  The leaders of the movement and many others started praying and fasting for her.  At that time the idea that “if you have enough faith you can see her healed” was prevalent among them.  So they tried to work up the faith, quoting the usual Scriptures and speaking forth healing in Jesus name as many do.  Thankfully there were others who were also trying to find out what God wanted.  After a few weeks, there was no sign of the woman improving, she was in fact getting worse.  Everyone then met at a leader’s meeting to seek the Lord further and we were invited along to wash the dishes and generally serve the leaders (something we were delighted to do since we would also be able to attend the prayer times which, with that group, were always powerful and exciting).  The Lord’s presence was palpable and we all knew He was with us.  One of the main leaders then got up and explained how he and his wife had believed for weeks that Ann* was going to be healed but that still it hadn’t happened.  He now thought that actually God wanted them to let her go (he heard the Word of God).  After waiting on the Lord we then all felt as if her spirit had gone to be with the Lord.  We later found out that she had indeed passed on at about the same time.

*Not her real name.

Autobiographical, General Principles, Law & Grace

Letting Grace do her work

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Jesus Christ Prince of Peace (painting by Akiane)

My youngest just “is”. She is impossible to describe but she does me good every day. Unaffected, innocent, pure, without a trace of worry and unconscious of the good she is doing, she works on my soul like a tonic reminding me every day of her namesake’s work in my spirit soul body. There is turmoil in my being at times, probably like everyone, and the cure now seems to be to let Grace do “her” work. The being I am is far too great, terrible and fantastic for me to handle, only Grace can do that. Sin shall not have dominion over me, not because I follow any law, but because of Grace. For I am not under law and she works continuously even when I am not conscious of her.

Or should that be He works?