God never plays it safe

From the mystery of the incarnation to his passion and now how we as individuals are challenged to be the love of God in this life, God has always been on a high risk strategy.

Why trust your son in the womb of an uneducated cultchie jew? there we're plenty more "developed" "civilised" options for how Jesus could have been born onto this planet.... why there? why those people? seems a bit irresponsible to trust the entire salvation plan for humanity into the hands of a couple of teenagers, especially when the king of the country is out to kill all the babies....

but who knew... it seemed to work out? but what about when he was a bit older, in his early thirties surely a bit of respect for the established church is what we expect from God's son? The envoy of love just seems to love a barney with his clergy. All well and good but when they turned nasty surely it was time to chill out. Certainly Jesus keep doing all that stuff with the poor, we all support that but how about you calm down on the temple confrontations? we don't want anyone getting offended do we?

and what about those people around him, since when did God's son wander into a tradesman's workplace and invite them on adventures? surely there would be some kind of official invitation to an application procedure, maybe after the 4th round of interviews you could carry Jesus sandals? Instead the guy who deserts him and pretends not to know him is trusted to establish a whole new way of doing church.... surely not God, surely there was someone with an MBA from rome who coulda made sure it all went off well....

so what about this christmas, where is our adventure? do you feel "useless" enough to appear on God's warped head hunting hit list? it seems He loves trusting clowns with impossible missions... high risk strategies....

that sounds a lot more fun that socks and mince pies...

ignorable failures awesome opportunities

everyday when we get up we can make a difference to the world by making a difference to somebody's world.

unfortunately we often fail to grasp these opportunities, which results in continued suffering for people who could really do without it and a little bit of our humanity ebbing away...

i just put the heating on cause im sneezing from the rain last night. we were out walking the streets of belfast and met a few people who were also soaking wet.

but with no home to go back to and our city's homeless service providers passing the buck of who should be trying to get them into a shelter it was looking pretty bleak. Jack was considering an industrial bin as his best chance of some sleep, the streets like us were sodden...

They may not have been angels, pauline had been evicted from a house, jack had been in and out of jail and colin didn't say much but from the way he flinched any time anyone moved around him im guessing his story wasn't so happy... but does that make them any less human? does that mean they should be left to rot on the streets. These were kind and generous people, warm and welcoming souls. Jack's brother had been found frozen to death and his sister murdered in 6months... they are real. I would say not just a statistic but belfast doesn't even bother to try and count its rough sleepers so their not even a statistic here...

and yeah its great to talk to these people for a few hours or give them some food or money or even take them home for a night but it does fuck all in terms of addressing the bigger problem... they still wake up with nothing to do, nowhere to go and huge addiction issues which are relatively simple and cheap to feed...
why do we tolerate it? why when the stockbrokers have a bad day do they get offered 700 billion when about 20 would give clean drinking water to the poorest of the poor?

i think we mostly tolerate it because we don't know what to do and our elected candidates don't know what to do and there are lots of pressing issues which take up more than the time we have. but thats not good enough, what are we going to tell our children when they ask us why we let the more vulnerable members of our society freeze to death outside our workplaces and shops?

human rights

A bunch of ppl are making a lot of noise about china's human rights policy etc around the olympics, and they're probably right, but i was out walking round the streets last night with a few friends and we came across plenty of injustice on our own doorstep...

first there was dino, who couldn't speak any english, so with only a very few words of romanian between us we'll didn't hear his story but there he was sat against a bin, holding out a crippled hand for some change, a middle aged man destitue in a foreign land...

next was gemma, she butted in while we were praying with her friend aaron, she had been having a few drinks with her friends in a park, well dressed quite pretty, cap pulled low over her face. "Are you guys really praying? Cause im getting mad panic attacks and i want them to go away" Then she pulled up her sleaves and there were about 30 little cuts the whole way up each forearm. She said it was the only thing she could do when the panic attacks were making so scared she couldn't even leave her room to sit with her mum...

finally there was ahmed, sitting in a bit of town we dont normally find people, i would have walked past him but some of the other guys stopped. ahmed is 17 he's been seeking assalum for 3 years, during which time he has been bounched around from libya, italy, france, switzerland and england with no passport and only a basic grasp of these countries languages he has often ended up living on the streets. now here in belfast he was selling himself to men try and make a few quid...

we spent time with each person, giving them food and a hot drink, prayer and hugs, all of them appreciated it and a couple cried on someones shoulder. but what kind of a society do we live in where minors from war-torn states are forced to turn tricks for perverts to get by? somehow i dont feel so justified in pointing the finger at china or bush or anyone...

revival is hitting the fan

im not sure if anyone has heard about the stuff going on in florida, but basically a 3 day 700 people conferance has now been going on for 33 days! the reason it has continued is because God has been showing up and performing amazing miracles, people have gotten out of wheel chairs and healed from all kinds of sickness and disease.

all very exciting for florida, but this as they say is where the plot thickens. a few excited individuals from ireland have gone to see it first hand, they have had the faith passed on and are now kicking out the jams here.

last night i went to a fairly rough bit of belfast to a very ordinary elim church which is almost impossible to find! but when i got there i found group of people who were hungry and open to God. and when He showed up it all kicked off, in that meeting alone there were people healed from deafness (actual bones in the ear which had degenerated were replaced with new ones) arthritis, back pain and a couple of people got to know Jesus for the first time. i was with a guy who is partially sighted and i got prayer for my hips, neither of which were healed on the night, but man it was exciting.

it was so beautiful to a rough belfast accent talk about having received healing and being full of God's love and power, it was free and available to everyone, the main guy was totally honest saying he would have loved to have said they had all been praying for this for years but actually he was totally surprised by it and had no reason why God should have shown up there like that; "im just a skinhead from tigers bay who was a glue sniffer, why should God visit me?"

but its on its there and im feeling like this is the tip of a most awesome iceberg....