Drop the pressure - what to do when it feels a lot like too much

Right now there is a lot going on, Natalie (my wife) and i are in the process of moving country which required moving out of our house to live with my parents for a while.  The move is a big step of destiny for Natalie and I so there is a lot of emotional turbulence, my work is full on, we are getting ready to pack everything up into the back of our small car and I have been ebaying and gumtreeing a lot to raise a few extra £...
It the midst of the chaos I can feel pretty isolated and overwhelmed.  When I loose a sense of God's hand in control, I become task orientated and start trying to do as much as I can to try and find some peace, which leads to exhaustion.... but then the alarm goes off and its go time again...
When Natalie gets overwhelmed, she freaks out in a more obvious way, and my desire to encourage and clam her down rightly encroaches on and takes priority over lots of the other tasks...
So on saturday morning when i sat down to have some time with Jesus, Papa and Holy Spirit there was more than a headful of tasks, and partial lists swimming around...

But somehow God in His infinite grace and general awesomeness broke in...

"But ill take the hand of those who don't know the way, who can't see where they are going.

I'll be a personal guide to them, directing them through the unknown country.  I'll be right there to show them what roads to take, make sure they don't fall into the ditch."

"I have taken responsibility for you, kept you safe"

"Do you feel like a lowly worm...? Don't be afriad
Feel like a fragile insect...? I'll help you.  I, God will reassure you.
The God who buys you back.  The Holy of Israel.
I'm transforming you from worm to harrow,
from insect to iron.
As a sharp-toothed harrow you'll smooth out the mountains,
turn those old hills into loamy soil"
(all Isaiah 41 msg)



From my perspective I'm not meant to have it all figured out, I don't have to have the plan, I can trust my Papa, my heavenly dad, and know without a shadow of a doubt that he has got us.  He knows what He is doing, he has blessed me so much and lead me step by step and He is not giving up.  I don't need to know what the future holds or have it all planned out to be at peace, to trust in Him.  I am just relax and know that it is going to all be ok.  No matter what.  As that revelation oozes into my brain and heart, i can breath deeply, i can just enjoy time with my most beautiful wife without the next task dominate my thinking.  i can feel like a human being again.

thanks jesus!

CS Lewis - why i believe Love is the answer

I have been reading CS Lewis,

He was a brilliant man and has heavily influenced modern western orthodox christianity and attitudes to evangelism and apologetics even more greatly than I could have imagined.

He expounded that believing in God is not only logic but the reasonable conclusion upon considering the human condition.  The foundations of this are based on the concepts that we all have a sense of right and wrong or morality, which we seem helpless to obey.  Jesus offers hope of deliverance from this dilemma and His love empowers us to live right.

I personally have enjoyed his books and he is indeed an excellent writer, explaining very difficult concepts with simplicity and humour.  However, he wrote in a time when men went to war, ( WW1 WW2) and a sense of honour and duty were understood and relevant to the average person.

Further and perhaps most interestingly, although, he wrote a book called miracles explaining the naturalness of a supernatural God doing supernatural things, he did not experience or move in the supernatural himself in the fullness that Jesus invites us to.

Finally, the nature of his argument for God and reasoning our way through his argument necessitates we start with widespread condemnation of anyone listening to begin a journey of considering they are sinful and in need of God’s rescue from their terrible state.

So here we are in 2013, I believe doing a dis-service to CS Lewis by maintaining his arguments specifically constructed to speak to the everyday man of 1940’s and 50’s England.

It is a new day and the operation of the Holy Spirit moving in miraculous ways in the church all around the world and western churches cannot be ignored neither can the attitude and prevalent mindset of current culture.

I believe our Western culture is desperate for love, desperate for attention, desperate for recognition and desperate for identity.  We live in a world of flashing lights and immediate delivery, where it is assumed everyone is looking out for number 1 (themselves) and concepts of right and wrong, honour and duty are no more than tools for manipulation or half the name of a video game.

God’s authentic, unconditional, selfless, supernatural love is, I believe, the most relevant message to a western world.  Which, like a stomach full of popcorn and coke, is restless and dissatisfied by a meaningless experience of reality, despite the flashing lights and unparalleled immediate access to more entertainment,  information and excitement that ever before.

My experience of God is a wild torrent of unconditional love which has completely overwhelmed my fears and insecurities.  His supernatural power and the demonstration of His love through miracles is a more powerful description of His character than any logical reasoning.  His passionate obsession with me and forming of a unique destiny makes every day exciting. 

It is I believe we should seek to communicate God’s insuppressible love and desire for friendship with every human no matter their sexuality, lifestyle, appearance or background.  

To present Good news rather than bad should be our focus.  Once we begin a relationship with Jesus, Holy Spirit and Papa, they will sanctify and transform us, leading us into all truth.  Repentance and the discovery of our own sinfulness will always be fundamental elements of this journey but I believe the context of God’s magnificent love must first be established for those steps to lead to true unity with Him.

Sonlight

The Sun shines brightly all over the world.
It is no respecter of wealth, title or situation
No matter who you are, it shines on you

You can pull the curtains and hide indoors
but once you step outside... BOOM
You are bathed in glorious golden rays
the sudden warmth brings out goosebumps
You stop to let your eyes re-adjust...

In that moment you are united
with all people everywhere,
past, present and future,
who were briefly arrested
in this bright shiny moment
all troubles, pressures & demands...
Vanish
We are
simply
human
alive
in glory

I love the son and the son loves me.

A massively distant and spectacularly huge
perpetual, cosmic,
explosion is positioned perfectly,
to remind me of life's simple beauty
however fleeting, it whets my appetite to discover more

An old middle eastern scroll promises sunlight's
instant of light and lightness is not a cruel tease
but a hint of a glorious light.

A supremely huge & tenacious power
who shines his light of love
just as indiscriminately on all people.

Not a distant explosion, He is a personal father
who counts the hair on your head,
excited and delighted
by the simple humanity each one of us possess

So step in that bright sonlight
let his love warm your bones
he loves to lift trouble pressures and demands
and set you free
to be
simply
human.

uncontainable love:

he is wild and free and cannot be held by anyone

his love is too passionate and true

it is the creative spark that birthed the planet

it tears apart nothingness and monotony

and births a universe of life, fun, vibrant and real

this cannot be fitted in the old ways

but comes into the new place and fresh revelation

memories are grace not to be lived on

always there is more always, there is more

tradition is death, there is no script

we cannot write one, to much changes always

he always wants to be in conversation

living out of us

dear near, dear deep,

learn to be the future

step forward into destiny

wild and free

wild and free

wild and free

Coming back from the wild

Its Seven years almost to the day from when I donated my last $200 to a charity in mexico and set off trusting that God would provide a way for me to travel 1800 miles in 7 days to make a flight home. It was an adventure that was taken alone, one at the time I felt was the only alternative to denouncing the reality of my faith...

I just read "Into the Wild" its a book piecing together the account of another young idealist who sadly died on an extended adventure in alaska.

However, romantic and exciting such trips away from normal life and civilisation seem, there always seems to be a necessary element of self-indulgant escapism, or maybe just simply running away. I think a perceived failure to live up to other peoples standards can leave a burning desire to prove "I can make it on my own" "I fear ill fail you in this relationship so Ill keep you at a distance"

but the cost is high as loneliness is the only possible outcome of avoiding intimacy and no amount of passport stamps of gigs to thousands of people can replace that...

So maybe its time to come in from the wild...
To trust people enough to let them close...
to realise that its relationships that really matter and that they are costly and hard work, but they are also the most beautiful gift God ever gave us...