Strong Deliverer

I am not quite sure just what it was that I saw last night. I could have done with a button to rewind and play the scene through slowly. There was a car. There was something in the middle of the road that made the car slow down. There was a seagull swooping down in front of the car and picking up whatever it was in the middle of the road. The seagull then dropped whatever it was carrying onto the pavement. The thing that it dropped turned out to be a very small black bird that made a very loud racket once it had been dropped. It seemed to be unable to fly away by itself and hopped along the road, chattering to itself. Finally, just as I was about to try to pick up the blackbird and put it somewhere safe, a man came out from his garden and picked it up, crossed the road and put the wee bird into the hedge.

What I would like to think happened is that the little bird was in the path of the car, unaware that it was about to get run over. A seagull saw the danger and swooped in to rescue it, dropping it neatly on the pavement. Yeah, I know that it is an unlikely scenario. It is more likely that the seagull thought it was a tasty meal, about to be splattered by the car wheels. It swooped down to pick it up and then got a bit of scare when the meal began to loudly protest!

I mention this because, in the middle of a worship meeting last night, I had a flash back of the gull swooping down to pick up the wee bird.

Sometimes worship goes in an unpredictable direction. It is not always comfortable. The challenge gets a little bit scary. Suddenly, it doesn’t feel safe!

There was a moment when I felt like that. I wasn’t sure where things were headed and not sure I liked the challenges being set. I was getting unsettled. That is when I had my flash back. It was my scenario that I felt applied – this time I was the bird on the road, the car wasn’t the worship itself, but the feelings that it provoked, the seagull – as it swooped down to pick up the bird, I felt God saying, “It’s OK! I will keep you safe from any danger.”

A line of the song we were singing at the time contained the words “strong deliverer” which I thought was really appropriate for the moment.

Walking with God is always an adventure. It is comforting to know that all the time I am with him I am safe. Not physically safe, it doesn’t mean that I can’t come to any physical harm, but it does mean that no matter the circumstances I can feel secure.

Seeing the Picture

Toilet facilities in workplaces can be very functional. Someone in my workplace has added a table and a houseplant to brighten things up a bit and there are a few posters on the walls. Some of them are about aspects of women’s health, but the one that catches the eye is an optical illusion poster. It is one of those posters that has a series of wriggly lines across the page. There is a way of looking at it and you are supposed to see the proper picture.

I have never been able to see anything beyond the wriggly lines. Someone noticing my bemused look will tell me to focus on a point, cross my eyes over, and other such helpful instructions but I never see it. I put it down to astigmatism in my right eye!

Not being able to see what someone else can see is very frustrating. What seems obvious to someone else is not always obvious to me.

A few weeks ago, we had a mid-week meeting. It came about because a couple in another church had been to Lakeland, Florida and been touched by what had happened there. They wanted to see the same thing happen in our local churches. They had “seen” something and wanted to share that experience with others.

I am not sure if I could stick a label on the kind of meetings that we have been having since them. There is a lot of worship and a lot of prayer and much more than that. It’s different every week.

I always think that it is so exciting when God’s people get together and the barriers are down. Not all of us come from the same church – we are a real mix of church backgrounds. The people that meet together, many of them are involved in practical ministries like the Healing on the Streets and Street Pastors. They are enthusiastic and zealous.

I often think to myself – what power there is in the room! These people are one in heart and mind and totally involved. They are like a spiritual SAS team – dynamite. (I don’t say “we” because I guess I see myself as tagging along and I am not so involved!) A group of people like that in God’s hand is a mighty weapon. It is important that God is allowed to wield the weapon in the way He would like.

Proverbs 4:25 from the Message reads, “Keep your eyes straight ahead; ignore all sideshow distractions.” What qualifies as a “side show distraction”? Distractions take away our attention from what is important. Before I went to the meeting, I was spending time with God. I am not sure what I supposed to be seeing at the meetings. What was important, and what wasn’t? I can handle the worship, and the prayer, but not always the other stuff. I worry that we major of feelings and experiences to the detriment of something greater.

My question to God was, “What is it that I am supposed to see?”

His reply was, “Me glorified!”

And did I see it? Oh yes:)

Programme Full

A couple of weeks ago, just before heading out to a mid-week meeting, I remembered to set the video recorder to record the next episode in a series that my husband and I had been following. Pushing the buttons as usual I hit a glitch! The screen came up with the message “Programme Full”.

This was not something I had seen before and I wasn’t sure quite what it meant or what to do about it. I seem to remember on a previous machine we had that there were a certain amount of lines for programming and there was a way of deleting them, to empty the memory banks.

Somewhere in a box, in a cupboard, in a plastic polly-pocket, if I had an hour or two to spare, I could track down the manual for the video recorder. The alternative was to randomly press every button on the remote control to see if it made a difference. I am not technically literate and pressed the buttons somewhat cautiously wondering if I was about to do some un-doable damage! However, my plan worked and the screen was filled with lines of dates and times of previous programmes we had recorded. I had no idea what to the next step was to delete all the dates, and the remote gave no clues. After another flurry of random button pushing I managed to delete everything ready to begin again!

Lately I have been feeling a bit like my video recorder. When challenged to do something a message pops up in my brain “Programme Full”. Just as the machine was stuffed full of old programming and wouldn’t do anything new, I feel a bit like that! I am full of the sediment left over from dealing with the stresses and strains of work accumulated over the last few months and there is just no space left for anything new!

God is not like me. He doesn’t need to randomly push my buttons to see what works! He is not content for me to wait until the holidays and miss out on the opportunities that come my way over the next week and a bit. I might be content for me to do that! God wants to de-clog me. (That sounds something painful that they do to Dutch shoemakers or something!) As I sit in His presence and enjoy time with him, I unwind. The lines of old programming get deleted and I am ready for the new things.

Talking with some friends about my “ask me in two weeks time” response to things, one of them said that sometimes we don’t think we can to what God asks us to because we are thinking about out own lack of resources and strength rather than looking to God to supply all that we need.

Resonation

I have to confess that I haven’t really hooked myself into the various God channels on Sky TV. Usually when I am home from school I will tune into one of the Radio channels – the UCB UK channel is one of my favourites. I like the music they play and I try to expand my repertoire of praise and worship songs through listening.

Some friends we met on Sunday were enthusing about the live programmes from Florida with Todd Bently. “Normal” TV doesn’t happen in their house any longer and they talk about “feeling the love” and being “blown away” by the healing that is happening as they watch.

Last night I tuned in. These friends are not the only people I known that are enthusiastic about the programmes, and I supposed I wanted to know what it was that was appealing to them. I watched for less than fifteen minutes. I am not sure why it didn’t appeal, but it just didn’t.

Anyway, seeing as I was in amongst the God channels, I flicked around to see what else was on offer. Lots of the channels featured preachers, usually black, standing behind pulpits. There were a couple of cosy sofa discussion programmes too.

The programme that held my attention though was a worship meeting. It was recorded live at the Victory Church in Oklahoma in the form of a music and dance presentation called “Resonation” – the idea of worship resonating in people’s hearts.

I danced once! At college, our Christian Union, took responsibility for an evening meeting in the local Salvation Army hall. We sang a number of upbeat worship songs, and worked out a couple of dances – twirling things in floaty dresses and artistic poses.

The dance choreography was perhaps a little more adventurous with almost snatches of quite crisp street dance routines. In some ways it could have been any kind of concert – spectacular shifts in the lights, big screens. Then when you started to listen tot the lyrics – you knew this wasn’t just any kind of concert at all, and when the camera spanned the congregation and saw the faces of the people lifted in worship – you knew that they were connecting with God.

It was powerful stuff. It was so professional. The music the lights, the dancing – if you had paid to be there you would not have been disappointed.

That is where I wanted to be – not in Florida with Todd Bently. However, I came to the realisation that I am a poor worship leader in the sense that I don’t have enough musical talent, no matter how much my heart is in tune. I can’t hold notes for that long. I can’t switch into harmonies. I can’t really do the spontaneous stuff. It is not just a case of if I keep practising it will come. I just don’t have the basic talent! I am better than I used to be, and maybe five or ten years down the line I will be better than that – but the bottom line is that I am not gifted musically. Music is not my passion. Worship is my passion, not necessarily worship leading.

Psalm 33:3 has these words “Sing to him a new song; play skillfully, and shout for joy.” There are people that really dismiss the bit that says “play skillfully” and major on singing a new song and shouting with joy, but I saw last night what a huge difference it makes to have someone play skillfully – whether that be the musical instruments or the vocal chords. You can’t dismiss skilful and draw people into a powerful place of worship.

There is almost something kind of liberating in realising just what it is you can’t do! It allows you to move on I suppose. I will never be a great musician and I am happy with that! I will not pack away my worship leading hat, I may not be great, but I am not that bad either. I hope I don’t hinder people on their way to the throne room. I am however going to stop piling the pressure on to try to be gifted in that area when I am not.

I love being drawn into the presence of God by a good worship meeting – a gifted leader, skilful musicians and a well chosen selection of songs. Watching something like that, and then thinking about the kind of worship many churches offer, we need to aim for something more glorious.

Detox, Diets and Who is really in the Driving Seat

The talk at work amongst my colleagues has turned to diets and loosing weight. One of the ladies has begun a four day jump start diet thing. I hate the word “detox” but I am guessing that it is something like that. It is just for four days and each day’s intake of food is very strictly defined. Yesterday’s lunch was two boiled eggs, a plate of green beans and a glass of tomato juice. Today she ate a salad made up of green beans, melon and tomatoes. She didn’t look the least bit happy eating it, but assured us that for four days she could put up with anything.

My brother once asked me, a number of years ago, if I was still watching my weight. My very sour reply at the time was, “Oh yes, I am watching it go up!”

I am floundering at Weight Watchers. Since I returned in the New Year, while other fellow joiners are well into the second or third stone, by my current reckoning I am averaging a pound a month in weight loss! You haven’t mis-read that – a pound a month. We are fluctuating badly. Yo-yos have more stability than my week by week progress.

I just cannot bring myself to eat Nimble bread and I am loosing the battle against “foursies” – that must-eat feeling that hits me when I get home from work! I guess that I have a lazy attitude towards weight loss, I’m not focussed enough or exercising enough will power. Targets that I set myself never actually get reached!

The conversation at work moved on to talk about people we knew had lost a lot of weight. One lady was mentioned for being a size twelve now when she was once a size eighteen. Apparently her face is gaunt looking and she has drooping jowls. Another lady had also lost a lot of weight but her strict control over her food had become an obsession and she had “gone too far”. She was pale and unhealthy looking.

The next shift in the conversation was about how some people feel that so much of their life is out of control that they begin to think that the only area where they can establish any control is in what they eat. In that one area they are the boss!

As I was listening a wave of gratitude washed over me. I don’t have to worry about being life being out of control. It is God who has responsibility. He is sovereign. I am held very safe in his hands, and although things around me may be in a kilter, I am held secure. I don’t need to be in control because His is! However, he expects me to take control over areas of my life that need tweaked, but gives me the direction and strength necessary to do it properly.

I think I need to try to stop doing this weight watcher thing without His direction and strength!

The List

There is a list in my head. It is not frequently read. It is just there. Every so often something happens and the list gets a little bit longer. Sometimes when I remember it is there, and I read it, or I add to it, I feel a little less happy than I felt before.

Yesterday my husband and I were invited to witness the baptism of the two daughters of friends of ours. We are not talking her about babies and christenings and a sprinkling of holy water. Our friends are members of a church that practises adult baptism through complete immersion – although it being not a very deep paddling pool, the complete part of it didn’t really happen.

The father of the household had the privilege of performing the rite of passage! He stood beside them in the water as they proclaimed their faith in Jesus. It was by his hand they went under the water (almost under) and by his hand that they were raised up.

It is inevitable that he should be there at their first, natural birth, but quite something precious to be there at their second, supernatural birth. The first time was the result of a conception, the joining of egg and sperm. The second time – a supernatural conception – the joining of the human spirit to divine Holy Spirit. My friends have faithfully lived out their walk with Jesus before their daughters, and now they are seeing the fruit of that.

Because I am not a parent, this is something that I can only see others do. There are no sons or daughters, for me, to baptise. And – yes, that makes me a little sadder than I was. It has been added to the list of things I won't get to do because I am not a parent. Parenthood is not part of my journey.

There are so many things that parents get to do – some perhaps not really what they want to do at all. But not having children really excludes you from a whole plethora of experiences.

My biggest realisation is that I will never be anyone’s grandmother. There is not another generation of Kerrs waiting in the wings. My biggest fear, an offshoot of all that, is ending up alone.

It is a fear, thankfully, that will never come to fruition! Being a part of the body of Christ, planted into a local expression of His church – I don’t get to end up alone. If I do, it’s either a bad church or I am making the choice to isolate myself!

Serenading God

A serenade is “a composition performed for a lover, friend, or other person to be honored, typically in the evening and often below a window.” There is a scene in a film starring Mel Gibson that features a serenade. Mel Gibson’s character has been accidentally frozen in an experiment and he wakes up fifty years later. His sense of etiquette is fifty years out of date. He tells a young boy who is in love with a girl at school to sing to her. Time is too short to wait and sometimes you just leave it too late and the moment is gone. So the boy climbs a tree and sings “You are my sunshine” to her. The girl is somewhat embarrassed, but also delighted at the same time.

I have more than a few romantic bones in my body and that kind of thing would really appeal to me! If I had been a boy, I would have serenaded a girl – maybe. I did entertain the idea for a short while of persuading a guitar playing friend to join me outside my husband’s window – before we were married – and accompany me as I sang. My friend would have been up for it – but I am chicken-hearted at the best of times. Having been married now for some years, my husband wouldn’t have appreciated it. It might have been the death blow to our blossoming romance!

I was listening last night to a new worship CD I bought. It contains new Spring Harvest songs. Some of them are not new to me, but different arrangements of things we sing in our fellowship. It is a double CD. The first disc is very stage performance orientated – like it would sound if you had a wide variety of musicians. The second CD is a selection of some of the same songs,and some different, but much more acoustic – one singer with one guitar.

One of the tracks “Ever Faithful God” brought a picture to mind of a man standing beneath a balcony, guitar in hand, singing his heart out to the one he adored. In this case the one he adored was not a woman, but God.

I just love the picture of worship being like a lover serenading the one he loves. He or she may be in a room of a hundred or two hundred, but in his heart of hearts, he or she is alone, beneath a balcony, singing exuberantly.

Psalm 66:2 reads “Sing the glory of his name; make His praise glorious!

Twitching

I am very glad that our kitchen window looks out on to the back garden. There are no other houses, just the whirly gig washing line and a bright orange fence. Beyond that there is a row of trees, and beyond that there is the playing field. You can’t see the playing field for the orange fence and the row of trees!

Had the bird feeder hanging from the whirly gig been in the front garden, it might be a very different story!

A month ago, or more, I bought a book from the book company that, every so often, visits the place where I work. It was a bird watching handbook. It is a beginner’s guide, designed for a child, with a page for each bird. There is a picture of each bird with a short description of what it looks like and what is sounds like. There is a space to stick a photo and a few lines to write where you saw said bird, what time of day it was, what said bird was doing and something about the weather conditions.

Quite why I bought the book, I don’t know. It was dirt cheap! I have always envied people who knew that names of birds. You would think that having been brought up in a country village I would be less ignorant of those kinds of things. I know what magpies look like, but that is about my limit.

The book recommended a bird table. I thought that a bird feeder on the whirly gig might do instead – it’s not so expensive for one thing. It is only in the last few days that the birds have discovered that it’s there!

I have found that my attention is consumed with watching the birds on the feeder through the binoculars. The book isn’t the most comprehensive of books and I’m not sure that the birds I am watching actually get a mention. The closest I have got to matching up the picture in the book with the bird hanging pecking away at the peanuts is a coal tit. There are lots of little brown birds too – thrushes maybe?

The only time that I have paid any attention to birds was a long time ago. The night before I had watched, was it Alfred Hitchcock’s film, “The Birds”? There is a scene in the film where, just outside the school, there is a climbing frame, and it is all covered with birds which attack the children as they come out from school. I kid you not, the next morning the climbing frame in the playing field that our back garden looked out onto was covered with birds – just like the scene in the film. The hairs on the back of my neck stood up!

So, yes, I’m twitching!

Looking at the antics of these tiny little birds I am reminded about Jesus teaching – “Are not five sparrows sold for two pennies? Yet not one of them is forgotten by God. Indeed, the very hairs of your head are all numbered. Don't be afraid; you are worth more than many sparrows.”

Nothing Left in Reserve

Without really intending to, I got hooked on “Britain’s Got Talent”. That’s not actually true – I got just hooked on George Sampson, the last act to perform in one of semi-finals this week. I have recorded his street-dance routine and have watched it over and over again. I have no intentions of becoming a groupy, but had I been one of the panel of judges, or the presenters or the producers of the show, I would have called it a day. As George himself said, in his interview afterwards, “It doesn’t get any better than that.”

So for those of you who missed it, what did he do? Well, he left the belly dancing and the magic tricks to others. He danced! The track was a really up-beat version of “Singing in the Rain.” He did it better than Gene Kelly! Mid-way through the routine, there was a flash of lightning, and a rumble of thunder – and then it rained! (Some credit has got to go to the TV programme providing the setting to his diamond of a dance. The shower of water, the lightning flash and thunder that they supplied all added to what he did. The effect would not have been as spectacular without those things.) For a few moves, he played with an umbrella, then he just tossed it aside and danced!

It was amazing! There was so much energy and passion and complete commitment to every move. Obviously there had been a whole lot of choreography and rehearsal, but that can only take you so far. Knowing the right moves and being able to do them in the right order is just the framework. George poured his life and soul into the performance. This was his one chance, an opportunity never to be repeated, perhaps, and he threw everything that he had into the dance.

I was thinking about the energy, passion and complete commitment of George and he made me want to get up and dance! I wanted to be with him on stage, in that shower of water, twisting and turning, flinging my arms around and just being entirely lost in the moment.

I am challenged that in so much of what I do – whether in my relationships, or in the various environments that I inhabit or the things that consume my time, I am, in comparison, luke-warm.

At the end of George’s dance he had nothing left to give. There had been no holding back. If his performance didn’t earn him a place in the final – well, there was nothing else he could do. He left nothing in reserve. There was no Plan B. That was absolutely everything.

I don’t operate like that. I know there is always more to give. I know that there is always something kept in reserve. There is always a Plan B lurking in the shadows.

Is it an age thing? Is George so passionate because he still young? I was going to write that George doesn’t know about knock-backs and bruises – but he does. He was not a new face to the competition, having entered last year. He never made it through the various rounds. He didn’t give up then. He worked hard to improve his act and came back the following year with something better! He must have been convinced it was there and was prepared to put himself through the auditions a second time to show people. Had he got turned away a second time, I believe that her would have turned up the following year – better.

I want to pour that much more of me into everything that I do. I want to have nothing left over, nothing held in reserve. It’s a tall order, for a naturally slothful personality like mine – but knowing that I did everything I could have done, I want to be able to say “It doesn’t get any better than that.”

The Pen in Your Hand

I caught the tale end of the news on Thursday evening after I had come home from a meeting.

It was an update of the situation in China. Days after the earthquake, rescue personnel had made it to the epicentre of the quake. There was lots of footage of the rescue operation. Planes flying overhead were discharging parachutes – some with men strapped into the harnesses, other with boxes of food and water. On the ground, men were shifting piles of rubble trying to reach those that had been buried. Watching as one school was being excavated, were parents looking for their children. I had forgotten the Chinese government had restricted each family to one child – and that one child was now buried under a pile of concrete! It doesn’t matter, I suppose, whether there is one child or a dozen in a family, the loss is still there and the parents are just as inconsolable.

There is one image that has caught my eye and stayed with me, and I have searched the net to find it, without success. It is of a school, or the remains of one. All you see is a single hand, uncovered in the rubbish. A child’s hand clutches a pen. I wasn’t listening to the narrator, just looking at the hand clutching a pen. I am sorry that I wasn’t listening properly. Something else came to mind, that at the time seemed to matter more.

As I said, I had been at a meeting. Some friends in another church had been over to Florida to be a part of whatever it is that Tod Bently has become involved in. I have perhaps muddies the waters of my mind by reading a selection of reports of what is happening over there – some enthusiastically rubber stamping it, and others calling it a false revival. I don’t know.

The couple reporting back were very enthusiastic and many people in the meeting caught their enthusiasm. We went into a time of worship and waiting on the Lord – as you do at some of these kinds of meetings.

The worship was excellent. The worship leader was really gifted and his song selection was just what I wanted to sing. I was in the zone. My heart was absorbed, but my mind was also at work. I have been to many meetings where the emotions run high, and people are whipped up into a response that isn’t always helpful. I wanted to be built up and not hyped up.

People shared pictures of what they thought God was saying or doing. I experience these things too, but I am never sure that it is not just my imagination! The picture that I had I didn’t feel was a shared picture.

I had the sense of being in a room with a whole load of presents. They were all shapes and sizes, colourful wrappings and ribbons, and very clearly labelled. I was walking around picking them up and not finding one that had my name on it.

To some extent I think the impression or picture was in response to how I was feeling. I didn’t feel qualified to be there. Many of the people there were involved in lots of “missional” things like healing on the streets and street pastors. They were buzzing with enthusiasm. I was feeling out of place – hence the idea of no present for me. You can see where I am coming from, perhaps.

I was getting rather dispirited about not finding my present when I had the impression of God speaking.

“There isn’t one.” My heart took a deep dive – It was like confirming that I really was in the wrong place. Then He went on to say, “I have already given you yours.”

I looked down at my hand and I was holding a pen.

“The pen in your hand is my gift to you. There is nothing better than that!”

I am not sure if can I convey the sense of profound privilege I felt. I am never more at home than when I am writing! To my mind there is something incredibly powerful about the written word and the written word read out loud.

I suppose that I might have dismissed the whole thing as just my imagination except for that one image of the child with the pen in their hand.

I can be Jonathan in this one thing! This I can do!

Being Jonathan

Earlier this week I was reading a story from 1 Samuel. It contrasted the actions of Jonathan and Saul.

Jonathan, along with his armour bearer, was clambering among the rocks and “ambushing” the Philistine outposts, killing a dozen or so man. He hadn’t been told what to do. He didn’t have a “word” from God to act and everyone apart from the armour bearer was unaware of his actions. The words that he used when he addressed the Philistines reminded me of the words that David used about Goliath – uncircumcised dogs that had not right to be there. He was not hiding or afraid, or unsure of his action. He saw something that offended him and made plans to dispose of it.

The way the story reads, Jonathan’s actions released God to move. He sends confusion into the main camp and the Philistines start killing each other. Jonathan had been like a catalyst – a flame to dry wood – and God has seen His heart reflected in Jonathan and responded. There are some people, and some things that people do that make them entirely irresistible to God and He just can’t help himself from joining in.

Saul and the rest of the Israelite army, however, were miles away sitting under trees, dithering and inactive. Saul had a priest in his camp but didn’t use him to seek a word from God what to do next. Once Jonathan had picked the fight, he eventually joined the battle – but he wasn’t the initiator. He didn’t “act”, he just “reacted”.

There were a few other groups of people who get a mention in the story – the ones that had swapped sides and joined the Philistines did a “U” turn when the Israelites were winning. They wanted to be on the winning side. They had joined the Philistines because they were winning at the time, and now they weren’t winning they moved camps. There was also a bunch of other people who were hiding in the hills. It wasn’t until they could smell victory that they came out of their hiding places to join the battle.

I was challenged to think about where I would be – would I be like Jonathan, filled with a sense of “this is so wrong that I must put it right”? Would I be the armour bearer – stirred to follow “heart and soul” a person like that? Would I be like Saul, having access to the word of God, but passive and accepting and waiting for a better time to act? Have I somehow joined the other side, the people who are “winning” at the moment? Or perhaps I am hiding in a hole somewhere in the hills above the battle!

I was also challenged about how easily I could justify the actions of each person or group. I could see where they were coming from and feel a kind of sympathy for them. I have never been in a war zone the way they have. My life isn’t under threat. I have access to food and water and comfort and security and if I didn’t who is to say that I would act any differently.

However, that said, I am in a spiritual war zone and if my life is not under threat then I must be so harmless to the enemy that I am not worth the effort to eliminate!

Does anyone who reads the story think “I am Jonathan!”? Do we even want to be Jonathan? Personally, I think I am quite comfortable to be the armour bearer where there is someone else who is calling the shots, making the hard decisions, and I am following! I can do that. I am ashamed if I am Saul here – with access to God’s word, but not expressing his heart in my actions.

I want to be Jonathan. I want my actions to be so irresistible to God, that the things I do mirror His heart and He can’t help but join in. I want to live a life that allows God to do the things He wants to do and doesn’t limit Him in any way.

Happy Birthday

Happy Birthday to you
Happy Birthday to you
Happy Birthday, dear Church
Happy Birthday to you!

It's Pentecost - the birthday of the church!

Praying in Your Comfort Zone

Last night I had intended to go to pray with the Street/Prayer pastors, but I got to a page turning moment in the book I was reading and talked myself out of going – I had had a hard week at work, the last time I went they all prayed so quietly that I couldn’t hear them anyway, I could just as easily pray at home…you’ve heard them all before! God didn’t press me on it, just reminded me that I had got off to a good start with the ten day global prayer event and it was a shame that I was falling at the second fence. I turned another page in my book and vaguely promised I would make up the time!

Much later that night – it could have been early hours in the morning I finally finished the last page of the book, dropped it on the floor, switched off the light and snuggled into my snoring husband.

Then God said, “I let you finish your book – now get up and pray!”

I wouldn’t say that I was averse to the idea but I pointed out that there were so many other people I knew that prayed much better than I did and I rattled off a few names.

God didn’t say, “I know that!” I don’t think He even entertained saying it, though I might have if I had been Him.

“I like to hear you pray,” was His answer.

How irresistible is that? So I disentangled myself from the duvet, kicked about under the bed to find my slippers and picked up my dressing gown and glasses and headed down stairs. He told me to leave the watch on the bed-side table – I didn’t need to keep looking at the minutes ticking by and wonder when I could go back to bed.

We worked our way through the list of prayer suggestions. It seemed quite surreal praying for Christians to join together to pray – when I was sat all alone in the early hours of the morning! There were a couple of other things not related to the global prayer list that God put on my heart to pray about – personal things for friends and family. We just got talking about a wide range of things.

I returned to bed glad that I had got up and joined God in prayer. I thought I had done a good job. I didn’t get all emotional, or loud, or declarational, or even noticeably passionate. I just sat on the sofa, curled up, talking – and yet, I felt that God and I had connected. There are times when I suppose we pray outside of our comfort zones – this wasn’t one of them, but it was no less effective.

Storing Up Evil

My husband, despite being away on business for most of the week had to do overtime yesterday. I suppose I could have left him to get a bus in, but I have missed him so much already, that even a short ride into his work was worth it! Getting out to the car, however, we found that someone has dented the front passenger corner. Now, I am almost certain that it wasn’t me. I would have known about it – it is not just a bit of paint scratched off, but the whole corner banged up.

The last time something similar happened was when a friend and I had gone to the cinema. Two hours, a bucket of popcorn and a film later we returned to the car to discover the front of the car badly bashed in.

This time, like the last time, there was no note stuck on the windscreen with an apology or a phone number or anything – just the bashed corner.

After a mild diatribe about people not taking responsibility for their actions, I got to the stage where I accepted there was nothing I could do the track down the culprit. Complaining about it was not going to change anything. We had the money in the savings to cover the repairs.

Last night, however, I had a dream. I am not sure where I was, except that it wasn’t in Inverness. The district council had claimed back the front gardens in a row of houses to make a car park. I parked my car – the front dent was still there! The next morning the car wasn’t where I parked it. It was being picked up by a car recovery lorry. It looked like someone had been at it with a sledge hammer. There was also lots of unpleasant graffiti in black paint. It was not nice.

My sister told me that she thought she knew who had done it. It turned out to be a little old lady, a devout churchgoer! Apparently she had seen a jar of cooking sauce on the back seat of the car. She believed that I was mistreating my husband because I wasn’t cooking a meal from scratch, but using the jar. She was thoroughly convinced that this was a sin not just against my husband, but against God too.(It’s a dream! Absurd things are allowed in dreams!)

I remember being extremely angry. The damage to the car was bad enough, but damage to my reputation was even worse! She didn’t know me and yet she had judged me on the basis of a jar of cooking sauce! And then to claim to be a devout Christian too…

I remember yelling something like I was going to tell God all about her and He would take my side and she was in for a heap of trouble! There was no turning the other cheek, just out and out fury!

What remained with me when I woke up was the level of fury that I felt.

In Luke 6:45 it says “The good man brings good things out of the good stored up in his heart, and the evil man brings evil things out of the evil stored up in his heart. For out of the overflow of his heart his mouth speaks.” I am not sure that what the woman did to my car, or my reputation, justified the words I spoke, or the tone of voice I used. I would hate to think that there is evil stored up in my heart, but I would imagine that every time we refuse to forgive, or every time we revisit a hurt and massage the grudge – it is like storing up evil. It is there ready to come out at an opportune time.

James 5:16 suggests the way of confession, “Therefore confess your sins to each other and pray for each other so that you may be healed.”

I don’t need to ask if I could be as angry in the real world as I obviously got in the dream world, or whether I can let my heart speak words that unloving. The answer is a shameful “Yes!” But I am not powerless to change things – or rather Christ is not powerless to change me.

Like Paul I can cry “What a wretched man I am! Who will rescue me from this body of death? (Romans 7:24) and have my answer “Thanks be to God—through Jesus Christ our Lord! (7:25)

Frozen Assets

There was a marvelous testimony from Friday night’s prayer meeting.

Before we got down to the business of praying, there was the usual ice-breaker-getting-to-know-you-a-little-better part of the evening to get through. We were not required to come up with something “whacky” this time – just a little bit about yourself and a testimony. I spoke about our monthly prayer meetings at work. I think it is wonderful that there are people that want to meet together to pray. I found myself hurrying at lunchtime to be there. I rarely hurry anywhere! I amble. I was visiting a friend last week who owns a very interesting croft (small farm) on the outskirts of Inverness. He took me on a tour of the place. He doesn’t amble but strides out. I had a hard time keeping up.

The lady sitting near me was talking about the faithfulness of God. It had been some time ago – years rather than months or weeks. They were struggling financially and it was a definite Old Mother Hubbard scenario. The cupboards were bare. They were down to a last packet of fish fingers and a bag of frozen peas. They had a few days to go till pay day and there was no way they were going to make it through.

She prayed to God about the situation, asking for just five pounds. That was all she needed to get them through the next few days. Just five pounds!

“Use what you have,” God replied.

She dug out the fish fingers and stuck them under the grill, took out a pan to tip the peas into.

In among the peas was a small cellophane wrapper. She pulled it out and took a good look at it. Un-wrapping the cellophane, she unfolded a £5 note.

On the packet of the peas – it was one of those promotional things – “Are you a lucky winner?” Inside some of the packets of peas the manufacturers had hidden £5 notes and £10 notes and £20 – as they do occasionally to get people to buy their produce.

She had asked for £5 and that is what she received!

It kind of reminds you of Jesus being asked to pay his taxes. Having no money on him, he sent one of his followers to catch a fish. Inside its mouth was a coin. It was just what the tax man was looking for! God is faithful – even with the little things that we ask for.

Praying on Autopilot

There is no excuse for my bad manners towards someone on Sunday evening. A friend in the church could tell that I was rather stressed out and offered to pray with me. I turned her down, quite sharply, I have to confess.

There were a number of irritations that had built up throughout the day. A lot of it was work pressures and deadlines seeming to hang like black clouds.

I had also been on one of my church visits that morning. The church had the most glorious views overlooking the city – enough to stir the heart. It was a wonderful spring day and the sun was shining. That was outside the church. Inside the church we were being reminded in no uncertain terms that we were miserable sinners. It was very serious, straight laced and pretty much joy-less. There was a huge congregation and I wondered just what it was that made them return back each week to be told they were miserable sinners! Maybe I just hit a bad week.

Anyway, that is digressing. The other irritation was the lawn mower broke. There was just something about leaving a half cut lawn that offended my sense of order. It is silly that thing like that can suddenly take on huge proportions! Straw and camels backs!

And then there was our own church meeting itself. Evening meetings do not agree with me! I was to be preaching or sharing the word, under the impression that I had to keep going for 50 minutes. My husband was grumbling because, while I was preaching, he was doing the children’s work – for 50 minutes. Someone suggested that he try drama to keep the children occupied – not a good suggestion. He is happy to watch drama, but to encourage and direct it? Not at all!

So, yes, when the offer to pray with me was given, it was not well received! What I wanted at that moment was just to – I was going to write, stick my head in the oven and turn the gas full on – but that is not what I wanted. I think I just wanted space to collect my thoughts. I wanted to be left alone – not to seethe and froth at the mouth at the injustice of it all – but just to restore order and perspective. I know when I am being unreasonable and given enough time I can give myself the required talking to.

Sometimes prayer can be a cop out. Sometimes it is too easy to launch into a prayer almost as a cover up for real conversation. Sometimes we launch into almost a set pattern and predictable phrases and we are paying on auto-pilot. It is not offensive stuff but it is not perhaps that effective either.

Sometimes prayer can be like a sticking plaster we put over an injury. We don’t necessarily take the time to work out where the injury happened, with a view to preventing it happening again.

I am not saying – don’t pray. I am not even saying that prayer should not be our first resort. I am not saying that people don’t need to prayed for because they do. Somtimes we perhaps need to ask if we can help in any way, or push a cup of tea in their hand or even just sit next to them for a moment or two without saying anything at all.

My friend is a wonderful woman of God and I know that she loves me wholeheartedly. There is no excuse for unkindness, particularly among the children of God. I talked with her at the end of the meeting, and I asked her to pray for me, and we talked a little. Things were back on an even keel.


I just want to say that prayer isn’t always the answer. It can be part of the answer – after a long chat perhaps to get a better insight into the situation.

(Stage direction – Mel climbs off soapbox and exits stage left having said her piece)

Licking the Lid of Life

I personally think that it is a waste of a perfectly good bottle of malt whisky, but my friends are raving about it!

The last time, not the most recent time, but the time before that, my brother, Richard asked us to bring down a bottle of whisky – a good quality single malt would do. A friend of his had given him a recipe for something that sounds like a whisky liqueur. Apparently one was supposed to collect a bowl full of blackberries and soak them in the whisky for six months or more, adding a few spices like cinnamon. After six moths or more, one was then supposed to strain the mush and put the liquid back into the whisky bottle.

I guess his wife was not prepared to surrender the house-keeping money to purchase the whisky, so he persuaded us to do so. I handed over the bottle on the last visit and didn’t give it a second thought.

On our recent visit home – Rugby – once Richard knew we had arrived at my mum’s, he must have grabbed the whisky bottle and ran round. Yes – he takes a while to respond to a request to replace a popped light bulb, but when Joe and Mel arrive and he has a treasure to share with them – he is there in an instant (my mother’s words – not mine!).

So there he is, with the bottle – blackberries steeped in whisky and strained and stuff. He hunts through the cupboards to find enough glasses. Incidentally, my mother has a tee-total visitor sitting on the sofa. The lady downstairs comes up on an evening and they read the Bible together and pray. She graciously accepts a glass and as she takes the first sip something like delight spreads across her face. Apparently after we had gone she wheedled a second glass out of my mother!

On Thursday night, after we had finished a mid-week fellowship meeting, Joe dug out the bottle. Just about everyone agreed it was the nicest thing they had drunk. Unlike most liqueurs, it wasn’t sweet and sticky, but quite light and refreshing. They asked me if my brother was going into mass production!

I have talked before about my brother’s diving-in mentality. If I had been given the recipe, I would have thought about doing it. I might even have bought the whisky and picked the blackberries. But when it came down to actually doing it – I would probably chickened out! I would have thought of the million reasons why I shouldn’t and never got the venture off the ground!

There are so many experiences where I “wait and see” and I end up not doing it. My sister in law, Richard’s wife, asked me whether any of the rest of the family were like Richard. There was never an opportunity that he let slip by. There is never a “wait and see” for him, but he just dives in. He squeezes life dry of every drop of enjoyment. Like the yoghurt advert says - he is licking the lid of life! I am sure there are one or two regrets along the way when things don’t work out – but equally he will never have to say “I wish I had done that.” He doesn’t play safe!

As ever I find that very challenging and I am trying to stop myself from playing safe. Right now there’s a whole list of things that I have to say “I wish I had done that.”

I aim to make in-roads into the list!

X Marks the Spot

Last night I joined with the prayer pastors to pray for the street pastors who were out last night. I had been preparing the word I was supposed to bring on Sunday. I hadn’t got to a hard bit or anything and things were chugging along quite nicely, but I thought that maybe being in the presence of God corporately I would get a deeper insight. I also thought that a friend of ours who we support in prayer was going to be out last night, but she wasn’t.

We were a very quiet bunch – not quiet as in long periods of silence or anything, but quiet spoken. Even tilting my good ear in their direction was not helping. I found it difficult to say my “Amen”s because I wasn’t sure what I was agreeing to, although I am sure that it was good stuff.

My tintitus, the ringing in my ears, seemed particularly loud as it does at the end of a school day. Perhaps under normal circumstances things would have not been so difficult.

There were times when we would stop praying about something and converse for a while about things we thought God was prompting us about. After a while the leader would say to someone, “Andrew, would you lead us in prayer on that?” It was always very specific, with a named individual. The trouble is that when I was the named individual I wasn’t sure exactly what I was leading people on. I have developed a habit I suppose. In those times of low volume, I will do the tilting of the head thing, but after a while, I just stop concentrating. I am content to let them talk and do not feel the need to join in. Maybe I get a glazed look that goes with it.

Last night there were two moments when it was “Mel, would you lead us in that?” The first time I had managed to follow the conversation – it was about asking God to send more workers to the field. I could do it. The second time, I was really caught out. It was getting on for midnight and I was drifting into sleep mode and I had stopped concentrating. Suddenly there was a “Mel, will you lead us in that?” I had no clue. I had not been listening big time! I didn’t even know enough to fluff it. So I had to ask them to repeat the information.

I am glad that God knows me well. Because the ears are not up to the job, He will often appeal to the other senses.

I will not claim to have anything other than a flash of a picture. I had the impression that I was seeing a field. The field was full of holes, so much so that it looked almost like a lunar landscape. I had the impression that I had asked a question about the hole. “Where have all these holes come from?” I had the impression of someone answering me, quite casually, “Oh, they were left behind by the people who dug up the talents they had buried.” It is a time for digging up buried talents!

If you happen to be a person that has buried your talent – find a spade and start digging! If you happen to be a person who hasn’t buried your talent – help someone that has to dig up theirs!

Stepping Into Something Greater

I treated myself to a book yesterday. It is just a small book and didn’t cost a huge amount. Why is it, I wonder, that Christian books seem to cost more than other books? It is by Dave Billborough – “Worship and the Presence of God”.

I read these words this morning. He has described exactly what it is I want to experience when I worship.

“When we worship Christ, we step out of the reality present all around us and into the truth of who God is – a much bigger reality. As we worship, so we begin to bridge the gulf between the transcendent worlds of the unseen and the seen…We might meet together on a Sunday morning and go through many familiar acts of worship, and yet we always need to be reminded that we are stepping into something greater. We’re aligning ourselves with the things of heaven as we worship.”

Sometimes it seems that we have shifted the focus away from that “stepping into something greater” to just going through the motions of the “familiar acts”.

Someone who was fed up of going through the familiar acts was Moses. In Exodus 33 Moses does some stepping out into something greater. It is not enough to see a cloud or a pillar of fire, or to hear a voice that sounds like thunder. It is not enough to see God’s provision of water from a rock or in a flock of quails. It is not enough to see God’s power in each of the plagues, or in the parting of the Red Sea. Not quite “familiar” in my experience – but it was in Moses.

Moses wants something more intimate. He wants God himself – a personal encounter not disguised as a burning bush. God sees the desperation and the desire and graciously complies.

Not enough of His people ask to see His glory today. We are not desperate enough! We don’t like heights – so standing in a cleft of a rock is too far out of our comfort zone. We are more like the rest of the Israelites – watching from the safety of the doorways of our tents.

More than a Song

I am feeling somewhat frustrated at the moment. I am not sure that much of what I experience on a Sunday qualifies as worship. At the end of a meeting where I was leading worship, I was left thinking – did we just song songs or did we worship? Just becuase one or two people lift up their hands - does that mean anything? Are they just going into "worship mode" or are they genuinely in the presence of God?

On Thursday night I went to a meeting at a local church. The new Culloden Visitor’s Centre is due to be opened some time and the church felt the need to meet together to celebrate that today Culloden isn’t the battlefield it was some two or three hundred years ago. There were men in kilts!

We began the meeting with a time of worship. Worship has got to be more than singing songs, no matter how modern. There was a string of songs – some old and some new, with all the words projected on to the white bit of the wall. Some of the songs had nice lyrics, perhaps even adapted from scripture.

In amongst them all was “Shine Jesus Shine” which, if you did not know, was voted number ten in the top one hundred hymns and songs in a “Songs of Praise” survey. That brought back a few memories!

There was no pause between songs. There wasn’t even a smooth chord sequence to get from one tune to the next.

A few people in front of me, and perhaps a few behind, lifted up one hand or two – but I am thoroughly convinced that we just sang songs. “We” might have worshipped, or “they” might have worshipped, but “I” sang songs – not for the want of trying to do something more than that.

My lips moved. My vocal chords moved. My hands moved as I clapped to one song, or tapped the side of my leg. My feet moved as I shuffled from one leg to the next in a very muted form of the Charismatic two step. I even stretched out a hand to heaven at one point. Anyone looking at me would have thought – “There’s a woman who is worshipping!”

Many things may have moved – but my spirit didn’t! I didn’t go anywhere. I don’t know, but if the person leading worship isn’t really going anywhere, does that mean that the people he or she is leading are not going anywhere either? Can I blame it on the worship team? Or does that not matter at all? Some people make the distiction between a worship leader and a lead worshipper - is that just semantics? If the lead worshipper isn't leading you then are you actually going anywhere?

I really don’t want to just sing songs! I want to connect. Worship isn’t worship at all if there is no encounter with God. i know what it feels like to connect and I know what it feels like when the connection is absent.

I read this Hebrews 4:14-16 this morning about worship. This is how the Message puts it:-

“Now that we know what we have—Jesus, this great High Priest with ready access to God—let's not let it slip through our fingers. We don't have a priest who is out of touch with our reality. He's been through weakness and testing, experienced it all—all but the sin. So let's walk right up to him and get what he is so ready to give. Take the mercy, accept the help. (Hebrews 4:14-16)”

On Thursday, I didn’t “walk right up to him” and get what He was so ready to give.

As I think about leading worship in our fellowship, I am challenged about whether I give people the opportunity, through my choice of songs and the way in which they are sung and played, or indeed anything else that I might say or do that creates the right atmosphere, to walk right up to Jesus and to get from Him what He is so ready to give.

Serving The Lord "Right Merrily"

When I lived in London for two years I used to attend a dance class twice a week. It wasn’t like social dancing or ball room dancing, but the kind of dancing you see in the film “Footloose”. I actually owned and wore leotards and leggings – note the plural! The one thing that I didn’t like was the mirror. It was across one wall of the studio and the idea was you were supposed to look at yourself in the mirror as you danced and check your posture. I have never really been into mirrors. The less I see of the whole of me, the better I like it. I am not one for preening.

At the age of twenty two I was one of the oldest in the class and certainly one of the least agile. I did have a lot of determination and plugged away at the choreography to learn the routines. It was like being on the cast of Fame Academy! I just saw it as being a way to let off steam. I was teaching, at the time, in a tough East End of London Secondary school where you got to confiscate guns and knives and where the pupils did sometimes literally swing from the light bulbs!

I had forgotten all about that when I was in a shop a few months back and they were doing a clear out of all DVDs and CDs and things. I picked up a dance DVD produced by the Pineapple dance studio in London. It promised that I can learn the latest dance moves. They are probably not the latest any more!

There were no leotards and leggings but loose baggy t-shirts, trousers with the crotch somewhere down by the knees, baseball caps on backwards and a choreographer that kept saying “Go, girl!” Do I qualify as a girl at my age?

I guess these things are not designed for the overweight woman of advancing years. I was managing quite well for the first eight bars. I managed the turn, the star jump and unfolding my arms in front of me. Things deteriorated rapidly with a complex footwork routine, thrusting out my ample bosom in various directions. Then we were supposed to crouch down and shimmy upwards whilst gyrating the bum. It was all very Hip Hop and in the end I abandoned myself to the sheer joy of flinging my arms and legs about to the music. (I bet King David didn’t employ a choreographer when he danced before the Ark of the Covenant as he brought it into Jerusalem!)

I know that I probably had the option of sitting down for half an hour and praying, or doing an in depth Bible study, or even just soaking – but you know what? I really enjoyed my prancing about and I laughed so much that my sides ached.

In a recent visit to London, Joe and I went to Covent Garden. There is a church there – St Paul’s. It is dedicated to actors. All around the walls there are plaques in memory of different playwrights, actors, musicians and artists. One of them, I am not sure of the name, Margaret Someone-or-other, particularly stirred my spirit. The epitaph read “She served the Lord right merrily.”

May that be said of me – “She served the Lord right merrily.”

Because You Needed Me

I have recently changed my Bible study notes. There weren’t any copies left of the ones I usually buy. It has made me realize how much of a “quiet time” rut I have got used to.

This morning as I read and meditated on the apportioned verses from Acts 10, I made expansive notes on things that came to mind. Once I had put down the pen, quite pleased with what I had thought about – the Spirit spoke. “Now that your mind has finished speaking – what does your heart say?”

The chapter starts - “In Caesarea there was a man named Cornelius, a centurion in what was known as the Italian Regiment. He and all his family were devout and God-fearing; he gave generously to those in need and prayed to God regularly.”

What my heart has to say? I can see why God responded to Cornelius. He was devout and God-fearing. He was generous and giving. He prayed a lot. He was the kind of man that God could use. He was more than half way there. Even as a Christian, I am tempted to line myself up against him and come to the conclusion that I don’t measure up.

Reading back in the previous chapter was God claims Saul on the road to Damascus, again, I can see why. Saul with all his passion and his understanding of scripture – God could direct it all for His purposes. Within days of his encounter with God, he is preaching to the Jews, proving that Jesus is the Christ, persuading them, arguing with them and leaving them all baffled and astonished. I can see why God picked Saul.

My heart has to say – why me? I wasn’t particularly devout. I have always believed in God, but God-fearing is something different. I feared many things, God included, but in a scary judgmental kind of way. Generously giving? The moths in my purse were rarely disturbed. I have difficulty letting go of my “rainy day” mentality and confess to being a bit of a hoarder. I maybe gave, but never generously. I was never the widow with her mite casting her last few coins in the offering. Did I pray to God regularly? No. Like most people I prayed those selfish emergency prayers and I “wished” nice things for other people.

God spoke to me as I was thinking all of this. “I didn’t choose you because I needed you. I chose you because you needed Me”.

Enough said!

Best Laid Plans

According to the route worked out by the AA on their rout planner website the journey to my sister’s house in Northampton should have taken just over twenty five minutes. It was really only the last five minutes that we lost it. The instructions said “At roundabout take the 2nd exit onto the A4500”. Maybe the AA man who made up the route didn’t know about the road works. There were too many traffic bollards and not enough road signs and we ended up in the centre of town, with the market on just to our right and a church just behind us.

We had a mobile phone and a phone number. My brother in law rattled off a list of instructions over the phone. It included things like “There will be a brewery on the left” and “Drive past Asda on the right”. Needless to say we got lost again and ended up in a Netto car-park. My husband was getting tetchy in the passenger seat and my mother, in the back, on the verge of a diabetic hypo, was humming loudly to stop herself stressing out!

“No more instructions! Just come and find us!” was the next phone call, which he did. Following someone is not easy.

My husband was looking at the defunct AA plan, trying to match up where we were going with the instructions on the print out.

“None of these roads are mentioned,” he informed me. It did seem a very long journey and not just the five minutes we expected.

We finally pulled up in front of a house neither of us had seen before.

Yep, they had moved house. My sister was rolling about in merriment, quite tickled with the idea that if we had not got lost we would have been knocking on the door of a house currently owned by a pleasant Asian couple!

On the way home, my mother and my husband discussed the virtues of buying a satellite navigation system!

Any Dream Will Not Do

I promised faithfully to behave myself on Tuesday evening. I am a participator by nature. I am a joiner-in. As much as I would sometimes like to stand cool and collected at the side of the track saying, “Jolly good show” I just don’t have it in me. So when Joe and I found our seats in Row B of the dress circle in the theatre, ready to sit down and enjoy Lee Mead in “Joseph”, I was under strict instructions not to join in!


Joe and I had faithfully watched the BBC programme to select the man to be in the title role. Joe had found his own way of identifying the different lads in the competition. Let me see…there was “Boy Band Joseph”, “Serial Killer Joseph” (his eyes were too close together) “Glaikit Joseph” (a Scots expression that signifies clue-less-ness – the boy had said something like he was just realising it was a contest six weeks into it!) and of course “Real Joseph” – Lee.

Joe promised that he would take me to see the show for my birthday – and he lived up to his promise.

When I was much younger, I was very involved in drama. I think my first appearance on stage was in a local village pantomime – Robinson Crusoe. I was a pygmy.

Watching the children on stage reminded me of the grease paint and rehearsals to learn the lines and the choreography.

Watching Lee Mead navigate his way through all the songs and scenes, I couldn’t help but totally disagree with the lyrics of the last song “Any dream will do” is a lot of rubbish. I have to admit that I am coming to really appreciate the talent that it takes to write a song – find a tune that holds up and lyrics that matter and “Any dream will do” just doesn’t hold up.

Winning the BBC programme and appearing on stage every night in a loin cloth is not just “any dream” for Lee. It is “The Dream” and anything else will not do. It was not difficult to see that he was enjoying every moment of the show. He was living the dream and it wasn’t just any dream.

Any dream will not do! And people who settle for “any dream” that isn’t “The Dream” will never be fulfilled.

Digging in the Desert

Imagine, if you will, an army of soldiers in the desert. Behind them are miles upon miles of sand dunes and rocky terrain. They have been marching for seven days. They are on their way to the border of the neighbouring country to put down a rebellion. The last sip of water has been drunk.

There are no wells, no streams, no springs, no reservoirs, not even a stagnant pool – nothing but sand in all directions, and vultures circling high above their heads.

If your name was Joram and you were the King of Israel, right about now you would be cursing a few people. God would be at the top of the list. Things are not going to plan and some one is to blame.

If your name was Jehoshaphat and you were the King of Judah, you would probably have a more positive outlook and suggest finding a prophet to ask God what they should do next!

Enter Elisha stage left!

“…the hand of the LORD came upon Elisha and he said, "This is what the LORD says: Make this valley full of ditches. For this is what the LORD says: You will see neither wind nor rain, yet this valley will be filled with water, and you, your cattle and your other animals will drink. This is an easy thing in the eyes of the LORD.”

There was nothing that the eye could see, or would see, that water would be provided and yet God promised through Elisha that “this valley will be filled with water.” There was nothing that the eye could see or would see that water would be provided yet they dug a series of trenches to collect the water.

If you were there, with your spade, digging a trench, with nothing you could see to give you any encouragement that there would be water – how would you dig?

Would you scan the horizon looking for a cloud – even though you had been told there wouldn’t be one? With every thrust of the spade into the sand, would you be muttering under your breath? The trenches you are digging look pretty much like graves, don’t they?

Or would you be so convinced that God does exactly what He says that you fill your mind and heart and spirit with the picture of this trench you are digging overflowing with water? You can almost see the sun glinting off it! You can almost taste the water, sweet and cool on your tongue.

“The next morning, about the time for offering the sacrifice, there it was—water flowing from the direction of Edom! And the land was filled with water”

I know what kind of trench digger I would like to be!

Rediscovering Weetabix

“This is really quite nice!”

These words were said by me, to myself, twenty or thirty years after I had sworn never to to buy, eat, look at, smell, touch or go anywhere near Weetabix!

The problem was Weetabix was the only cereal we ever had at home for years. It took a long time to persuade my mother to start buying Cornflakes as an alternative. And then of course for the next few years it was only Cornflakes. Eventually, we again persuaded mum to try buying Rice Krispies. Thankfully I left home long before I had developed an aversion to Rice Krispies. There was no mixing the cereals.

So for years on end I have never been able to get over my Weetabix and Cornflake phobia! My husband loves Cornflakes and buys the occasional box, but I come out in a cold sweat every time I have to touch the box to move it to get to something behind it!

Despite having eaten Weetabix for most of my childhood, if you asked me what it tasted like, I honestly can’t remember what it tasted like – only that I didn’t like it! It is a clear case of familiarity breeds contempt!

I bought a pack a few weeks ago. Weetabix have distinctly fewer Weight Watcher points than some of the other breakfast cereals and they also have a low GI rating, which means they keep you filled up longer. So I fought against my Weetabix aversion, slipped two in a bowl, cut up a banana, dowsed it with milk and was quite surprised. It was nice! It wasn’t a case of holding my nose and gulping it down bravely – like I sometimes do with my porridge (which also has few WW points and is low GI). Yes, Weetabix is back on the menu!

I have had an opportunity to visit a number of different churches on a Sunday morning since we began meeting on an evening. The last time that I worshipped in a “denominational” church was probably in the late 1980s. Since then I have thrived, spiritually, on a diet of worship songs, guitar and keyboard music, various school halls, chairs, small congregations and an avoidance of anything that looks remotely like tradition.

Sunday mornings have been a little like re-discovering Weetabix! The things I thought I disliked about “denominational” churches don’t actually exist. Every place I have visited so far has been vibrant and full of life, not steeped and stagnant with tradition and hierarchy.

I thought I knew what Weetabix tasted like and I was wrong. I thought I knew what a typical church meeting in a “denominational" church was all about - but I was wrong.

I still haven’t tried the Cornflakes though!

Flaounes and Festivities

I suppose that you could call it home sickness, although I am not a Cypriot! I spent a few years living and working in Cyprus and Easter time was my favourite time of the year. Just for a short few weeks every bit of waste ground and every dry river bed was covered in flowers. New life was evident all around.

I miss the way that the Cypriots took time to celebrate Easter. Sometimes we are so keen to throw off traditions frightened that they will suffocate our faith, but the Greek Orthodox Church revels in traditions. They involve all the physical senses of the body to capture the spirit.

Yesterday I spent the afternoon making flaounes – small Easter cheese cakes. The plan, sometime this afternoon is to take them around the neighbourhood and share some resurrection joy.

In Cyprus, people greet each other with the words “Christos anesti!” (Christ is risen.) to be answered with the words “Alithos anesti!” (He is risen in deed). So that is what I aim to try out with the neighbours.

I am not much of a baker, so my faounes are always a hit and miss affair. If the cheese mixture is too wet, there is tendency for it to spill out of the pastry shell. I have more spilled flaounes than not, but they taste fine.

I was at an Easter service this morning in my local church. It was billed as a family meeting, and the place was filled to capacity with every generation.

I can remember my own Sunday School days. It was a small chapel the other side of the village. For weeks before the Easter service we practised our “lines” and learnt to march in an orderly line to deliver them loud and clear to the congregation. It was rehearsed carefully and everything went according to plan.

This morning it was like my flaoune mixture – a bit messy and spilling out of the pastry shell! The kids had a part to play being given coloured balloons and encouraged to do a Mexican wave for Jesus! It wasn’t rehearsed. No one had learned their lines! It was messy! It was noisy! It was fun! It was life! It was – unexpected.

I had never been inside my local church before. I expected pews – but they had row upon row of seats. I expected Sunday best coats and hats and I got jeans. I expected a hymn book and got a huge screen and a projector. I expected an organ and got a band. I expected a straight jacket and got a people freely expressing their love for Jesus. I expected to feel like a stranger and got treated like a friend.

The Scars on My Heart

My ears ache
Dreading to hear the words
You will not say

My will demands
Your silence
And yet pain consumes all will

Just say the words
“Father, save Me..”
And I will rush to Your side

I will rip the nails
Dragging them bloodstained
From Your palms

Gently will I ease away
The twisted thorny crown
From Your brow

I will rock You in my arms
Bestow a tender kiss
And breathe new life into You

Just say the words
“Father, save me..”
And I will

But in saving You
I will condemn to death
A hundred generations of new sons

And so I turn away
And hear You cry
“Why have You forsaken me”

My heart breaks
Because I mustn’t answer
And then it is finished

The scars on Your palms
Are there for all to see
But no one sees the scars on My heart


What if Jesus had called out to God, not "My God, My God, why have you forsaken me?", but "Father, save me!" I don't think that God could have resisted. It is in His nature to save. As much as God the Son went through the agony and pain the cross demanded, God the Father went through the pain of having to witness it and having to restrain himself from interfering.

Gethsemane

I came home from a Christian celebration of Passover. The taste of wine, unleavened bread and roast lamb was still on my lips.

Closing the car door, I happened to glance at the night sky. There was an almost full moon, a scattering of stars and traces of clouds.

I wondered if as the disciples and Jesus as they left their Passover meal to head out towards the Garden of Gethsemane glanced up at the sky. Did they see an almost full moon, a scattering of stars and traces of cloud?

I went to the Garden of Gethsemane once. I can remember being very disappointed because it didn’t look like a garden. There were no lawns or flower beds. I was thinking in terms of English country gardens and all that was before me was a bunch of trees. It was just an olive grove.

I would like to say that I walked among the trees and connected with God, thinking that here among the olive trees, my Saviour walked. I’d like to say that just as He prayed, pouring out his soul before the Father, that I too knelt and prayed. I would like to say that just as Jesus surrendered to the Father’s will, that I too surrendered.

Maybe I did, but I don’t remember.

Last night I connected. Thousands of miles away from Gethsemane, I thought about them leaving the upper room, the taste of wine, unleavened bread and roast lamb on their lips. The words of the Exodus story and God’s mighty deliverance of Israel from Egypt were still ringing in their ears.

They were standing on the cusp of a new world. In a few short hours so much would be dismantled – a curse, a curtain and an old covenant. Something altogether new as about to step into the centre of the stage – a new kingdom and a new king, a new life and a new beginning, a new community and a new commitment.

History almost repeats itself – God delivers another bunch of slaves from another tyrant! This time around I was there - God delivered me!

Saying it with verse

Do you know how many cards there are to send to someone who has been promoted? None at all! I spent a while scanning the shelves looking for a card for Joe to congratulate him on his promotion. I had to settle for a blank card with a picture of chapagne bottle on it and come up with my own cheerful congratulatory message inside!

I went into a shop today
To buy a card for you
Of “Happy Birthday” “Get Well Soon”
There were more than a few

Giving birth or moving house?
A million cards to choose
For weddings and retirements too
There’s cards to spread the news

Now if you left your job, oh yes
There is a card to buy
But mere promotion to B2
Those cards, they don’t supply

If Hallmark cannot say the words
“Congratulations, Joe”
I’ll write my own inspiring verse
“Well Done! My cute wee beau!”

A Mother's Pride

Last night my husband and I were obviously reading from different scripts or singing from different song sheets! My script was all about cleaning the house! We have guests staying with us later on in the week and the spare bedrooms would not pass a governmental health check! Actually, it’s not just the spare rooms – the whole house has been deteriorating around us. So, yes, my script has included lots of polish and hovering and ironing and stuff.

My husband’s script – well I am not quite sure what he was up to.

He has recently been promoted at work and came home, quite a lot later than I expected him to I might add, to show me a letter confirming his new status and details of his new salary. I should have been able respond with more than just a grunt, but I just refused to drop the resentment that had built up in me as I had worked on alone with the cleaning.

The evening progressed with him in the dog-house and me on my high horse, the two of us like two marbles coldly clinking together in a half cleaned jar!

Later that night as I wrapped myself in a book, Joe started to talk.

He told me about a day when he was ten or eleven. He had passed something like the 11 Plus test and had won a place at the local grammar school. He came from a very working class background and finding the extra money needed for all the items of the school uniform was not going to be easy. He remembered his mother taking him up to the school. It was way out of her comfort zone. She was absolutely frightened at meeting the whole school community, who were just from almost another planet, but she pulled herself to her full height and walked in the door. She charmed everyone in sight. She was more Roman Catholic than most of the Marist Brothers that taught in the school.

It was just that picture of her standing outside the gates determined that she would not let her son down that he was telling me about. She was proud of him for passing the exam and getting the chance to go to that school.

As he told me the story of his mother, with tears in his eyes, he ended with the words – “My mother would be proud of me today!” (Joe’s mum is in a nursing home, lost in dementia, and rarely connects with the real world these days.)

I am very proud of him and I thought I had said so. I suppose there are just some things you need to say over and over again.

My Year of Jubilee

It was my fiftieth birthday on Friday and, unlike so many people reaching a milestone like that, I am thrilled to be this age! Part of it comes from looking much younger than my years. I have had a hard time convincing people that I am fifty. Perhaps if there were a few more obvious wrinkles and stuff I might feel differently.

On Thursday, during a prayer meeting, God said, “Do you know, Mel – it’s your year of Jubilee?” Jubilee years were celebrated every fiftieth by the Israelites and all the instructions are in the Old Testament.

I know about Jubilee years because the concept crops us in one of our units of work – to do with debt cancellation. The Jubilee Debt Campaign that began in 2000 picks up on the practice of cancelling debts.

Doing a little bit more reading up on it – there are essentially two aspects to a Jubilee year - rest and release.

The rest part of it is a reminder that it is linked into the idea of a Sabbath day rest. Just as on the Sabbath day the Jews were restrained from everyday tasks, the ground they grew their crops on also had a Sabbath rest. Every seventh year the soil was rested and the Jews just ate what grew naturally. A Jubilee year is a Sabbath of Sabbaths.

Picking up on this idea of rest, my first inclination was to announce that I would be stepping down from leading worship, preaching, teaching Sunday school and attending mid-week meetings. Rest, eh? No work? The idea didn’t last that long as the Spirit quickly corrected me that is was the absence of “unnecessary work” that was called for. All the energy that I expend on fretting and worrying and striving for stuff – that was what one was to cease doing!

As time goes on, when you have been a Christian fro a while, things creep in – you add to what God has already done – attending meetings, reading the word, praying – some of these things become opportunities for collecting “Brownie Points”. You add to God’s salvation and have a list of “must dos” that you don’t really have to do at all. You do them not to earn Brownie points but because you love to draw close to God. Resting is about not giving that kind of stuff Brownie point power, but just reminding yourself it is all down to the blood of Jesus alone.

The release bit of Jubilee happened when everyone was released from the debts they owed others. Not only were the debts wiped away, but everything you had sold to pay off your debts, whether that be property, personal belongings or yourself into slavery – everything was restored back to its original owner. You owed nothing and you possessed everything. It happened perhaps once in a lifetime if you lived that long!

Release for me comes in receiving back all the stuff that I have “sold” over the ages. My debts were wiped away on the cross and the day I accepted Jesus invitation to surrender everything was restored to me. However, life kicks in and however much you like to think otherwise, over time you might surrender things that you shouldn’t, perhaps for an easier life. You might surrender your passion because when others stomp on it, you withdraw just a little. Disappointments perhaps have a way of redefining your picture of God, or your expectation of what He would wish to accomplish through you. I know that these things are always something you should fight for, and go back time and time to God to have corrected. But wear and tear corrodes many things given enough time.

I am not the same person I was when I became a Christian many years ago. I have gained a lot I never had before, but I have also surrendered at lot of things I should have held on to. This Jubilee year I aim to receive those things back by the grace of God.

I am not sold into slavery but have been redeemed by the blood of the Lamb ant it is time to let go of the slave mentality!

So for my Jubilee year I will establish the habit of resting and letting loose the Brownie points, and I will have released to me all the things I am entitled to have. It promises to be a humdinger of a year!

The Three Egg Omelette Challenge

On a Saturday morning we like to watch a cookery programme called “Saturday Kitchen”. They have guest chefs who demonstrate favourite recipes, celebrities that choose their food hell and food heaven for the viewers to vote on, and there are always a couple of viewers invited on to the programme to be the guinea pigs and taste the various recipes.

One regular feature of the programme is a challenge for the guest chefs to make a three egg omelette in a little time as possible and depending on how quickly they do it, they get posted onto a leader board. We are talking about mere seconds! What they call on omelette looks suspiciously like scrambled egg to me and not the least bit appetising.

I am into week two of my hunt for the man! Seeing as I didn’t find him at last week’s church meeting, I thought I would try another church.

It feels like a three egg omelette challenge taking the opportunity to visit other churches in the morning now that we are meeting in the evening. However much I want to just take the meeting as it is, there is the inevitability of comparing one with another, and also comparing them with my own church.

With the three egg omelette challenge there are things that they all have in common – three eggs, a pan, oil, heat, a whisk, seasoning and a ticking clock. The end result for the most part looks rather similar too. What’s different, although not really that different, is the actions of the chefs. Some of them want to be on the leader board so they rush and hurry and serve up a pile of goo on a plate. Others, although they also want to be on the leader board, also want to serve up a proper omelette and they seem not to be able to lay aside cooking protocol!

What would be the things that churches have in common – worship songs perhaps? The sermon? The welcome when you arrive? The tea and coffee at the end? None of that really matters to some extent if you don’t encounter God! It is nice to be welcomed when you arrive – and I have been made to feel very welcome. The worship songs – today’s church pips the post rather. Not because the songs were familiar – they weren’t. The musicians were good. It wasn’t so much them as me – I was ready to worship and wanted to connect. The sermon this time around was challenging, not that last’s week’s wasn’t! The tea and coffee – the first church was better – much nicer biscuits!

But did I connect with God? Yes I did, but I missed my own church family very much. Many of the avenues that I connect with God don’t come in isolation. It is not the words or the music that always does it – but the familiar faces and the way my church family look at me. It is a familiar smile and an affirming nod from someone I know that makes my encounters with God to be so much more real. I know where I stand with them. I am not a stranger or a visitor but an essential part of their encounter with God too.

Fakes and Counterfeits

I was listening to the radio this morning. There was a report about a bank that had taken delivery of a consignment of gold bars from a country in Africa. They were in the process of writing a letter of complaint to the government of the country because it turned out that the bars weren’t gold at all but bars of iron coated in a layer of gold. The subject of the report was about fakes and counterfeits. There was a counterfeiter who made such a good job of copying a twenty pound note that the bank of England couldn’t tell the difference and had to re-commission a new bank note altogether!

It reminded me of one of the very first articles I posted on the Faithwriters’ site many years ago.

100% Cashmere

Just over a month ago I got my eyes tested. I wasn’t told anything I didn’t already know. The glasses I had so tenaciously hung on to for years were no use. They were well past their sell by date and probably doing more harm than good. They were certainly no use for reading the labels on tins as I did my weekly shop in the supermarket.

Labels are amazing things. So many big claims in such small writing. A newspaper article that sticks in my mind highlighted the problem about labels. A certain brand of cashmere sweaters claimed to be 100% cashmere. It was boldly announced on the label, along with the instructions of how to wash said cashmere sweater. Tests later proved that it was not 100% at all but actually 95%. The last 5% was something else.

It made me wonder for a moment the nature of the test. What did they do to unravel the identity of the fake 5%? It made me wonder for a moment about the testee. What clues lead them to question the truth behind the label?

It made me wonder for a long time about the claims of other labels? What other things were being boldly announced as 100% the genuine article when all along there was a fake 5%?

When I surrendered to Jesus many years ago, I accepted a label. I live my life day by day before my friends and neighbours. They look and watch my every move, to see if what I have is worth it. As I deal with all that life throws at me – and it throws things quite forcefully, they look and watch my every reaction, to see if what I have makes a difference. I accepted a label but does the way I live my life match up to its claims? Every time I choose to climb a mountain of faith in my own strength I show the world a fake 5%. Every time I fail to turn the other cheek, every time I hold on to both my tunics with grasping fingers and every time I fail to turn away a harsh word with a gentle whisper, I show the world a fake 5%. God has written 100% on my label and given me the resources I need to be the genuine article.

Pub Pastor

When the street pastor initiative started up in Inverness I always thought that it would be something that my husband would get involved in. Unlike me his is a people person. I like the four walls of my house and pottering around inside. He likes to be out there among people.

I discovered last night that my husband like his own four walls – the inside of a pub! We were on our way out for a meal last night to celebrate my birthday. We hadn’t booked anywhere. We planned to have a meal and go to the cinema but were not sure which way around we would do it. In the end we plumped for the meal first.

We didn’t factor in meeting up with a friend of ours. Once he found out it was my birthday, he insisted we join him and his girlfriend for a drink, except it wasn’t just him and his girlfriend and it wasn’t just one drink and it wasn’t just the one pub either!

Everywhere we ended up, people beamed as Joe walked through the door. There would be handshakes and hugs – who says that the church has a monopoly on getting tactile?

At each venue I would be introduced with the line “And this is my wife..” I am sure that if Joe had been introducing them to the Blessed Virgin Mary, she couldn’t have got a better reception. Their high respect for Joe just transferred itself to me! I don’t know what Joe had said about me, but I was treated almost like royalty!

Over drinks Joe just distributed the love of Jesus.

Just as the pen and paper and words are my natural environment, I discovered that for Joe, the pub is his. He was in his sweet spot – talking to people, listening, giving advice and encouragement, gently rebuking where necessary. He dealt with everyone with such gentleness and he exuded joy. Part of the joy was because I was with him and sharing a part of his life that I hadn’t really experienced before.

I was very conscious of my own behaviour while I was there. I am really quite a shy person (aye right!) and my natural inclination is to withdraw. Some people can misinterpret that as being stand offish so I made a grand effort to initiate conversations. I didn't want to let Joe down. It is not my natural environment but I adapted to make myself at home.

Over the meal – we finally made it to a restaurant three hours later – he told me, “Maybe none of those people will ever make it through the door of the church, but they know who Jesus is because I have told them!” He told me one story after another of all the broken lives we had met that night and how he tried to be Jesus to them – not judging, not pushing them, just loving and accepting.

Joe isn't a street pastor. He is a pub pastor - without the jacket!

I was so proud of him last night.