Lessons from Isaiah’s Allotment

Whether you turn to the right or to the left, your ears will hear a voice behind you saying, “This is the way; walk in it.”

Isaiah 30:21

 

This reminded me of the time recently when my wife and I took our 2 year old granddaughter to Helen’s allotment. Helen was busy picking strawberries and raspberries whilst I went back and forth amongst the plots fetching water from the trough. Ella came with me each time, often running a couple of paces ahead. No matter how many times we had been there she consistently took wrong turns and needed me to say, “This way Ella.”

allotment

Being short she couldn’t see above the fences and towering crops, where as I, from my lofty perspective, could easily see out destination and how to get to it. Also, as a 2 year old she hasn’t yet learnt her left and right, nor does she live in a world where she has to make her own way around. She has loving, attentive parents (and grandparents) to guide and direct her. Much like we have a loving and attentive Father God who looks down from His lofty perspective and says from behind, “This is the way; walk in it.”

Lessons from my Granddaughter

Fifteen months ago I became a proud grandfather. She started walking at ten months and is into and onto everything. Over the summer I’ve spent hours happily following her around the garden watching over her and just watching her as she explored new things and developed new skills. She is fiercely independent and rarely accepts my help, preferring instead to persevere until she masters whatever new skill or challenge she discovers. Do I take offence at her refusal to accept my help? Of course not. I continue to follow her around the garden/house/park pointing things out, giving help occasionally and frequently catching her or picking her up.

 

It reminds me that God is described as our loving daddy. I picture Him following us around the garden watching over us, offering help and advice and overseeing our failures and successes, but mostly enjoying just being with us.

 

I know my garden. I know how to climb the steps. I know how to step from one stepping stone to another but I don’t get bored watching my granddaughter going round and round discovering and rediscovering things. It’s a joy to see her grow and develop and refine her skills.

 

Sometimes I watch with a quickened heart rate as she masters some new perilous skill and standby to catch her. Sometimes I standby and watch her mounting frustration as she struggles with something. Sometimes she’ll accept help but then she’ll keep come back to it until she masters it.

 

Sometimes I get it wrong, I don’t anticipate a problem, I’m not close enough to catch her and so pick her up and cuddle her. That’s part of being human.

 

How much more must God our Father take pleasure in our company, watching over us, taking pride in our accomplishment, waiting patiently by our sides. And as God isn’t human, He doesn’t get it wrong or fail us. So, next time you’re struggling with something, remember your loving Father is close by willing you on with outstretched arms ready to catch you.

The Vision

I’ve been reading “Red Moon Rising” the story about the 24/7 prayer movement.  Thought I’d share this poem/vision/prophecy :-

 

So this guy comes up to me and says “what’s the vision? What’s the big idea?” I open my mouth and words come out like this… The vision?

The vision is JESUS – obsessively, dangerously, undeniably Jesus.

The vision is an army of young people.

You see bones? I see an army. And they are FREE from materialism.

They laugh at 9-5 little prisons. They could eat caviar on Monday and crusts on Tuesday. They wouldn’t even notice. They know the meaning of the Matrix, the way the west was won. They are mobile like the wind, they belong to the nations. They need no passport.. People write their addresses in pencil and wonder at their strange existence. They are free yet they are slaves of the hurting and dirty and dying. What is the vision ? The vision is holiness that hurts the eyes. It makes children laugh and adults angry. It gave up the game of minimum integrity long ago to reach for the stars. It scorns the good and strains for the best. It is dangerously pure.

Light flickers from every secret motive, every private conversation. It loves people away from their suicide leaps, their Satan games. This is an army that will lay down its life for the cause. A million times a day its soldiers choose to lose that they might one day win the great ‘Well done’ of faithful sons and daughters.

Such heroes are as radical on Monday morning as Sunday night. They don’t need fame from names. Instead they grin quietly upwards and hear the crowds chanting again and again: “COME ON!”

And this is the sound of the underground The whisper of history in the making Foundations shaking Revolutionaries dreaming once again Mystery is scheming in whispers Conspiracy is breathing… This is the sound of the underground

And the army is discipl(in)ed.

Young people who beat their bodies into submission.

Every soldier would take a bullet for his comrade at arms. The tattoo on their back boasts “for me to live is Christ and to die is gain”.

Sacrifice fuels the fire of victory in their upward eyes. Winners. Martyrs. Who can stop them ? Can hormones hold them back? Can failure succeed? Can fear scare them or death kill them ?

And the generation prays like a dying man with groans beyond talking, with warrior cries, sulphuric tears and with great barrow loads of laughter! Waiting. Watching: 24 – 7 – 365.

Whatever it takes they will give: Breaking the rules. Shaking mediocrity from its cosy little hide. Laying down their rights and their precious little wrongs, laughing at labels, fasting essentials. The advertisers cannot mould them. Hollywood cannot hold them. Peer-pressure is powerless to shake their resolve at late night parties before the cockerel cries.

They are incredibly cool, dangerously attractive inside.

On the outside? They hardly care. They wear clothes like costumes to communicate and celebrate but never to hide. Would they surrender their image or their popularity? They would lay down their very lives – swap seats with the man on death row – guilty as hell. A throne for an electric chair.

With blood and sweat and many tears, with sleepless nights and fruitless days, they pray as if it all depends on God and live as if it all depends on them.

Their DNA chooses JESUS. (He breathes out, they breathe in.) Their subconscious sings. They had a blood transfusion with Jesus. Their words make demons scream in shopping centres. Don’t you hear them coming? Herald the weirdo’s! Summon the losers and the freaks. Here come the frightened and forgotten with fire in their eyes. They walk tall and trees applaud, skyscrapers bow, mountains are dwarfed by these children of another dimension. Their prayers summon the hounds of heaven and invoke the ancient dream of Eden.

And this vision will be. It will come to pass; it will come easily; it will come soon. How do I know? Because this is the longing of creation itself, the groaning of the Spirit, the very dream of God. My tomorrow is his today. My distant hope is his 3D. And my feeble, whispered, faithless prayer invokes a thunderous, resounding, bone-shaking great ‘Amen!’ from countless angels, from hero’s of the faith, from Christ himself. And he is the original dreamer, the ultimate winner.

Guaranteed.

 

 

More at – https://www.24-7prayer.com/about/thevision-en

 

YOLO

You Only Live Once – right!

 

Another video from the “yesheis” website with some nice cartoon work to go with the message (and music)!

 

http://www.show2.me/en/video/pursuit-happiness

 

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Lessons from the Surf

I was reminded the other day of that moment when you are sitting just outside the breaking surf and look out to sea and see an enormous set of waves heading your way. There’s a mixture of emotions. On one hand that’s what you’re there for – the perfect wave; but on the other hand there is fear as you contemplate what the wave might do to you.

Your choices are threefold – you can turn towards the beach and start paddling in the hope that you get the ride of your life and live to tell the tale; you can paddle frantically towards the wave in the hope that you can go over the top before it breaks; or you can just sit there, duck dive it and hope everything will be okay(it never is!)

It reminded me of the Christian walk. Sometimes you seem to just sit around in calm water waiting and hoping that something will happen. You’re there, ready for action but with little to do. At other times there’s lots happening but it’s all under control – you may be working hard but it’s nothing you can’t handle. Then there’s the times when you see a great wall of power sweeping towards you and you realise that things are outside of your control.

You’re faced with the same choices – go with it and hope you can ride it, sit there like a sitting duck or move in the opposite direction.

The worst thing you can do is just sit on your surfboard and hope everything is going to be okay – it won’t. You’ll get trashed. Sometimes fear takes over and you just want to be safe and live to see another day. That can be the right choice sometimes when faced with a wall of water. Even though it leaves you feeling disappointed with yourself it’s good to know your own limitations. The very best scenario is when you go for it, it all works out and you get the ride of your life.

The great thing about the Christian life is that God knows our limitations and we can trust Him for the ride of our lives knowing that what He calls us to, He equips for.

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The Force of Grace

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I came across a new website (well new to me) yesterday and watched this video – http://www.show2.me/znbhZNZOZNZN

Entitled “The Force of Grace” it promised that I would be “floored!” Well, that’s a big claim as I’m not easily ‘floored’ – probably due to the fact that I’m old enough to have been around the block by now!

 

That said, it is a great video and I was impressed enough to share it here. Enjoy.

Lennon and Lenin

Check out my latest guest blog on the CVM website. What do Lennon and Lenin have in common?

 

Click HERE

 

 

Time is on My Side

Read my guest blog on the CVM website with the above title by clicking HERE.

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Devotional

Don’t hide:

don’t run,

but rather

discover in the midst of fragmentation

a new way forward:

a different kind of journey

marked by it’s fragility,

uncertainty

and lack of definition.

And on that path

to hold these hands

that even in their brokenness

create a new tomorrow.

To dance at the margins,

and to see

the face of Christ

where hurt

is real and

pain a way of life.

To be touched

in the eye of the storm,

aware that tomomorrow

may not bring peace.

Impossible, you say;

let me retreat

and find my rest.

What rest, my friend,

in these fragmented times?

Peter Millar

Quote – CS Lewis

Christianity, if false, is of no importance, and if true, of infinite importance. The only thing it cannot be is moderately important.

I believe in Christianity as I believe that the sun has risen: not only because I see it, but because by it I see everything else.

The Christian does not think God will love us because we are good, but that God will make us good because He loves us.

If we find ourselves with a desire that nothing in this world can satisfy, the most probable explanation is that we were made for another world.

Friendship is unnecessary, like philosophy, like art…. It has no survival value; rather it is one of those things which give value to survival.