My random thoughts

NOT WRITTING MUCH!!

2007-01-05T02:35:00.000-08:00

I was going to put an explaination of why I'm not blogging much these days, but it has just taken forever to into being able to do this. Maybe God is telling me that my blogging days really are over.

I realised that the reason I started blogging was that I had all these things inside my head that I wanted to share with someone, anyone. I felt frustrated that there was no one immediate I could share with and so I took to blogging stuff. And also I was a bit shy of sharing with people in the flesh in case they thought I was crazy. Well the thing is since being with Ian I have been able to share even my wildest thoughts and dreams with him, and in doing so, in being able to voice stuff, it has given me more confidence to speak out to others, to say what is in my heart. Almost like if I say things and someone hurts me I have someone I can trust that I can go back to to be comforted, encouraged. It is like I am not alone any more.
Dont get me wrong I am not saying that everyone needs to be in couples because actually I did enjoy my single time and am going to miss it. But I know being with someone has made me a different person. Someone told me recently that I seem softer now. Its like I feel safer to be me now.
So I may not blog much more as I have an outlet for my thoughts, but it has been a good time.

So I get married on 27th Jan in Frome and then move to Bradford on Avon, me and Ben and Tabi, to live with Ian, to get established as a family and to wait on God for what He has planned for us next. Life is going to be very different. We are turning a corner that we cant see what is round this bend. It is good and its great to know that God is in control.
And who knows maybe God will get me blogging again.

JESUS - ALL WE NEED?

2006-12-12T03:46:00.000-08:00

Sorry for not blogging for ages. There is just so much going on what with practical stuff for the wedding and combining two homes and 4 lives, and lots of emotional stuff for all 4 of us that I have been lost in other things. But I'm slowing down for Christmas and also lots of other practical things are coming together which is giving me a bit of head space to thing of stuff worthy of sharing with others!

I have been pondering the above question - is Jesus all we need? Or do we need people too? And I have come to the conclusion that God made us to live in relationship with each other, as well as with Him, but that He didnt make man to live alone. So yes Jesus is the pinicale of relationship, that we shouldnt try to gain our idenity from anyone other than Jesus, shouldnt look to people to meet our needs, but also we shouldnt ignore people.
I have discovered in my life as a mother I have learnt about how God parents us, how He forgives us, how He disciplines us, as I have grown into doing this more and more with Ben and Tabi. I have also learnt how He has to let us go to make our own mistakes so we will come back to Him. With Ian I have learnt how to be loved by a person, how to learn to trust totally another person with my life. It is like I am learning about the lover side of my relationship with Jesus as Ian and I are getting closer and working towards that ultimate statement of commitment.
Also I have discovered that God uses me more when I am with Ian. That the two of us can talk to and reach people better as a couple than singularly because we have very different giftings. Also at the moment God has been doing amazing things in my spirt when I go to gather with other Christians on a sunday morning. It doesnt happen when it is just me alone, but when I touch Ian's hand I start to weep. It is like God can use me as a vulnerable person because I am not alone, but am connected.
Also He said an interesting thing to me this sunday as I was struggling with the tears and of the whole sunday morning thing and of feeling different - that I can only be different when I am connected in with other people. It is like if I am different on my own or with a group of people who are also different then actually we arent being different but with others He can use that difference along with the differences in others to make some changes in the heavenlies.
So yes Jesus is the ultimate in who we are and our destiny but we do need other people otherwise God wouldnt have made us the way we are.

CONVICTION

2006-09-30T01:15:00.000-07:00

It is being a hard time for us, this inbetween being engaged time. And it has struck me just how much easier at times it would be not being a Christian!!!
Ian and I have been very much convicted that we are not going to sleep together, that the first time we go further than kissing will be on our wedding night. A very interesting thing for 2 people who have been married before. But we both feel this is what God is saying to us. But the tension, not so much of the not sleeping together, but of the fact that there is the whole thing of the having to get the whole moving in together to coincide with the date of getting married, which of course has a knock on effect of Ben and Tabi and their home ed, and social lives. But all this has to happen at the same time. Whereas if we didn't have this conviction then we could be moving over piecemeal, could be spending time at each others houses more and more. All sorts of stuff like that. This isn't easy. I can so see why people would move in together before they get married, start sleeping together, etc. It is a real tension.
But as I was thinking this God brought to mind the verse about not being yoked with unbelievers and took me to another dimension on this. That as well as it meaning not to be married/partnershiped with those who don't believe in Jesus as the son of God, etc, etc, it can also mean not to be yoked with those who don't have the same convictions from God as He has given you. That all this with not sleeping together would be even more of a strain if both of us hadn't had this conviction. Whereas now we can support each other, stop each other from falling. If we believed in different ways of walking out our walk with God then the tensions would be even greater.
Actually this period I am in, of very much just building relationship with Ian, and establishing us 4 as family, is also a time where God is opening up His word to me in a very different way, of showing me scriptures that I have known, heard preached on, even taught on myself, and just giving them a different twist. It is all very interesting and exciting.

TIMING

2006-09-07T03:41:00.000-07:00

Hey! Have just come back from town and wanted to tell someone, so thought I'd blog. Its about God and how He just orchestrates things.
We're back on the whole home school thing again and trying to get Ben and Tabi to be a bit more self-motivated I've got them doing some project work themselves and their own research. Well Tabi decided that the library was a good place, Ben decided to go with her, and I realised I needed to pay some money in the bank so might as well walk down with them. I left them in town and was walking back up and got chatting to someone that I recognized by sight as being very into new age stuff, thinking she was a mermaid at times, etc. I just said Hi and she started pouring out her heart about loads of stuff. Well as we walked up it turned out she was going into the local CofE coffee shop because one of the men in there, who is connected with the Citizens Advise bureau was helping her to get a grant. And she was able to say how they were Christians and she appreciated that, so I said I was a Christian too and that I would pray for her. Didn't feel it appropriate to pray there and then as it might have compromised the guy in the coffee shop who had started chatting to us. Prayed as I continued my walk!
Well then walking back up the road, just about opposite my house I see the vicar's wife of said CofE church, who have been really great to me, also who have large and lovely church which is my parish and would be dead easy to book for the wedding, but Ian is a bit reluctant because of various things. Anyway the vicar's wife and I haven't seen each other for ages so get filling in about various news and when I say I've got engaged she offers their church and her husband. So we get to have a little chat about how flexible he would be, etc, and is a very flexible man. And she has invited Ian and I round just to chat things over with him.
But its like by just going with Ben and Tabi into town, God has managed to use me to pray for someone and help them to talk, and also to be blessed myself and be able to open doors for us for the future. He is a great God and so in charge of so much.

ENGAGED

2006-09-02T12:48:00.000-07:00

Well I really do have to let the whole world know - Ian and I have got engaged!! Hurrah!!
It was all very romantic! He woke me up at dawn to climb High Neb, a peak in the Peak District, in the pouring rain, and had made me a friendship bracelet. So we aren't doing the normal thing like rings but have swapped friendship bracelets and will save the rings thing till we get to wedding rings. We are having all the normal hassles of certain people thinking they know what would be the best thing for us, but we are coping with it all.
We are now waiting to see what plans God has for us, and knowing that there is something special with all this as He is showing us things that He is calling us to in being able to minister in His way to His people - which of course means those who already know Him and those who haven't yet got there.
But its very strange now to have gone from the hoping this was going to happen to now a place of knowing that we are going to be certainly married one day.
Watch this space!

JOY OF THE LORD

2006-08-15T02:13:00.000-07:00

I was reading this morning in Hebrews 11, how if we have faith and are looking towards the promises and the destiny He has for us then God will not be ashamed of us, which got me to thinking - if He has to say that if we do this He isn't ashamed of us then does that mean if we don't do these things then He is ashamed of us? So anyway as I was pondering this the verse about "The joy of the Lord is my strength" and so often we have been taught on this that we have to be joyful, give off something of joy no matter what the circumstances, then for one those who don't know God will want to because we are showing we can be joyful with Him no matter what (which I do worry makes us look like we are slightly crazy!), and also that if we are joyful no matter what then it will give us the strength to get through. WELL - after today's thought I have got another perspective. I wonder if its the fact that we are, no matter how struggling, to have faith that God is in control, that we are struggling to seek His will in whatever - good times and bad -, we are looking to that greater place of God that actually it is Him who has joy in us.
So it is His joy in us and what we are doing that will give us the strength to make it through. As with a child who is really having trouble grasping something or doing something, that when we as parents show them our joy in the fact that they are trying, show them our joy that we believe in them, then that is what gives them the strength to go on.
To me that is such a release because all I need to do is keep my eyes fixed on God and that will give Him joy and so it will be His joy in me that will be my strength. Well cool!!

EXPECTATIONS

2006-08-03T08:30:00.000-07:00

I am a day dreamer. Its true. Ben says that I must stop voicing my thoughts because when I do it seems to but a jinx (oh am I allowed to say that word as a Christians?!?!?!?)on them and then they don't happen.
But I've been thinking over another round of expectations that didn't work out just as I expected, of the ache I'm having to deal with, and pondering that whole thing of dreaming big dreams with God/for God, being given the desires of your heart. Now surely that means you need to dream, need to have desires, need to be thinking big and outside the box. But it just seems that once again there are the disappointments that go with that.
Also I was thinking of how my dreams have changed. Maybe I'm fickle. No I don't think so. But so many of my dreams do change as my circumstances change or as I believe I hear various things from God that talk about stepping out. Oh man, when God tells me to do something that involves stepping out, and then gives me just a snippet of the next stage, boy do I start to daydream then, and then that is when I get disappointed.
But those daydreams have changed. A while back with Ywam it was of doing stuff with them, then of going to Greece to connect with people there, then God moved us back here and there was all this prayer stuff He popped in my head, then there was the whole thing last year of stepping out of conventional church and I'd read all the books and dreamed the dreams, but none of that happened. At the moment my daydreams are very different and are fixed round one human being!!!
Hey and don't think that I'm going to let him go but I do know as things move on with us and stuff happens that God has shown me then the focus of my dreams will go on to other things, to us things, but for now of course I don't know what they are, same as I didn't know what the daydreams of now would be.
Should I stop daydream? I don't think so! Should I stop expecting these daydreams to come true? I'm not sure there. Should I stop being disappointed when my expectations aren't what I was expecting? A definite yes there! Or maybe I'll just learn to pass this test and to hear God clearer and to be willing to keep giving those dreams and expectations to him.

UNDER ATTACK!!

2006-07-27T01:01:00.000-07:00

I have been involved in lots of spiritual warfare stuff and always I have made sure I pray protection over my house and my family, and God has been faithful and looked after us. Well now life seems more "normal" and I think I have lapsed on the whole praying protection. Oh I am doing a lot of the praying for Ian and I to get ourselves sorted, for all 4 of us to join together as family, but haven't really seen what we are doing as spiritual warfare, which is silly because I also know that what we are doing is very much a prophetic out working of God joining people in partnership, restoring the family, restoring dreams, etc. And also it seems that He is doing this in many places. Just here in this area there are 3 couples, all Christians, all both partners divorced and have grieved for broken dreams who feel that they have found someone who they can partner with and restore these dreams. So I need to up the whole thing of realising that this is spiritual warfare, that as God is restoring the enemy is trying to destroy my family, and I am not going to let him.
I can also understand now how people just going about their everyday lives can be so ineffectual, because again unless one thinks one is stepping out into "frontline" stuff then one can just let life trot on. Whereas really just the whole thing of being different to the world; disciplining our children, taking care of our homes, hospitality, keeping the whole marriage in the right place with God, is just a whole major spiritual battle. The enemy is sneaky and makes us forget all that and pushes us out on "mission", and the church helps to encourage that.
So my prayer now is that we all see just our daily lives as stepping out into spiritual warfare, that we are going to make a difference but only if we do clothes ourselves in Him and His Holy Spirit.

NEEDING TO BE SHOWN

2006-07-18T09:30:00.000-07:00

I was worshiping to the Matt Redman song "I could sing of your love forever" when I was at the Carriers of Fire women's conference a couple of weeks ago, and suddenly got the revelation about the part where it goes "I feel like dancing, its foolishness I know, but when the world has seen the light, it will dance with me like I'm dancing now". I have always found this odd because this is the part of the song where it slows down and to me dancing is something you do quickly. But it was like actually this is the time to smooch slow time with Jesus, that actually He wants us in His arms just smooching around really close. But I realised too why I could feel like this, and want to be close to Him in this sort of place, because the weekend before we'd been to a wedding and I'd danced in Ian's arms and enjoyed it. It was a very much just staying together and being close and just enjoying the touching. But it was like God had to let me feel that with someone real who loves me and I love him so that I could then experience it with Jesus.

I know with many things we don't need that human person to show us the great things in Jesus or God. I mean I haven't had the greatest of parents but I can really relate to the Father's Heart and Father's love. Mainly because I have never felt like I have had much of that. But I also know that I have understood God's heart better for us as a parent who would lay down my own life for my children's. So sometimes we do need to experience things to understand God's ways and His love.
Maybe too this is why we as church should be more actively revealing things of God, which is what He tells us to, and maybe then more people would want to get to know Him.

CHANGE OF IDENTITY

2006-06-29T03:12:00.000-07:00

I have decided to change the heading of my blog. Well it was hinted at by my man, who does seem to have ways, very gently of challenging me and making me think of stuff. For someone like myself who has done so many bad relationships, really not ever expected to find an even half decent man, so not bothered to look, this is all a bit of an interesting shock to me. Also on the surface he really doesn't come over as the strong, deep person he really is. Though I did see something challenging in him that I want to draw out when I first saw him over 2 years ago. But really I entered into this whole thing as being someone who had something I could teach him and never ever thought it would get to this at all. And how did it? Because God told me I needed to ask him where our relationship was, whether friends, good friends, or more than, and he took control, and God has done the work ever since.
So the change of title of my blog is because even though I am still sole parent of Ben and Tabi, Ian gets involved and God has given him a heart to care for my kids, at times more than I do. So I am no longer carrying them alone. As to the intercession, God has told me this is my time to enjoy the meadow, not to make hay whilst the sun shine, but to just sit in the long grass of the meadow and enjoy the flowers. (You know once I heard from a guy who said he'd had a near death experience and knew he'd gone to heaven because the meadows there were just grass, weeds. Well I think he was wrong because I think the whole wild flowers, which he called weeds, are there just for us to enjoy. At least that is what the meadow is I am in. Perhaps this could be a new debating point!!!!:-)) So I am really not at the moment praying majorly for anything, though He does keep popping things into my head. And because Ian is very much a prophetic intercessor, though a quieter one, we do finish up praying things, though interestingly I am letting him take the lead on this. Never thought that would happen either. But I am still home schooling though really with Ben there is only this next 12 months and then he is planning college or something that will not involve me. But, as far as I know I will still have Tabitha.
So this is me, in major transition, and managing to be blessed by doing it all resting in a meadow full of wild flowers and enjoying it. It seems like for now, as well as having God to hand things over to, He has blessed me with a person too. Long may it continue.
So this is why I am not ranting, though I do have some interesting thoughts on what Jesus' view of church was, rather than Paul's, but have not quite formulated them yet. See I'm not completely finished. Also check out Gaz's blog sometime for some thoughts on there.

BATH PILLOW

2006-06-10T01:27:00.000-07:00

I have always wanted a bath pillow. One of my greatest luxuries is to lie in the bath for and hour or so and read and soak. Well finally this birthday Ben bought me one. But have I had chance to use it? No! Why? Because from just before my birthday Ian and I started seeing each other, and have gone from the “we’re going to give each other lots of space” to “ phoning every night if we’re not seeing each other” stage very quickly. So even now when I get an hour to lie in the bath I can be on the phone talking to him, which isn’t quite the same thing. And of course now the English summer has appeared, and seems to have forgotten its England and is hot and sunny, and much too hot to lie in the bath!
But it got me thinking about some of the stuff we pray about, especially those of us who God uses in prophetic praying. Sometimes if we are not careful we can get caught up in praying for something to happen, or not happen, but we have got so entrenched in whatever that was that we haven’t noticed the seasons have changed, especially if we are not connected at that time. To me my bath pillow is saying that the season is different for now, that yes there will come a time again when it will be needed, but just not now. And that it would be all wrong to try to use it now. And I am feeling similar about some of the prophetic prayer stuff I’ve been in, especially things like Firestorm that have stopped totally. That actually maybe the seasons have changed and these things need to be put in the cupboard for now, and actually that’s ok. But I know, with my bath pillow, that I must not leave it there too long or I may upset the one who gave it too me, but I mustn’t get it out too soon or I won’t enjoy using it.

THE GARDEN AGAIN!!!

2006-06-02T01:16:00.000-07:00

My garden is being a prophetic sign again!!! For someone who struggles with getting out to do the gardening it does speak to me a lot!!
In January a friend got plans to alter my garden, so Ben got on an extended the vegetable plot by about two-thirds (Jabez's enlarge one's territories!). Then when it looked like spring was coming we planted some veg plants. And it looked good. Of course since then there has been so much rain everything has grown.
Well Ian and I have been chewing over prophecies of it being a change of seasons and of it being a summer season, and thinking over that summer is a time of major growth and fruitfulness, which it is. But almost with a thought that this was a time to just sit back and relax and enjoy the growth. Well today in the garden has told me otherwise, and also explained why God is bring up so many issues in my life! It isn't just the things we want that grow in this time of good weather but also weeds. And lots of them. These weeds were not planted but were in the soil already. In fact they made their appearance before! And there is a way of dealing with them and getting rid of them, and the most successful way to do this is by pulling them up. Chemicals will hurt the soil and insects, and possibly the vegetables we want to grow.
But it has left me greatly encouraged that actually God is saying this is my/our season to grow and be fruitful but I/we will have to deal with the weeds that also grow in this time. Oh and joy! Once again it is not a time to just sit back and relax, not if we want a good crop.

BE CAREFUL WHAT YOU THINK!!!!

2006-05-28T01:14:00.000-07:00

Felt like it was time to write some more as it has been a while, and also to follow up from what Baba wrote on my last one.
I think too often we so want to get into that boat with God but still want to take control, to do the rowing where we see as best. And yes we do do some great stuff but it wasn't the stuff God wanted. In fact it was still the same old stuff but in a different way because that is what we know, and what gets "results", whatever that means. We pray these prayers of surrender to God but yet still want to keep a hold. Its not really quite surrender. God is doing something new and because its new we wont know what it looks like so why even bother trying. Its all about trusting Him to a deeper level and obeying Him when we don't know what's happening.
Also the thing that has struck me with what's happening with me is that God gives you the desires of your heart, but in His timing. When I first became a Christian I had Ben, but wanted to get married, have more children, etc. But I did it in my own strength and things went very wrong, though I was blessed with Tabitha out of it all. Lots of things have happened since then, and I have really enjoyed the processes God has taken me through to bring me to this place, and to the fact that I enjoy being single.
But always I had said that if God did have plans for me to ever be part of a couple again (sorry the marriage word isn't quite ready for this time yet!) then what I would like is someone with little or no baggage, someone who loved Ben and Tabi, so was willing to take onboard all 3 of us so that I didn't have to choose, someone who was into all the prophetic stuff too and understood me, and that I could look to and respect. I didn't want to do the just having gained someone else that was really just another child. But then I did put my own time frame on it telling God that I didn't have the physical time or the emotional energy until Tabi was at least 16, maybe older. But there is was I'd done the whole thing of setting it before God.
Well as we grow in God He does give us the desires of our hearts, but in His way and in His timing. For the last month or so I have been getting use to being part of a couple, getting use to not being in control of all my spare time. And God has given me someone who really does want the best for Ben and Tabi, who truly cares for them. Who because he has been a family friend for the last 2 years has fits in with us all. But it is interesting because it has been since he decided to take this further that as well as our feelings growing for each other, his feelings for Ben and Tabi have too. Man, it is just so wonderful to have someone to pray with about these guys who cares as much as me. So in the whole personage of Ian I do have what my heart desired, but God's timing sucks!!!! But that is because really He does know better than I do.
And yes I was right that I don't have the physical time or energy and definitely not the emotional energy for it all, and I look like an exhausted wreck most of the time and don't have time to write blogs or even check other people's. But that is because really I chose to surrender myself to God and let Him have His way.
Its interesting to know that so many of us are going through this, all in very different ways, in different situations, different life changes, but I so think this is something of God. Something that is shifting in the heavenlies to move us all to another level.
God is good! God is great! So often we sing that, but now He is asking us to prove that we mean it, to prove that we think He is great enough for us to trust Him with the things we'd like to take the oars with.

THOUGHT I WAS IN CONTROL

2006-05-02T15:24:00.000-07:00

Funny old thought that, that I was in control. Well you know I’ve always given it to God but realised over this weekend that actually I do like to hold on to the reins a bit, especially when it comes to people relationships. Well He, is His infinite wisdom has been working towards something else. Slowly He has been drawing me, over the last few years to trust Him more and more and so to branch out into things. Well now I’m trusting for more than just where we live and what we do for “church” stuff. Its now stepping out into something very, very new for me. God has got me putting someone else in control of things for me. It is the first time in my life I think that I have ever let any relationship be out of my control. It is like stepping into a boat and then giving the oars to someone else. Beforehand I have stepped into the boat but made sure I’m in charge of steering, but not this time. Though God has been kind to me, as He is so often and has let that someone be someone who, if I get scared and want to slow the pace will guide this boat over to the river so I can rest a while for this speed this stream is moving at. It is so great to be in that safe place. He is a very good and wonderful God and to be honest I’m not quite sure what I have done to deserve it all.

RUNNING WITH HORSES!!

2006-04-18T10:01:00.000-07:00

Its the start of that time of year when I am out in my garden. And not being a keen gardener I do like to take short cuts. This year I have bought veg seedlings rather than trying to grow them myself and have decided to do peas and beans, mainly because they look pretty and we like them. Well I need to put up bamboo canes for them to grow up and decided to do that before putting the little plants in. What I discovered was that the minimum number of canes you could put in a teepee shape so that they supported each other was 5, any less and they sway a bit and less again and they fall over. But 5 is the minimum. But one is totally usless!
Anyway it got me thinking of something Heidi had spoken on last year which had very much resonated in my spirit about how if we were tired of running with men what would we be like running with horses (verse in Isaiah I think), and very much that it was the time to be running with horses.
So to run with horses we do cannot do it alone. But we need to be with horses who are running towards the battle, not away from it. But how hard is it to for one see others running, to know where they are running, and to be able to run with them.
Why do Christians sometimes hit burn out? I think because too often they finish up running alone. Its time to take notes from the bean canes and realise we need at least 4 others to be holding us up and running with us!!
God has been speaking loads to us as a family about who we are to run with and how. I will hopefully be devulging more really soon.

THINKING OUTSIDE THE BOX

2006-04-05T00:18:00.000-07:00

I have taken this from the Education Otherwise magazine for April but also felt it fitted in so well with all of us who are doing church just a wee bit different from the norm! And actually I think home education and actively pursuing God outside the box are very similar. So thanks to Ross Mountney for the article. Bits in brackets are mine!

“I was reading about the other day about thinking! I read how many of our problems as a society come about through mass thinking instead of thinking things out for oneself and taking responsibility. (Sound familiar?)
Most people think like other people most of the time. I think like other people much of the time. But some of us think independently too. And home educators (and emerging church people) must surely be some of the most independent thinkers there are. (which also if we are all thinking independently will explain why what we all do as home edders or as emerging church people never quite conforms to a pattern, and we have to mature and accept that)
The trouble with independent thinking is, of course, that it is usually radical. And as such not only are people wary of you, you’re also at the mercy of self-doubt more than anyone else too! You can feel alone. (and who hasn’t felt that on a serious on/off basic?)
As home edders we are doing something so wildly different that this threatens what others are doing, for it makes them ask questions they would perhaps rather not face.
And not only are we independent thinkers but we encourage our children to be too.
That’s going to be a challenge to the mass thinkers! And it going to make us very unpopular. And when people feel challenged they often attack, not physically but judgementally. It makes sticking to your personal beliefs very hard. No wonder we have self-doubt.
And this is why it is essential that we keep in contact with one another (be that in the flesh or through blogs, emails, anything that we can be open and honest in to help each other continue to keep thinking independently)”

And doing this in my God life, and my children’s education, and being a single mum too is no wonder at times I feel like I’m getting it wrong.
It really helped me this article which is why I’ve shared it, and also to again remind myself and hopefully others, that God speaks through all people, they don’t need to be Christians first.

2006-03-29T06:36:00.000-08:00

When I should've been doing basic algebra with Tabi I was looking through websites and on Marc's Messages on he says about being able to do a word cloud. Check out http://snapshirts.com/index.php
Here's mine:

SO WHAT DO YOU WANT TO DO?

2006-03-15T10:46:00.000-08:00

Just recently I sent out a prayer request among other things asking for help in resorting my vision, which has taken a bit of a battering since coming back here. Its been great because I have a lovely mix of male and female prayer supporters; the females came back with love and hugs, the guys with challenges and advise. One such challenge was “what does Diane want to do?” and it really got me thinking.
As well as the practical stuff it reminded me of what I really craved to do it made me go deeper. I know that God gives us the desires of our hearts (Ps. 39) and the those desires must match up with His heart too, but the thing that has always inspired me has been the fact the God knows the plans He has for me (Jer 29) and that He has prepared things for me (Eph). And it the later, the finding out the plans He has for me, finding out the things He has prepared for me. I want to put aside doing the good things with God and get down to doing the greater things. I know that if I do what I know to be good things, I know that God will honour me and will bless those things, but I also know that if I hold out and find out what those plans are that God has for me, the places He wants me to be, the people He wants me to talk to, I know then that then things will shift in the heavenlies and things will change here on earth.
Which is easier? Well though it looks like maybe it is the first, knowing what I want to do and doing it, in the end the one what will make a difference in this world and in the one to come will be the later, but it will take me putting in more time with God, more sacrificing a bit of me and what I want, a bit of stepping out of my comfort zone. But really what am I looking for? A good life here on earth where I get my needs met, or that “well done good and faithful servant” in the future? Maybe for now I just want a bit of both.
And from that question I do know what I want to do, but it is what I was doing but got fed up with because no one here wanted to do it with!! And what do I think God wants me to do? What I was doing beforehand but without the moaning that I’m doing it on my own. Does God want me to do it alone? Actually I don’t think so, but it can only be me who chances. I can’t make others obey God, fit in with the plans I hear Him saying for them. That is between them and God. And I do wonder at times, as Christians if we are too busy doing what we want, even if it is great, because we don’t want to make the sacrifice to search for His heart, for His plans, and to do it whether anyone else understands or not.

NOT PLAYING BY THE RULES!

2006-03-03T23:45:00.000-08:00

Its always interesting when one doesn’t know what the rules are. I didn’t get to meet with Jesus until I was 31 and no one really told me that you were only meant to read certain stories to your children. I remember on one holiday when Tabi was about 5 or 6 she decided to buy a Bible. Yes it was a children’s one but not one with all the bits cut out, and in fact some in more graphic content than in some adult Bibles! It was a wet holiday in Wales so she started at the beginning and read to at least the middle asking questions along the way, many of which seemed to be “why did they not tell us this bit in Sunday school?” And with the looks of being a prophet of the old order she just loves all the things of smiting and justice from the Old Testament prophets. In Psalm 139 everyone knows the verse “I am fearfully and wonderful made”, but how many know the next verse “be gone from me you blood thirsty men”, which at one time was one of Tabi’s favourites.
She has just started going to a Bible study with friends of her own age, and the guy that teaches is great and knows loads, but he has been surprised at how much Tabi has known. And I think a lot of that is because no one got around to telling us that in “church” sunday school is where the teaching is done, not at home, and also that children should only be told so much. See also because of my “interesting” past I have told my story in many meetings I’ve been in, usually when the kids have been with me, so they know exactly what their mum is like. I’ve also had to explain to Ben especially why at times I over react to things that he says like the whole girl thing, because when I was his age I was doing a lot more than he was even saying!!!!! So in this house mum is not put up as some paragon of virtue!!
Also last night in the small group that meets in our house over tea we were discussing something and it moved on to Tamar being raped by her half brother Absolom, David collecting foreskins to win him his first wife from Saul, and realising that those with us had never read those parts of their Bible. In fact they had kept to a very sanitised version of what the Bible says.
As an adult who really did stuff up because of not knowing Jesus and not following him I do panic over the fact that I don’t see my kids read their Bibles regularly, don’t see them “moving in the power of the Spirit” as I would like them to, but after this last week, hearing from the teacher in Tabi’s bible group, that as well as her knowing she also puts forward a good argument too, to all the things they know and don’t just know but believe, I have realised how much I don’t know about where Ben and Tabi are in following God.
But still I pray for more for them!!!!

LIFE

2006-03-02T23:32:00.000-08:00

Its been a while since I wrote. Things have been quiet here because of Ben breaking his collar bone, though it is healing amazingly fast. But it has made me realise just how much he does around the house and also how frustrated he gets not being able to get out and do things. Also how much Tabi values her bedroom and her space. She has had to give up her bed so he can sleep in it as he has chosen, normally, to sleep on a fold out bed on the floor of his room, but he couldn’t do that as he just needed loads of pillows to prop him up. It has only bee 2 weeks but God has been amazing and it really is healing up well and looks like he’ll be back in his own room over the weekend. But it has just been amazing how much him being like this has effected the whole life of things here. Actually Ben on the whole does manage to have a lot of control over the way things are here. When he’s away Tabi and I are real bums and don’t do a lot, though we do get on the computer more, but when he is here there is more of an order or structure, but because, especially for the first week he could do so very little it was like having no structure but having him around. God has taught us a lot through it all, but still it will be good to get him back to normal.
Thank you to everyone who has been praying for him over this time.

WALDENSIANS

2006-02-21T09:22:00.000-08:00

On 17 Feb 1848 a group know as the Waldensians, a group of persecuted Christians, followers of Peter Waldo, great reformer from the 12th century finally gained freedom from persecution and the rights to attend schools, politics, etc. And every year the descendants of these people hold a torch lit parade to celebrate and remember where they have come from. And there is a person who helped them prior to 1848 who after losing a leg at the battle of Waterloo became an educationalist and went around the valleys encouraging these people to get out of their ghetto mentality and realise that they could be more than they were. The Waldensians became the first peasant group in Italy to be literate. The man was English man, Charles Beckwith.

Quote from YWAM Europe’s Jeff Fountain’s weekly word: “As the Waldensians celebrated their new-found freedom in 1848, Beckwith urged them to look outwards to the mission field of Italy. “You will be evangelists or you will be nothing!” he challenged. And that’s a word in season for us today.”
Something for us to think on today, not just saying the gospel message but living it and transforming people’s lives!!

SURPRISED

2006-02-19T01:46:00.000-08:00

This last week we have been staying with friends and first it struck me how different we are. You know how sometimes you worry that your only friends are those who are like you, especially at times when things get tough or when you’re working things through. But it was good to realise that this isn’t the case.
But also it made me thing about our different lifestyles. My friend’s kids were shocked first that we didn’t have a TV that received regular television, and how did we survive without it. Mind you mine were surprised how anyone could survive without a computer in the house. Then there was the shock from that Ben and Tabi don’t go to school, don’t do tests, don’t have homework to do, and all that goes with that. Actually I found it rather sad that they had project work to do over the holidays and that they had to read books that the school set for them even though they didn’t like them and had a wide range of books they did read. We even bumped into one of my friend’s friends who’s kids were doing regular work over the holidays, which actually seemed like more than mine do in a week when we are trying to do some school.
Then came the ultimate. Now remember these are children who all get on with each other, but suddenly the 2 9 year old twins started teasing Tabi about her acne, quite viciously. Very much in that horrid playground way of survival of the fittest. Of course Tabi having not been hardened to this got very upset. And really these boys didn’t mean it and were just being silly. But it did make me realise even when we have incidents with home ed kids who are violent, badly behaved, rude, or whatever, we can just walk away, no longer go to that event, that it is possible to just socialise, hang out with those who have been brought up to be supportive, encouraging and well behaved, on the whole. It did again make me realise just how lucky we are to have given our children the privilege of survive groining, teenage horridness and all that without always having to be thrown into an atmosphere that is survival.
I do remember someone say actually that I ought to send Ben and Tabi to school so that they could learn to be bullied. Must admit that didn’t make me think it was a good idea to try school.

SLEEP DEPRIVATION

2006-02-14T00:11:00.000-08:00

Why is it whenever I’m going away whether I’m worried about it or not I wake up in the middle of the night? Yes I was awake after only 4 and a half hours sleep and then led there worrying that when I got to my friend’s house to stay I would be really tired, and you know the thing about not being able to sleep in a strange bed, and the room we are in hasn’t got proper curtains and I’m one of those individuals who needs perfect darkness to sleep. So there I am worrying that by Friday with all this lack of sleep I wont be able to drive home. Oh and then a while back a friend told me that a perfect sleep pattern was one and a half hours and that if you break that you may count it as not having slept at all. So there I am worrying what if I only had 4 hrs sleep then really that is like only 3 hrs, etc, etc. And then thinking how trivial it all sounds especially after the last few blogs. And then I am planning a piece with some deep meaning to it, or even a piece all about home education and the things that happen when people get together with different ideas on childrearing. (actually I think I may plan something like that for when I get back!!) So then I decided that I will lie in the dark till 6.30am and get up and write something, so what happens? I fall asleep about 6 and sleep till 7.30 hopefully a full hour and a half or it won’t count!!!
Then this morning with all this, and the stuff about getting all ready to go I read some meditation stuff based on the Vision poem from www.mustardseedorder.com and this put it all back in perspective. It was done with Pete Grieg’s usual down-to-earth style and struck right in. In fact all of the ones so far have struck a chord with me and I’d advise everyone to check them out. Today’s one was that the vision is Jesus, nothing else but Jesus. So all the worry just fell away and I fixed my eyes on Jesus and feel much more positive, even with the deprivation of sleep!!

HERESY REVISITED!!!

2006-02-09T04:07:00.000-08:00

Eekk!! I hope I haven’t led too many to think that I am advocating not reading their Bibles. Oh heaven forbid. What I was trying to say is that sometimes we can quote Paul better than we can Jesus, use what he has said to set up doctrine, etc, when actually a lot of the time we are reading the things he wrote out of order and out of context. Interesting how actually we seem to also put much more emphasis on Paul’s epistles than we do on those of others, apart from Revelations. The letters of Paul are only placed in the order they are because at the time they were put together it was done that one started with the largest letter and went down to the smallest, not necessarily in dated order. And also we can only guess at the other side of what was written to him and why he replied in such fashion. As Paul himself says “all scripture is God breathed, used for correction, instruction,” etc, but at the time he wrote his all there was to look at was old testament, not even gospels then!!
My main reason for the “heresy” piece was to say that let us all look at the fact that we can all hear from God in that same way if we take the time to go away for a while and listen to Him, that it isn’t the reserve of either a few, or those of long ago. That we all need to look at the Bible as yes being the word of God but also of there being infallible people involved in it all.
But I still see the Bible as very, very, very, very important and I have not stopped spending time reading it, mediating on it and hearing God through it!!!
And actually if you read the comment at the end of Heresy from Sarah and David, they just both totally say what I was trying to say in a wonderful way. As with everything in our liveswe must be led by the Holy Spirt. And also this is what I love about blogging is that when people put comments at the end it helps all of us to come to a much better understanding of what God is saying to us through our thoughts, and this I believe is what happened with Paul, that he got replies and had conversations which helped him understand better what the Holy Spirit was saying to him. Even the great, noticable men of God dont walk in isolation!!

THE BODY

2006-02-08T05:34:00.001-08:00

Now following on from the Paul’s letters theme and the whole trust thing, I was stuck by another thought, okay so Paul uses this example of all believers being part of one body and Christ as the head, so why don’t we live it like that? As I look at my body as I type my fingers don’t ask my hands what they should do, they don’t even ask each other, all the nerve impulses come from my brain, which has received things from my eyes. But my eyes don’t ask each other what they say they just pass it on back to the brain for it to decide what to do with it all. All the responsibility goes to the brain, not to any part of the body. And I think this is what Jesus wanted us to get. That we are like a body, that all should be doing the part they were called to do, be it fingers, eyes, spleen, or whatever, and to trust that the brain/which is Him, the head of it all, could make sure all was doing the right thing, at the right time in the right way. So what we should be doing is being in clear communication with the Head, knowing what part of the body we are, and just doing are bit, as a whole, not thinking that we can do it in isolation, but not thinking that we have to solely take responsibility for all the other parts. Yes my hand scratches my head, but it doesn’t tell my head how to be a head. The other night I had dinner with some friends and it was very much encouraging each other in our callings, but thankfully we had all got past the point of wanting each other to tell us what to do, or wanting to tell each other what to do. Yes we can share, encourage, carry each others loads for a bit, but we need to know our own load, to carry that. Its again all about being in touch with Him, know how to be in touch with Him, hearing His voice before we hear others, but then know that they are all hearing Him clearly, are in touch with Him, and then we could walk as a whole body, not lots of little fractured parts.

HERESY?

2006-02-08T05:34:00.000-08:00

I have just been reading Galatians, feeling this was what God was telling me to read, but couldn’t discover why, but then that this revelation. In it Paul says that he went away for a while so God could teach him things. Isn’t it amazing how we are happy for this supposed great man of God to be used to teach us and yet here was someone who wasn’t taught by man! How come we can trust that God can teach Paul but cant teach each of us? That we need to have some preacher guy, or some baptismal classes or something. You see I have this theory, especially with look at other people’s blogs and some of the emails that go back on forth from my email box alone, that basically Paul was a great exhorter, wanted to articulate the things that God was saying to him, but that actually the letters we have are, yes God inspired, but actually also Paul’s musing as he worked things out in his head. The guy was an exhorter and an extrovert which mean everything he thought had to come out of either his mouth or on to paper. Maybe we need to looking at them more as cool thoughts and asking God to guide us through them, to use them as the basis of a something, but as someone said to me once a very long time ago “how do we know that especially the epistles are what God wanted in the Bible and not just what the leaders of the council of Nicene though was a good idea?????

LONG VISION

2006-02-03T00:36:00.000-08:00

I heard on the radio the other day that this isn’t just the Chinese year of the dog but the year of the Sleepy Dog, that there aren’t just 12 Chinese years but that each animal has 5 different characters, so it will be another 60 years before the next Sleepy dog comes round. Because of this the Chinese only have one real birthday when they are 60, when they reach true maturity. And all of this is because the look not so much as now but as now through eternity, real long term stuff. It struck me that surely as Christians we should look more at eternity seeing as we have the assurance, hope and promise of living forever with the God who made the universe, but not in that “ok we’re saved for heaven and what we do on earth isn’t such a big deal” but the whole thing of realising what we do here on earth has eternal consequences. There are verses in scripture of getting rewards relating to what one did on earth, maybe an idea to rethink things a wee bit.
Back to the long term stuff. There is another eastern group who have just dedicated their next period of religious focus to restoring planet earth. How long is this? Well about 300 years! Not quite the same as the Anglican decade of evangelism!!
In China it is a culture where, even now, old people are regarded with honour, respect, what they have to say is important and listened to, not like what we have grown use to in the west of life being all about being youthful, looking young, rights without responsibility, promoting young leaders, and the old pushed to one side and for some to live in loneliness and fear. Again we have a very short sighted view.
But there are long term Christian things happening especially in the field of reconciliation of nations where history has been looked at, nations found wanting, and the long process of repentance, forgiveness and reconciliation starting. This will be no quick fix but it is for the long haul, which I wonder is why some aren’t comfortable with it. For too long we have been taught that following Jesus is a conversion experience rather than a long journey of changing our lives bit by bit by bit. So let’s start teaching that, start living that, going for the long term vision, the dream for our children and our children’s children not just the quick fix experience for us for now.
For those of us who have truly been promised eternity let’s start living it now!!!

IS IT BIBLICAL?

2006-01-28T00:36:00.000-08:00

Oh this seems to be the cry I am hearing!!! As I’ve said before I’ve just finished reading “Pagan Christianity” by Frank Viola, in which he says that all our recognised church traditions are of pagan origin, so if we want to get back to biblical new testament Christianity we need to get rid of all these, and his main argument it that “its not biblical” and that such and such else “is biblical”. Well I think go out for a meal with some friends and his argument for doing something that Frank Viola says is not biblical is that it is biblical and unless a church (meaning a Sunday gathering denomination, not church as in the body of believers) doesn’t do such and such then its not biblical. I have been in discussions about things like spiritual warfare, indentificational repentance and such like where it feels like it comes down to a locking of horns with both sides saying “its biblical”. Is one right and one wrong? Well one would think so, but I don’t think that is quite the case. I think that actually it is all this thing of pieces of a big, big jigsaw puzzle. That yes we do have to watch out for things that are really, really not biblical, like we do have to hang on to the fact that Jesus is the son of God and the whole thing of Him dying and rising again, but a lot of the other stuff I believe is just people being people looking at things from different directions with different personalities. (I’m going to put a bit on my blog, possible about that of people being different, sometime soon.)
As a family we have been doing Celtic prayers every morning. Very much learning to go back to the old Celtic rhythms of life. But what we have noticed most for all is that it focuses us on the main tenants of what Jesus called the law and the prophets, which is to love the God with everything you’ve got, mind, body, soul, strength, hear, and to love your neighbour as yourself, and as Ben said when he was quite small, “you can’t love your neighbour properly unless you like and love yourself”. So what we need to do is to put God first in everything, and do all we can to follow Him, put Him into our lives, our thoughts, our everything. But then also to get to know who we are personally, become happy with that, to know our strengths and weaknesses and be content with who we are so that we can extend that to other people with no hidden agenda of anything else. And I think once we all really start to do this then we will stop dissecting the Bible and become comfortable with our little piece and seeing how that fits into someone else’s little piece.
And maybe one day I’ll let on how we’re doing with this, but for now I must say that it is opening my eyes to the things I struggle with in me!!!!!!!

ORGANISED

2006-01-20T03:43:00.000-08:00

Yesterday we bumped into a home ed friend we hadn’t seen for ages. She’s been really busy, got divorced, has taken a degree in creative writing, her children are at a little home ed school where she teaches one afternoon a week, as well as getting her latest book published and preparing the next one, as well as running her two boys to loads of clubs. Very impressive!! I realised that actually I have enough stuff inside of me to be able to write at least a couple of books, so why am I not doing it? Because when it comes down to making choices I’d rather hang around with people chatting, drinking coffee, etc. Take yesterday, we went for this home ed trip to the Roman Baths, in Bath. For the morning the kids did a workshop and some people went shopping, I went for a coffee with a friend. In the afternoon we all went round the tour of the baths and museum. Then afterwards most went home, but some went wandering round the shops. We went with the ones wandering round the shops, had a good laugh, had fun and all went back to the park and ride together and didn’t get back till tea time. But if I had gone back earlier I could’ve done so much more, but it wouldn’t have been so much fun. But this is why I’ll never get done all the things I’d like to because I‘m a quality time person. In fact instead of writing this I could’ve started on my novel and making my fortune. And once I’ve blogged this I’ll check out other people’s blogs too and then it will be lunch time!!!

HAVING TO SHARE!!

2006-01-17T07:03:00.000-08:00

I have been reading “Round Ireland with a Fridge” by Tony Hawks at the same time as reading “Pagan Christianity” by Frank Viola. One being very light and silly, the other a wee bit serious and at times verging on the judgemental.
As Tony Hawks goes around Ireland he sees people just doing things from the craic, whether that be music, giving him lifts as he hitches with his fridge, having him on national radio, taking the fridge surfing, all for none other reason than the sheer fun of it all. But once you cross over the water people here don’t just seem to be able to do things just for the craic. Even us bloggers are doing it because we think others want to read our thoughts, along with poets, musicians, writers, all is done to reach a wider audience. And I believe this is where we have that empire spirit, to conquer all deep inside of us. That we cannot do things just because… but we so believe we shouldn’t keep things to ourselves. But then this is how things like the preacher happen - really the whole control thing with the establishing of church was to stop heresies. So the preacher has all these great things in his/her head and has to get them out, just sharing with a close friend is not enough, the musician cannot just do it for fun in front of a few mates but desires to share with everyone. I have just heard from a friend with a great desire to disciple, but she has to do it in large groups as a lecturer and cannot do it just one on one. Another friend who her and her husband are wonderfully pastoral and yet struggle with doing just times of hanging out with people who need someone to talk to and are drawn to house group settings.
And as for me I see it in this great thing God has placed on me with Ben and Tabi. It is that hard unrecognisable place where no one will say “well done!”, apart from God, which is really all we should be aiming at. But I need to hang on to the fact that the times I spend just here teaching the stuff I do with these guys is so, so important and that I do need to be realising that this is more important, and could potentially change the world more than me leaving them at home alone whilst I went to someone else. Perhaps this blog is for me and not for anyone else

GOD CAN BE WEIRD AT TIMES!!

2006-01-15T08:32:00.000-08:00

I have just been reading this book called “Pagan Christianity” by Frank Viola. An amazing book that tells about how the things that are seen as normal practise for Sunday morning church and how established church just happens actually come from non-biblical, pagan, Greco-roman culture and philosophy. Really am enjoying it!
So this morning I wake up and am settling down to read when I hear God say that I am to go to the church over the road. Well my humanness kicks in and I am trying to work out how I can make the 10.45am service, as well as have the family breakfast we were going to, let Ben and Tabi lie in a bit, and have time to talk and pray over some issues, oh and the fact that I‘d be staying on for coffee afterwards and wondering what I would say to people I knew there. So as I am going through all this I hear God say that actually I wasn’t going then but to the earlier one, that He just wants me to obey Him not to go socialize! So this means getting there for 9am and it is all major traditional structure, seriously non-biblical stuff, and taking the whole communion thing, which I am just reading about!!!
Anyway I go. I’m still not sure why or what the purpose was, or whether it was just another thing of God checking that even as I go through this route I will still be willing to obey Him.
Mind you some interesting things came out of it. One being that so many things can be redeemed by God, that many of these people here this is there time of peace and refreshing from God and who am I to judge and condemn them. Also 1 Samuel was read and in it Samuel hears God’s voice, doesn’t recognise it, but Eli instead of giving him a long sermon actually sends him back to just listen to God for himself. How often do we when we hear someone struggling to hear from God given them a sermon on how to do that? The other reading was from John about when Phillip introduces Nathaniel to Jesus, who says about nothing good coming out of Nazareth, and Jesus greeting Nathaniel with the fact that here is a man with no guile found in him. Pretty cool after to the human side of us really he wasn’t overly keen on meeting with Jesus. I don’t think these were the things God wanted me to go for, but these are the extras I heard and want to share.

GOING DEEPER

2006-01-11T13:10:00.000-08:00

I was at a friend’s the other day and Tabi banged her head and straight away out come a box of the most interesting tablets (homeopathic) and Tabi was questioned in quite some detail about what was wrong with her, where it hurt, etc. My first thought was that this was all a wee bit over the top and then I got to think about how my friend was really willing to investigate, to take time out to find something deeper. Me I would’ve just gone for the paracetamol, or even the “you’ll be okay” approach. But it also got me thinking, as I am in that spot about really looking at what it is to be a Christians, to be church, etc, and it was another thing (as well as reading this very interesting book called Pagan Christianity by Frank Viola, which says how all our Sunday morning congregational practises are pagan based, very scary), but how as Christians we so take what it being said by the person at the front, the person who has the title, the person in control, or even older, etc than us, but how little we delve, how little we question, how little we explore on our own. If someone says its Biblical, or even at times church tradition we just go with it and not even think. And yet time and time again we need to be finding Jesus for ourselves, but as we read what He says we will find that we can’t find Him just for ourselves but it has to be a corporate finding, that actually Jesus was all about community, about questioning, about wanting to know where it hurts and what will be the right thing to put it right.
Oh and another on a personal front Ben set us off the other day on a question and out of the whole discussion it came that he wants to pray as a family like we use to when we were with YWAM again, the whole listening to God and expecting Him to speak rather than the list of “I wants”, and also that both wanted to read the Bible again more as a family and also from a book that tells about people who went all out to follow Jesus, many even to the point of martyr dom. See its that whole corporate thing that makes us grow. And of course we have always felt like we are called to be a family in mission, but sometimes it takes the letting go of busyness and also the whole family to do the leading, not just mum!

ALL PLAYING OUR PART

2006-01-07T02:15:00.000-08:00

Looking at the trailer for the Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe movie I was struck by the part where it says “in this house there are many rooms”, and it reminded me of what Jesus said about “in my father’s house there are many rooms and there is a space prepared for you”. And it made me think that even in this world there is a space prepared for each and everyone of us to go through and meet with Jesus, and for each person it will be different, and that they can never enter through the same door twice. I was sharing all this with a friend of mine and she said “and sometimes we as Christians need to be that door for others”. Now to me this is where the whole thing of working together comes in. In my giftings I see the door and that each must find that space, that door in, and then someone else moving in their giftings can then add the next part to that.
So let us all be willing to find our space, our door to find Jesus, but also be willing to be that door for others. Exciting!!!

REASSESSING

2005-12-20T00:37:00.000-08:00

We have been in this house and back in this town, giving up our overtly nomadic lifestyle, now for exactly 2 years yesterday!! Really it is time to reassess and rethinking through what we are doing here, but we are all full of flu and also very busy. Yes we are cancelling things just to sleep!!! But there as been a wee bit of space for me to rethinking and then this prophecy comes through on the Joel News (if you don’t get it then subscribe. joel-news-international@xc.org Totally brilliant full of loads of different things that Marc find on the net about all aspects of what is going on in Christian life) from Wolfgang Simeon, the guy who wrote “House That Changed The World” (another must have!). And really this all makes so much sense to me. I have printed it out below. It is long but persevere, unless of course you’ve read it before. But what struck me is the 3 tents and how I’ve worked in around and through them. When I was Christian about 18 months I was at a very small gathering and very much pledged to join God’s Army, then the usual happens and there are gaps in “church life” that need to be filled so I was encouraged down them. Then when we went to YWAM about 4 years ago I learnt how to wield the sword properly. I had been having a bash before but this was real training. But there was very much the thing that we were the air force that cleared the air for the ground troops, the evangelists, to come and do the harvesting. I have been getting a bit of a different take on that since coming back. But then I get back to “regular life” here and get caught up in the “ought tos” and “needs doing” so have got on and done. Of course in the last few months God has been pulling us out of things but until reading this it made no sense, but now after reading this it does. Now I am just going to listen to God, know I am protected by my angel and wait in situ till God gathers the rest of those I am to be fight with around me. It also makes sense why I can be so grouchy because I am working in the thing of trying to find my place instead of trusting that God will do it, which of course we all get taught but very few of us actually walking, because even though its taught it isn’t encouraged when there are things that “ought to” be done!!

2. PROPHECY: Disarming the Irregulars

By Wolfgang Simson

Almost exactly two years ago, I attended a seminar about the prophetic
and
apostolic in Toronto, Canada. It was held in the Toronto Airport
Christian
Fellowship, the internationally renowned ex-Vineyard church led by John
and
Carol Arnott. Starting in 1994, millions of people gathered there to
experience "the Toronto blessing". Up to 5,000 people attended the
almost
daily evening services. Observers spoke of one of the longest-lasting
revivals in history, and when I wrote a Friday Fax report in 1999, they
had
just celebrated the 3 millionth visitor.

On this November evening in 2003, I sat in the empty hall, waiting for
the
seminar to begin in one of the upper rooms. (The seminar was only held
there for logistical reasons.) A question started to nag at me as I
watched
the church's musicians routinely setting up their instruments for the
evening service, to which only 20 people showed up, lost in the large
hall.
Where did all those millions of people go? And where did God go? So I
asked
him. "How do you see what happened here, God, and why it stopped? What
does
the church scene look like from your perspective?" Over the next few
minutes, I experienced that which prophetically-inclined people would
call
an 'open vision': not only did I see a film in my Spirit, but felt
myself a
participant, in the midst of the film. For many, this may be an
astonishing
new perspective on how God is moving right now:

THE THREE BOOTHS

I saw a long line of newly-saved people entering the Kingdom of God.
Everything was new for them, so there were three booths set up for them
to
pass through. At the first booth, they would sign up for God's army and
pledge total loyalty to God. From then on, they were under orders, no
longer their own, and were given a uniform and boots. At the second
booth,
they were given a sword, and at the third, a scythe - a harvesting
tool.
Astonishingly, only around one in a thousand of the new arrivals even
went
to the first booth; almost everyone went to the second stand, and
almost
everyone also ignored the third stand. Almost nobody went to all three
stands, as God explicitly intended.

THE IRREGULARS

Everyone hurried directly to a huge plain full of people and activity.
Under an enormous dust cloud thrown up by the many feet, small groups
quickly formed and were joined by the new arrivals. These countless
groups
made themselves banners, flags and uniforms decorated with very
creative
logos and emblems. It was an incredible colorful confusion of thousands
of
small militia. In other words, an irregular army. The chaos was
complete;
some blew for attack, others for retreat. Some acted out bizarre
rituals,
others sat around the camp fire laughing. Some practiced sword
fighting,
others gathered their weapons and spoke of peace. Some of the groups
even
attacked each other. It was a scene of hectic activity, but without any
recognizable order. Generals cooked, cooks were pilots, pilots dug
trenches. I was horrified, and saw clearly that this army would never
win
any battle. Everyone was terribly busy, but all the zealous action came
to
nothing in the long term.

THE ANGELS

Suddenly someone shouted "The Angels of God are coming!" They were
right:
some way off, I could make out a huge number of God's white warriors;
powerful, almost larger-than-life angels. The people broke out in an
ear-shattering shout and cheer, "Hallelujah, the angels are coming. At
last, it's about to begin!" The cheering was indescribable. But the
excitement slowly faded, and the shouts of 'hallelujah' died out.
Finally,
silence descended. Then I looked at the angels more carefully. Standing
close together, they looked like a police cordon in front of a crowd of
hooligans, with set, sad faces. Step by step the white phalanx slowly
approached the motley crowd. Consternation spread, and some of the
banners
began to retreat. Pale-faced, the people stumbled backwards, shocked
and
unable to comprehend what was happening. In their shock, some even lost
their swords and pennants. The mass of people were driven back into a
large
valley without exits as the rows of angels slowly but deliberately
advanced. The people were finally trapped in the valley like sheep.
Some
began to cry, others called out to God for mercy, yet others called for
help. Most were simply silent.

At last, a huge angel stepped forward and said in a voice loud enough
to be
heard in the farthest corners of the valley, "That is enough! You have
done
as you please for long enough. End the war you declared yourselves.
Submit
to your God. Lay down the banners and flags you made yourselves. Take
off
the uniforms and boots you were given, as well as the insignia you
created.
Repent, because you have been disobedient. Lay everything on the ground
beside you and kneel to ask your Father to forgive you. In His mercy,
he
will grant you a fresh start."

The people froze. Astonished disbelief spread through the crowd. Some
started to talk, some even started shouting "Pay no attention to them!
Listen to me!" But some began to understand. A few sobbed. One or two
started to remove their insignia, lay down their banners and flags,
take
off their uniform and kneel in the dust, asking God for forgiveness for
their disobedience. Whenever another person knelt - or even an entire
group
- an angel left the phalanx, took what the person had laid down, and
carried it out to the plain, slowly creating a huge mound of banners,
flags
and uniforms. The angel then returned to the kneeling person, both as a
sign and a guard, because some of the people who had not yet understood
what was happening were angry, shouting "Traitors! Deserters!" at those
who
knelt, ordering them to return to their militia.

The number of stubborn rebels and militia leaders shrank continuously
as
more people recognized that they had been incredibly misguided and laid
down their uniforms and weapons. Finally, after a long time, everyone
was
kneeling. The angels set the huge mound of uniforms, banners and flags
alight, and everyone watched transfixed as the once so precious
possessions
vanished in the flames. When the fire had burned down, the angel spoke
again in a very gentle voice, saying "Now stand up and follow us. Let's
start over again."

A NEW START

The people stood up, naked, without a uniform, but their shame covered
by
the angel at their side who led them back to the point at which they
had
entered the Kingdom of God. This time, each person went slowly and
deliberately to the first booth to write their name in the army
register
before receiving a new uniform and boots with no insignia. The angel
then
took them to the second booth, where they received a sword, symbolizing
the
Word of God. They then went on to the third and final booth, where they
were given harvesting tools and a clearly-defined task and position.
The
angel then took them to a clearly defined position on the plain, where
he
instructed "his" person to assume his personal position and obey God's
battle orders. The angel then left. With time, an incredibly powerful
army
formed. Everyone was in the right place and knew exactly what his job
was.
Nobody did what seemed right in their own eyes, but paid great
attention to
their own task and function. I saw joy, but also wild determination,
written on the people's faces. That was the end of the 'film' for me. I
had
tears in my eyes, and was both horrified and thankful. At the end of my
talk that evening, I decided to recount my vision just as I have
written it
here.

CLINT TOEWS

Clint Toews is a Canadian prophet and author from Winnipeg. He stood up
at
just that moment, explaining that he had planned to speak at another
church
in Toronto, but that God had redirected him, telling him to be where I
would speak, and that he had a prophetic word for the moment. I do not
allow just any 'prophet' to take the microphone, so checked with my
friend
Dr. Ken Stade, also from Winnipeg, who led the meeting. He agreed that
Clint should speak.

"NO!"

Clint said that God has a very simply message to us all. It is written
in
Joshua 5:13-14. Shortly before conquering Jericho, Joshua encounters an
unknown man armed with a sword. He approaches the man and asks "Are you
for
us or for our enemies?" The man answered "No!". Clint exclaimed "This
'NO!'
is God's answer to our unspoken question about when he will join our
project, our plan, fellowship, church, outreach, even our war. God will
not
join our human plans, and particularly not our church. It is He who
builds
His church. So, 'No!' But if we repent, confess our pride, our pitiful
denominationalism and favoritism, and kneel down and remove our shoes
because we recognize that Jesus is standing before us, the Commander of
the
Lord's army, then he will again assume the command which we have
usurped.
If we then take the place he assigns us and follow His commands,
victory
will come quickly; Jericho is a historic example. The honor for God's
victories will then no longer go to some banner, flag, denomination,
missions agency or terrific plan to save the world, but to the Lamb of
God
alone, Jesus Christ."

Source: Friday Fax (www.bufton.net/fridayfax)

SPEECHLESS!

2005-12-17T00:56:00.000-08:00

I haven’t blogged for a while, some of the reason has been that I haven’t had time, some because actually I don’t have much to say. Its like since I’ve stepped out of regular, congregational Sunday morning type church that urgency to tell the world what I am thinking has gone, but something happened yesterday that really got me speechless totally, but now that I have regained the ability to put words together coherently I must have my say!!!!
I was chatting to a friend last night and both of us were saying how frantic we were in the run up to Christmas, me to the point where I have been just a wee bit overly grouchy to a couple of people and that I have had to go back and apologise. I really do feel snowed under this year, but then I think that happens to me every year. Maybe next year I’ll skip Christmas or something!!! Anyway she then says to me that she can’t see how I am that busy because I don’t work!!!!!!!!!! Well this was the bit where I became speechless. Totally! We finished the conversation very quickly after that.
It amazes me how people do not yet see the importance of spending time with ones own children, with home education, as though that is an easy option. I don’t know if I’ve said it on here before but these teenage years seem to be the hardest of all the home ed years, so many changes, and knowing there is so little time. It is not the fun job it was when they were both under 10. Yes it is still great but not the same. But it is jolly hard work. And I know as home educators we all do things differently. One mum doesn’t get up till about 10am, but then she is up late with her kids doing things, one is up really early and hers are all in bed by 7pm. Some do loads of formal work, some it is very autonomous, and most are very much in-between. But whatever form of home ed one does there is a constant busyness, and a constant emotional energy drain. And, in know this may sound silly to some, but there is that whole thing of sitting around whilst our kids are at various activities and talking to people, many of whom one wouldn’t spend time in a room with for an hour or two, or even it one would there are always the times when the conversation veers in a certain way which one could pursue if one was on a one on one time over coffee but not at a home ed activity. I know most of us think and feel similarly to this.
But also I can see that this is why so many women go out to paid employment because even their own fellow women don’t see the whole thing of child rearing as important, it appears to be, on the whole, something one does for a while, and then only part time.
Whilst I’m in mid rant I must say about a lovely friend of mine in her 60’s with a son in his 30’s and she has rearrange her lifestyle so that she spends time with him. They do share a flat but she has seen that even though he is an adult that their relationship is still very important. Maybe too its time we start remembering that God has given us these children and that we need to be putting effort into looking after something that the great Creator of Life has chosen to entrust us with. Now that makes one think differently!!!!!

WHO’S IN CHARGE?

2005-12-03T07:19:00.000-08:00

I have heard two things along a similar theme, both of which were on the thing of the pastor/leader of a church wanting to do what pleased the congregation, which to me seems contradictory to finding out what God wants. I know a lot of this a the contradiction between the apostolic/prophetic and the pastoral, but also have we gone so far down the line that in all things - church, government, etc - we worry more what will keep people happy than what is the right thing to do?
The first I heard was of a couple of people with toddlers threatening to leave the congregation they were with because no one was doing anything for their kids, and both got a visit from a leader to make them stay. A wee bit manipulative one may think! And the other was from a vicar after the service for the new African archbishop of Canterbury wonder if now would his congregation want to change the service! Would his prisoners want him doing samba dances, and even if he did would that bring people to know Jesus is more my question!!!
We are just so busy in number crunching and keeping people in the safe place that sometimes I do think God gets a wee bit missed out.
Some of this is really hard to write because I am manically tired after dog sitting a dog that refused to sleep last night, and also the night before hand not sleeping at all. I think in 2 days I’ve had 6 hrs sleep!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

HURRICANES

2005-11-30T06:45:00.000-08:00

I have just opened something from Toybox a charity which helps street children in Guatemala and discovered that back in October there had been a hurricane which had destroyed loads and killed thousands. It makes one wonder why that hardly got a mention in national news and yet we heard so much about Katrina and the other 2 possible ones in the US?!?!?
I must admit I am a bit more heightened about looking at things like that now after just reading Kate Adie’s autobiography “Kindness of Strangers” and just how certain things are deemed news worthy and certain things are not, and also of the different ways things are reported, things highlighted in certain ways. Another of those books I would recommend especially for people looking at the rapid changes of the last 30 years.

TOLERATE OR RESPECT

2005-11-25T11:52:00.000-08:00

This was an interesting phrase which struck me on a programme, interestingly about shipyards in Cardiff, or somewhere like that. (apologise to all who I have now offended!!!) But in it the coloured woman was talking about what it was like to live in this multiethnic city. And her comment which really struck a cord with me was when she said they didn’t tolerate each other but they actually respected each other; each others ways of life, traditions, etc, etc. I remember when I lived in community that one of the best ways to enjoy the time there was to respect each other, not just grit on teeth and tolerate each other. But I do wonder, especially with my heart from Christian unity that actually more often than not we come together and we tolerate each others differences, or we try to change them to fit our way of doing things knowing we have “got it right”, or we just don’t get together at all. Until we come to respect each others ways, traditions, understandings of the Bible, etc, etc, etc, we have nothing to offer the world.
I keep getting a picture of a jigsaw puzzle. In it we are all just pieces of the puzzle, but when we all come together in respect, in knowing what our piece is, how we fit in with the other pieces, but also respecting those pieces that we have nothing to do with because they are way away from us, then and only then will we have a true picture, and only then can we really have something to offer the whole wide world!

TO REMEMBER!

2005-11-25T11:51:00.000-08:00

Always remember if you are on holiday somewhere where there is a launderette in the winter especially use it to do a load or two of washing!!
We had a great time in Bude, very relaxing even with Tabi having a few days ill in bed and not being able to do much. It was good. Hence the reason for not writing. But then we come back to a freezing cold house, freezing cold weather, etc and with a pile of washing! It has taken me all week and lots of moving around on radiators, etc to get all this dry. So rule number one always use the launderette if there is one!!

WHAT’S HAPPENING!!

2005-11-06T16:16:00.000-08:00

Wonder what’s going on? The last 2 blogs I’ve done have been incorrect. The first, of the pastor being executed was incorrect, though actually that has brought to light the fact that there are many, many Christians who are killed, tortured, discriminated against, etc because of who they follow. And then yesterdays one about Tabi’s dad, well that turned out to be totally inaccurate. After texting to find out a pick up time it turned out he wasn’t coming to visit yesterday, as he put it he “hadn’t confirmed with them”. I always thought when you asked someone if you could see them that day and they said they were free then that was confirmation. Oh well! So after all that deep thought on hearts of the fathers, it turns out that he hasn’t got there yet. But then I wonder if that is true too for spiritual/”church” fathers, that they make a move in the right direction but it becomes too much, something got in the way or they didn’t confirm it or were too busy. Makes you wonder if in fact there is a spiritual connection.
Mind you yesterday as well as having great points was weird too. I found a note under the windscreen wipers of my car to say that I shouldn’t park it where I did and was very rude. Well I took it to all my neighbours to see if I’d upset them or they knew anything about it. No one knew anything at all and there had never been any trouble before!!!!!!!!!! So what’s happening?

HEARTS OF THE FATHERS…..

2005-11-04T17:50:00.000-08:00

There has been a lot of prayer of turning the hearts of the fathers to their children, etc, and a lot of that has been spiritual fathers to spiritual children, but of course there is always a walking out of this in the natural, and as we feel we have been called to prophetically walk things out why do I get surprised when natural things happen to us. Tabi’s dad has got back in touch big time with Ben (who he took on the fathering role for the few years we were married) and Tabi, wanting to see them more and more regularly on weekends, really keen too. And then today there was a text to say that he wondered if they wanted to come round for tea during next week, as well as the fact that he is seeing them on Saturday, which is all great. But in doing this no one has thought of the effect it will have on the mothers of these children who have been rejected by the fathers for so long, who have filled in the gaps that needed filling, and who have just got on with life, and also who have born the pain for the children. It’s a really weird time for me because it has brought up allsorts of things, good and bad, that I am having to deal with. But it has also made me think about some stuff, like how when we pray for stuff we don’t think sometimes of the knock on effect it will have on others!!

PUTTING THINGS IN PERSPECITVE!

2005-11-01T17:11:00.000-08:00

We do all this fussing and discussing about what church should look like and then yesterday it got all put in perspective when I received two texts from people to say that in East Timor a man was being executed by beating for his faith in Jesus.
Not really much else to say. But it does make you realise how spoilt we are to live in Britain but also just how ineffectual we are as Christians because nothing we do or say winds anyone up enough to really want to have a go at us let alone try to be executed by such a horrid means. And all this is sanctioned by the government and yet where is it on the national news. Does this sort of thing ever get a mention? No! And from the reading of article by the persecuted church or suffering church organisations this is happening with great regularity, that people are tortured, imprisoned, persecuted, discriminated against, and all because they believe in Jesus, are trying to follow Him and have put their faith in Him and are sharing the gloriousness of life with Him to other people.
Have just heard that the rumours of the priest in East Timor are that he isnt going to be executed but that he is enduring a lot of persecution and the family has asked for prayer. Still even with it not being true for him alot of things like this do go on across the world and we do need to keep aware of what is happening out there!

NOT SO BAD HERE!

2005-10-27T20:54:00.000-07:00

For a long time, in fact ever since moving here I have been moaning about it. Mind you even before I knew something wasn’t quite me especially with established constructed church, almost from day one there. But what has struck me is that because of coming back from Scotland with a realisation that things could be different and all encompassing, and then catching up with Firestorm/SW Emerge people I have come to know there are others outside of YWAM Family Ministries who think similarly to. But still I have been looking for someone to follow. Man, it is so much easier to follow someone who can then tell you what to do and not to do, when to have “church”, when to just get on with your life, when to sing, when not to sing, when to meet, etc, etc, etc. You sort of get my drift. Well here there is no one like that. I have tried. I have looked hard. I have even tried following Heidi, but she’s too busy and now has gone sick, and there have been others, but God has either moved me away or made me feel uncomfortable. I even realised I was trying to catch up with Alexander and his lot in Bath to be able to join with them and God made me cancel and clear out my utility room instead!! But now I know that actually at that time I wasn’t catching up with Alexander to learn from him and go from there, but to let him take over and to follow him. Its dead weird because it is only in the religious bit of my Christian life I do that, whereas the rest of my life I do my own thing and do work along side others with a lot more give and take. I had a prophecy once spoken over me that said something about how even though other people saw me as meek and lowly that really I had great authority. Now one of my home ed friends laughed at it because there is no way she sees me as meek and lowly and yet I know a lot of my established church friends would see me as that way because of the different ways I am in that situation.
So I am glad I am here with no one to follow because now I am starting to grow into who I really am in all areas of my life not just those that use to be “outside” of my Christian life. Now that it is all encompassing nothing in scared or secular but all is part of my life with Jesus. Cool!!

CHILLED

2005-10-24T12:02:00.000-07:00

Its interesting how when one starts seeing ones life as just being filled with God in every space with everyone then it gets rid of some major stress. Yesterday Tabi and I just chilled out, messed on the internet, watched a video, walked the dogs, all very normal stuff. Then this morning I was led in bed trying to pretend that because it was dark it really was still night time, even though it was 7.30, and realised that I could just do it. I didnt feel like I ought to be up praying, reading my Bible, doing something good. But as I led there I realised that I do just lie and chat with God, as in having conversation two way, and I do see everything as God centred, though have got lost in the "having to have a mission and mission field" at times. But it was just that having people I know and trust saying "its okay" or "we're like that too" really has released me into knowing its okay.
Mind you some of the chill may be because Ben is away. I love him dearly but he is just a bundle of energy, hormones and not sure what to do with himself and convinced it is all my fault!!!! But I think too its the where I'm at with God too.

SW EMERGE

2005-10-23T20:46:00.000-07:00

Well I just had to get on and blog about yesterdays SW Emerge day. Its all bubbling inside with no where to go and I’m liable to drive Tabi mad so lets just get it out there. Actually it will be interesting to see how everyone else perceived it. This is only my take!
There were 3 major things, and a few minors! Probably the main bit was that from Sarah and Conrad from Bournemouth who see everyone they are in regular contact as their church and that just made so much sense to me. Its really funny how here we are some very much emerging church stuff and yet so often we only talk about what God is doing with us in terms of prayer, ministry, connecting with other Christians, and yet all who I meet with speak into my life, I speak into theirs, we all want to encourage each other to reach the best we can with our children, our lives, our whatever’s, and that is what church really should be. And really this that they said was very much only a sound bite.
The other major was from Alexander Campbell, who I came across via blogging in simple church a while back and yet have not yet connected with until yesterday. We had a long chat over some lovely soup and what struck me was that he did nothing for a couple of years but hang out with his kids, and like he says that is church. And that we need to take on board all aspects of life to be church. So all people all situations. Sounds a bit biblical to me!! And also that it was okay to be doing what we were doing, just being and waiting to see what God comes up with.
Then in the pub afterwards Gaz said about how he’s fed up with meeting with so many diverse people and just wants to hang out with people who are running in the same direction as him. I pondered this over night and realised that actually I do still need to be in a room of very diverse people because I still need to hear the difference so that I can go “yes that’s where I’m at”, or “no that’s not where I’m at”. And to learn too that I can reject where people are at not because I don’t like them but just because that isn’t what my passion is. That yes I need to also be with people who are running in the same direction but still for a while I need to hear who’s running where to see if that is my direction.
It was also very strange because Heidi wasn’t with us because of the doctor telling her the only way she is going to get better is if she slows down. On thinking about it I realised that this could be the last every gathering of SW Emerge, but actually it doesn’t matter. What matters is where I’m going with God, the relationships I’ve made which shape our lives here, and the stuff that has been poured in up till now.

GOD THE FATHER

2005-10-16T20:22:00.000-07:00

I just want to tell an interesting story. One that is just so so good!
My mum has been a church goer for years, but we have often wondered about where she is Godwise. Interestingly enough today I was at a joint churches service (an annual thing in our town), got chatting to someone who’d been going to church for ages and had not yet met God. Must admit I lost my chance and did the usual thing and thought of all the things I should’ve said and done once I got home!!!
Anyway so Mum and I went to see Jonathon Aitken at an Alpha supper launch and she decided to go to some of the Alpha course, only missing the once she was away for anyway. A lady came up and asked her about her faith. After a bit of thought mum said she realised that all this time since my step dad’s death God had been carrying her, keeping her safe. She was amazed because she hadn’t prayed, hadn’t asked Him to, He was just doing it.
How often do we talk about God the Father and then say about prayer, about how He’ll do what we ask through prayer, and yet how many of us as parents do things for our children not because they ask but because we know that will make life better for them, hug them because they are hurting, are just there for them because….. We can so easily make God the Father someone who is unobtainable and yet He is just so easy to reach because actually He makes the first move to reach us. As well as mum being blown away by the realisation of what God was doing for her just because He loved her, so I was blown away by the simplicity of God and again just how complicated we make Him.
Interesting too on this point, I have been stressing about meeting with some people, really feeling like I shouldn’t be doing it, and what happens? They cancel and cant see when we can all meet in the foreseeable future!! See God Fathers me too!!

GOD IS BIGGER

2005-10-13T21:05:00.000-07:00

I was going to write and say about the very varied reactions I have received by sending out an email to people in the denomination we were a part of to say we are no longer committed to attending, but I don’t want to. Yesterday I was feeling very down about it all, very low that people were just so misunderstanding and so missed-the-whole-point-of-relational church. But then today I have come to realise again that God is just so much bigger than all of that. Yes I did let a few people know and have had back some well cool emails. I am one of those strange ones that when someone says I can phone them anytime it makes me feel better just because I know they are there. I may never do it but its so great to know!
But then today I had one visit from a lady I was going to phone. She lives in our town and wants to know more about SW Emerge, which is so cool because that is very much my spiritual home at the moment and for someone from here to be wanting to be interested, to actually come round and ask about it, that’s cool. Then at a home ed thing today I had just the most great conversation with another single mum, very much on similar journeys but from different ways, which really boosted me. And also got me looking back at the good and to stop fixing on the difficult.
And another one was first with this lady who came round I was able to tell her to her face that I couldn’t make something with her for the next day. I would’ve had to have phoned her but it was so good that I could tell her to her face. And also to have sent off a couple of emails to release me from certain things. It always amazes me how just letting go of a couple of things and focusing on the little good things really does help to get rid of the stress.
God is a great God how He takes one through things just so that in the end He gets more of our attention, and more focus is put back on Him. And we get further down that journey with Him.

STUFF

2005-10-12T19:30:00.000-07:00

You know I have so much stuff inside my head at the moment and not sure where to go with it and am being scrunged by Ben and Tabi, and also by my computer which would not let me write the word scrunged. Everyone seems to know best at the mo. Actually that isn’t true that everyone does, but there seem to be a lot of people out there when a question is posed to them want to want to tell me what to do!!! Oh joy!!

Anyway have been trying to sort out a dream that I had last weekend. We’d had a fantastic prayer time, there really seemed to be some strategy stuff coming out of it, some exploring giftings, etc, wanting to look at church on a more organic scale, and also major stuff about unity in the town. So I went to bed all chilled and excited!! So that is then when God steps in to have His say! I am in this deep sleep and I have this dead weird dream, all very personal, and so I ask God for an interpretation and go back to sleep. And whilst back a sleep He says I am not to get involved with anything unless it is Reproductive. So I says “so you mean fruitful” and He says “No, I mean Reproductive”. So I am left to ponder all this. Then I get another dream where I am in this crowd on the floor listening to a friend djing, just sitting there, when suddenly everyone starts to move closer and closer in till I am getting squashed in the middle. All the time I knew I was meant to be with this friend, but was nervous because he had a very scary looking girl stood next to him.
Anyway have been pondering all this and have been getting some interesting things to do with what reproducing means, all very much on the whole apostolic. And very much making sure that I keep away from things that do not intend to lead to something more, to multiplication.
But it does mean that there are a lot of really good things that God is saying are out the window for me, prayer meeting which only want to stay in their confines, etc, etc. But when I go to ask people their advise, especially as we have stepped out of regular Sunday church going has to been to say that we should keep doing things because it kept us in “fellowship”, whatever that word meant!!
Also it is interesting how somethings that God says Go do, look very unproductive, like drinking tea with people, but I know that these are things that are reproductive, whereas somethings which look good and spiritual like prayer meeting, etc that are actually very fruitful for the area, the time, the people there, whatever, are not actually reproducing anything.
Its all this funny old times that so many of us seem to be in of finding identity again. Oh and the other things is that I am to prioritise Ben and Tabi and their schooling. Man, it is amazing how much flack I can get for that, especially as again that may mean giving up something that looks good. But again with them it is reproductive, and hopefully also fruitful.

Any feedback from others in regard to the differences between Reproductive and fruitful would be great.

FROM A FRIEND IN IRELAND

2005-10-09T09:06:00.000-07:00

I was feeling very down and fed up when I wrote to Christine with lots of things going on and changing. Here is the wonderful piece of advise she sent back which really has helped me to chill, put God in the centre and get on with stuff. Interestingly too since adopting that attitude things happen. I think as we do what God tells us, let Him lead us, so He can do the things with us that He wants. He can open the doors because we are actually stood there with our hand on the handle. Perhaps sometimes I angst too much!!!

“I think this is a time when all of us are experiencing shifts, Seasons are getting shorter and shorter and therefore I/we need a new language to describe them for they are actually not seasons at all. It is a strange time for we are realigning ourselves with the purposes and foresight of God in an attempt to completely the end the very old way of things and attempt to bring forth the very new which calls for us to talk that leap of faith, get into the boat in order that we may again get out of it and take that risk to begin to walk on the water in the knowledge that we have a wonderful father and saviour who is ready to walk alongside us and pick us up out of the sea when we begin to doubt.
I think for many of us too it is also a lonely time as well as one of testing in that we are having to push forward and break through for ourselves - we must realise that no-one can do that for us and therefore need to be more stringent with ourselves in taking every thought captive and making it obedient.(And this is where, as church we struggle, because for so long there has been that thing of getting it all from the person at the front, the pastor, the leader, whatever way it is spoken in that denomination. There is still so much of waiting for that person in "authority" to start it all off, so to speak!!!) This is not a time for compromise for the promise is coming! We are making our way towards the extremes in which people will either get the revelation we are giving and move forward with us or they will go their own route on the level of understanding they have. We must let them do this for the revelation will come to them also, perhaps in a different timing and this is ok, as long as they get the revelation and move with it - pray that faith will arise in them and also that it will arise quickly.
It is so important that we continue to press in prayer and stay connected with those we trust as the anointed of God for we desparately needed fellowship and accountability through these 'strange and changing' times.”

FROM SARAH’S BLOG

2005-10-06T07:41:00.000-07:00

Thought I'd stick this in from Sarah's blog because it is good and I'm not sure who clicks through on the links. And if you do then its great to read it twice! Also I think for me, it says very much if not where I'm at, but the frustrations I am seeing and the fact that I want to be in that change too.

"I've just ordered a new book written by a German that looks really good. It's called "Houses that Change the World". Here's an excerpt from the intro:
"Christianity is a way of life, not a series of religious meetings.
Before they were called 'Christians', followers of Christ were called 'The Way.' One of the reasons was that they had literally found the way to live. The nature of church is not reflected in a constant series of religious meetings led by professional clergy in holy places specially reserved to experience Jesus. Rather, it is the prophetic way followers of Christ live their everyday life in spiritual extended families, as a vivid answer to the questions that society asks, and in the place where it counts most, in their homes.
The historic Orthodox and Catholic church after Constantine in the fourth century developed and adopted a religious system based on two elements: a Christian version of the Old Testament temple - the cathedral - and a worship pattern styled after the Jewish synagogue. They thus adopted, as the foundational pattern for the times to follow, a blueprint for Christian meetings and worship which was neither expressly revealed nor ever endorsed by God in New Testament times: the "cathegogue", linking the house-of-God mentality and the synagogue. Baptized with Greek pagan philosophy, separating the sacred from the secular, the cathegogue system developed into the Black Hole of Christianity, swallowing most of its society-transforming energies and inducing the church to become absorbed with itself for centuries to come. The Roman Catholic Church went on to canonize the system. Luther reformed the content of the gospel, but left the outer forms of 'church' remarkably untouched. The Free Churches freed the system from the State, the Baptists then baptized it, the Quakers dry-cleaned it, the Salvation Army put it in uniform, the Pentacostals anointed it and the Charismatics renewed it, but until today nobody has really changed the system. The time to do that has now arrived.""

THINGS GET ON TOP OF YOU

2005-10-06T07:39:00.000-07:00

I always amaze myself how when life gets hard even the most simple thing becomes just another thing too much. Life has been a struggle at the mo. Not quite sure why. Home school, trying to find out what God’s saying, etc, etc, etc. And then that is the point when the toothpaste tube decides to split down one side and toothpaste is oozing out of the side! You know out of everything that has been the thing which frustrated me the most. Strange really with everything else going on!

DISCIPLING COSTS!!

2005-10-05T08:17:00.000-07:00

Just seen how long it is since I've posted. Life is dead wierd at the moment. Very busy and lots sort of happening. And finding time and energy for the pc has been really hard!! Anyway these are thoughts that have been in my head since Sunday!

I’ve been doing a lot of thinking and pondering in regard to Gaz’s thought on making disciples to make disciples and saw something very interesting on the weekend of how both the one discipline and the one being discipled need to be will to spend on something. Ben has just learnt how to mend his bike and so basic stuff on it like fix punctures, etc. Well he decides to go and help his friend fix his bike. This friend knows nothing of how to do it and has a dad who isn’t very practical. So really Ben was going to disciple this lad in bike maintenance. Well it was discovered that what was needed was a new inner tube and some grease for the chain. This lad was not willing to pay out for it, not will for it to cost him money to get his bike fixed. So the bike never got done. And also the lad never learnt how to fix his bike because he wasn’t willing to part with cash. And I thought how often are we actually willing to disciple people, we have gone and counted the cost to ourselves, but when we connect with these people they aren’t ready to make a commitment to it, they are happy with where they are even if it isn’t working. So how do we get past that?

CHAMELEON

2005-09-27T20:56:00.000-07:00

Had an interesting conversation with someone last night and realized how different I am viewed to how I view myself. I was saying about this new friend I have and how we just really connected at a deep spirit level. This other person said "oh Diane you connect with everyone", and preceded to say how she was planning a dinner party of people who didn't know each other very well and wanted me to come. Now I realized afterwards what it was. I don't connect with everyone, but I am very chameleon like, can change my shape, topic conversation, etc to fit in with others. Cant remember the Bible verse, Heidi mentioned it to me one time when we met on Bristol Temple Meads station by accident, but apparently the translation says that we should be chameleon-like to all men. But yes, as to those I really do make a connection with they are few and far between.

Also another thought, it has just made me realize after two recent conversations, that there are some very varied people who I know who read my blog. Hi to you all. Though I must admit for a split second I was a wee bit nervous of who is reading this!!!

KEEPING TO THE VISION

2005-09-20T21:35:00.000-07:00

Its always interesting when God is up to something because a lot of people start going through stuff at the same time. Please do check out Gaz’s blog on my links for the last couple of articles. God is up to things with me too that have really got me rethinking so so much. A while back I received a vision that I believe was from God, of myself on top of a hill, a large hill in the middle of flat countryside. Troops were gathering from all around for a battle and I knew my role was to see who was ready to fight, who were the enemy, and who were going to be neutral, and I could tell all this by the standards they were flying. And this was confirmed by other people who got similar things at a similar time.
Ever since coming back from being a part of YWAM and finishing up back here I have been working hard to do all the things that I believe I needed to do to be able to get people to pay me for praying, so to speak!!! But it has meant that I have been dead busy rushing about doing stuff and just getting dead tired. Whilst reading Gaz’s blog I was reminded of this above vision and realised that it involved me waiting on a hill, not doing anything but just looking and observing, not running around going to meeting, setting up prayer groups, not even serving in the church, but just watching and waiting. Then I also came across a letter from a friend written a while ago that said to always stay true to my convictions. Well my convictions are to not rush around doing church but to be church by my relationship with Jesus and also all that really burnt in my heart was to be able to bring people to that point of who God has called them to be and to a close relationship with Jesus.
Have I managed that? I don’t really think so! Have a criticized others for not doing that? Why yes I have! Am I going to change? Well I jolly well hope so otherwise I just know what else to do. Surely the most important part of obeying God is not the stuff we do but the fact that when He reveals something wrong in us then we let Him help us change it.

KING ARTHUR

2005-09-19T19:24:00.000-07:00

Man, I just love watching films and getting something really dead spiritual out of it. God is just so great the way He speaks through artistic people. Sometimes they can be so much more connected. Rick Joyner says alot about this in "There were Two Trees in the Garden", about eating from the tree of life or the tree of the knowledge of good and evil, and how knowledge, even when it's good keeps us away from the life that is God.
Anyway, watch King Arthur last night for Tabi's 12th birthday. She has been dying to watch ever since it came out but i have been making her wait till she was the age of the film certificate! This film is just so deep and so great. Here is Arthur, miles away from home, half Celt, half somewhere in Asia, and he is fighting on Hadrian's wall for a Rome that he believes is all about freedom and equality. He then discovers that that Rome is dead and gone and it is all about , hierarchy, survival and control. I cried at the part where, once him and his knight are freedmen, that the dreams he'd dreamed are gone, and that they werent his anyway. But in thier freedom they realise they are rooted in the land and so fight to help save the people of the land.
How much I wonder are people fighting to save the hierarchy and order of established church, when one day they will look around, open thier eyes and ears and realise that the dream they had are dead and werent thiers anyway, but that then they will be able to use thier skills to free this land of those who want to take it away from those it belongs to. Sometimes things that look truly bad actually will help us to reach our true destiny!!

SO SAD

2005-09-17T16:31:00.000-07:00

I have just heard about a congregation that have had to close the premises they were in because they could no longer afford to run the building. But the saddest thing I find from it is that here are a group of families who have been meeting every Sunday for a long time together and doing ministry stuff during the week, that because they can no longer afford their building will no longer be meeting together. It just seems such a shame that there appears to either be not enough relationship between these people to keep meeting in each others homes as church family. Or is it that whole thing that if there is no building then one is no longer church? But they are all in a major grieving phase because of as they say “the church has closed down”, and trying to work out what “church” they join now!!
Of course it could be God wanting to use them to cross pollinate other places, but may be they will just assimilate and become Baptist or Methodist or whatever’s. Wouldn’t it be just cool if meeting in each others homes was considered okay to be church? Sounds familiar!!!!

COMPROMISE, YEAH RIGHT!!!

2005-09-13T22:26:00.000-07:00

Ben tried a half a term at school and came away feeling that home school was the best place for him and also appreciating his mum! Hurray!!
We got a letter from the headmaster which had a couple of interesting thing in it which have struck a cord with me and just where we are at church wise too. He said that in a large institution one has to compromise, and it struck me how much of that happens in church, that we are in large institution, and even the smaller new churches work to get the most members they can sustain and so have to compromise to keep everyone happy. And compromise always either means going to the lowest common denominator or go with the most powerful person in the organisation. The other thing he said was that when he’d asked Ben how he was doing he’d always sounded positive. Now some of that was very much a teenage boy’s “aright” which can mean anything especially to someone in authority they don’t know well. But also there are a lot of things we all like but that doesn’t mean they are good for us and that we should be doing them. I use to love going down the pub and getting drunk and have a snog with someone, but I don’t think that was really something I should continue. An ardent home schooling friend use to say her kids liked eating sweets but that didn’t mean she was going to leave them with sweets all day. Funny how everything is okay so long as it is a compromise and you’re happy doing it!!!!

DON’T BE BOSSY

2005-09-10T14:46:00.000-07:00

I made an interesting discovery the other day. There was someone telling me what I should be doing with this Interchurch prophetic praying group, how the right way to do it was, and it bugged me. I did go a bit into condemnation of maybe I had an independent spirit and wouldn’t let anyone help me. This was sort of implied. But then I was pondering all the cool friends I have with Firestorm/SWEmerge and others across the country, how I listen to them and pray about what they say, etc. But I realised the major difference, these guys advise, encourage, draw things out of me, listen to me, let me speak into them and their lives. What I don’t need is someone telling me what to do. Don’t tell me what to do, I don’t like it!!!! But then also I don’t think really any of us do. I watch Ben and Tabi close down when I get a bossy head on and am telling them what to do. They stop listening and go off and do their own thing! But when I take time out to listen to them, hear their point of view, encourage them and draw out where they are at then things are much different.
So please don’t tell me what to do I don’t like it!!!!!
But the next question is how do I cope with the bossy people who want to tell me what to do all the time. May just do as I did, listen and then take it to God, hear what He has to say on it because God is great and can even speak through bossy people and go with what He says.

MAN'S BEST FRIEND!!!!!

2005-09-08T21:11:00.000-07:00

Was going to write something serious about something that has rattled my cage, but thought I'd tell you instead about a part time job we do, as a family. We look after dogs while their owners are on holiday in our own house instead of the dogs having to go into kennels. It is for a company called Barking Mad, who have a nationwide franchise, and we are one of thier host families!! The reason for doing it was that Ben and Tabi kept hassling for a dog which I do not want to have full time, and also I was looking for a little way to earn some money, for them to get some responsibility to earn money, and that would fit in around home school and travel. So this is it. We have had a mottley assortment of dogs, from biazzare long haired Chinese Crested (looks like a childs toy that someone has randomly stuck hair on) to a fat labrador that we will never have again. This was supposed to be a very part time job, but apart from holiday ourselves it feels like we have had wall to wall dogs since June time and will keep going till the end of september.
But what really strikes me how these animals are called man's best friend. Like how? Yes they may be loyal to the owner when the owner is with them, but 10mins in our house after the owner of the company has left them, and they are loyal to us, they fit in round our routine in a matter of a couple of days, pine when thier favourite human in the family goes out. They appear to have totally forgotten thier owners and would live happily here, until the barking mad guy comes to pick them up and take them back, then i am sure within 10 mins we are all forgotten and, if its a long car ride, thier loyalites are to him until returned home again.
Hey dogs are great but from my observations here dogs just arent as loyal as thier press releases make out!!!!

I'M BACK!!

2005-09-05T19:55:00.000-07:00

The reason for the lack of blogging over the last couple of weeks was first that things got busy and then that we went to Lincolnshire for 10 days, some holiday, some Grapevine Celebration at Lincoln showground. I had not given up just because of all these men having been in my bathroom. And Steph, no they werent all there at the same time!!!!
The time away in Lincolnshire feels like one of those holiday times that the world stands still and it feels like you've been away for ages. Even the house felt different when we got back. It was so good just to get 3-4 days alone with Ben and Tabi, even though it did rain alot, as in enough to worry me just slightly because of camping on land reclaimed from the sea!!! Though having lived in a tent for 2-3 months in the bulb field area of Holland, where one cycles up hill to go to the sea, this wasnt quite so bad!!!
Then the Grapevine Celebration was brilliant. When I have finished I am going to write to them and tell that we all enjoyed it. I always think that when some thing is good people need to be encouraged. I also think when things are bad people need some constructive critism so I write then too. I decided we were going because I liked the description of the youth activities. And I was right in my assumption, and Ben especially has got himself sorted out with God. It does help that there was a girl involved too!!! Amazing with this lad how the whole female thing seems to effect him for good or bad. Bless!!!
We are now back and ready to do some chilling out. Ben has decided to come back to home education so we are slidding back into that and have some fun things we are going to do. Tabi is pleased to have him back even though she was pleased when he wasnt here too. God's also been talking about some stuff but alot of that involves just chilling and enjoying Him and what He throws our way as and when.
More thoughts to come soon

THE BATHROOM

2005-08-17T14:37:00.000-07:00

Our housing authority decided that it wanted to make all its houses more energy efficient. Great one thinks!! Well it may be saving energy by being able to have a shower rather than a bath all the time, as in man power to do all this, well……..! It was very much a case of how many men does it take to change one bathroom? We have counted 20 different men through our house to date. All we have left is the final coat of gloss to go on the side of the bath. Firstly there were the men who came to assess it, to check we really didn’t have a shower, then the electricians, then the plumbers, one guy to stripe the wall paper off, another to redecorate. With the tiling we had one guy who did the tiling and another who did the grouting! He was great though and has been going round the various bathrooms leaving a lump of grout in their toilet. Don’t think it is some kind of religious sign! He kindly did this in ours which resulted in the toilet overflowing, but then on the Monday we go two totally different men in to take the grouting out. Don’t ask why it took two men to take out a piece of grouting, but they came with a pair of plastic gauntlets, and one of the men was right handed and one left!! So it has been an interesting experience. All have been very polite and friendly which means we have been happy to leave them with a front door key and go out. And we do thank our local housing associate for wanting to do this, but also we are thankful that we decided not go through the whole hassle with the kitchen too. A month with all the bathroom in a mess is okay, but not the kitchen too?

WHAT’S THE POINT OF CHURCH?

2005-08-16T09:27:00.000-07:00

Have been meaning to post this for a while but keep forgetting. Maybe after The Body blog it is time!
A friend and I the other night went to the pub to hear the local bishop and others discuss what’s the point of church. Well we got there a wee bit early and grabbed a table and got chatting! A wee while later the debate started and we were invited over by a local vicar or two, but we were in the middle of chatting, first time in ages without being interrupted by children, and so wanted to keep chatting. Well the debate went on in its corner, we sat drinking and chatting in ours, they went home, we went home after a great evening. Our conclusion was not “what’s the point of church?” but “What is the definition of church?” One cannot decide the point until one decides what the word means!!!

THE BODY

2005-08-15T14:15:00.000-07:00

I am doing this 52 days of prayer to change your life. Well until I become more organised with my time it is going to take me about twice that long to complete it, but that’s okay. I’m sure God is with me on this and I won’t miss anything major!!
But the one today was to just think on about the Body of Christ and ponder stuff. Now I must admit I did start off very negative because I do feel a bit out of things here. But then, as I walked the dog, which seems to be my latest place for God to speak to me, He started to just remind me of stuff. He has connected me to some totally amazing people. Yesterday Mavis and Diego came over and we all had a great time. Tabi had room to get tired and grumpy too, which is always a good sign that she is happy with people. But we talked about lots of stuff, connected more deeply and just let God lead the conversations. Heidi got in touch with the both of us whilst we were together. (Do check out things with Heidi and with the rest of us SW emerge/Firestorm crew on www.whatwouldhappenif.co.uk ). There are all those brilliant conversations with various people from across the region whether through phone, email, msn, skype, blogging, face to face, all of which are showing us that there is some much more to this whole body of Christ than we realise. There are also things like being able to chat personal stuff to do with me and the kids without fear of judgement. For too long I believe, we have been looking to the small denomination what we attend every Sunday and midweek meeting to supply all that makes us tick, instead of checking it out with God and asking Him who and where we are to be connected. I believe, as we all start to emerge we will see that actually the reasons we had frustrations with those small gatherings we were part of twice a week was because actually we weren’t being willing to listen to God and let Him take us and connect us and do with us what He wanted to do. So I just want to thank you all near as well as far for the input you are having into my life, from here in this little town to through this country and across the world. It is just so cool. God, You are just so brilliant.

NO WONDER THERE’S NO POWER!!

2005-08-12T10:46:00.000-07:00

I had an interesting eye opener last night which really helped me to see what is happening in this town and a direction to pray in. We were talking about this evangelistic event that is happening next Saturday. The one which we can’t have a prayer tent for, or at least not offering prayer!! Someone was talking about really how we aren’t that much different from those who don’t know Jesus, and the tension crept into the room when I challenged that so I backed off. Then this morning it struck me how the church in trying to be all things to all men has believed a lie!! We are different! For one we have Jesus living in us so wherever our feet tread becomes holy ground, unless of course we have major sin in our lives that we aren’t dealing with. We also have this amazing power of the Holy Spirit living and breathing inside of us which gives us the power to heal, raise from the dead, cast out demons, have words of knowledge and wisdom to speak into people’s lives and set them free. We can speak in the tongues of angels, have a purpose and a direction in our lives revealed to and know that He has given us the ability to walk it out. We have a hope here on this earth and in the life to come. We are able to speak with the Creator of the universe in a personal, intimate level. As well as being a chosen people, a royal priesthood. To me I think that makes me different from those who don’t yet know Jesus. But the coolest thing I want to be able to share with others is that all of this is just a blink away from them receiving it and growing in it.
I don’t to ask someone to join my Sunday club with compulsory midweek meetings and various other events. I want people to meet this awesome saviour who is then going to live with them and in them and guide them. And my prayer is that one, I can be more bold in being able to do that to my friends, to my neighbours, to those I meet in the street, and also that those who profess to already knowing Him will be able to realise that we are so amazingly different!!!

NO LOGO

2005-08-06T10:01:00.000-07:00

I have decided to change my email address. The reason for changing was actually because the blueyonder.co.uk one was getting too small and I was having to delete things I wanted to keep. So I am now diane_nologo@yahoo.co.uk. Yahoo looks like more fun and can do more with. But the reason for no logo was because I am so tired of labels. I was with some people the other day who were talking about apostles and prophets, and I must admit I didn’t like the way they were using the labelling. To my knowledge of those words they aren’t my understanding of them. Actually it started off with me trying to get them to think team, and got a bit into labelling. And you know I’m just fed up with it all. Yes there are times I am a prophet, but only occasionally, yes I do do intercession, but I don’t think I am overly great at it and don’t get huge urges to pray on my own. I do live in this town, but don’t think that’s for ever. At times I’m apostolic gatherer/sender. I am a mother and with that one I always will be, but I do only want to be Ben and Tabi’s mum not everyone’s!!! So anyway the more Tabi and I tried different names the more they looked like labels or boxes, of which I don’t like either. So this is no Diane with no labelling!!!
Talking of labelling it has amazed me just how easily people put labels on to stay. There is some interesting stuff going on here, people rising, changing, etc but it is so hard to get people to change because so often they have labelled someone and they cannot see them as anything else. Yes I know if someone has hurt us we do need to retest the ground, test them, forgive, maybe even confront, but so often someone is labelled as “headstrong”, “a prophet”, “flighty”, “a leader”, etc, etc. Can’t think of any more off the top of my head!!! But then God does a work in these people, as He is doing in all of us who are letting Him, and we change, we deal with those things, God modifies them to be more in line with what He’d like us doing, but still others wont let those labels drop!!!
You though as I write this I do realise that at times I like labels. I like to be seen as an apostle/prophet/watchman/leader. All those great strong titles. But don’t call me anything bad (I’m not even going to list them, as I am taking on board what Mavis said) because then I get sad and upset. But I need to let go of the titles for myself and for others and realise that I am a Son of God, chosen by Him before the beginning of time to do the great works He has prepared for me, as has everyone else, and that is the only title I need. And really my heart is to encourage everyone else to just be willing to take on that title and job description!!

A BREAK!

2005-08-04T20:17:00.000-07:00

Funny how people who do “real” work make sure that they go on holiday regularly. In fact I know if two teachers who go somewhere every time it’s the school holidays because of the pressure they’re under. But I realised that, apart from a wonderful week in Scotland, we haven’t really been away. Also I find, and whether it is so to with what God has me doing with all the intercession, spiritual mapping stuff, I pick up a lot of what is going on, and I don’t quite fit with everyone else, I find that I get very tired. I think this is why I have been getting ill on and off since the beginning of May. But I have just been reading this great book called “How To Be Idle”, a must for every Christian who can’t work out that God is big enough! Not written by a Christian, but who’s counting!!! Anyway from reading this it talks about making sure one convalesces after an illness instead of rushing straight back into the buzz as soon as half well enough. And there’s a lot of stuff about walking and just enjoying walking.
Anyway because of this Tabi and I went away for a couple of days to the seaside just to get away from the whole having to be doing, the whole pressure of being here, etc. And we did nothing much. We led outside our tent and read, we walked along by the sea shore in bare feet, at supper in a pub, climbed, then sat on a beach and people watched. It was good.
Mind you there was an interesting conversation with some friends before we left. I’d wanted to go to Lulworth cove for the interestingness of the scenery, but couldn’t get in the campsite there so had to settle for Swanage. I was a bit disappointed but the comment I received was that “at least Swanage is nice and gentle with fish and chips shops”. It made me realise that there are some of us who want to climb mountains, see the view, get the experience and come down again, just for the fun of it, but others who like to look up, but really they just want to stay somewhere where things are gentle and predictable. Its interesting too how once realising this, even though I know it will be hard working with these people at least I now have more of an eye opener as to who they are and what they are wanting to achieve. Sometimes one just has to ask the right questions to learn more about someone. But sometimes it is hard to discover what the eye opening question will be.

OPTIONS!

2005-07-25T13:06:00.000-07:00

You know I can understand why people just stay with the norm, whether that be church or schooling because it is so much easier.
Ben started school after 10 years plus of home education. School is proving to be just very tiring, and also gets in the way of life, which as always been a great educator in our books. Well now there is choice, he can either continue full time and do 9 or 10 GCSEs, or he can go part time and do say 5 GCSEs, or any combination between 1-9, or there is the other option of coming out again and waiting till he’s 16 and can go to a further education college. If only we’d stayed with they system we wouldn’t have known that any of these options worked and so would’ve just stayed with the norm of all day school with loads of homework, no home life, lots of stress, etc.
The same is true of church. If we hadn’t started exploring ideas of living out following Jesus differently we’d still be happy with the whole getting up on a Sunday morning, sitting listening to someone at the front, going to Sunday school, mid week cell group, and looking for ways to do some “good stuff for God”. But since we’ve been exploring other avenues and connecting with other people we have discovered that can do some amazing stuff with God outside of something organised. But then this does also up the pressure of making time to meet with people, of finding ways of trusting that we are hanging in there. And sometimes it seems to be, as with the home ed of having to explain ourselves to other people.
It is interesting that when you follow the norm of anything no one ever asks you to explain yourself, but once you step into something different, break the mould, people then ask you to explain yourself. Maybe we should start challenging people on why they go to church on Sunday, why they send their children to school every day, why they eat meat (no we’re not vegetarians, but I thought I’d throw that one in), and all those other things that aren’t seen as the norm!!!
Thank You God for the weirdoes and freaks!!!!

CHANGE OF SIGHT

2005-07-20T09:00:00.000-07:00

Its just struck me that last night I was talking with some people and was saying how none of us was really dynamic enough when a prayer time was veering off in the wrong direction to contain it, and someone said that we were all just looking for a leader to follow. Well it has struck me now that we are actually all leaders but of the more gentle, humble nature, and if we worked as one united and trusting each other then actually we could do things, but because we are gentle we are all looking and waiting for someone else.
We have got so caught up in leaders having to be dynamic people who keep things in order. And maybe the reason why God has us lot doing some of the stuff we’re doing is that He wants some of the things to happen, for there to be diversions that go on, and actually if someone was to keep it on track then maybe we wouldn’t hear people’s hearts so clearly.
Also looking at this other way of looking at things. We were talking about gathering like minded people across the town together from different congregations, so that instead of them feeling isolated they will know there are others out there like them, do some discipline, connecting stuff. Well what amazed me with it all was how quickly we got into trying to organise things, formulate a plan and a programme. Interestingly when we then prayed and took it back to God He had other ideas. And you know what? We are just going to gather to eat together and talk. Well now there’s a novel idea!!!

R.I.A.T

2005-07-17T09:45:00.000-07:00

Ben won tickets to the Royal International Air Tattoo at Fairford, Glos., so yesterday us 3 and Ben’s friend Jacob all went up. It was cool because Ben went off with his friend and looked at everything, Tabi and I could wander round at our leisure till she eventually reached plane overload!
But what I observed was just the differences in the nationalities. Like this place is just full of planes, and it seems to be to fly or be on ground crew means that these guys just love planes, not just their own. So they are all connected in someway. But they all reflected their own nationalities.
There was a large Jordanian marquee which was showing the delights of the country, enticing one with dead sea face packs, and handing out tourist information. But this was also the fact that these guys were just so proud of their country and wanted people to come visit.
There was a selection of different flying teams too. The Americans showed their best, fastest, most wonderful jet and just loved to boast about it. It was interesting too that even on the boards by the planes the Americans would put down just how great this plane was and how much it cost. The Spanish had a flying team like the Red Arrows, but they were more daring, seemed to have more fun, almost looking like bull fighting in the sky. They did make the Red Arrows, though still wonderful and impressive, just a wee bit reserved by comparison, very much sticking to order and routine. The Italians were had a similar team, but they were larger, more jet like planes, and all very flamboyant, with one plane always doing its own thing. The Dutch didn’t fly but had a few displays and these were the ones who were enjoying each other and having fun as well as being part of what was happening.
It was all very interesting to observe.
Also I want to thank God for mobile phones and how it made life so much easier being able to just know that we could keep in touch and when plans of where to meet got changed because of Tabi getting tired of it all, then I could just text across and Ben would know where we were. Had for a while been resisting them, then sort of got into them, and know am really seeing the usefulness of them.

MORE THOUGHTS ON JULY 7TH

2005-07-11T10:19:00.000-07:00

I read these this morning in an email from Christina down in Cornwall and just wanted to share them with others and also because it stirred something in my spirit.

"The bomb's in London was like a prophetic message for me that said the church has to wake up and realise the underground earth spirits are rising up to take souls. Only the wisdom of the Lord can save the land now.

The double decker was like message for the church to rise up and be seen (not hide their light under a bushel) and go for the double portion of the Grace to counter attack this end time battle.

The fact that the capitol city of London is the thinking mans capital says Christians have to rise up and like a womble look over ground and undergound and set the captives free.

I do not make light of the awsome horror of what has happened to our most beloved London I just hope and pray that whatever the Lord is saying through this 7/7/5 occurance is noted. It is a warning to the church the perfection of number seven and the number five representing the five fold ministry gifts of the church.

This is a sign to say be expansive in our thinking and the church has to now explode like never before, the praying in the churches has started to be behind closed doors instead of in the light so as not to offend people. When Paul said be all things to all people he did not mean to compromise our faith and the house of God was and is a house of prayer not a house of respect of the citizens of all beliefs. I have heard that people are being told not to pray for people in church outreach centres in case it offends people and this atrocity has to be niopped in the bud.

Down with the strongholds of mans power who come against the most high God Yhwh whose Son said My Fathers house shall be a house of prayer.Amen."

THOUGHTS ON 7TH JULY 2005

2005-07-09T09:22:00.000-07:00

Thought I would copy these points from Mark Bowness’s blog (relational church link on the side panel here). To me they just say what I was thinking, especially the first one about being complacent. Interestingly on one report someone to do with London transport said, not that they had dropped standards, but that they had got just a wee bit complacent. And I do think as church at times we have become complacent about what is happening in the world, have settled into our status quo, and even, with the state of many churches, are so concentrated on getting our little congregation up and working we have forgotten the bigger issues.
Also check out the link from Mal Fletcher (below). It’s a great article.

(from Mark Bowness)
1) Don't get complacent: It feels like we dealt with 9/11 - it was tough, we had to get our heads around it and many understood it as a shaking of foundations across the World. However, it almost feels that we have become complacent, we have settled back, we have retreated and we are doing fine. It feels like this bombing is another warning to not become complacent but for God's people to get ready.
2) Come get the power off me: I believe that God is desperate for his people to push to the front of the crowd to touch Jesus, just like the woman who was bleeding, she touched Jesus and he felt the power go from him. I hear God longing for people to push forward, to push into God so that God can turn around and say, "I felt the power go from me." And that power will change every situation and circumstance that we are in - at every level.

Mal Fletcher has a wonderful article about the event of 7th July on this web address.
http://www.nextwaveonline.com/comment.asp?ID=164

And let’s keep praying, for those involved, for the survivors, for the families of the dead and missing, for all those involved in the investigations that they are safe whilst searching and God gives them clarity on what happens - that there aren’t knee jerk reactions as there were during the IRA terror bombings, but that justice gets done. But also for our nation that we heed this next wake up call.

ARE WE READY?

2005-07-07T14:48:00.000-07:00

Have just been listening to the news about the bombings in London. All very strange after I blog and article that says that we are experiencing favour here.
Two things have struck me. First the interesting way God has got me to find what had happened. I was checking out the Relational church blog of Mark's and he mentioned www.prayer.tv/ so i went to check it out, and there was just the beginning so the aritcle and radio 4 links. so we put the radio on, which is always tuned to radio 4.
The other thing is the speed with which the London services got things sorted. And it was the sort of thing with the discussions we've been having on Gaz's blog about church and stuff - are we networked enough as church to be ready when a crisis happens? or would we not even be trying to connect and so not even hear the news in the first place?
As always there are so many layers to things that happen, but most importantly, my prayers go to all those who are involved, whether are victims of this aweful thing or part of the recovery team. For ideas of how to pray go to www.prayer.tv/

WISH I’D BEEN BOLDER!

2005-07-07T11:12:00.000-07:00

So Britain’s won the bid for the Olympics in 2012. I know I should’ve blogged this before but I just knew that this would happen. I said to Ben and Tabi over tea on the Tuesday that I believed that Britain would win because it would be to do with this tide that I believe Britain is on what with leading the G8 summit and the EU. I just feel that we are in a season of favour. And I also find it interesting that the Olympics won’t be for another 7 years.
I am going to be interested to see what, if anything, the "named" prophets of this land come up with. Nearly did leave doing this till after readying Martin Scott, but he's not commented yet!!! Perhaps this is another thing of me having to be bolder!!!

THAT GARDEN AGAIN!!

2005-07-05T09:25:00.000-07:00

Back to my garden! You know for one who doesn’t like gardening God so often uses it to speak to me!!
I was happily tying up some nasturtiums on to a stick to stop them trailing. As I stretched them I realised I’d pulled them out of the ground!! Anyway I stuck them back in the ground again, tied them to the stick and left them. By the next morning they were in beautiful bloom and climbing the stick. It just made me think so often we look at something and if we see something nice, blossoming on it we think it must be good, and have roots, but as with these plants I believe that there is much in the world, in the church, in our lives, that looks great but actually has no roots. Maybe we need to look deeper at times than the flowerings!!
I’ve also noticed that when certain plants are stood put they grow better, and with others they need to be cut back!
Also I am a great one that once things grow I just leave them to it and they sort of take over and just go mad. Well I was looking at some stuff was told that actually it would be a good idea to cut it back mid-season. Not that it would make it grow again, but that it would just make everything look tidier. So I happily cut some stuff back, interestingly finding that whole process very hard for me. But since cutting back some of these over hanging or trailing things other things have started to appear and grow strong.
Again, not that I am in mid-season, in fact I think very much I am at the beginning of a season, but that there are things that need to be cut back, some quite severely, so that other things can grow. I am now praying through the things that are to be cut back and am waiting for the new things to grow.
Watch this space!!!!

LETTING GO!

2005-07-03T14:41:00.000-07:00

That hard place of a parent! When do we let go and how far, and how do we cope when they make mistakes with their choices. I was having a chat with someone about this last night, another mum. In the town yesterday there was an international food festival to make the beginning of the music/arts festival 10 days. Tabi and I had been helping with the FairTrade stall for a couple of hours and Ben was to join us. The plan had been for him to wander round then meet us as we finished. Well he didn’t get down till after we’d finished, loads gets spent on mobile calls trying to catch up. But then just as we are going to start sampling foods, his friend, who he’s been hanging out with during the afternoon turns up, and off Ben goes. He decides to fit in with the mate and get chips rather than the foreign food. Then later on decides to just hang about instead of joining us to watch Live8 on a large screen TV.
I know no of these things are major wrong choice, but also since starting school he has come across many things that go against the way he’s been brought up. As a parent it is much harder to let him make bad decisions than to continue making the decisions for him.
All this growing up and letting go is hard work. There is me not happy that Ben went off with his mates at 14, and yet later in the evening I see a friend’s 11 year old son out without her. Then we had it the other day Ben was going to see “Batman Returns” and a 13 year old friend wasn’t allowed to go by his dad because his dad didn’t like the look of the film. You know it would be so much easier at times if there was a rule book to follow.
But it is with this when we are not sure what to do with our natural children, how hard it is to know what to do with our spiritual children. Its interesting too how something kicks in that gives you a desire to have natural children, like your body sort of takes over. But there does not seem to be the same thing that kids in with a desire to have spiritual children. Or is there?

GOD AND HIS WAYS!

2005-07-01T08:55:00.000-07:00

As you may know my step dad died back in April. Well for sometime before he died I had a feeling, impression that he was going to give all us “kids” some money, myself, my sister, and his own son. I even felt like I had heard a figure. It has been a very interesting time just waiting for my mum to give us the cash. I knew it would be bad manners to ask her for it!!!!! Any way on Monday in the mail we get a envelope, type written, and its from my mum, sent to arrive on what would’ve been Les’s 82nd birthday, with a lovely letter with the cheque for the amount I’d felt I’d heard. Interestingly too during the last few weeks of borrowing our friend’s car (which we do every year when they have their 3 week holiday and can borrow any weekend we want) I felt God saying that it was time we had our own vehicle because He has some plans for us to do some travelling. So when I opened this letter I said to Tabi “there’s our car money!” Now I don’t have a clue about where to go to get a car, in fact it makes me a bit nervous. But a friend has just got a car from someone who is a mechanic, who attends the same denomination as her. Even though he lives 26-30 miles away I have phoned him up and he is happy to look out for a car for me. In fact the unit where he does car repairs is next door to some guys who buy and sell cars, and, I quote him, they wouldn’t let him have a duff car!! But he does say we may need to wait. When he said that I thought he meant like a long time, but him meant a week or two. Seeing as we have been without our own car for over 2 years, have done miles of travelling by public transport in that time, 2 weeks, or even 2 months doesn’t really seem that long!
Isn’t God good the way He plans things out though?
And now the twist - even before I get a space to post this we have a car. And not by my friend’s friend but from a neighbour of my mum’s who had moved his son’s car up to a small unit garage 5 mins walk from our house! This mechanic is someone who is known by a friend of a friend, is good, reliable, and has been servicing the car for the last couple of years, and of course will continue with it.
There are definitely things happening in this new season!!!

From Ian!

2005-06-30T19:17:00.000-07:00

Thought you might like to read these two things from my friend, Ian’s last email to me.

Is this one just the British sense if irony that our friends across the pond just don’t have?
deadpan radio 4 man: so why did you refuse to go to south America?
human canonball: because I am scared of flying
deadpan radio 4 man: so let me get this straight, you are fired from a
canon at 40 miles an hour, you eat fire and you tame lions yet you are
sacred of taking a long haul flight?
human cannonball - sensing no irony in the situation: yes
deadpan radio 4 man: and what exactly are you scared of?
human cannonball: being claustrophobic
deadpan radio 4 man: and isn't it claustrophobic when you are
inside the canon?
human cannonball: yes but I'm not in there very long!!

And now for something a bit more deep and serious, though the way Ian wrote these I think they can be connected!
know that restoration of dreams , passions and our individual song is
important and I need to pray about what this is - heard a great
meditation/reflection on singing on our own songs on Sunday. Also saw a
t-shirt last week "Fear, the thief of dreams" - and heard a different
take on old men will dream dreams etc from Alan (a time when old men will
have their dreams that have been lost in life restored to them and young
men will have vision beyond their years.)

Now that gives all of us who may be nearing the dreams stage a bit more hope!!

A BOAST

2005-06-29T20:28:00.000-07:00

"A final note of thanks to David and Angela Leigh who are from the US and missionaries with YWAM in the region. They are incredible examples of those who have come who are not looking for something that they will gain personally, but to serve and call for the spiritual prosperity of the region. They were a joy to be with, and they will be a key in making connections across the region / surrounding nations."
This was on Martin Scott's latest newsletter and I'd just like to boast that these are my friends. They were leaders in the Family DTS we did in Paisley, Scottland. And when they went off to France for 9 months to check things out we rented thier house from them. And you know its not just David and Angela who are great but also thier 3 children, Rachel, Noah and Olivia. Miss them loads but glad to call them friends of all 3 of us to all 5 of them!

MISSPELT!!

2005-06-28T15:28:00.000-07:00

Having enjoyed looking at Vance’s blog and the interest with misspelt words here’s one of my own. I was typing up a summary of the 40hrs of prayer we did back in May. Spell checked it and everything. Then got an email back from someone I’d sent it to who noticed a typo. I’d written that “God would give us dreads and visions”. Yes I changed it, but then got thinking about it, and maybe if God sent us dreads we would learn to fear Him more and stop just thinking about the dreams and visions as though they were nicey nicey things!
“Be bold and courageous because the Lord your God is with you!” and do not fear the dreads!

PROPHETIC WALKING OUT

2005-06-27T08:41:00.000-07:00

Got struck with an amazing thought last week, shared it with a friend who is just starting to move in these circles and it threw him a bit, shared it with another friend who got it and very much encouraged me.
Ever since I’ve come back to Frome I’ve know it is to bring something back to the town. I’ve know that the whole FireStorm/SW Emerge is all part of the same thing - going out to bring something back. But I’ve always struggled with the whole of thing when it is said about gathering those in your town/city who are travelling with you, take things back to your area, etc, etc. Well I knew with the whole computer crash, sickness, that is was part of what God had for me to noticeably change the season for me. But I was still trying to work out the whole thing of what to do with all this stuff that I get and what should I do with it, who should I be sharing it with, how should I be sharing it. Well then I get this revelation - helped by “Church beyond the Congregation” by James Thwaite, of God being in all things, over all things, part of all things, creator of all things - very much that spirit to spirit holistic connection stuff. Well that’s when it struck me, I will bring home in my spirit what God has wanted me to pick up over the time I’m away, yes there will be some things I will share physically with people, in conversation, prayer times, etc, but there will be somethings that actually my spirit will release them into the spirit, into the land here, and actually that will change the spiritual atmosphere without me actually having to do anything.
Martin Scott, I think, had something about this being the year for thriving not striving, and I’ve been reminded of it again. I just do what I do and let God do the rest. If He wants me to share it, then He will be whatever means He wants it share. He’ll put the people in my path He wants me to talk to, pray with, etc, and put me in the places He wants me.
In fact I’ve noticed that over the last week. On Tuesday at a home ed sports time someone almost set me up to share something over an incident that had happen with another Christian family, to someone who was very antagonistic to the gospel, but this person (or probably rather God) just used it in such a way that I had a full opening. Then on Sunday I was spending time with a lad from our youth group to open up a prophecy about his giftings. I didn’t know where to go with this, but again God just opened things up until it became obvious to the both of us what God was aiming at! He is just so good and I’m still learning about the whole trust and obey properly.

THUNDER AND LIGHTENING!

2005-06-24T08:52:00.000-07:00

Last night we were all woken by the most enormous crash of thunder about 3am. Ben came bounding into my bed, Tabi for some reason went downstairs to see if I’d dropped something. Not something I do regularly at 3am!! Last time we had a thunder storm and Ben came in I was all into getting him back in his own room as fast as possible, and then finished up regretting it. Not because he didn’t settle but because I realised these times of him wanting/needing to come to me when he’s scared will become less and less and so I am to enjoy them and make the most of them. So here we are with my man-child snuggled up close every time there is a bang and flash, and I am realising just how spoilt I am with him, with both of them. I was remembering when I was 14. By 14 I was smoking and drinking regularly, by the end of that year I’d had sex a few times and there was no way I’d come to my parents for anything. In fact I didn’t trust them and despised them. There is no way I’d want to come into bed with them. Also was thinking, as I had a child each side of me, just how spoilt it can be being a single parent with room in a double bed for all 3
of us!
Tabi on the other hand being younger, after checking downstairs, got into my bed, asked if her canary that was asleep in her bedroom would be okay, then promptly went straight to sleep whist everything was crashing and banging. The storm is still raging at nearly 9am, Ben is now awake and fine with it all. Nothing is as scary in the light of day. And Tabi, well she’s still fast asleep!
Of course all of this has meant that I have had very little sleep and we have one of our town prayer gatherings this evening which Mavis and I will be leading. It is cool because it means that I will have to trust even more to God that He sorts out what He wants me to share. Love it! Prayers would be great though for energy to make it into the evening!

OLD FRIENDS

2005-06-23T13:46:00.000-07:00

Over the last week Tabi and I have done 3 home school things, 2 sport and the trip to Yeovilton that Ben missed school to come with us, but on both of them it has been with, mainly, a group of home school families that we use to hang out with. Yes we do the home ed art group every fortnight and really do enjoy those people, but these were people that we haven’t seen for ages, and use to know quite well. I’d forgotten just how well I liked them and some of the crazy subjects we talk about. Things range from evolution, to possessive parents (that deep down we all are!), to sex to God, and all the range in between. Very much when we moved back here, after all the community living, and also I think after all the goodbyes we’d had to say over the last 2-3 years (that is the only trouble with travelling and meeting people one does then have to say goodbye!), I think we’d just hit people overload and so back off a lot. The art group was fine because it was in town and I could escape if need be, but to be back in casual, but very open conversation. Perhaps this is again the change of season, getting back to those people God use to have us in touch with, or either that or its just getting back out again. Who knows?

SAVING FOR WHAT?

2005-06-22T08:59:00.000-07:00

Was having a great chat with a lady the other night to do with some dodgy theology she’s heard which seems to be running round certain Christian circles, that those who don’t follow Jesus when they die will just vaporize, cease to exist. Anyway as she was chatting I got thinking about this whole thing of “saving souls”. It made me think that actually we are so busy “saving souls”, keeping them save until they die that we’ve forgotten the whole thing of Jesus bringing life to abundance. That actually we aren’t saving anyone, we are to be releasing them to become all that Jesus wanted them and us to be. Its about finding giftings, pursuing destinies, getting out in to the world and changing society, not hanging out in holy huddles.
It got me thinking of the parable of the man who sees he’s going to have a huge harvest so builds huge barns to store everything in and says that now he can just sit back and enjoy life. Then that night he dies. You know I think that those barns could be our little congregational churches. We see the harvest, we build these huge organisations, or even small organisations, set up a way of keeping this harvest warm and safe. But actually wheat after it is harvested gets threshed, ground up and then sent out to feed people. If kept in a barn it goes mouldy and rots and gets weevils in it.
Makes you think!!!!!!!!!!!

SUMMER SOLSTICE

2005-06-21T08:38:00.000-07:00

I was going to put something on about what I’m up to but that’ll have to wait till tomorrow. Just as I was blogging I thought I ought to be topical. Today of course is the summer solstice, the time when in the northern hemisphere we get the longest hours of day light, shortest darkness and visa versa in the southern hemisphere. Living close to Stonehenge and to various other stone circles and in an area of a lot of witchcraft/pagan stuff in the early hours of the morning I could just sense things happening. What I wonder though makes people still in our scientific age want to go out and make such a big deal of this? We do now know that this will happen every year because this is what science has proved. Yes I could understand people of 100’s of years ago being amazed and astonished by this.
Also I was talking to a very normal, respectable gentleman last night who was telling me about his daughter going to Stonehenge and huddling with the unwashed and smelly hippies just to see the phenomenon of it all. It was the phenomenon not the whole sun now going to be moving away thing. But we also had a laugh that not that many people go to the winter solstice! Probably because it is too cold, wet, dark. But actually to the ancients it would’ve been a greater thing, a time when one summands the spirits more because of the fear that the sun would just keep getting smaller. Though interestingly their spiritual leaders seemed to know when the shortest hours of dark or daylight were to know when to hold these festivals, to know when to gather the people. To them it wasn’t a surprise when the sun changed and either daylight got longer or shorter, depending on the season.
And this is where we as prophetic, apostolic people should be. We should be gathering the people at specific times to see that the times are changing because we can see it, we know it, we have heard from Him who knows all and wants to share His heart with us.

DIFFERENT PACE!

2005-06-20T16:22:00.000-07:00

This is really weird! Its only about 9.15am and I’ve done one loads of washing, checked all my emails, answered a few, Tabi has done her maths and is now watching Shark Tale for the third time before we have to take it back to Blockbusters! And all this because Ben’s gone to school and its been so hot that Tabi was up early! Don’t think this is going to be our new rhythm of life, but its interesting. In fact with some of the stuff God is revealing to me I think I need to be looking more for a rhythm for each day rather than looking for something long term. I think He is asking for flexibility and being able to find Him in all things, finding time to talk with Him, read the Bible, though that is going a bit by the way at the moment. But some of that is because I am a bit of slacker unless I’m doing some proper studying. I do need to be focused.
In fact I must admit I am having to cope with the mum thing of letting go of my eldest. Man, this whole school thing really does get in the way of family life, but then also on the weekend he wants to go off and do stuff with mates not with us!!! It is all part of this growing up, growing independent, and its so right but just so hard too!
Talking of rhythm of life - I started this at 9.15am and its now nearly 4pm. The phone has rung, we have actually done school type stuff, I’ve finally sorted out the summary for the 40hrs of prayer we did back in May and sent it out to all that I still have emails addresses for after the computer crash. (By the way if you are reading this and haven’t heard from me please email me as I’ve probably lost your email address.) And now we are on the count down of waiting of Ben to reappear!! But then tomorrow looks like being very different, and that’s okay. Think we may be getting it!!

FILMS!

2005-06-19T08:24:00.000-07:00

Had a bit of a day of it yesterday watching films. Yes our family can get things a bit the other way, when everyone else is dashing to the beach we’re watching movies!
So we finally did the trek to see Star Wars III, so we can now tick that box. I must admit I felt like I was missing something vital, and man, was it hard to get “into” the fight scene when you knew who lived through to the next series of films and who died. I just like to finish up on my seat, holding my breath, just not knowing what’s going to happen. But of course that wasn’t the way there. I remember in the original trilogy that there was a lot of hidden means, but in this one there seemed to be none. I must admit in the evening we rent “Shark Tales” because Ben and Tabi decided I needed to see it for my “education”! I must admit I was more drawn to the characters of Lenny and Oscar than I was to Anakin, et al. Very sad really. But they just seemed more real, not quite so wooden. Oh well!
Mind you last week we watch “Bullet Proof Monk”. Not a film that I would’ve chosen to watch. I’m okay with things bordering on witchcraft but not when it looks like there’ll be lots of violence and even some martial arts. But Gaz recommended it in response to the comment about burger buns and burgers. They use the whole thing of hot dog sausages and hot dog buns to a help with understanding the meaning of life!!! Well I must admit I was so pleased I’d watched it. So much about the state of the church, the new things that are emerging, etc, etc, Man, I could write a whole blog on it. Maybe I shall. But this is one I would recommend to anyone. It may not be a great box office catch but it certainly had more depth of spirituality than Star Wars, or even Shark Tales!!!!

DIFFERENT VIEW

2005-06-18T09:20:00.000-07:00

I was checking out some mail and found an interesting one from www.msainfo.org which I want to pass on. The time that we call the dark ages in history, that time from the Romans leaving Britain to William the Conqueror coming, is knowing in Scotland and Wales as the age of the Saints. Interesting! It is just amazing how we box something in our empire, we know best spirit, and then discover that someone else sees it as something very different. Mind you I have also had people say that those stories of Celtic saints were not true and all made up!!!!
I have copied the last paragraph in tacked because it says it so much better than I could paraphrase.
“We find many people, particularly those who are younger, searching for a more vital whole-life faith like that practiced by these Celtic saints. When introduced to the Celtic Christian tradition they feel like they have come home to a spirituality that touches every part of their lives and God's good creation. The Celtic saints lived during times of social and economic upheaval and violence not unlike the upheaval of our own age. They knew hardship, harsh conditions and uncertainty. In the midst of this they also knew the value of community, soul friends and hospitality. These men and women come to us today with their offer of friendship and with the wisdom and encouragement we need to guide us every step of the way as we seek to live as faithful Christians. Their resilient faith offers much that is healing and strengthening as we walk with Christ into an unknown and uncertain future”

In Martin Scott’s regular email he shares about various people who are walking the Roman roads and “rolling up the Roman ways”. Here is something truly happening, but also lets change our Roman mindset and start seeing history in the way our Celtic forefathers did.

SO WHAT HAVE BEEN THE CHANGES?

2005-06-16T09:02:00.000-07:00

So we are on day 4 of Ben being at school. He is enjoying it even though - he says - the teachers are stressed and shout a lot, the kids are unruly, he hasn’t really learnt anything and what he has learnt has been badly explained to him, and that biology is human biology this term which so far seems to consist of how to have safe sex!!! Oh and cannabis is being dealt on the school playing field!! So he really has stepped up and into the big wide world. Interestingly too since he started I’ve been getting up to have breakfast with him and he has become much more open, shared real heart stuff, and also we’ve been able to pray about him being a light in a dark place, for boldness, for release of some of the prophetic words that have been spoken over him. It is truly like he is now ready for all. Maybe its because he can now see a point to it all. Who knows?
Life back at home has not yet found its rhythm at all. We’ve missed him a lot. There have been issues with Tabi about Ben being the centre of attention. We really do need to find our rhythm of life now. We’ve had fun in the library, spent a day at Ikea, not done anything school wise. Mind you after being told that Ben is in the top set for everything and knowing at least at home that Tabi is on a par with him, sometimes even in front, and she’s 3 school years behind have sort of slowed the whole thing down a bit. So no, I haven’t found times for amazing prayer times, haven’t done anything great, and in fact seem to have bumbled through. But then just maybe that’s the way God wants us for a while. We did have an amazing conversation about all sorts in the car yesterday. Sometimes I think it would be great to have our own car because there is something about driving that makes the kids just open up and share stuff!! Actually I am praying seriously into whether we are meant to have our own car! But that’s another blog!!

SEASONS CHANGE

2005-06-13T11:26:00.000-07:00

Well today Ben started school for the first time proper. He did a year when he was 4-5yrs but that’s been it. Must admit I am feel very odd at the moment about this. The house feels very quiet. I don’t really want to do any thing too fun with Tabi because he’s missing out! It’s a weird time! I don’t think I’m a clingey mother, actually I know I’m not, but it is just odd not having him here.
It is all part of the change of seasons God is taking me through!
Though last night I was praying with friends. It is supposed to be praying for the town but we realised that if we don’t share our hearts and get personal with each other there is no point. It becomes like just so much of the Sunday church life we’re all so use to. Anyway one of the things we prayed about was Ben and his starting school today. And it struck me that he is going into somewhere because he has a dream, a vision. How many of us are willing to get out of our comfort zones (because that is what home school was for him compared to school) and pursue our dreams? How many of us are going to go into an alien environment to chase and develop the vision God has given us? How many of us are willing to put in 4 years of fitting in with the crowd to gain the qualifications/the training/the whatever to move in the direction of our God given dreams? Because we all do have God given dreams, but are we willing to put in the work to move in that direction. Ben won’t even reach his dream after 4 years of exams at school, but he will be moving in the right direction!
It has made me think!! And also made me go searching again for those dreams and visions God has given me!

NEW TIMES!

2005-06-12T06:47:00.000-07:00

Well after saying yesterday that God had taken the urgency out of me and blogging, emailing, etc, here I am at 6:30am writing this!!
Why am I up? Well I felt like God was prompting me so I just want to say a little about where I‘m at and the journey I‘m on. Yesterday was an amazing time down at Yeovil with the S.W Emerge people. I have been on an amazing journey for the last few years but it seems to have intensified in the last few months, then really intensified in the last 2-3 weeks. Almost like I am doing this paradigm shift, but as yet cannot see what I’ve shifted into. It is like being on the edge of a precipice and having to jump, but knowing that unless God alters the laws of the universe this is going to mean death. I think that sort of sums up where I’m at. Yesterday it seems like a lot of the “what things may look like” or just the courage to jump was being answered. Then we did these questionnaires, putting into writing what our visions, etc were. Well I’m not sure if its where I’m at, or if it was the enemy jumping in, but that was when I lost it, that was the point where I just closed down and was then so heavy. The heaviness has left, but…………
Maybe its all part of the journey. I remember when I was travelling and bumming round Europe that there would be times when we would set off to go somewhere, and me being the “D” type of personality would get the idea in my head we were off to X when as we travelled Y could look easier to get to or more interesting and I would get very confused because the whole effort was supposed to be to get to X and now we were thinking Y. It would take me a while, even though we were in a place of journeying, to just make that change. I am wondering if this is where I’m at now. For some journey is all part of the adventure, and a lot of the time for me it is too, but I think I’ve realised that I do like the journeying when I know where I’m going whereas for now I don’t know where I’m going.
As was said yesterday, and I cant remember by who, we have been transitioning for a long time. I know that’s been me. In fact the whole of my Christian walk has been transitioning. Transitioning for some can become okay, but I think I can handle it too, but…………………..
Is this moaning or confused? No, I think the reason God’s got me up doing this is because I am not the only one going through this and not knowing what to do or say. I think this is also about the being honest and helping each other.

WHAT’S BEEN HAPPENING?

2005-06-07T08:52:00.000-07:00

I seem to be back up and on line, though with loads of stuff missing. My dear computer friend is finishing off his degree and so until he finishes I have to cope with this half done computer. Nearly 2 weeks ago the computer crashed, no one I knew seemed to be free and so I spent money on helplines, of which the out come was that I needed to restore the computer. This has resulted in the loss of everything on my Outlook Express, addresses, files, unreplied to emails, etc. I thought I’d saved them, but no!!! And now the new and restored Outlook Express refuses to accept any of my accounts. I can still access them on line so that’s okay. But if you are waiting for me to speak to you by email, or have any of my group emailings please could you forward them to me! It would be great to get in touch!!!
But God seems to be up to something anyway. Since last week I have been sick, very tired, verging on flu, tummy bug. I’m still feeling sort of weak now. But it is like He has taken me out of the picture for things. I have to keep cancelling things that I had thought I was involved in, that God had called me to do. Its odd too that I feel now urgency, no desire to take hold of the reins. It really feels like God is having a clear out of my head, my life, what I do, who I communicate with. That Yes He will put me back in touch with those He wants me to be in touch with, but its like it will be in a different way.
It was interesting ever since the computer crashed Ben has been saying that it was a God thing. It is just great how we all as a family have come to look at things. No longer do we only see God in the “good” things, but in all aspects of our lives. We just know He is in so much control of all that we do because that is where we want Him to be too.
So I am entering into a new season, as yet I do not know what it is going to look like, but I am learning through this last week to go to another level of trust. Well I am feeling tired again now and so will end this and hopefully add some stuff tomorrow

RE:ACT

2005-05-25T08:51:00.000-07:00

I said I would mention a bit more about Re:Act sometime. Well I just need to get this off my chest and need your prayers for my town so I’ll tell you a wee bit.

Re:Act is a family fun day/evangelistic event that, over the summer goes to 7 different towns, one of which is going to be our one. I don’t like evangelistic events anyway, so did really wonder why God wanted me to be involved in this. But then since all this stuff has been downloaded over the last couple of weeks, and accentuated over last weekend, about me being a watchman for this town, I am now looking at these meetings in a different light.

I am not stupid and know that planning does need to be done, that when one is giving away beef burgers, planning games, fun, etc, then things need to be done. But what has amazed me is how prayer has been sidelined. How prayer is seen as something that will be done with people at the end of the event when they make a commitment, but not during the day whilst the fun stuff was going on. When I made a bit of a fuss about the need for a corporate ministry team praying during the day I was told that they didn’t think it would be right for the “public” to see people praying!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! That what we needed to do was make “church” look good, look fun, look serving so people would want to be a part of it. EEEEKKKKK!!!!!!!!!! We’re still trying to get people to join church and not God. We are still thinking of image instead of open heaven. I came away so frustrated. I was even amazed by those who have, to my face, called themselves intercessors, and yet don’t see it as the most important thing. Thankfully I did get a lift the 500 or so yards to my house with my dear friend, who supported me in the meeting (and there was someone else too), and she is feeling the same. In fact she was of the notion to go to last night’s meeting and say we should cancel it.

Oh I think it will be a good event, but I don’t think God will step in unless we really pray this in.

I think too for me this apathy has come in on the back of guys coming over to speak for a meeting at our little church in June who are giving up 4 evenings, 3 driving nearly an hour there and back to pray with us, and one where we’ll go to them and they’ll pray for us. And also with God downloading stuff for me to do with prayer initiatives.

He has very much opened my eyes to what is going on, given me direction to pray, so I know its good to be there. I just want to scream and bang some heads.

Also no one seems to see the need to join up and do teams, but that I shall go into on another time. Today has gone on a while and I need to step into mum and teacher mode now!

HEBREWS 11:40

2005-05-23T09:02:00.000-07:00

Had a wonderful time in Bude with Firestorm, praying, prophesying, encouraging and being encouraged.

For me though a great revelation came that I have not seen before. Interesting how you can read the same piece so many times and yet not get a handle on it!

Hebs. 11:39-40 says, “These were all commended for their faith (that’s all the guys who’ve done these amazing faithful things with and for God), yet none of them received what had been promised. God had planned something better for us so that only TOGETHER with us would they be made perfect”.

Now I’ve always heard that taught in the context of these people did what they did before Jesus came and so missed out a wee bit, but we’ve got Jesus so we’ve got something bigger. But what it does say is that “Together with us they will be made perfect”. They are going to be made perfect, as are we who follow Jesus also, but it is going to happen altogether.

It’s again this grasping the whole corporporateness of our existence. Its getting hold of the whole thing that we are a whole body, whether we like it or not, and that includes those who’ve believed and gone before. And that they cannot come into all the fullness that God has for them until we do our bit. But also we won’t come into our fullness until all believers do their bit. So we need to be knowing what our bit is for each step of the way, but also need to be teaching, guiding, encouraging each other to step into their bit, their part, their role for each step for a mixture of selfishness and unselfishness all wrapped in together.

Its that whole thing that God’s kingdom is a paradox and we need to start living that, not trying to make it one thing or another.

GARDENING

2005-05-20T09:05:00.000-07:00

Well I’ve been gardening again! It isn’t a task I enjoy until I get out there and then it seems to be radical gardening because everything is in such a mess! But it, as always gets me thinking as God reveals stuff.

The first thing was when I attacked a honeysuckle that instead of climbing was crawling. This is our fault for not giving it anything to climb! So as I hacked away at it, gathering longer bits and feeding them through knot holes in next door’s fence to encourage upward growth, I discovered the most lovely plant underneath. Even being totally swamped by this green growth of honeysuckle it had manage to grow and produce the most gorgeous blue flowers. It made me think, as I pray for this town and area, what is growing wonderfully underneath things once we decide to start clearing and moving things, even moving things that actually are good too, but are just hiding something lovely!

The other one was from lovely people asking me if the 40 hours of prayer “went well”. I do find that a hard question to answer! But I got thinking of my raspberry canes. A friend gave them to me last year, moving them at the wrong time really and it was very much a case of just planting them and seeing what happened. Well about three quarters of them now have leaves, though a couple are still leaning at an angle, but do have the leaves. But really we wont know if they have really taken until they bear fruit, which actually may not be till next year. And really this is the same with this 40 hr prayer time, and in fact any other. We won’t know whether it did anything until fruit comes from it. And as one dear friend said in the last hour the outcome of this could be persecution just to get us to our knees

TUESDAY NIGHT

2005-05-19T08:14:00.000-07:00

On Tuesday night we started a new youth gathering at our house with 6 young people from 11-14years old. 3 boys and 3 girls. 5 churched and bored with it, 1 totally unchurched. I know some out there know about this so thought I'd do a follow up. Also I need prayers for it!
Must admit it was pretty chaotic, especially as I discovered later on that there had been a major incident of trust broken between 2 of them – hacking into someone else’s msn account and contacting all their friends! This is something that will need dealing with!
Over all impression was that with the boys, especially, something is brewing, a connectedness, an openness. Both Ben and his friend were able to share very openly their walk with God to their friend, who was really open to what was being said. In fact he is lovely open boy who very much shares what is on his heart, as do Ben and Jacob. We had time to talk, to listen to loud music, to share a bit about lives, and I was encouraged to be part of it. Afterwards Ben was on a real buzz and really feels that his friend, Chris, is moving towards really wanting to know Jesus.
We did stick very much to talking about Jesus rather than God because school seems to have taught Chris some “interesting” ideas with regard to God. It made me see why, when we take the classic evangelistic stance of being separated from God, etc, why so many youngsters back off, but the whole Jesus and following Him only seems to be more radical from what they’ve been taught and so almost easier to cross divides.
As for the girls, I’m not sure. The whole thing of mistrust needs to be dealt with and there seem to be issues of respect and control to be dealt with. Will keep praying, and would value your prayers, comments and insight!

PRAYER ROOM

2005-05-16T08:40:00.000-07:00

Having been encouraged by my dear friend, Mavis, that I am a watchman for my area, entering the time of 40 hours of prayer, plus the chances for united church across the town which followed (a Whit sun march for children, followed by lovely buns, and a Celebration event in a CofE church) I must admit I stepped into things with a different outlook, slightly. In fact it was just confirmation to what God had said on Thursday at the Distinct sound tour day for Somerset!

A lot of very cool and interesting things came out of the prayer time, some of which the lack of communication, even though there had been phone calls, posters in every church, on numerous church bulletins, very few people seem to have heard of it. Also that there were ones who were committed who were suddenly taken out of action, or had got the dates confused and were very booked up for that weekend.

How does one say how a prayer room went? Well most of it can only be known the other side of heaven, I think, though if we keep our eyes open we can see things. Though one great intercessor when calling out for a double portion of God felt that this may not come in the way we see blessing, but in something that will drive us to our knees. To me the cool thing was that we just kept coming round and round to the same theme. I prayed with 4-5 different groups of people, not leading any of it but listening and following, and again and again the theme was lack of vision, leaders needing to have time to get a vision, the need to humble ourselves, and to work in unity! Think God is saying something there. And interestingly towards the end of our time in Scotland I believe God was telling me to set aside some time to pray, seek a vision and strategy for the town and be prepared to share it with leaders!

And also as encouragement at both the Whit sun march and the Celebration event the two preachers, one from out of town, the other who didn’t make the prayer room, followed on similar themes of vision, unity, and fear of letting the Holy Spirit truly move because of what He might do. Something I’ve been getting ever since we moved back here 14 months ago!!!

Mind you I now feel totally exhausted from just the hours of doing stuff and being with people and could do with a couple of days silence, though that doesn’t look like it will go that way for about 10 days yet!

But God is good and will give me the Grace to go through as He gave me the strength and grace to be energetically waving flags in worship at the Celebration event last night, even to the point of having me, with the church’s almost vicar (sorry don’t know the right title), at the front of the church! Told you I thought He was up to something with bringing closure to these other things in my life!!!!!

KEEPING FOCUSED

2005-05-13T08:40:00.000-07:00

Well we are back from sunny Scotland and had a wonderful time. It was a special time for us whilst we were living there and so good to come back. It was an interesting time whilst we lived there because all we truly knew were Christians! Puts a very different perspective on life. But God brought closure to our time there. Not that we’ll never go back and visit, but that the desire to live there and be a part of what is happening there has gone. God revealed a lot to us about not being able to have the freedom He wants us to have there. So over the last 2-3 weeks He has brought closure to this and to the desire to be with our friends from YWAM, who we worked with and who are now doing the stuff in Nottinghamshire. Really that is 2 major events in our lives that have very much affected why we’re here and what we do been given closure by God! Must mean He’s up to something.
Mind you coming back has been hard. I know going back to work is hard, but for me the enemy has been attacking from friends who don’t see that what we do here is work, or what we do going off to various towns across the region is work not holidaying. But that is just an attack of the enemy trying to bring me down and stop me from trusting and sharing with people.
I have come back though with a very heavy feeling about this town and of a fear that it will get left behind, which actually for me was encouraged to intercede for after attending Distinct Sound yesterday. Check it out on www.distinctsound.net There is so much, not apathy, though that is here, but also just the lack of seeing a need to be part of something, the lack of vision, the lack of wanting a strategy. So if this is my place of work this is part of my job to get done. It is like a time to stop moaning about others and get on and do what He is showing me, and just see where it goes from there.

A BREAK!

2005-05-03T07:45:00.000-07:00

I took 6 youngsters down to Yeovil for the No Turning Back tour, one who didn’t really know who Jesus was, some of the others just bored with God. Well with music from Yfriday and thebandwithnoname and some hard hitting speaking from the band members and Matt Summerfield, they all got fired up, the one who didn’t know Jesus is well up for being a revolutionary for Jesus, and we are going to be starting a Revolutionaries group to begin with as an afternoon/early evening thing and just see where God takes it.
I am just so glad I braved it though. I could feel that my body wasn’t doing too good by about the lunchtime of Saturday (the day of the event). My joints were aching and was feeling warm. By the time we got to my friend’s for tea beforehand my lower back was getting worse and worse. Well I think it must’ve been God who drove home because I was very much feeling worse for wear! Got home and could hardly move with the pains across my lower back which were sneaking round to my front too, and had a temperature of 38.9 C (101 F)!! Dosed up with lots of painkillers and slept and sweated. Woke up not so bad on the Sunday, but then Monday (yesterday) lost my voice. Hence the reason for not much blogging!

And things will go silent for a week or so because we are off to Scotland to visit friend, back for Somerset County prophetic day, then into 40hrs of prayer. Will then try and do a recap, possibly, of it all.
Am feeling better, though still coughing a lot, and haven’t spoken to anyone so don’t know if I have a voice or not!!!

CONSEQUENCES!

2005-04-30T14:35:00.000-07:00

I was reading this morning from Numbers 14 and about Caleb and Joshua having a different spirit. I was doing a prayer focus about a different spirit. And then it struck me, these two guys, because of having a different spirit, of seeing the Promised Land through God’s eyes rather than human eyes – yes got to enter it, but also over the 40 years wandering in the desert got to see all their friends and family die. I don’t know how old Caleb and Joshua were when they went spying, but at the youngest they were 20, possibly older. It struck me that there is a cost of being able to see what God sees, of being in the inside of what He’s up to. These 2 must’ve grieved from their friends dying, and grieved because there was nothing they could do about it.
Made me realise that there is a cost to being blessed by being allowed to see things through a different spirit. Not that I would change it because I want to enter the Promised Land, but that also I will grieve for those who don’t.

CHANGE OF THOUGHT!

2005-04-29T08:20:00.000-07:00

It’s been an interesting time! I know of people who are involved in a Messianic Jewish group in a town near by and have had uncomfortable feelings about it. Last night I was chatting to someone about it all, being told that no one told them what to do, and then in the next breath that to rise to God’s standards we all needed to keep the Torah, Shabbat and all Jewish festivals, as well as needing to know Hebrew to know what we were supposed to be doing. Later I got very cross because I am reading John Robinson’s “Nobody’s Child”, an account of his life from abused and abandoned child to meeting Jesus and how that changed him. Interestingly he met Jesus at a meeting where Clive Claver was speaking, no one “led him to Christ”, but he just cried and prayed and went back to the hostel where he was living where they threw him out because he was now so cheerful, and how a Christian who’d invited him to the meeting, though not spoken to him there, saw him walking up the road with his rucksack and invited him to come stay in his house with him and his wife.

So I’m mulling these 2 things over and thinking that I’m sure God isn’t totally hung up on us keeping Shabbat, etc when there are loads of people abused, hungry, not knowing Him, etc. And was reminded of the bit in Matthew 25 about the sheep and the goats and who the righteous were the ones who fed the hungry, clothed the naked, visited the prisoner, were kind to the stranger, not the ones who kept Shabbat! But then I got to thinking, with all this emerging church stuff happening and us all trying to find our way, and comments that a friend made, and I have too, about not being able to bring friends into our little Sunday church group. But I wondered how much are we getting lost in that, as these others are in their Jewish group, when actually we need to be getting out there and just taking the good news of Jesus out on to the streets. As I noted with John’s book he wasn’t in a church, he didn’t know any Christians, no one had been praying for him, he had no where to go afterwards, but God stepped in and did the His stuff. But it did take one guy to be bold enough to invite him to this meeting. And also to say, “Jesus loves you” which is how John noticed him in the first place.

It is so much easier to notice things in others. But really some of what God is saying in raising up our standards, I believe, as well as dealing with the stuff in our lives, is to trust Him more, obey Him more, and just get out there and give the good news of Jesus to the people all ways and whenever. Interestingly at one of our IPIGs someone actually prayed that. Didn’t remember it till just now!!