Change is the only real constant in this world. Cliched, but true.

After the Resurrection change was pretty much a constant for the disciples. They went out from Jerusalem into the Roman Empire and beyond.

But we try to keep everything the same. Change makes us uncomfortable in general. We’ve been taught to like certainty, predictability and sameness. Probably because God is – by the World’s standards – unpredictable and dangerous.

John Eldridge shows in “Wild at Heart” that Man was made for adventure, created in God’s image we are adventurous, impulsive and dangerous creatures. The Lion of Judah is no household pet, and the same should be able to be said of the cubs.

We need change to grow. A body of water with no change becomes stagnant. The only physical condition with no change is death. Why would we want to emulate that in life?

But we strive for predicatability. A paycheck on 25th of the month. Like the typical Hobbits in Lord of the Rings and The Hobbit, we keep things as they are, maintaining the status quo and waiting for death before we say “it’s so short” and realise what we missed. “All men die, Dougal. But not all truly Live” says William Wallace in Braveheart before routing the English troops.

The stories we love are filled with change, either metaphor or true. In the Lord of the Rings movies I was disappointed by the ending. The creators missed the point of Tolkein’s masterpiece by having the young hobbits return to an unchanged Shire. In the books, the fact that they were now battle-hardened was critical as it allowed them to save the Shire.

We have to be aware of the danger of stagnation in our walk with God. He calls us to be tried and tested for battle – ready for the fight at any time the Enemy brings it to us. He’s already bought the Victory for us, but we still need to fight some battles. We can fight, and in that fight we may be wounded, but the Victory is assured. We only need to remember we fight from the victory, rather than towards it. If we become stationary we lose the certainty that comes with knowledge of Christ. Many denominations began with good intentions then as they grew they lost sight of their founding principles, stagnating and forgetting as their size increased that they were part of God’s Church, not all of it.

It’s no different for us as individuals. We are either growing and changing, or stagnating and dying. There are no half measures, and no space for it is made in Jesus’ teachings. The Gospels show Him encouraging all He came to to grow in their knowledge of God and His love for us.

There’s a part of me that wants to shout it from the rooftops. I’m a Jesus Freak.

There’s a part of me that wants to then hide under the bed.

We have, as humans, an innate need for the relationship with God that we lost in Eden. We also have the same sense of shame Adam felt after the first sin.

Jesus took the punishment and bore the shame for us, but we still feel it. Especially when we admit our need for Him. Human nature since the Fall changed us from freely connected to God, walking with Him in the cool of the evening as friends to ashamed and hiding. We learn as we grow in our faith how to overcome that, and to take the stand for Christ.

But we always have the fight within us. Even Paul wrestled with his old nature. It was a battle he was prepared to fight for Jesus’s sake.

So I’m a Jesus Freak.

DC Talk joined with Voice of the Martyrs a few years ago and compiled a collection of testimonies of people who had been imprisoned, tortured, ridiculed and killed for their faith in Jesus, starting with Stephen’s stoning in Acts and moving to the murders of children and adults worldwide up to the early 21st Century. Every century since Jesus has seen hundreds of martyrs die for their faith. These Jesus Freaks took a stand despite their worldly nature and held fast to the confession of their faith.

I want that.

So I’ll say it again. I’m a Jesus Freak.

Now I’ve been criticised for taking a stand for my faith. In the Western society the toughest persecution we face is largely insidious, undermining us a little at a time until we simply stop fighting, like a paralytic agent. I get the occasional barbed comment on facebook from people I’ve not seen in 20 years who are proudly atheist – men with no invisible means of support – and from people who have become friends more recently but don’t share my beliefs. I made a reference in a quote to Islam a while ago and offended a few people. The summary is that I agreed with a writer – mis-represented as Bill Cosby – who had stated he was sick of being told Islam was a religion of peace while it’s representatives were busy undermining Western society by means of terrorism.

Christianity is not without it’s dark history, such as the Crusades (as sponsored by the Gengis Khan school of evangelism) in the Dark Ages, and it’s persecution of innocents for heresy through the 16th to 18th centuries. I’m not saying those actions were right either. The inquisition as it is remembered by History could not be further from true Christianity than the Islamic terrorists who took down the World Trade Centre are. Pure evil bred from fanaticism.

I doubt very much that the people who have rejected Jesus over the years will be amused when they stand in Judgement and realise how easily they were deceived and that they chose the deception rather than face the flames, sword, cross or critics.

I don’t want to be one of them.

I refuse to be.

Jesus Freaks stand out in a crowd. Usually because they are moving against the common flow. All rational argument is placed before them, and the response is “But God said”. It’s a tough place to be. The criticism even comes through families and churches. I left a church some years ago because the leadership rejected a major move of God in that congregation. They stirred up trouble for the minister to the point where he left and a large number of people left with him because we refused to stand by and reject God’s movement with them. The church slipped back into religiosity and practically died on it’s feet.

Jesus Freaks have Faith, not religion.

James said he would show his faith by his works. We should do no less. I want to be known as a man of Faith, not a religious man. My Grandfather was a man of Faith who coincidentally was a leader in his local Salvation Army. Ony a few days before he died he called me, excited to share what God was revealing to him after 64 years as a Christian. Fresh revelation and new insight to the Lord he loved and lived for. Neither of us knew it was a preparation for his Promotion to Glory, but he was excited at the thought of new insight. My dad, his son, was a man of Faith too. He quietly spoke and learned and demonstrated his Faith in his everyday life, sometimes initially through clenched teeth he would extend forgiveness to people who had been a thorn in his side professionally and personally, but always from the heart eventually. He understood that forgiveness, like love, is as much or more a choice than a feeling.

I move in fits and starts sometimes. I have a time when my Faith is more important to me than my life, then I get distracted for a while, but it always comes back to the same root eventually.

I’m not a fan of big churches. They have their place, but I prefer a smaller group where true fellowship can grow. I understand many churches have “home-groups” where a small group gathers and has a mini church meeting mid-week, and some of them are amazing groups, but some of them are as forced as the Sunday service.

I spent several years in and around Totnes in Devon, England. Whilst there there was a group of us who for several years lived almost as the first century Christians did. We were in and out of one another’s homes, ate together, met up at impromptu times, crashed on each other’s couches, used each other’s cars and put up with each other’s personalities because we had a true fellowship. I miss that group still today after almost 15 years since we last were all together. I’ve never had that shared experience of faith anywhere else.

We were Jesus Freaks and proud of it. We went into the local secondary school and ran a youth alpha course, we invited Jehovah’s Witnesses in for coffee and spoke nothing but Truth and Love to them until they were fighting to leave!

We met and prayed and loved and sang with each other from Dartmouth to Buckfastleigh and every nook in between.

Jesus Freaks to the last.

It’s amazing that the memories are so fresh as I recall those days, the anointing on the conversations stick in my mind, and the witness of the group stays in my heart. I love those people as much today as I did all those years ago, and I long for their company again.

Jesus Freaks. United by a common insanity the World can never grasp. And worth every second.

The last minute features heavily in scripture. It’s a concept that coes across all the way from Genesis through the Bible.

The concept isn’t restricted to Scripture, however. As Christians we have a tendency to wait until things are desperate before we try to trust God. It’s an insane way of living.

But it’s how we do things most of the time.

I was at my dad’s bedside when he died, holding his hand as he went to be with Jesus. I spent the last minutes of his life talking to him even though he could barely respond. I held his hand as I spoke and he was able to respond to my voice as I spoke to him. I spoke of a holiday we’d taken together to Italy a few years before, of time I’d spent with him as a friend, not merely my dad. Each time I spoke of something we’d shared that was a funny memory he would squeeze my hand. It was barely perceptable, but the timing of every squeeze was too much for it to be a coincidence. He was in there.

I was able to speak to him about how I loved him, the first time I had actually spoken the words that I can remember. I asked the staff to shave him and put his own pyjamas on him. They brushed his teeth and combed his hair too. Then he settled. A peace came over him. I held his hand again and spoke one last time. I told him if he wanted to go we’d be ok. Then his breathing became shallow. As he died he suddenly opened his eyes and fixed them on me, squeezing my hand. Then he was gone.

I was blessed to have those last minutes with him. I regret that I left it until the last minute to tell him how I felt and how much he meant to me, but I’m glad I was able to.

You’d think I would learn from that, but Noooooo!

My whole life I wait until the last minute to ask my Father for help. Often we all do. I have financial needs that I trust God to provide, but just as often I wait until my back is against the wall to do it. On paper it looks like we may lose our house, but we have been sustained by God’s provision for several years. It seems that in spite of this I still wait until the last minute to look for that provision.

Peter waited until the boat was full of water to call to Jesus to walk on the water. Jairus waited until his daughter was almost dead. The widow comes to Elijah after her husband died.

We’re not alone in waiting until the last minute. God came through time and again to show His power, but He would rather not let us. We choose to wait, trusting ourselves to provide rather than Him. He’d rather we call on Him for Blessings and Life in abundance than Miracles and stumbling from crisis to crisis.

So from here onwards I’m going to strive to move forward, remembering that I come from a place of victory through the Cross, not from a place of grovelling defeat. Sonship has been given to us and we can go to Him any time for any thing we need.

So let’s make a deal, you and me right now.

No more Last Minute requests.

“And every one that has forsaken houses or brothers or sisters or father or mother or wife or children or lands for My name’s sake shall receive a hundredfold and shall inherit eternal life.” Matthew 19:29 (Jubilee Bible 2000)

It’s hard to imagine what it must have been like for the first century Christians when we live in a 21st Century Western Society. They were put into situations where they lost everything for the sake of following Jesus. Paul notes that even a husband or wife may not be someone they keep in their lives if it means compromising their faith. Today we intermarry with unbelievers, we miss whether people are actually born again or if they just make the right sounds. It’s hard to spot because of how the World has learned to imitate the language of the Church. Actually, it’s more that the church (note – small “c”) talks a language so filled with the World as to be impossible to separate them, or jargon so hard to understand that it drives away everyone not raised in the church – and to complicate matters, not all churches use the same jargon.

Jesus was a simple man with a simple message. He spoke in a simple manner to the ordinary people and they followed Him in droves. After the resurrection and ascension the disciples were endowed with the Holy Spirit. That resulted in Power being released. 5000 added by Peter’s first sermon. But then the believers did something incredible:

“Most assuredly, I say to you, he who believes in Me, the works that I do he will do also; and greater works than these he will do, because I go to My Father. And whatever you ask in My name, that I will do, that the Father may be glorified in the Son.If you ask anything in My name, I will do it.” John 14:12-14

The promise sounds too good to be true. He who believes in Jesus will do the same works, and even greater works than Jesus Himself did.

Anything.

Just ponder for a moment the magnitude of the promise here. Greater works than Jesus did.

Greater works.

I’ve been a Christian since I was 13 years old, and I must have read this passage hundreds of times and heard a great many people teach about it, but it quickened in me only about 5 or 6 years ago. Greater works than Christ Himself asked for in His name.

Now I’d love to see someone raised from the dead, open blind eyes and lame limbs grow strong. Heck, I’d turn cartwheels if I see a hangnail healed at this point. I’ve not seen it.

Yet.

My brain gets in the way. So I start small. Peter needed cash to pay for the Temple Tax so he went to Jesus. Jesus tells him the first fish he pulls out that day will have a coin in it of sufficient value to pay their taxes. So I jumped on this. Start small and grow. It’s like training to run a marathon. You don’t do your first practice session the day before. Your muscles need to strengthen and adapt to that kind of pressure. You need to see yourself run a mile, 5 miles, 10 miles and so on to reach the goal of a marathon distance.

Finances are hard, but healing is harder. So I start small. We hit a rough patch with our finances and I asked God to help us in Jesus name. A small amount, the equivalent of just a few hundred dollars. It came in. I asked for work to increase our income and God opened a door which in turn led me to meet an amazing person who has become my closest friend other than my wife. Talking to her and swapping testimonies I saw my faith grow from a few hundred dollars to a few thousand a month. Then the time came for me to leave the job last month. I still trust God to provide the finances as the need is still there.

It only hit me a few days ago that a few thousand a month for 2 years now is greater than 1 coin in the mouth of a fish.

What seemed impossible when I set out was a possibility now.

I’m dedicating myself to spending more time writing and doing what God sends me out to do now. In addition, my wife and I have a business that I may end up managing full-time at some point. My name is on the ownership papers, but I don’t really do much there. My passion is for my writing and teaching.

Greater works. The impossible possibility of seeing healing, financial freedom, the dead raised back to life. It all seems closer now.

I keep pondering and chewing over the passage from John’s Gospel. Anything in Jesus’ name.

Anything.

Why not? Water into wine, calming a storm with a word. These should be a part of our daily life as Christians. The works Jesus did seem impossible, but when we see ourselves as He sees us, the impossible becomes a possibility. Miracles follow the believer.

The miracles follow the believer.

Peter didn’t get out of the boat then call to Jesus. He called to Jesus, then he walked on the water. He put his faith in a single word from Jesus. He believed. And then the miracle flowed.

The impossible is only so because we believe it to be. Our focus is such that as we look out we see through either our old self or our born-again self, and the focus determines the reality.

Now I’m not spouting some new-age theory like some nut-job guru. It’s what Jesus said. First believe in Him – give our hearts and minds over to Him – then signs and wonders follow. But only to the extent we allow them to.

Read what Jesus did. See yourself there with Him. Imagine the response when he sends out the disciples to the towns and they come back having seen healings, demons cast out – and yes, I do believe that demons are real – all at the name of Jesus. See yourself standing with Jesus at Jairus’s home and watching the girl rise from the dead at a simple command. See yourself giving the command! Jesus said we will do the works He did, so visualise yourself doing what He did. See yourself laying hands on the sick in your imagination to start with. Practice with the eyes of Faith, then move out with that faith and declare with Boldness like Peter and the others did that strength come into the lame, the outcast be restored and the brokenhearted be comforted.

But remember, it’s only possible when we remember it’s not impossible. When our focus is on the problem we will doubtless fail, but by the same token, when we focus on the solution, Jesus and the Holy Spirit in us, we can’t help but see the impossible become possible.

OK, so it’s a little irreverent to say God is a comedian, but look at the scripture from Genesis to, well not so much in Revelation, and you see God’s sense of humour coming through.

There’s so much I can only touch on a few scriptural examples, but let’s start in Genesis. God makes a Covenant agreement with a man named Abram who has no children and says his children will inherit the land of Canaan. Then He promises Abram a child born of the Covenant through his wife, Sarai. Abram meets God again at the age of 99 with no children and God tells him his name will now be Abraham – meaning Father of a multitude – but still no child. God tells Abraham that Sarai is now Sarah – and she’s 90. Then the punchline “Then God said to Abraham, “As for Sarai your wife, you shall not call her name Sarai, but Sarah shall be her name. And I will bless her and also give you a son by her; then I will bless her, and she shall be a mother of nations; kings of peoples shall be from her.” Then Abraham fell on his face and laughed, and said in his heart, “Shall a child be born to a man who is one hundred years old? And shall Sarah, who is ninety years old, bear a child?“” (Genesis 17:15-17) 

God’s sense of humour makes a mockery of our knowledge. Isaac is born, and named “Laughter”.

Then in Numbers 22 there’s Balaam. Balaam had a donkey who spoke. It’s ridiculous to think about. More than that, Balaam enters into a debate with the donkey! Imagine you go downstairs first thing on a winter morning to let your dog out and the dog looks up and says “In this weather? You’re kidding!” Now we’re not talking about a cartoon donkey voiced by Eddie Murphy or the family pet. This is a real donkey that this man has been riding for years. This man, Balaam, is a prophet himself, and God opens the donkey’s mouth to prophesy to the prophet!

If we look forward to 1 Chronicles 4:9-10 we see Jabez. His mother named him, and the name means sorrow-maker. Jabez cries out to God and despite his name, God answers his request. All we know of the man is his name, his petition, and God’s sense of humour dancing over his faith!

The Gospels are full of the humour of God. Jesus Himself is a walking joke – until the power flows. From the worldly perspective, Jesus is the illegitimate child of a carpenter. Not a king, descended from David’s line, definitely, but so far removed from Israel’s throne that it’s almost impossible to count how many other heirs would need to die before he got that crown.

But Jesus’s humour was a message with meaning that the “learned” people couldn’t understand. They were so far removed from Godliness that when God Himself walked with them they couldn’t recognise Him.

His birth was announced by shepherds, and news reached Herod because three men stopped to ask for directions. Then there’s His miracles. Cana, just after He’s baptized by John and He’s at a wedding. The host runs out of wine, and Jesus’s mother asks Him to help. So He does – Each amphora used to hold water was probably between 4 and 5 feet tall, and probably held gallons of liquid. Imagine the twinkle in His eye as He tells them to fill the jars to the brim, then take the contents to the taster. I can see the “Wait for it” look in His eyes as the bemused servers take the contents across and the purest red wine of the highest quality pours into the cup and the startled taster declares it to be the best wine of the night.

Peter says he needs cash to pay the Temple Tax. Jesus tells him to go fish – literally – and there in the fish’s mouth is enough for both of their taxes!

The disciples are drowning on a sinking ship, Jesus casually strolls over to them on top of the sea and as if that’s not enough, Peter calls to Him and His response “Come!” and Peter walks on top of the waves as well.

God’s Truth makes mockery of Man’s facts. The crowning punchline of the Gospel is the Resurrection itself. The Pharisees crucified Him and walked away, Jesus got up again with the sun three days later. Peter had denied Him three times, and after the resurrection he goes back to the life he knows – fishing. He’s dragging the nets all night with nothing – just like 3 years before. Then Jesus stands there on the shore and calls out – like before – let down the nets again. And the nets are filled with a mammoth catch. They go to the shore and Jesus is already cooking fish for them. There must have been a twinkle in His eye as He sat with the disciples just like old times. They must have enjoyed the joke together as they went out into the World to tell everyone about Jesus.

The Truth of God makes men’s thinking sheer folly. His wisdom is so far removed from ours that we are totally baffled by His ways. The only logical thing to do sometimes when a miracle hits your life is laugh. If we try to understand it we’ll just end up with a headache, so just enjoy the ride. 

We’ll have Eternity to ponder the humour of God together!

There’s a lot of things in Christianity that are confounding to the World system. Miracles, speaking in Tongues, Word of Knowledge and Prophecy for starters.

Christianity has developed it’s own language and culture, resulting in people not a part of the church feeling excluded and left out. Jesus never did that – it was what the Pharisees did. When He spoke to shepherds, he talked about sheep, fish to fishermen, lost coins, lampstands, everyday simple analogies that would open people’s eyes and hearts to His message.

He spoke of unclean spirits because the understanding that this world is held by a force other than God was understood then better than now. Nietzsche is purported to have coined the phrase “God is dead”, and the philosopher Charles Baudelaire – “The greatest trick the devil ever played was convincing the world that he did not exist.” These two statements go hand in hand into 21st century culture, resulting in a society across cultures as Western society permeates all areas from one side, and Communism from the other seek to convince us that Self is the most important thing – particularly in Western culture – and to sacrifice anything that gets in the way of promoting Self above all else.

Anything that cannot be “proven” by science is disregarded as fantasy in it’s most negative & damaging form. Even irrefutable miracles like healing from paralysis or raising from the dead are disputed by our “civilised” and “educated” culture.

They are simply a flight of fancy, or unbelievable. Stories for children to give them comfort.

We have lost the plot in a big way.

Jesus calls on us to believe the impossible. Move mountains, walk on water, heal the sick, raise the dead. Freely receive from God & freely give what we have received.

I have a friend who used to often say to me “The impossible we can do immediately. Miracles may require a little more time” We worked together for a year or so, and I miss the close friendship I had with him during that time, but our God-focussed conversations stay with me, and despite being on opposite ends of the planet now I am able to stay in touch – something I value deeply.

God challenges us, almost dares us to ask things of Him. We see it through the Gospels. High quality wine created from water, 5000 men and their families fed by a packed lunch of a small boy, Peter walking on water, lives changed in unimaginable ways by a simple touch – blind eyes open, deaf ears hearing, lame walking. Even just a word from the creator is enough to heal the sick.

Impossible – scientifically.

“Believe the impossible” is the message Jesus shouts with every action. Whatever you ask for in My name, God will give you He tells us.

I watched a man of God named Dave Duell praying for some people back in the 1990’s at some conferences in the UK. Something stood out in this man. It wasn’t his holiness, or his (large) personality that grabbed you, it was how ordinary he is. Everything about him said “You can do what I do, you just don’t know you can yet”. One child had a growth issue in his legs, one was shorter than the other by over an inch. Dave didn’t shout and scream, he simply touched the boy’s short leg and said “Thank you Jesus”, nothing more or less. The boy’s leg immediately started to grow until they were the same length. Then, with a twinkle in his eye he leaned in to ask the youngster “Wanna be taller?” The boy nodded, and then the other leg lengthened by about an inch, followed by the second to the same length. His trousers suddenly much shorter than they had been, and the boy stood up, taller and straight.

Unbelievable, but true. I know people will disregard the story and make up their own mind. They will say I’m nuts or a storyteller spinning a tale to make myself look good.

But God says the wise things of this world are foolishness to Him, and we will be fools for Christ.

I’ve never raised anyone from death. I’ve never seen cancer healed by my prayers. But I’ve experienced small victories. A dear friend had bad toothache so I prayed for complete healing. She had a dentist’s appointment that would be charged for if cancelled so she went anyway. He couldn’t find anything wrong, and she had no symptoms any more. Neither of us was surprised, but he was! I’ve prayed for bad backs and strained muscles and seen healing manifest on the spot. I’ve prayed for healings and seen partial recovery and nothing more – it’s not just my prayer that matters. It’s also on the part of the receiver to gain what God has for them. We have a choice. In His home town, Jesus was only able to do a few minor healings because of the people’s lack of faith. Most of the people I’ve prayed for where I’ve seen healing manifest don’t know me, so they believe it will work because they don’t know I’m only as human as they are. Most of the people who know me can’t separate the part of me that is tuned in to God from the man they know, so the prayer is less effective. But the source is the same.

Believe what the World system declares impossible and you begin to see God work to produce it. What God can do in our lives is limited only by what we will allow Him to do.

So believe the unbelievable. Let God’s Power flow through us like a rushing wind or a mighty flood and see the blind see, the deaf hear, the destitue fed and housed, the sick healed and the dead raised.

One step at a time. Hope to see it gives Faith to see it and Faith manifests it. The unbelievable becomes what it should be for us.

Normal.

Needs. 

The word jumped out at me today as I was meditating the Phillipians 4:19 promise.

It made me look at my life in a different way.

I grew up in the UK, lived there until I was 31 and then moved to Cape Town. Here I’m a married man of 41 now, 3 dogs, car on the drive and fire in the hearth. My wife is a medical doctor. We’re planning a family.

Needs.

What are my needs?

God will provide all my needs according to His riches in Glory by Christ Jesus.

I’m learning about my needs.

Some of what I thought were my needs, actually aren’t.

We don’t need many of the things we take for granted in a Western society. 

I live in sight of a less affluent area. We regularly have gunfire within 200 meters of our front gate, and 2 years ago a child was killed by a drunk driver hitting her after crashing through our wall. My wife and I were home and tried to help, but all we could do was cradle the broken body until the paramedics arrived. She died on the way to the hospital, as did the passenger of the car.

Needs.

My needs are simple. Maslow had it right. His pyramid, famous in psychology, holds true in Christianity as well. From basic physiological like food & sleep at the base to self-actualisation at the top, we live according to our progression through the needs we have.

In a Christian pyramid, the needs may be slightly different, but they are essentially the same core. We still need food and sleep. We need safety & security. Friendship, family at level 3. Esteem at level 4 and self actualisation at the top. God puts things in a different way though. In Genesis, He provides all Adams basic needs, food, shelter and the security of employment are all provided by God. Then God says we need companionship – and creates Eve. God’s pyramid starts to change a little for the top 2 layers though.

Esteem for us as Christians should come from God. That part of us should be met through our relationship with Him through Christ, rather than acclaim and respect from other people. In fact, acclaim from people could be detrimental to our growth as Christians.

Self-actualisation could be interpreted as finding and fulfilling God’s Will for our lives. Actualisation would be more accurate than self-actualisation, but moving in that direction should also be done with the guidance and support of a mature fellowship. God’s gifts to us are uniquely suited to us as individuals, coded as perfectly as DNA to form our spiritual selves.

Needs.

Our needs are essentials, not minutia of wants or desires. We have a car, but I have a motorbike as well. Before I emigrated I owned a car, a VW Camper-van and a Harley-Davidson. I had the trappings of my wants but was missing much of my need.

I have a new perspective on need since my first visit here before I moved. As I came out of Cape Town airport for the first time I came face-to-face with the other side of the society. An “informal settlement” was just outside the airport. These houses, cobbled together from wooden pallets and corrugated metal sheets, provided shelter for around half of Cape Town’s population. In the 11 years since then, these townships have more than doubled in size as people move to the city from the smaller towns and villages.

Need became a relative term. I realised how little I asked God to meet my needs, and how much I focussed on wants.

Need.

Now my concept of need has narrowed even further. Three years ago when my wife was mis-diagnosed following surgery and almost died I had to learn a new way to pray. I had to look at scripture again and see what to pray for, and how to pray. What was promised and what was not.

Daily bread – level 1 & 2
Forgiveness as we forgive others – level 3
My focus to be on God supplying my needs – level 4
Walking in His way – level 5

Needs. Met.

According to His riches in Glory by Christ Jesus. According to His power at work in us.

God is faithful to provide what we can trust Him for.

Our needs
 

There’s a Don Francisco song I’ve rediscovered just recently which has spoken to me in a very timeous manner – I love how God does that.

In it, he reminds us through music that obedience can mean suffering, and we can forget that when everything is going our way. But as a great speaker said in a teaching I heard many years ago, the only time you don’t run into the Devil is when you’re headed in the same direction.

I’m about to go to my worldly employer, who – lest we forget – is not the source of my financial income, merely the vessel God uses to get it to me, in order to discuss my future with the company.

Since I believe in the product, although my personal experience has been poor as an employee, and I would recommend the product to anyone in the market as the best available – and I’ve done a LOT of research on the matter – I will not mention the company name here.

I expect that by the end of today I will no longer be employed by this bastion of commercialism, probably with a black mark against my name for daring to put the wellbeing of my health and that of my family before my job. An irony for those who know me personally.

This means I will have more time to devote to not, in the eyes of the world, falling apart.

I prefer to think of it as a new beginning.

My wife’s health has recovered to the point that by the end of this week we will have a fully functional business running and servicing the local community – although I will not be playing an active part in it. I will spend some time recovering and drawing close to God in order to allow Him to refresh me, and then moving into His service full time.

Timing is everything, and although I’ve taken a beating in the last six months, I’m ready to recover and move on. I’ve been down almost as low as I ever have been (but not quite), and I’m ready to fight back in His strength, always remembering Jesus knows my suffering, the Disciples went through even worse than I did and came out with Glorious Victory.

So hold on to God’s Promise, even when things are falling apart. He will never put us through more than we can endure, and we can do all things through His mighty strength according to His Power at work in us.