Languishing in Wasteland

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I prefer to write entries once I’ve finished working through the latest chapter of “The Dream Giver” at the moment, rather than just a portion of it, but it feels like it’ll take for ever right now.

After Ordinary crosses the rivers of Borderland to move towards his Dream, he enters Wasteland. Although I’ve read the story before, this time I seem to be living it while I read. Almost like I’ve fallen through into an alternative literary reality.

It’s driving me nuts.

I’ve mentioned in the past that I’ve battled ADD in the past. Somehow right now having more time on my hands is making it worse and I’m struggling to prioritise things simply because there are fewer time constraints on me during an average day. The result is very stressful.

VERY stressful…

I’d hoped that when I got to England I’d easily find a church (not happened yet), get some reasonably paid part work (nope), and have enough time to work properly on this ministry to raise some funds for projects in Kenya (because they asked first), Liberia, South Africa, Myanmar, Pakistan and other places, with a chance to actually use the recording software on my computer to create some audio teaching for the other side of this blog. Somehow I’ve not been able to get anything ready to upload yet.

More than that, I feel lost.

England has changed so much in 14 years that I barely recognise it. Walking around the town I hear languages I don’t speak regularly, mostly Eastern European, and there’s a distinct difference in the appearance of people from different countries – and it’s not the melanin level in their skin. Their dress is not quite the same as locals. Hairstyles differ as well. I get caught out sometimes as the longer that people are in a country, the more they begin to resemble the locals so sometimes when someone speaks to me the accent catches me off guard, but it’s refreshing in a way. Almost like Cape Town.

Almost.0c1bb-p3270015

But even after 14 years there, and family and friends that I love and miss, it wasn’t quite “home”. But now England doesn’t feel like “home” either.

The culture has changed – and not for the better. There’s less tolerance to diversity now. Which given the starting point is very disturbing.

Now I’m the first to say if you move to another country you should try to abide by their customs rather than try to force your own on them. I realise I may be the only Englishman who moved to Africa and said that.

But if someone doesn’t share my religious convictions and consequently dresses differently than the majority of that society there should be some grace extended to them. Instead, this country seems to have been taken over by attitudes alarmingly similar to 1930s Germany or Donald’s White House Cabinet. (Sorry, trying to keep politics out of this.)

There’s a distinct advantage to living in a small town. Firstly, it’s less likely to be targetted by Douche Daesh or other extremists like the Tories and Labour parties. Secondly, I can go quietly away and pretend it’s still my home by sitting by the sea, which has not yet got a Facebook or Twitter account, and enjoy the fresh air.

But I’m in Wasteland nonetheless.

Right now, I know where my heart tells me I should be. If I was in Cape Town still, I’d have some inkling of how to get there.

But I’m not in Cape Town.

Finding a local church where both my wife and I feel comfortable and God is moving is not as easy as you’d think. We both prefer small churches, up to about 100 members. There is one we’ve been told of in the town, but we haven’t managed to get there yet.

Fellowship with other believers is essential to our Spiritual health and growth. That doesn’t mean join the first church you see, rather it means get together with other believers. Church serves a useful purpose as it gives a structure physically and spiritually where we can go and meet. But religion isn’t what Jesus was about, and restricting ourselves to a single service once a week will kill the faith we have.

Church should be a place that enables and equips us for the rest of the week, not a social club. Think of it as a training camp where we get to touch up our battle-skills for the coming week’s fight. If we approach Church in that way, we are more likely to be armed and prepared when the enemy attacks on Sunday afternoon.

Religion is what the Pharisees had. It brings death, not life. Condemnation, not Freedom. And a list of rules and regulations that bear no resemblance to Jesus whatsoever.

One pseudo-christian group insists all the member churches preach the same sermon each week. Literally. The text is sent out each week and the pastor may not deviate from it. Members must wear black and white clothes, hats for the women, suits for the men. No shorts and skirts must be below the knee. With stockings or tights to cover the “tempting” skin that would otherwise be on show!

That kind of “heavy shepherding” drives people away by the thousand. It’s oppressive and domineering. Admittedly it’s more up to date than rejecting buttons and zippers (thinking of no Amish rules in particular), but it’s a system ripe for abuse by those who seek power over others instead of relationship.

Entire congregations are sitting in the Wasteland in their smart suits and fancy simple hats with no idea they are dying of thirst spiritually.

Wasteland is a terrible place to get stuck.

But the good news it that it is a place to pass through, not to set up home.

So right now, yes I’m wading through what feels like some major issues. But then every so often something happens to remind me of what God has called me to do. A friend will call and ask for help with a CV, or I hear of a victim of a physical assault I can go and visit to comfort. It’s hard going, but it’s about having enough for each day and being thankful until I get to the other side.

I’ll write more once I’m more “on target” again.

For now though, Consider these things:

  • Everyone has a wasteland time
  • Wasteland is essential to re-learning how to trust God
  • Wasteland cannot be avoided – there are no short cuts

The Peril of People Pleasing

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So my journey through “The Dream Giver” is continuing.

I’m onto chapter 3 now, which tells of Ordinary’s encounter with the Borderland Bullies.

Sometimes when we move towards what we believe God has called us to do we encounter resistance. The resistance most often comes from people we know well, and who we love and respect. So we have a choice. Standing at the precipice of a choice that will change our lives, what do we do?

Around 20 years ago I had that choice.

I went to the first of several conferences where Andrew Wommack, Dave Duell, Wendell Parr, Don Francisco and some others were the central speakers and leaders. When I sat for five days in that atmosphere and watched people change, lives transform and saw miracle after miracle of healing it impacted me in a massive way. This, I thought to myself, is what Christianity is really supposed to look like.

I felt God’s presence in a more urgent way than I ever had done before. When I left, I knew I could never be the same again.

On getting home, I met up with some much loved (and sorely missed) friends from church. I shared what I’d seen that week, but there was one person missing. Marmaduke (not his real name) called and asked us to pick him up. When I got there, I could see there was something not right. His normally unstoppable smile was gone, and there was a great heaviness on his shoulders. A good friend of his who was not a Christian had been killed in an accident that day, leaving a widow and a young family.

The Spirit leaped inside me. Go and pray – Signs and Wonders Follow the Believer!

I immediately said to Marmaduke that I wanted to go and pray, and that I was absolutely certain we would see the man raised from the dead. And I mean ABSOLUTELY certain. I was more sure of it than I was that the car could carry all of us or that the sky was blue.

Marmaduke smiled and said to me “You don’t get it, Dave. She’s not a Christian either.”

I said “So what?” and he replied “What if you pray and nothing happens? It would destroy everything God’s been doing in that family.”

I thought for a moment, and then looked around the car. Everybody agreed with Marmaduke. Then came the crunch. “After all, why should it happen when one of us asks? We’re not ‘famous’ like that.”

I should have recognised the smell of brimstone. Or at least spotted the sulphur on the words. But I didn’t.

Deflated, I agreed that we weren’t “famous” Christians. That kind of thing was “beyond” us. God only really did that sort of thing for people who are “somebody” in the Kingdom.

I’d been formulating the idea for this ministry at the time as well. Blogs were still rare back then. In fact, most households still didn’t have satellite television and coped on only four channels. I was unusual in the church as I had satellite TV and a computer with internet access. I’d even registered eagleswingministries.org with a host – but had absolutely no clue about building a website, operating a blog or anything else that I’d need. All I had was a name and an idea.

But I wasn’t famous. So I didn’t renew the domain name, I let the idea for an internet presence fall away, and I stopped planning my book.

A year or so later I tried to re-register the domain, but it had been taken by another person so I gave up.

The bullies in my borderland had won that round.

Now at this point I need to say something critically important. Border-bullies often aren’t people who want to tear you down. Some are, but most are people who genuinely love us and want the very best for us. That’s why we listen to them.

Even Jesus had a border-bully.

Don’t believe me? Check it out:

 And He began to teach them that the Son of Man must suffer many things, and be rejected by the elders and chief priests and scribes, and be killed, and after three days rise again. He spoke this word openly. Then Peter took Him aside and began to rebuke Him. But when He had turned around and looked at His disciples, He rebuked Peter, saying, “Get behind Me, Satan! For you are not mindful of the things of God, but the things of men.”

Mark 8:31-33 NKJV

Moments earlier, Peter had told Jesus he knew He was the Messiah. Jesus outlines exactly what that means, and Peter becomes a border-bully. Not because he doubted Jesus, but because he loved Him so much he couldn’t bear the idea of Him going to the Cross and dying that way. He missed the part where Jesus points out He would rise again because he got caught on the bit where his best friend dies the most horrific death imaginable.

In “Risen”, Clavius describes crucifixion to one of the disciples. He throws the nails onto the table with a clatter. They are driven through the wrist and the bones rub on them. Breathing is like sucking in air through a wet rag and you realise for the rest of your life you will never breathe easily again. Nails through the feet mean you have to choose between the agony of your lungs collapsing under your own weight and the pain in your wrists, and the equal agony of trying just for a moment to ease that main by taking your weight on your feet. Most take days to die. From the descriprepossessed giftions in the Gospels we know Jesus took around six hours to suffocate.

From man’s perspective.

What truly happened was that He chose the exact moment. He gave a cry, more like the roar of the Lion of Judah, and yielded up His Spirit.

And at that point Satan realised what had happened…

Now people have regularly criticised me in the past for “adult” language when I talk (although I think that gif is the first time I let something into the blog). I go through phases where I swear like a trooper, and times when I hardly ever swear.

Back to the story…

Jesus reached the Cross because He didn’t pay heed to the border-bully in Peter (note: it wasn’t actually Peter). As a result, we have a relationship with God.

Things changed for me. Around 2010 I did a search and found the domain name was available again, so I bought it. Almost immediately things began to go badly outside my vision.

The difference is that now I can recognise a border bully. I can resist them (usually).

But it’s hard. My biggest cheering section is undoubtedly my wife. But at the same time, she can also be the most aggressive at trying to stop me moving into what God has put in front of me.

The last 7 years have produced enough stuff to fill a three-book series to rival Lord of the Rings in length, so I’ll focus right now on where I am as I sit here today.

A year ago we knew we needed to move to England, but the doors kept closing. We were in a flat in Cape Town and doing better than we had for a while, but we both felt we needed the move. We had different reasons, but we both felt the same thing. So when by November we were moving out of the flat to move back in with my mum we had become a little dejected.

Actually, we had become very unhappy.

Then she got the call to say there was a job in Somerset – maybe.

So an interview was set up for January. It went well and she was offered the job the next day, start date ASAP. It took nearly four months thanks to paperwork and legal hoops, but now I sit here in England writing.

My vision seems so much more viable here than it did in Cape Town somehow, but there’s a stumbling block to stepping out into it. I know my wife would feel more settled if I went out and got a “normal” job with a boss and an office and a steady pay-check. It would take the pressure off her to “perform” at the job she’s in (although she loves it) and she’d be able to relax more.

But just the thought of that kind of existence weighs on my heart. I’m praying what the way forward is from here. I know what I feel God has called me to, but I find myself questioning the timing, the form of the next step and even if now I’m here if it is the right direction.

My wife’s issues about my direction and my vision actually help me though. In order to help her see God’s hand guiding me through the next few weeks and months I will have to be far more proactive in seeking His face and listening for His guidance for what the next steps are. I need to be like King David and place my battle-plan before Him and ask His guidance. Ironically, I used to do that all the time but I’ve gotten out of the habit.

The next few days & weeks are going to be challenging, but no more so than the last 32 years have been.

So from this chapter I’ve found and remembered a few things:

  • Often times the people who will give you most objection are the people in your immediate circle. Leaving your comfort zone will upset theirs as well
  • The people who really care about you are usually trying to look out for you to not get hurt as well as trying to avoid their own discomfort
  • Just because someone is a “border bully” doesn’t mean their objections are without merit. Use them to focus your vision
  • Not everyone can be swayed to support your dreams. It’s hard, but sometimes you have to leave those people behind

One final thing…

My greatest supporters have always been close friends, but people whose lives wouldn’t be turned completely upside down whether I follow God’s direction or not – so people who care about me but care more about being right with God. They are the best ones to look to for advice and to pray through stuff with.

 

OK, Now What?

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Second Thoughts

So it’s official. Donald Trump has been elected to be US President until 2020.

One of the reasons I’ve been quiet for the last month on this Blog has been the US Election. I have some personal stuff going on as well, but my personal stuff left me with insomnia – which I have always used as a great time to write without being disturbed.

Not the last month.

I’m not a Hillary supporter. Let me get that straight from the start. Socialism and Christianity don’t blend well – just ask the First Century Jerusalem Church that tried to look after everyone and ended up being supported financially by the churches from around the ancient world. They had all things in common – which is actually a good thing. They gave to each as they had need – which is a VERY good thing.

But those who had property sold it to provide for those who didn’t have anything. The problem with that is you can only sell your house once. Then you end up being the person in need because you give away all your value from selling your property and, oops, you have nothing so now others need to provide for you.

That’s not smart.

I’m not a fan of capitalism either. Not in the way it’s been pushed in the last 40 years.

What we call “capitalism” is actually greed. It’s the worship of Mammon, plain and simple.

moneyAnd Trump is the embodiment of that ethos. The philosophy he has demonstrated is one of pure self-interest. Every time it’s looked like he might personally lose out he’s declared bankruptcy to protect his own fortune rather than let receivers come in to manage the business and protect the employees. His self-claimed “worth” of billions is debatable when you offset his assets against his debts.

No, what we call “capitalism” is not related to Christianity.

A few years ago, my wife and I were house-hunting. We drove around one area of Cape Town’s Southern Suburbs looking for houses on show, going and looking at a few. We drove down one road and found it was a cul-de-sac, leaving turning round the only option. I turned the car and as I completed the turn found there was a large dog standing in the middle of the road blocking my exit.

Normally the procedure is straightforward. You move the car around the dog, it barks at the wheels and you drive away.

This dog was different though. As I turned the car to my right to pass it, it ran to it’s left – blocking my path. So I turned to my left – yep, it ran to it’s right and blocked me again.

Then it sat there and you could see the look in it’s eyes asking itself a simple question…

“OK, I caught a car. What do I do with it now?”

After about ten minutes of dodging about it gave up and went inside it’s house. As we passed the gate it was lying down looking very dejected. Apparently catching a car wasn’t everything it had expected it to be.

Enter 2016.

First we had Brexit. For personal reasons I support the departure of my home country from the EU. But the people who were leading the exit movement are not people I would want babysitting for me. The main “leaders” of the exit movement declared victory and then ran away, leaving the actual strategy for the separation of England from the EU to be drawn up by people who didn’t want to leave in the first place.

It was a place where an electorate voted on an issue it doesn’t properly understand based on rhetoric and empty promises made by sociopaths. Frankly in 1000 years of British history it was the best example I’ve seen for returning to having the monarch have absolute power in the country – at least while Elizabeth II is still Queen.

I didn’t think anything could compare with the fallout. The racism, sexism and xenophobic hate speech spewed forth in England’s green and pleasant land in a way I’d never dreamed could happen. Trump visited Scotland and said how delighted he was that Britain had voted to leave, and I realised that while my personal concepts of why Brexit was the right thing were solid in my convictions – the ability to re-establish open trade with Commonwealth countries, strengthening both their and Britain’s economies and helping poorer agricultural societies benefit from the wealth of the industrialised ones, Britain could rebuild her manufacturing industries and export goods, while importing food and raw materials from poorer nations at a fair price and allowing them to prosper as a result.

That was my expectation. The reality is I’m nervous to go back to my home country now because my wife is a foreigner there. Of course, as a white man in South Africa today I’m nervous to stay here as well.

Then came the real movement of the US election campaign, and the terrifying realisation that the GOP candidacy wasn’t some practical joke. The idea of a presidential candidate being able to say and do what Trump has done in the last six months makes Brexit look like a welcome movement for foreigners, especially from the Middle East.

Which brings me back to the title.canadasitecrash

Now what?

The Canadian Immigration website was crashed by the sheer number of enquiries trying to logon through the night as Trump’s numbers moved towards victory. Americans are looking for ways to leave America in response to the election – even before it was finalised.

What next?

Now Christians must rise up.

Huh?

Christians must rise up. We – all of us, not just Americans – need to pray for America. Trump will be the de facto leader of what was once a “free” world. We need to hold him accountable. We need to hold May accountable in the UK as well.

Christianity is under fire in the West. But the ones doing the real damage are those depicted as “christians” in the media. They are the ones wearing the hoods, burning

klan-1

Nope. Not Christians…

crosses on people’s lawns. The media and “progressives” depict those who are prepared to put their homes, livelihoods, careers and families on the line for what they believe as cranks and crackpots in the West because Daesh is cutting off people’s heads in the Middle-East. They don’t recognise financial persecution as persecution. They disregard it as inconvenience. They belittle the persecuted as being the aggressors.

The reality is there are other bakers to make the cake. There are other venues to hold you ceremony. People sue because they want their rights to be “equal”, but the reality is these people want their rights to be superior. Increasingly, Christians are forced to bow to the pressure of society and accept the “progress” that is 03382-atheismbeing made. Evolution – a theory – is taught increasingly as though it were a proven absolute, while another (in scientific terms) theory – Intelligent Design – is not only dismissed with no consideration, it is actually banned from scientific consideration in a classroom. Atheistic agendas are forced on us as though they are proven absolutes and we are forced to capitulate every day.

Children as young as five or six years old are now exposed to sexuality in a way unthinkable for teens to be exposed to just half a generation ago.

I have a dear friend in her mid twenties who dropped into conversation that she had problems talking to her mum because of the “generation gap” between them. We talk freely and openly about many things including God, faith, relationships and a host of other topics as equals. Peers. We may differ on what we consider “contemporary” music and “recent” movies to be, but on really important matters we are a similar way of thought. I asked her more about her mum and to my amusement (and slight terror) discovered she is one week older than I am.

I’m a child of the seventies. I grew up before computers were a part of every home, if you were out and you needed to call home you needed a telephone booth and the internet didn’t exist yet. The web was what a spider made on the hedge, phishing was a spelling mistake and that poor guy in Nigeria had no way to contact you about getting his $28 million out of the country through your bank account. Junk mail came from Reader’s Digest, and spam was a type of processed meat.

Somehow with less technology it was easier to believe in God. It was easier to stand up for your Faith 30 years ago in the West because if you did, you didn’t get shouted at instantly by 2 billion outraged people arguing with you or posting pictures of a small red face to you, or the other 2 billion shouting in agreement and posting small yellow faces to you. The other billion people on the planet didn’t know or care what you’d said.

Today there are nearly double the number of people on the planet – fields ripe for harvest – but fewer harvesters per capita than at any time in history. “Mainstream” denominations are in decline and it’s hard to get through the static to anything with real substance. I remember the intensity of “The Terminator” when I first saw it – in 1988. I was too young in 1984/5 when it was made. T2 was more intense. Recently, Terminator: Genisys was released. There is a chilling message in it about our dependence on technology. In the thirty years since the original, we have reached the level of technology in our lives that everything is inter-connected wirelessly.

Everything except us.

So: What Now?

Perhaps we need to reflect on the events of 2016 in light of a bigger picture.

A few respected entertainers died. There are wars and rumours of wars around the world. Where only 250 years ago we looked to kings and princes who were there by birth but lived and died nonetheless, now we look to presidents and prime ministers. “Leaders” died and were born/elected. 80 years ago the rantings of a short dark-haired lunatic allowed a decent people to become whipped up into a xenophobic frenzy over the space of about 4 years. Today the rantings of a small-minded orange lunatic have whipped up a basically decent people into a xenophobic frenzy over the space of a year or less. But if we look back, about every 100 to 150 years for the last thousand there has been some – usually short – crank whipping up a people who were basically decent into a frenzy about something. Whether it was Donald this year or Napoleon, Hitler, or any of the nut-jobs before them, they appear as pebbles in a stream. This year will be no different.

A few weeks from now we will mark the end of 2016 and the start of 2017. And almost everyone will forget. They won’t say “2017 years since what?” More entertainers will die. More leaders will rise and fall.

But the Gospel has been a constant. Like the North Star, it stays fixed to guide us home.

Ten thousand years from now, we won’t care about the US Election of 2016. But the Gospel of Jesus will endure. The candle of True Christianity demonstrating an unchanging God who Loved us so much He took on human form and allowed His creation to hammer iron spikes through His wrists and ankles, who allowed His own bodyweight to suffocate His body and die in agony, who rose from the dead. That Gospel will endure. That candle will flicker on, sometimes dimmed, but never extinguished.

For us what’s next is getting on with this day. We are none of us promised more than this heartbeat. So as Christians, what’s next is living this heartbeat for Jesus, demonstrating His love through our actions.

Loving the unlovely.

Forgiving the repentant.

Welcoming the stranger.

Healing the sick, raising the dead.

Giving Hope to the Hopeless. Food to the hungry.

Living out our relationship with Jesus in as authentic a way as possible so when we are met with hate – and we will be – people will notice how we respond with Love. When we are met with anger – and we will be – we respond with Peace.

Where we are met with Persecution – as all who live according to Christ Jesus will be – we respond with patience, forbearance, strength, Faith, Hope and Love.

Now what?

Now we must Love.

As He Loves us.