I realised recently I’ve been stuck.

I get caught up in a concept, or a paradigm of thought.

In 2 Kings 7, there is the most amazing illustration of God Blessing a paradigm shift. Picture the scene: the city has been under seige so long the people have resorted to cannibalism. They are completely surrounded by perhaps the most powerful army in the world. At the city gate sit 4 men. Rejected by society, bodies being eaten away by an incurable disease, these men sit and wait for death.

Then one of them shifts the paradigm.

“Now four men who were lepers were at the entrance of the city’s gate; and they said to one another, Why do we sit here until we die?” (2 Kings 7:3)

They get up and go out to the Syrian army. Their reason? We’re dead anyway, what more can the enemy do to us?

The last few days I’ve been mulling this thought over and over. “Why not try?”

The lepers tried, and they brought news back to the city of its salvation by God. Peter tried, and walked on the water to Jesus. The shift in paradigm can change our lives.

Short tonight, maybe. Hopefully a dynamite package.

Why not try? The worst that can happen is you end up where you started.

Just recently I’ve been thinking a lot about what really draws me away from God. I realised something in my musings. The big stuff generally pushes me to Him. When I see a lion I know I’m in danger, so I turn to the One who can shield me from it.

Not so with the little things.

I try to sort out the little things myself. It rarely turns out well.

Jesus said much the same. He looked at the priests and leaders of the people weighing them down with unmanageable burdens. Spiritually they gave a thousand pebbles to every person and told them to start juggling. If one pebble dropped, then go to Hell, directly to Hell, do not pass ‘Go’, do not collect 200 talents.

Jesus cut through that, and completed it. Not only by not dropping the pebbles they allocated Him, but by collecting ours as well.

I was reading one of my favourite books last night. “Six Hours One Friday” by Max Lucado. I have such respect for this man. His writing has inspired me for 20 years. I’m on my third copy of this book, having read the first two so many times they fell apart. His writings tug my heart 20 years after I first came across them. I heard Mike Yaconelli read a part of this very book at Greenbelt in 1991. The illustration of Jesus arranging to have his hands nailed open to prove he would always accept us haunts me and inspires me.

Re-reading it, I was struck by what draws me away. The little things. Rats and mice. Non-essentials. Wind and waves.

I remember seeing a painting of Jesus walking on the water when I was young. Just taking a stroll across the Sea of Galilee. It only hit me recently that the painting was wrong. In the painting the sea was a flat calm. Jesus walked through the storm to the sinking boat. Peter got out and walked through the storm until he realised what he was doing. But he couldn’t walk on a flat, calm sea. The wind and waves were incedental.

Rats and mice scavenge. At first you don’t notice the nibbles, then one day you realise how much has gone. In one of the “Death Wish” movies from the 1980’s, Charles Bronson’s character likens the local villains to cockroaches, pointing out that once you start, you need to wipe them out completely or they come back. Jesus said the same of demons. They are insidious. Apparently in a major city you will never be more than 2 meters (6 feet) horizontally from a rat or mouse, yet we rarely see them.

I became aware I had a mouse in my study a few years ago when I heard it’s rustling behind my bookshelf. The alarming thing was less the presence of the rodent, and more the fact that it had built an entire nest there, using my own books and papers as nesting material. Insidious. Naturally, I took the necessary measures to dispose of it. I let Sam, my insane 3-legged dog, into the room. 10 minutes later, no more mouse and one very proud dog!

In this instance, Sam represents Jesus to me. I couldn’t find the mouse. It was destroying my things a little at a time, and I let it happen. Sam hunted it out once I invited him to, and that mouse will never be back. Jesus has done that for us. He presents himself to us and awaits our permission to take care of the situation. We tend to let Him deal with the big issues, or we pretend to. Trust is built on foundations. To really fight the lions, tigers, bears and Goliaths in our lives on a spiritual level we must start by battling mice. Before Cancer hits, we should trust implicitly for acne. Before acne, trust for something smaller. Once the foundation is strong, the trust comes naturally.

My resolve continues. I still face battles, but one at a time, and my heart is fixed. No matter what, I will serve Jesus with all I am, and all I have.

So 2012 is finally with us. After the attacks of 2011 my family has endured I welcomed the new year with open arms.

As I think I’ve mentioned in previous posts here, whilst I absolutely believe Healing is part of the atonement Christ bought for us, and it’ not an optional extra, it’s an absolute Right, it’s also something that takes time to walk in fully sometimes. To that end, I still battle some chronic issues, which I make no bones about. Once I began to appropriate the Truth of walking in Divine Health things began to change. I had to get glasses every year because my eyesight was deteriorating. In the last 5 years it has not changed at all – at a time in my life when things normally start getting worse. I battle type 2 diabetes. My sugar control is far from what it should be, but there has been no damage to my eyes or kidneys as a result of the illness. God has been amazing in His Faithfulness to me.

Last year’s attacks came insidiously through attacks on my wife’s health. Diagnosis followed diagnosis, each worse than the last. This year has started differently.

Despite no change in my general health, my doctor added a new medication to my collection. For the first six weeks it was great. No side-effects, lower blood sugar levels and generally improved health on paper. Suddenly two days ago, my left foot swelled up and my leg up to the knee. No pain, just this swelling. It seems this one is a side-effect of the new medication. It comes and goes, subsides and fluctuates. No problems regarding medical tests, just this ludicrous swelling in my legs.

It started to come out just after I made the decision I mentioned in my last post. My decision to draw closer to God. My attitude to change my attitude and all the decisions I’ve made. The point is, it feels like a direct assault. My heart is set, and my mind is fixed. I still don’t know how things will change, but I am set in my resolve that I will draw closer to Jesus from this point on, and that I will do everything in my power to prevent myself from limiting Him in my life.

I have decided to cut myself off from the past. To burn the bridges that would allow me to retreat to a “safer” place, which is actually just a place of familiarity where I was being dominated by the Enemy so subtly I didn’t see it. Bruce Wilkinson wrote a wonderful series of books about the Dream Giver. They are parables of a man named Ordinary who lives in the Land of Familiar who is given a dream. They spoke to me in a new way, and I re-read them regularly. I don’t ever want to go back to the land of Familiar. The journey Ordinary goes through is hard and he is tempted to turn back, but every time he has the temptation, the Dream Giver himself sends someone to help him.

Familiar is not safe. It is a place that drains life from us, but the people around us will try to hold us there. To leave is truly terrifying, and the battle for the movement is hard, but set your face like flint, turn away from familiar, and let God Dream through you.

So 2011 has finally come to an end. I can’t say I’m sorry to see the end of it from a Human perspective. This year has been an incredibly challenging one. My wife’s illness, the loss of our business as a result, moving jobs 3 times in 2 months. All this takes a heavy toll on the spirit.

But at the same time, there has been amazing Blessing through the assault.

Objectively, I have seen God come through in many ways for us. My wife’s initial diagnosis and consequent immediate prognosis was an immense body-blow. The doctors basically telling us if the treatment failed she had at most six months. The treatment would not show a significant change – according to them – for a minimum of 3 to 4 months. The turnaround was nothing short of miraculous. Whilst a full healing has not yet happened, the original prognosis was totally overturned in less than 2 months. Now, physically anyway, she has a good prognosis. We are still learning to live with the issues that have arisen, but it’s not immediately life-threatening now.

Our finances have been decimated by the illness. We lost our business and there have been some massive financial expenses incurred, but we have seen incredible provision. As our situation became more and more dire, we found ourselves needing legal counsel. God opened the door for us to have advice from one of the top lawyers in the country working our case and refusing to take payment from us. He provided jobs for me where I didn’t think of looking initially, and then opened the door for me to find a job in one of the top companies in South Africa as a mono-lingual, white, male, foreigner. On paper it looked like I would not be able to be considered for a post, but God can make a way where there is none visible.

Through this, my own health suffered a little to start with, but as I was forced to lean more on God, He has sustained me. I was diagnosed with diabetes in 1999, yet despite poor control of my blood-sugar levels I have not had any of the problems medicine says I should have had. Recently, my blood-pressure has become better controlled and my sugar levels have improved despite no change in my habits. God has and is protecting me and healing me at the pace I allow him to.

That’s the key. It’s the pace we allow Him to work. Ephesians 3:20 & 21 says “Now to Him who is able to do exceedingly abundantly above all that we ask or think, according to the power that works in us, ²¹ to Him be glory in the church by Christ Jesus to all generations, forever and ever. Amen.” (NKJV) He works at the pace we allow Him to. Our actions and inactions can limit how God is able to move and work in us. The Israelites limited God. In Psalm 78, it is recorded “How often they provoked Him in the wilderness, And grieved Him in the desert! Yes, again and again they tempted God, And limited the Holy One of Israel. They did not remember His power: The day when He redeemed them from the enemy”. By not keeping what God had done in their lives at the forefront of their minds, they got distracted by the surrounding problems and limited God’s ability to help them. Jesus was limited in His home town by the people’s lack of faith. Peter took his attention from Jesus and began to sink as he walked on the water.

Unbelief will sink us. we need to focus on Him and let Him guide us through the next 12 months. Yes, 2011 was a tough year. 2012 can be, and I believe will be, a year when we see things turn around in a huge way. I am committed to changing how I think and to stop limiting God so much in my life. It won’t be easy, but with His guidance it will happen.

God Bless, dear readers. And a Happy and Blessed New Year!

Ok, so it’s not an original thought for an entry on Christmas Day. I don’t care.

2011 has not been my happiest year. There have been some major upsets during the year, two in the last week.

In the end, the Spirit of Christ inhabits the day we call Christmas, and every other day. He infuses each and every moment to the level we allow Him to. I accept that this year I have limited God. Even today, I have limited how much He can give me. The Blessing He longs to lavish on each of us are beyond our dreams. His dreams are bigger than ours. His thoughts beyond ours. His desire to give to us far greater than ours to receive.

We hesitate to ask Him for things, yet He longs to give to us, just as a human parent loves to see the delight on their child’s face as the gift exceeds the request.

This New Year, 2012, (and what’s left of 2011) I’m resolved to be like Jabez. I will ask of God, and expect Him to answer. I don’t want to be wealthy or famous particularly. I enjoy my quiet anonymity for the most part in this world. But I want to be where God wants me to be. I know that means changing my thinking, and I know it may take time, but I resolve to place fewer limits on God from now on. I want to live in everything He has for me, and I want those I love to see that in their lives too.

Happy Christmas, dear readers. May God Bless us indeed, enlarge our circle of influence and territories. May His hand be with us, guiding us, and let us cause no harm.

It is a sad indictment of the Catholic Church that Daniel Avila has been forced to resign following his article “Some fundamental questions on same-sex attraction” was withdrawn by The Boston Pilot.

It took some doing to find a copy since the article was deleted by the paper just a couple of days after it was published following pressure from Gay Rights groups, but I managed to eventually. The article suggests, to the horror of the Gay community, that God might not have made homosexuals homosexual, but that sin may actually be a product of the Devil.

Something conveniently avoided by organised religious bodies these recent days seems to be the concept of sin, and its causes. It’s odd really, considering that their business is the forgiveness of sin.

This man, Daniel Avila, had conviction enough to write an article stating that “God does not cause same-sex attraction.” The Boston Pilot initially had the conviction to publish it. Unfortunately, a little pressure made both retract.

In Genesis 19, God sends two Angels to destroy Sodom and Gomorrah and to save Lot and his family. Lot is an honourable man, and rather than hand the two visitors he has taken into his home over to be raped by the town he offers his own daughters to them. They blind the townspeople and lead Lot and his family out of the town to protect them from the Judgement about to be levelled there.

The people’s sin, however, is not homosexuality. I had never thought about it until 1990 when I heard Tony Campolo speak at Greenbelt Christian Arts festival in the UK. He raised an interesting point: the sin of Sodom and Gomorrah was that homosexuality had become the norm, to the point that it was no only accepted, but expected. They had removed the concept of God’s laws and replaced them with their own lusts. God brought judgement on the cities for this. Lot maintained the courage of his convictions at this point. He failed later, but in this one point he stayed the course. Lot’s wife looked back. The implication is more profound, however. The inferrence is that in her heart she never left the city. The pillar of salt she turned into may be literal or figurative, but she died just the same because of where her heart was.

The world today is in turmoil. As Christians, we need to have the strength to not only say what is right, but to stand by it, even when it is unpopular with lobbyists and pressure groups. Sin is always a path to death, emotionally, spiritually and even physically. We die daily. We need to be as Paul wrote, so that for us living is Christ, and dying is gain. We need to focus on Christ so much that the fear of man’s wrath and what it can bring is rendered void in our lives.

I accept that not everyone will agree with me and my opinion. But I will stand by it. God declares through the scripture in the Bible that homosexual acts are sinful. Old and New Testament alike share this conviction. If you don’t like the rules laid down by God, take it up with the one who wrote the rulebook.

In the last few weeks God has been showing me that the order things happen in the Bible is very important. Vitally so.

This was driven home to me tonight when I was talking with my wife. God dropped the 23rd Psalm into my mind, bringing it back to my remembrance so to speak.

Recently we’ve been through something of a battle. I won’t go into details here, but the battles we’ve been fighting have been life-threatening, literally. Our finances and health have been rocked, and we have been tempted to give up our faith as the onslaught has continued, although we haven’t given in to that temptation. It has felt like we have literally and figuratively been walking through the shadow of the valley of death.

This has taken a heavy toll on us emotionally. We’re tired and broken and some days it feels like this journey through the valley will never end.

Then Psalm 23 came to me. Specifically the order of the psalm.

In verse 4, we walk through the valley of the shadow of death. God guides us with His rod, correcting us as we move forward through the valley; and protects us with His staff, the primary tool of a shepherd to keep his flock safe from predators that would try to devour them. We have seen this in a very practical way. From the way job opportunities for me opened up from nowhere, to provision to manage our financial worries by professionals whose advice and assistance we could never have hoped to afford being given to us for nothing by those professionals. Legal and medical advice from experts at the top of their fields being placed around us to guide our steps who we could not have approached, or even known of a few short months ago. God has guided our steps at every turn.

Then comes verse 5.

God prepares a table before us in the presence of our enemies.

I used to think that was referring to Heaven. Tonight it hit me: we won’t have enemies in Heaven to prepare a table in front of. The Contemporary English Version translates the verse by saying “You treat me to a feast, while my enemies watch.” A feast. Bounty. Plenty. Abundance. In the presence of our enemies. That can only refer to this world, this life. In the life beyond this one, no matter whether you believe it’s Heaven, a re-created Earth or something in between, there will be no sin, and therefore no enemy to set the feast before.

As Christians, we need to move away from the recent concept that has been taught in some denominations that we must wait for the next world to see Victory manifest. Each of the great men of faith through the last 2000 years has held fast to the conviction that Victory comes in this world. We feast at a table God places before us in our enemy’s presence. Peter walked in a powerful anointing of God’s Spirit, and saw healings and miracles following in his wake. Recently, men like Smith Wigglesworth saw healings and miracles which have been documented by independant witnesses. A “Feast” of God’s Power working through them. Each of them had great hardship in their lives before seeing God’s power work to turn their past experiences into powerful testimonies of His Grace in their lives.

Paul writes that Faith, Hope and Love endure eternally. The promised feast gives us Hope, which allows Faith to grow, because He Loves us.

The order remains, however. Be strong, because after the Valley comes the Feast!

I’ve been looking at things from a worldly perspective for too long. I realised this a few months ago, and with that came the lightning bolt that told me I had to make a change.

My wife, whom I love very dearly, is seriously ill. This has been going on since March, and whilst I’ve been writing here about health and prosperity I couldn’t understand what was going on in my own life. Her health has deteriorated despite my belief and prayers that I know God’s atonement buys us healing. Our finances have been depleted massively, we lost our business, and for several months now we have been largely supported by our family, despite knowing God’s plan was different than our reality.

In short I have felt for months like I was drowning, which is a big part of why it’s been a few weeks since I wrote here.

Then I found a recording online by Andrew Wommack that I used to have a few years ago about becoming a “water walker”.

I’ve been meditating on this for several weeks now, and as I started to really listen to it with my heart instead of my ears things started to change.

Drowning is not a pleasant experience. A few years ago while I was at the beach with some friends we swam out to a buoy in the sea and back. It was great fun, and so a few hours later – after the tide had been coming in for some time – we swam out again. Unfortunately for me, I was too fat and unhealthy (and stubborn) to make it now the distance was almost twice what it was the first time we made the trip. The tide was against me, and by the time I was alomst at the buoy I knew I was in trouble. Not enough strength to turn back, and the shoreline getting further from me. Somehow I made it to the buoy, but barely had the strength to hold on to it.

I knew I was going to die.

Thankfully, the friends I was with also realised this. They were able to get the attention of a lifeguard stationed on the beach with a boat. They helped me hold on to the buoy, then get my terminally exhausted self into the boat. By the time they got me in to it I’d taken more than one breath with my face in the water. It was not good.

Emotionally this year has been much the same as that afternoon on the beach. Over my head, and no possibility of saving myself.

Peter had that experience in Matthew 14. The waves were swamping the boat, the disciples were drowning, and Jesus noncholantly walks towards them on top of the very thing killing them. Peter did something I didn’t fully grasp until I really listened with my Heart to Andrew’s teaching on the passage.

Peter called to Jesus, and walked on the water to Him. I always remembered that Peter sank. I always remembered that Peter failed. It never occurred to me that Peter had walked most of the distance to Jesus before he started to sink, but when Jesus took his hand there is no indication that Jesus then slung Peter over his shoulder to get back to the boat. Jesus and Peter walked back.

Peter refocussed on Jesus and was able to walk again on the very thing that would otherwise kill him. As soon as I began to understand this, and I in no way claim that I’ve got it completely nailed, things began to change. I got out of the boat.

In my last post I touched on this. Doors began to open for me that ought to be closed here. I am a white, male, mono-lingual immigrant to South Africa. I should be unemployable. God has opened doors according to my faith in Him. As my understanding of how God works has increased and I have been able to stop limiting His power in me in certain areas of my life.

More accurately, I have begun to understand that it is not so much that I need more faith, but that I need to have less unbelief. Peter didn’t stop believing in Jesus’s power to let him walk on water, but he allowed his fears and doubts to overwhelm him as he saw the wind and the waves again. As I have focussed on Him again, Jesus has lifted me up and empowered me as I have allowed Him to.

It is almost impossible to lift yourself out of a bad situation. Especially when you’re drowning. But God can. One word from God can lift you out of your circumstances and place you on top of them. We are more than conquerors by His strength. No circumstance, no matter how desperate, can overcome the power He has made available to us. We can be Water Walkers in His strength.

For the last month God has been restoring hope in my life. Since the end of March, my focus has been somewhat skewed by the swipes the enemy has fired at my family.

Since March we have been under a constant attack which has seen our health and finances decimated by the enemy’s attacks. In the last month we have seen the tunnel come to an end and the light begin to filter in again.

Daniel had to wait for the answer to his prayers for 21 days when the enemy withstood the angel carrying the answer. Sometimes we end up having to do the same.

Jesus promised that everyone who asks receives – no exceptions. Everyone. But we often find that we limit God because of where we look for the answers.

From March to early July that’s what I was doing. I was looking for God to Bless my efforts. I did what looked right to me, and then asked Him to make it successful. Now don’t misunderstand what I’m saying here. Sometimes we can reach a place where we are so focussed on God that this behaviour is the exact way to do it. But mostly we do our own thing, and ask God to turn it into His thing.

I realised this in mid-July, and changed my prayer. I asked Him to show me where He had planned for my growth and sustenance, and to guide me in where I should go and what I should do. It took a while for this realisation to get from my head to my heart, and then praying became easier, and answers started to come from unexpected places.

I am a white, male, able-bodied, mono-lingual Englishman living in South Africa at a time when that combination makes it hard in the natural to find employment. This is not necessarily a bad thing after the atrocities my adopted country has witnessed through the decades of Apartheid, but it makes things less friendly in a work environment than they could be. My applications were rarely even acknowledged, and when they were it was always “we are sorry, but…”

Since my heart changed, God has opened doors where I didn’t expect to find them. I was blessed by a local businessman who offered me employment as an assistant manager in his business. I have been working there now for a month and finding it incredibly satisfying and fulfilling. I did feel that I should follow up on some of the other applications I had submitted, and out of the blue on following up on one application I had made weeks before I was invited to interview, follow up and aptitude tests, then offered a position with one of the largest businesses in the country! The paths have opened up for me to move there, and all since I changed my heart and started to ask God to direct my steps.

Blessings come from all sides and in many different shapes. We need to recognise that the ways that look right to us might be God’s plan, but in a different route than we expect.