I’ve been re-watching a favourite series of mine for the last couple of weeks, Boston Legal. I enjoyed it immensely a decade ago when it first aired, and now I find I’m actually the age of the younger central protagonist I’m enjoying it even more.

One of the episodes is entitled “Schadenfreude” and centres a storyline around a younger woman accused of murdering her older (much older) husband. The closing argument, typically the highlight of the show, consists of James Spader’s character – the lawyer Alan Shore – delivering a momentous closing argument and (usually) saving the day.

This episode stuck in my mind and I found it striking a chord in me. The sum of the argument was that as humans we love to have celebrities, but more than that – we love it when they are brought down. We build them up only so we can bring them back down to our level, or better, below us.

I think of the number of people this has happened with in the last few years. Lindsay Lohan, Britney Spears, Charlie Sheen, Mel Gibson, and many more have fallen from grace and been unable (so far) to get back into our graces again for all their efforts – not in most cases because they need the money. Most celebrities who fall have a few million stashed away nicely from their earlier projects or from ongoing royalties from sales. Why should any actor be paid upwards of $5,000,000 for making a movie?

The answer is simple. We idolise them. As a result we flock to see their latest work and pay exorbitant amounts of money for a box of popcorn you could make at home for less that $1 – including the petrol to and from the store. This generates income and the actors demand a slice of it. The Marvel movies over the last few years have generated income now measured in the billions, and the actors are (allegedly) paid many millions for their work.

But the thing is, we idolise them.

They become our distraction, our refuge, our safe-place.

Like it or not, they become our gods.

Think about it for a second or two. Many more people go to a movie on a Sunday afternoon than went to church in the morning. And those who went to church for the large part pay more for a movie ticket, jumbo popcorn and a large soda than they left in the offering.

Tell me how that’s different from the worship of Ba’al or Jupiter or Zeus?

We work so we can have enough money to meet our needs and be comfortable, then we go beyond comfort into luxury. Now I have no problem with the wealthy per se, but it’s how that wealth is gained and what is done with it when we have it that’s the issue.

We inherently know we must not create a false idol, and I think that’s why we relish the fall of these celebrities so much. Then we, who created them in the first place, tear them down so we can build another in their place.

And we love to see them fall.

That’s Schadenfreude, and it’s nod Godly.

Herod was guilty of it. He was afraid of the fame John the Baptist achieved, and what Jesus was achieving. His wife demanded John’s head. His people in the court demanded Jesus be condemned. And Herod obliged.

We do the same. Most of the younger movie-going public who will see “Iron Man” and the other movies are too young to remember when Robert Downey Jr was always the guy getting arrested and jailed. I’m happy for him that he’s sober now, but I worry about us.

There’s a place for movies, and even celebrity, as long as we can separate from ourselves the desire to see fame bring someone down.

We even see this desire more in church.

A few years ago there was a spate of leaders in major churches or ministries who fell. Last year we saw it again with the whole Ashley Madison debacle. There’s nothing the World loves more than a fallen celebrity – except a fallen Christian celebrity.

And we are more susceptible to it in the church than we’d like to admit.

The noise that was made when Kevin Prosch stumbled in the mid 90s was only drowned out by the calling for his blood – not repentance. I read a lot of articles about his fall. I know several churches that refused to then use any music he’d written, and one extreme place that refused to play any song he was known to have played. The leaders – not always the Elders in the church, but the influential members – whipped up others of like mind and got their wishes. Then they relished it until they could find someone new to tear down.

Personally, I respected Prosch for his repentance and I have no problem with music he wrote then or continues to today because frankly it’s the heart of the worshipper that matters, not the mind of the composer.

In the last ten years there have been many people fall from grace in the public eye, particularly in the music industry, who were put in the position of idol by the very people who then called for their blood later.

And I can’t think of one person I’ve met who didn’t gossip about the fall of at least one celebrity. Whether we want to admit it or not, there is a part in us that derives satisfaction, even pleasure from the downfall of the famous. Usually the ones who actually didn’t do anything we haven’t done ourselves.

We need to be better than this.

I certainly do.

I’d bet the vast majority of people who read this have cheered at least once when someone we saw as unworthy fell. I’m not talking about Saddam and Bin Laden here. I mean an actor or singer. There was recognition of the tragedy of Heath Ledger and what a loss, but there were those who also said he’d asked for it by living that lifestyle. What lifestyle? The one we gave him. And so many others.

But we give these celebrities their status. Some are famous, some have infamy because of unscrupulous behaviour in business gaining vast fortunes personally before having their company file for bankruptcy and starting another, only to repeat the cycle. Some have celebrity because they have genuine talent that got twisted into something commercial and glorified them rather than their creator. Some are lauded because they are simply related to someone else who is famous.

However they get there, at the final count it’s us that put them there. Some will find a way to hold up under the pressure and be genuinely nice people. Others not so much.

I had the opportunity some years ago to work at a tenpin bowling centre in Torquay, England. During the time I was there the local theatre had several plays and pantomimes run, and often after a long week the cast would come up after the Saturday evening show and play. Consequently, those of us working had the chance to see the cast out of “celebrity” mode (sometimes) and interact with them as human beings. One evening a tall guy came up to the front door and I buzzed it open as the manager behind me called that he was the first of the group from the theatre. He thanked me and the manager came out and the three of us chatted for a while, asked how the run had been and if they’d had good audiences and so forth. Just three guys talking about a week at work. The rest of the group arrived and the tall guy, Colin, went off to play. We locked the doors and I cashed up my till, then went out to help on the floor. As I did, there was Colin standing playing pinball in the arcade. And I realised that the photo on the pinball machine was his face as well. This was Colin Baker who a few years before had played The Doctor in Doctor Who on the BBC, and had been one of my favourite programs at the time. But he was so normal. Just another guy chatting about his job then going to throw 16 pounds of bowling ball down a lane at some pins.

Not all my encounters were as real as that, but that one stuck. I used to be awed by the “big name” speaker at conferences as well. I got cured of that by Mike Yaconelli in 1991 when I nervously asked him to sign the copy of his book I’d just bought. Everyone had these dumb-looking pens with them that years that had been given out free by someone. Just a single use pen with a blob of fuzzy cotton and eyes on the lid. I handed book and pen to him and asked him to sign, tripping over my tongue, and apologised muttering I was nervous. He looked at me, put his hand on my shoulder and said “I’d be nervous if I were built like you and had to use this pen!” It shattered the nerves I’d felt and reminded me that this man of God was also a man like me.

That’s what we need to remember.

The people we elevate and worship for their talent be it singing, acting, preaching, writing or anything else you can think of are only flesh and blood. Just like us.

The only difference between me as the writer of this blog and anyone who reads it is the place we are at in our individual walk with Christ. I read articles and books by men like Jesse Duplantis, Andrew Wommack, Dave Duell, John Eldredge, Max Lucado and many others just like any other person might read them. I am taught and inspired by these authors, just like any other reader. Iron sharpens iron, and we have a duty to sharpen one another, to keep our hearts honed for God. Any writer who publishes a blog, an article, a book or any other kind of material is simply someone called to do so by God. Not everyone has the same gifts. Not everyone is an administrator or a counsellor or a helper, but everyone has something of infinite value to contribute to the Body of Christ.

We place men on a pedestal at our own peril in the church. Sooner or later that spot will need to be filled, and you might just be the one called to fill it.

So don’t wait at the foot of the podium for the guy on top to fall so you can devour him and shred his reputation. Rather support the platform he’s standing on and allow him the space to be human by extending Grace towards him the way Christ offers it to us.

And walk away from schadenfreude.

“I have squandered my resistance

For a pocket full of mumbles, such are promises
All lies and jests
Still a man hears what he wants to hear
And disregards the rest“

Over the last few weeks I’ve been doing something I normally avoid as much as possible.

I’ve been reading the news.

There’s a reason I avoid it normally. Frankly it’s because there’s enough stress and depression in any given issue to make the vulnerable suicidal.

One of the things I’ve been reading about is Donald Trump. He seems to be ubiquitous at the moment. There is simply no escaping articles written about him by his supporters, his critics, his campaign staff, his opponents from the Republican party, his opponents from the Democratic party and the satirical caricatures by most of the cartoonists based anywhere in the world.

I’m going to say something now that will probably make about 50% of people reading this want to stop. Please don’t.

Donald Trump is not the problem.

(There go the Democrats)

The problem is the system that allowed someone with such obvious character flaws to be in a position where he becomes a viable contender for the (arguably) most powerful job post in the world.

I’ve had a couple of online discussions – in the loosest possible sense of that word – about the process. They normally end up with me being told “You’re not American, what does it have to do with you anyway?”

There have been articles praising him for being a straight talker published one day and quotes of his utter gibberish the next.

But somehow he’s winning over much of the electorate in the USA.

He’s declared the Bible to be his favourite book but shown remarkably little knowledge of it when pushed on the subject. He states he has great respect for people of faith, then proposes banning 1.6 billion people from entry to the US because they are Muslim.

Obviously as a Christian writer I’m not going to say I think Islam is right. But I’m also not going to say anyone should ban an entire third of the population of the planet based on their religion from doing or going about lawful business. Let’s face it, the Grand Canyon and Niagara Falls are no more impressive because you’re a Western Christian than they would be if you are a middle-eastern Muslim. A canyon is still a canyon.

Imagine the outcry internationally if a potential leader of Egypt proposed monitoring the movements of Christians within their own borders and refusing to allow tourists in to see the pyramids because they were not Muslim.

The problem, like I said, is the system that created Donald Trump.

In Frankenstein, the monster becomes too strong and kills its creator. Dr Jekyll creates Edward Hyde and the persona destroys the good man.

Many works of fiction have similar themes. Even the Marvel movies of recent years show it.

It’s fine in fiction, but art imitates life. It always has. Look at the Sistine Chapel and consider the artistry there. Michaelangelo includes a self-portrait in one section of his own flesh being held on the day of Judgement. He was a product of his time, what we now call the Renaissance. A time when science and religion were not seen as being enemies the way they are today, and people realised science is itself an art.

But today we have a reality that changes too fast for society to keep up. What was unthinkable a generation ago is commonplace today. It’s only 112 years since the Wright brothers flew under power for the first time in December 1903. In that time there have been two World Wars, the rise and fall of Communism and the entry of the “digital” age.

Western society has changed as rapidly as technology. And like technological change, it’s not always been for the better.

Which brings us back to the title of this entry: What’s the Problem?

America was founded after the revolution rejected taxation without representation in the British Parliament which answered to the king. The wealthiest men and women for the most part were the ones who came in early enough to have vast swathes of land in the New World. Many of them became the leaders of the rebellion and the founders of what became the USA.

But I’m sure you know this.

In the 240(ish) years since the Declaration of Independence was recognised and the British surrendered the society that Washington first led and was fine tuned by Lincoln after the Civil War has changed dramatically.

The modern system reflects the values of the day. It’s truly frightening when hate-speech and back-stabbing are what make an individual a viable candidate for the office. And no, this time I’m not just referring to Trump. Individuals who claim to represent the views of the party they are members of descend to the level of street fights and personal attacks rather than policies that they believe would better serve their electorate.

And that’s the problem.

Over the last 40 years Western society has been led by the American way. The country that once was a moral compass for the world in many ways, trying to give freedom and security and prosperity to everyone became self-centred. It happened while Reagan was President and Thatcher was PM in England. Looking out for yourself first became the motto to live by. Greed is good was the understanding, and society began to decay.

Trump is the natural outcome of that thought process. So is Clinton.

The problem is actually very simple, and one we need to look at as Christians.

The problem is that today politicians are in it for themselves. They look to gain power for selfish ambition and greed rather than the greater good.

Jesus said to be the leader we needed to become servant to all. He demonstrated it by wrapping a towel round His waist and washing the feet of all 12 disciples – ever notice that Judas Iscariot was included? He went on to open His arms to embrace anyone who would come to Him, and (to paraphrase Max Lucado) to show He’d never close His arms He had them nailed open.

Leadership used to be a burden. Heavy is the head that wears the crown was accurate. Today we see increasingly “leaders” who are openly corrupt and care nothing about who they stand on to reach the top and what they do to stay there. The young idealist who led the resistance in Rhodesia has become the tyrant that bankrupted the country as Zimbabwe. The sacrifice and selflessness of Mandela has been overthrown by the corruption (allegedly) of Zuma in South Africa. The hopes of JFK in his speech asking citizens to ask what they can do for their country have been shattered in the years since 1963.

Persecution is on the rise in the West, and dismissed by the media because it takes a different form in America than it does in Iraq and Syria. It’s ignored by the church as well, and many organisations founded during the evangelical rise of the 60s and 70s have been caught up in the wave of “prosperity gospel” teachings that focus on personal gain not Salvation.

I used to watch the TV show “Angel” regularly. In it, the antagonists say that the final apocalypse has already begun, not some huge battle fought openly but rather evil quietly chipping away at humanity and destroying it by undermining it. Maybe not the most theologically sound show, but the point stands nonetheless.

Satan wants us to forget he exists. When we do, there appears to be no need for Salvation. The most liberal say we must forgive every time, but make no call for actual repentance. Instead we get half-hearted (if that) pseudo-apologies from the “leaders” caught in borderline criminal activities and let them carry on to go straight back to what they were doing. If there’s no devil then the argument must be made that everyone goes to heaven and there’s no concept of Hell. Religion has replaced Faith and no longer needs the Holy Spirit. Our leaders do not feel accountable to a higher power.

And we bought into it because it’s an easy way to live.

That’s the Problem.

Something I was asked recently got me thinking about a talk I heard quite a number of years ago now.

The question: “What makes you think God will use you and Eagle’s Wing Ministries? I mean, who are you? Noboy’s ever heard of you!”

This is a condensed summary of the conversation points that followed the enquiry…

Firstly, I need to acknowledge that the person asking the question was right. Outside the few good folks who have written to me or the majority of other good folks who visit this blog and never post a comment or contact me directly I guess nobody ever heard of me.

Frankly I think that’s not a bad thing.

There are advantages to personal anonymity. There’s a reason I have a logo for this site and the ministry isn’t my own name. Actually there’s a couple:

• I don’t want my face to be what people remember
• The vision I had for this ministry is bigger than just me

Basically I’m actually not important. I don’t mind if people forget my name or even if they met me as long as anything they got from any message on this site or at a service where I spoke or in an abstract random personal conversation that touched their heart with something from God stuck with them and blessed them.

I first had the vision for Eagle’s Wing Ministries to be a resource for the Church over 20 years ago. The thought scared the daylights out of me so I tried to ignore it, put it off and forget about it. But God has a habit of keeping nudging you to do what He’s called you to do.

What scares me is actually the thought of being “famous” for being a Christian. I’ve seen several leaders have their ministries torn apart because they made a single mistake. And I’m not referring to anything as crazy as the whole “Ashley Madison” epidemic last year. A single mis-filed receipt shut down one ministry I knew of with charges of tax evasion. Another leader lost his ministry when it was found out he’d had an affair – several years earlier and before he gave his life to Christ.

I have no desire for fame. It can become infamy too easily and lead to pride and jealousy. Any second now and start talking like Yoda I will…

That being said, I refuse to try to hide anything from my past. I’ve made mistakes, and since I became a Christian at the age of 13 most of them have been made since I became a Christian. Anything outside my own mind is open for scrutiny from others, and my thoughts are criticised harshly by myself, so as far as my past goes I’m covered.

I also expect I will make mistakes going forward. I’m not perfect and I don’t expect I will escape change as I get older an learn more. In fact, I’ll be alarmed if I don’t change over time. My best example thus far is my categorical statement in 1997 to a friend that I would “never set foot in Africa”. By 2003 I was living in Cape Town.

Things change.

The biggest thing that stopped me from doing anything related to this thing we call “ministry” was that first part of the question.

Why would God use me?

It’s a fair question. I had no theological training when I felt God call me, and I still have never been to seminary. My degree is in business and my work experience in customer service for the most part.

So why would God use me?

Then I thought of this guy I’d heard of a while back. He was a nobody, just an ordinary guy running his own business to put food on the table for his family. He worked with a couple of other guys and together they did ok. Loved their families, were good providers.

Then one day he had an encounter with God and everything changed for him. He went into ministry full time eventually and had a massive impact on the town he lived in, and then the area surrounding it. Eventually he had a ministry that impacted the world.

Just an ordinary guy. With a fishing boat on the Sea of Galilee.

Peter. Just an ordinary guy.

Just like any of the rest of us. Why would God use Peter? He wasn’t a great leader when Jesus met him. He wasn’t an orator or Rabbi. He had a knack for opening his mouth to change feet. He denied Christ.

But when the chips finally came down, there was just one quality that Peter had that every Christian leader in history has had.

He was available.

It’s as simple as that.

But being available isn’t easy. Like I said already, it’s over 20 years since I felt the pull to create Eagle’s Wing Ministries. I was very enthusiastic at first. I registered the domain name on this “new” thing called the internet – there was no “Facebook” back then and the most common search engine was “Altavista” as far as I know. I registered, developed what I felt was the plan to move forward and then started with the doubt.

I let the domain name lapse and the concept became a dusty file in the back of my desk. I met a girl and just as I began selling insurance for a living and we got engaged. We had a very intense few months and then I stopped selling insurance and went to work for an agency employed by Directory Enquiries in England. I lost that job at the end of the initial training period and by the end of the week the girl had broken off the engagement. My dad got cancer a few weeks later and died just a few months after that.

And I stopped being available for use by God. I moved church the week before my dad died and I just sat for some time. I needed to heal emotionally and Spiritually. Both of these are a work in progress!

But some time after I met the lady who became my wife I learned to be available again. This time without the “I can do this” mentality that I realise now was what stopped me before. The domain name had long since been taken by another group so I did a search for variations and came up dry. Then I looked for the original name again. http://www.eagleswingministries.org – and it had become available again! So I re-purchased the name and began this blog.

This time I determined I would not quit unless God specifically showed me I should.

In the first four months of blogging I think I had a total of about 30 hits. Then it crawled up and reached about 30 a week, then levelled out. For over a year I kept writing and a few people each month read what I offered. Then suddenly about mid 2015 something unexpected happened. I had 1500 hits in a month. I couldn’t believe it. There’s not been a month below 1900 hits since and most have been well over 2000.

I realised I had shown myself to be available.

I may not be the world’s greatest writer, I know this. My insights are drawn from the spiritual battlefield I’ve been fighting on for 30 years not from some dusty book in a sterile university environment, but by getting my hands dirty and doing what nobody else could do the way God had put in me to do it.

So I write. Sometimes I counsel informally.

But mostly I befriend broken and hurting human beings. I offer them what I have to give, a touch from God through words and actions.

Anyone can do it. You hear of a single mother who lost her job and needs to feed her child so you give her groceries and help her find another job. A complete stranger for no reason starts telling their life story of how they were abused as a child and have been raped as an adult more than once, so you become the ear she’s been looking for, someone to tell her (or him) that it wasn’t her fault.

But we’re human too.

I have a nasty temper. I get angry easily – especially if the wronged party is a friend or a child. There’s nothing wrong with that. It’s what we do with that anger that ultimately defines us. When I was younger I didn’t get in fights often because people refused to engage physically against me. My temper – which I’m told may be hereditary – is both sudden and violent rage. When I see it coming I can channel it into some very effective prayer. Mostly it catches me off guard and I blow up at people I love and care deeply for. I can count on one hand the number of people who have seen me a bit angry, but at this time in my life there’s nobody who’s present who has seen what I know I’m capable of.

And it scares me.

I spend much time running on fear and anger and not enough on Joy and Love as Jesus bought for us, but like I said before, I’m a work in progress.

We all are.

Pick a sin. We all have them. Lust, greed, idolatry. The list is long but it allows me to make sense of myself and my situation.

We are a people who fall short of being capable of receiving love. It’s unhealthy.

But God doesn’t look for the capable. He looks for the available.

I have a friend who I used to work with who is going through a very tough time right now. I feel responsible because I was put in a position where legally I had no choice but to fire her from the job she loved and – once she arrived – she was exceptionally good at. She’s a single mum who is searching for God. She even came to church with my wife and myself a few weeks ago and was touched by the Holy Spirit. Today she told me she wants to come again with us because the last time was so very meaningful for her. The punchline to this is that the service she joined us for I had wanted to crawl under my seat and disappear in because I didn’t think it was a “good” service for someone who was coming for the first time.

Just shows how wrong we can be about something.

Moses felt he couldn’t speak well. Peter denied Christ. Paul had concerns at the start because he’d overseen the stoning of Stephen. I’m prepared to guess that the nicknames “Sons of Thunder” wasn’t given to James and his brother John because they were calm and level headed.

I once read a business appraisal of the character traits of the 12 disciples as if they were being considered for a CEO post. The only one who fitted what the average business in the World looks for was Judas Iscariot. Yes, the article was satirical in nature, but it also as written by a CEO who had become a Christian. I have a degree in Business Management, not Theology, and my education and experience tells me that the writer was right in more cases than he would be wrong.

Various times over the years I’ve seen companies put Shakespeare into a modern setting, both in cinema by setting his words into modern dress (think Romeo+Juliet with Leonardo Di Caprio) and borrowing the storyline (West Side Story), as well as modern dress performances of Hamlet, MacBeth and Henry IV (part 1) at assorted theatres over the years. It works.

But I’ve never seen a production of the story of the life of Jesus that felt real when brought into the modern scene. I don’t doubt that Jesus would be rejected by the majority of established dogmas wrapped in the cloak of a denomination. He would be seen as subversive and divisive by the establishment, both secular and religious – and they’d be right.

But there is something about the story that needs Jesus to be in 1st Century Jerusalem. God could have picked any time after the last prophet to place Jesus into the world. He picked that time because the right people to form the foundation of the Church were there. It wasn’t an accident.

The people He chose were all available. Only Paul had a theological background, and he spent the first few years before he stepped out on his journeys sitting at the feet of an Elder of the Church being taught. He had to un-learn everything he thought he knew.

But he was available. He based his life on two questions: “Who are you?” and “What do you want me to do?”

Paul was an ordinary guy. So was Peter.

So are you and I.

Be available. Let God have the ability.

With apologies to anyone expecting the Salvation Army’s newsletter I’m finding myself needing to write this.

My Grandad – Dad’s Dad – and his wife were both Salvation Army Officers during World War 2. In fact that’s how they met and so blame the Sally Army for the existence of this blog!

Grandpa – Mum’s Dad – was a soldier and took part in the Africa campaign under Montgomery and the D-Day invasion of Normandy.

Both were men of honour and valour. Both were warriors in their own way.

Grandad was refused enlistment at the beginning of th war because he was classified as a Christian Minister – at that point it was considered an essential part of the defence of Great Britain to maintain a strong Spiritual connection with God through the Church and it’s activities. He was disappointed not to have the chance to fight as he believed it was his duty as a Christian to take up arms against the Nazi forces that had marched across Europe in their blitz of the continent.

Grandpa was an officer, rose to the rank of Major before the end of the war, and spoke very little about what he’d experienced afterwards. His wife’s brothers were all pilots, and the two I knew who were alive when I was born had a myriad of tales about life in the RAF Bomber Command squadrons and their exploits. They didn’t have the scars Grandpa had – they knew they had killed, but it was at a distance. Among other things I found out Grandpa had been a motorcycle outrider, going out ahead into potentially hostile territory to scout the path for the troops to take. Any killing he was involved in was far more personal.

How does this connect to God?

I recently read an article that put Easter into a different light for me. Don’t get me wrong, it was the climax of Christ’s Ministry on Earth in physical form and paved the way for the Holy Spirit and reconciliation with God. But it made me realise something else.

This World we live in, all the green and blue, oceans and deserts and mountains and prairies, is actually a war zone. If you go to Normandy in France you can still see the German defence posts and the landing piers the Allies brought at the beaches. I’ve been there several times and it has always hit me how nobody sees the struggle even when the physical signs are around them. It’s past and gone seems to be the attitude.

A few people most years are killed in the Somme Valley in France exploring the battlefields left from the first world war. There are live shells that failed to go off, ammunition and grenades littering the parks. Some have been defused and are sold as souvenirs (or were 30 years ago when I bought mine). I’m not sure how UK Customs would respond to me trying to bring these artefacts back from South Africa now would respond. Seeing a shell casing, rifle grenade and hand grenade in my luggage on the x-ray would probably not go down well after the recent attacks in Brussels, so if I return to the UK later this year – which is a possibility – I may have to leave some of my most treasured items here. (I use the defused shell as a doorstop and the grenades make excellent paper-weights on my desk) People see the souvenir defused shells in the shop and think the ones on the fields are there for decoration. One mis-directed kick and BOOM! 100 years later the First World War is still claiming lives.

It’s an obvious place where the ravages of war are obvious, but how does your church look? Do you even know you are called to a War more deadly and definitive than any human conflict?

Probably not.

When Jesus hung on the Cross on Good Friday, the Lion of Judah’s Roar was “It Is FINISHED”. Now to us that sounds like “The End”, but actually it was like the capturing of the Normandy beaches. The Germans were beaten, even Hitler knew it, but thousands of casualties died and were crippled on both sides in the following months between June 6th 1944 and VE Day the following year. The war was won but the soldiers on the ground still had to fight to take the primary enemy stronghold back.

It’s the same in our Faith.

The Cross was D-Day. The outcome of the war is inevitable. Christ has taken captivity captive and holds the keys to sin and death, but there is work to be done on the battlefield. The enemy is at work influencing politics, economics, education, healthcare, agriculture and every other aspect of our lives on a daily basis. He influences men who don’t even realise they are in a battle or that there is a battle to fight.

So Jesus commissions generals to lead His army. Initially it’s the disciples, but the appoint others – Paul being the most obvious – to carry on the work. The fight is taken from the beachhead of Calvary to the rest of the World by these foot-soldiers.

By us.

But we don’t realise the battle we’re fighting. And we forget the weapons we have, or worse we’ve never known we had them.

Five days ago I had a bad fall at home. I was told in 1999 I had elevated blood sugar levels (I don’t know the US measurements so forgive me for using the British/South African ones). My blood sugar after a ten hour fast was 20mmol. It should have been no more than 5mmol. My HbA1C which measures glycaemic control over the preceding 3 month period showed my average sugar levels had been between 16mmol and 30mmol. It should be between 4mmol and 6mmol. I was told it was definitive – diabetes. The illness left untreated would take me by inches. My toes, my sight, kidney failure were the future I was given to look forward to. I already had loss of sensation in my feet back then.

In the fall, my right foot got caught on a loose thread and ripped the nail off my big toe completely.

I didn’t feel it. The first indication was the realisation I was spreading blood across the floor.

But what’s this to do with God?

One fruit of the Spirit is Health. Since I was able to begin to assimilate that for myself a miracle has happened. The progression has all but completely halted. My nerves are damaged and I struggle to accept that Christ has paid the price for the  healing, so they stay numb and I get infections from time to time. It’s easier to pray and see healing for other people than it is for myself. I don’t know your past and the enemy can’t convince me you don’t deserve complete healing so I pray and people trust God to do the rest.

Another fruit is prosperity. The modern church – especially in affluent areas of South Africa – has a problem with affluent ministries and churches that don’t instantly give away to less affluent areas. Prosperity, thanks to damaging press and misrepresentation over the last few years where a few individuals lined their own pockets, has got a bad name. But prosperity is essential for the spread of the Gospel. If a church or ministry is to grow and touch lives, the harsh reality is it needs money to do it. God wants us to receive, not to use on individual selfish gain, but on the Work of the Kingdom. Over the next couple of months, Eagle’s Wing Ministries will be looking to expand into a printed magazine. This is not a decision taken lightly as it’s not cheap in South Africa to do that – especially when the vision for this ministry is that the Word of God will NEVER be witheld due to financial reasons. Much of what I understand today about my faith comes from other ministries who share this value who I first came into contact with when I had nothing and could afford nothing more than the food on my plate – and sometimes not even that.

Living like that does nothing to Glorify God. If anything it drives people away.

This ministry cannot grow without funding – and I stress at this moment that I am NOT asking for donations outright now as you read this. No guilt, No shame if you can’t. We have costs, quotes for the production of an initial run of 5000 magazines of “Eagle’s Eye” Magazine, a publication of Eagle’s Wing Ministries, which will contain teaching articles, testimonies and some stuff to make us laugh – sometimes wrapped up in a single piece! This vision will grow and expand. We want to include an online version of the magazine on the official website once it’s development allows it to go “live” soon.

A wise friend reminded me many years ago when I was in a desperate state for funds and God inspired me to do something that would be expensive during a quiet time. He phoned me and I had the nudge in my Spirit to answer the phone, not something I normally do when in that place, and he said “Dave I felt I needed to pray for you just now and God told me to call and tell you ‘When I place the order, I pay the bill‘. Can you please tell me what on earth that means?!”

God came through. I got a tax rebate in the post the following morning for exactly the amount I needed to do what God had asked of me that day. It’s over 20 years and some of the software I had to buy to be able to fulfil that vision is enabling me to begin to fulfil the vision for Eagle’s Eye Magazine. God’s gifts are long-lasting and reach beyond anything we can imagine at that moment.

We are at war.

The enemy will try to hide it with foggy issues. I’ve been watching the “X-Men” series of movies recently and seen how one character can call up a bank of fog to hide her approach. The enemy does that with us, blurring the real issues with torn toenails and restricted financial income, but if we can trust that He who began a good work in us will be Faithful to complete it, we will see results.

I often get told not to put God in a box. That my beliefs are too simple. But they’ve worked for 30+ years for me. If the Bible says I can get it, I can get it. If it doesn’t then I probably won’t. If I ask from selfish motives (which I do a lot) it doesn’t happen, but when my heart is lined up with God’s I’ve seen a 100% provision. Not a single miss in 30 years.

We were given a Battle Cry by Jesus on the Cross. a warning to His enemies and ours that the war was won and they would be defeated.

Take the step to do what you know God is calling you to do. My dad felt he could have been a minister and many people encouraged him to go into the ministry, but he died before he could find the strength to act on that calling. God called me to create EWM 20 years ago and I only took the step to start this blog 5 years ago. Now I get feedback from countries I’d never expected to reach and some I’d never heard of. It’s a tremendous blessing to be doing this work, and something if you know God has called you to do then step out.

We are wounded warriors, all of us. Whether we were raised in English Private schools on full bursaries (like I was) or through a “tree-church” in North Africa that can’t afford a roof is immaterial. We were called, like Esther, for such a time as this.

Shout the Battle Cry and follow Jesus Christ our General.

Let’s take this World and it’s values, conservative, liberal, radical, false religion, greed, misogyny and self-promotion for selfish ends and meet it head on with the unfiltered, unashamed power of the Holy Spirit in us.

I don’t care if you’re an American supporting Trump, Clinton, Cruz or Sanders. I don’t care if your beliefs have been shaken by the Nkandla scandal in South Africa. I don’t care where you are, be it Kenya, Myanmar, Cambodia, Vietnam, Burkina Faso, England, France, Switzerland or anywhere else. Our God is not a respector of persons. He doesn’t care who the “man” in charge is. He is the one with the Power ultimately.

Raise a rally cry.

Shout a War Cry to the World.

We’re coming – and there’s nothing you can do to stop us. No false religion, no “new-age” guru, no “humanistic” philosophy can hope to stand against the Will of God.

And a warning to the devil: Get out of the way. The CHURCH is rising up as an army. And you won’t see it coming.

Do Battle in Praise, no matter the circumstances. Give thanks to Jesus whatever it looks like in the natural eyes. Look through the eyes of your Spirit.

IT IS FINISHED!

The Roman soldiers guarding the tomb fell asleep at their posts. That’s what Matthew 28 says the Pharisees paid the soldiers who witnessed the angel opening the tomb to say.

And they did.

So what?

In Jesus’s day, for a Roman soldier to fall asleep on watch meant he would be killed. There were no second chances. The Roman army was ruthless and efficient, and no soldier would dare to admit falling asleep. They’d rather admit to being beaten – and beat each other to provide the injuries – before they’d admit being asleep. Especially if they hadn’t been.

The other Gospels don’t mention the soldiers. It’s possible, I suppose, that they were added for dramatic reasons by Matthew, but there seems little point. The drama is the Resurrection itself.

The Gospels were not written to amuse or provide drama for the readers. They were aimed at specific groups, certainly. Matthew’s was almost certainly aimed at the Jews. It is the longest of the synoptic accounts and goes deepest into Jewish Law. Luke’s Gospel on the other hand was most likely written for gentiles. Luke was probably the physician who travelled with Paul on his journeys and the man who penned Acts as well. Mark’s Gospel has the feel of an eyewitness testimony in a court. While living in England I served on jury duty several times and heard many testimonies from eye witnesses. It is possible that Mark’s Gospel may even have been written down by Mark based on what he was told by Peter.

John’s Gospel has a different feel to it. He wants us to recognise the enormity of the full meaning of what Jesus accomplished. It has the feel of an epic from classical times. John may have been familiar with the Iliad or the stories of Ulysses. Clearly he was well educated, his writing sophisticated and aimed at all believers, referring to Old Testament issues where necessary, but constantly showing that Jesus was about something completely new. His central theme is set out in the very first chapter. He chooses “In the beginning” as his opening. Any Jewish reader would instantly recognise that as the opening to Genesis. He seeks to demonstrate the full humanity and full deity of Jesus in one figure.

The one thing all four Gospels share beyond anything else is that they build up to a crescendo in the Resurrection of Jesus, and the rest of the writing is merely there to show what that event means for all humanity following them.

What it means for us.

For me.

For you.

The level of intimacy. The nature of compassion. Forgiveness.

God reuniting His Family by taking the judgement for us on Himself.

I’m not a father. I hope to be one day, but for now I can only imagine the passion, the ferocity with which I would fight to defend my children. I’d protect my wife with my last breath and I can’t imagine I’d do less for my child.

Easter has nothing to do with rabbits or eggs. The Last Supper didn’t include a chocolate mousse dessert as far as we know.

It is simply about God completing a work He began when He told the Serpent in Eden that while the serpent may bruise man’s heel, a Man would crush his head.

It is the father of the Prodigal Son running to welcome him home. To welcome all of us home.

I could write for ever about what Easter means hypothetically, hermeneutically and philosophically and it would mean nothing.

But I can also write and talk about what the Life of Jesus in me has done for me as a direct result of the Resurrection.

Look at any of my posts. I’m decidedly human and not trying to hide that behind politically correct phrases or pseudo-progressive attitudes is part of that.

Jesus changed my life, and what I see from the Gospels – the entire Bible in fact – is that He is a God who would have gone through all that He did even if I were the only soul that would ever be recovered by those actions and that sacrifice.

Or if you were.

If you’ve stumbled into this blog and you don’t have a relationship with Jesus but something has touched you then just ask Him in. Invite Him to come into your heart as Lord and Saviour today.

Find a local church that runs an “Alpha” group and go along. That course helps explain the Gospel in a way differently than I do here. I’ve been involved in Alpha and Youth Alpha courses several times as a leader and even people who have attended church their whole life have realised they needed more.

Jesus died for the sake of our relationship with God, and He rose again to seal it for eternity.

Don’t throw away that gift.

We know very little about the Saturday of Holy Week. The disciples had run, Jesus was in the tomb and the Pharisees were confident they had heard the last of this upstart from Nazareth.

But something was happening. Slowly perhaps during the day the disciples made their way back to the room they had been with Jesus in for the Last Supper.

I’m sure there was talk among them. The news of Judas Iscariot’s suicide, fear of the possible retribution the Romans or the Temple Guard might bring down on them and the inevitable “now what?”

It looked like nothing was happening.

I try to remember Saturday when I’m not seeing anything changing. The reality may be quite different.

Just as when Daniel prayed the second time he saw nothing for three weeks, the disciples see nothing now. We miss what God’s doing because it’s out of our direct line of sight.

Jesus was busy taking Death’s sting and claiming the keys of Hell on Saturday.

But the skies were silent. No Angelic choir singing about what was going on. The Priests would have led services at the Temple – after all, it was the Sabbath. It was quiet.

The deep still before the plunge.

By this point Satan knew what a mistake he’d made. Jesus’s death must have revealed to him exactly who He was. Had he known, Satan would never have incited the mob to murder Jesus. Yet if we look at the Old Testament it becomes clear. Satan must be a temporal being, travelling in time as we are, but he didn’t see the signs. He didn’t notice over the previous three years, starting with Jesus being baptised by John and His subsequent announcement in the synagogue recorded in Luke 4 that the Day of the Lord’s Favour had finally arrived.

He didn’t notice when John sent his followers to Jesus from prison to ask if He was indeed the Christ that Jesus answered with actions not words, healing the sick, restoring sight, forgiving sins and telling them to go back and tell John what they had seen.

As all the prophecies in the Prophets were fulfilled, Satan was blind to it.

We have this concept of Satan as this warrior figure, terrifying and huge, or powerful in a more subtle way. We think evil is Freddie vs Jason or maybe Gabriel Byrne in “End of Days”.

But Satan is a coward. “So submit to [the authority of] God. Resist the devil [stand firm against him] and he will flee from you.” (James 4:7 Amplified)

The battle is won. If we submit to God, all we need to do is stand firm against the devil and he will flee from us. Satan will run in screaming terror because we are now the Righteousness of God, clothed in Christ.

In CS Lewis’s “The Lion, The Witch and The Wardrobe”, the White Witch thinks she’s won firstly by taking the heart of Edmund, then by Aslan redeeming Edmund with his own life. If she’d understood the prophecies in Narnia that four human children would herald her demise she would have killed Edmund the day she met him. She was blinded in the story by her desire to eliminate all four children. Satan was blinded in trying to eliminate Jesus. In the fiction of Narnia, Lewis reflects the Truth of the Gospel. Jadis is undone by her own ambition, just as Satan is undone by his.

We can rely on the Gospel as we walk daily. We can claim the Name of Jesus in times of trouble. We are made co-heirs with Christ in the fullness of God’s riches.

On Saturday the disciples hadn’t realised it yet because they couldn’t see it.

But the Victory was won.

Our debt had been paid and we have been restored to God’s Family.

I’m an insomniac. My wife can attest to this. There are advantages to being awake when the world around me is snoring quietly. The biggest is it gives me a lot of time to think.

Now being alone with your thoughts isn’t always a good thing. I get set off down thought patterns which are ungodly and decidedly unhealthy sometimes. But most of the time it gives me a chance to then arrest those thoughts which, had they happened during the day, would have been left up in the air. Not being asleep gives me time to find my feet and take them to God, then let Him put my feet back on the Rock of Christ.

I like Peter in the Gospels. I can identify with him more than the others. Not because I expect to give a speech that brings thousands to Christ first time up – although I’m open to being used that way – but that’s the Peter of Acts.

I’m talking about the Peter who opens his mouth to change feet. The guy who rebukes Jesus for suggesting the Cross was coming. Mr Swordsman in the garden. The guy who looks at the boat, looks at Jesus walking on the water, realises he’s safer on the water with Jesus than sinking in the boat and then says “If it’s you…”

Peter is the face-palm guy of the disciples. John may have been the Disciple Jesus Loved, but Peter was the one who probably got the title “the one who made his eyes roll” – and I love that about him. He’s a very three dimensional character on paper. Peter in all the Gospels is portrayed with all his flaws intact. We remember “doubting” Thomas, but although he ran away, Thomas never denied knowing Jesus. Peter did.

Hang on a second…

Deep thought zone…

How do we know Peter denied Jesus? According to the stories he was alone, away from the others. Close enough to see what was happening with Jesus – more than we know about the others – but strangers talked to him and challenged him about knowing Christ.

How do we know about it?

None of the others were there to witness it. There’s only one way: Peter told them himself.

Maybe it was at the beach when Jesus asks him about how much he loves Him. Perhaps we don’t see Peter then explaining to the confused others why Jesus asked him 3 times.

But one thing we do know. The only way Peter denying Christ gets into the Gospels is by Peter admitting it.

Thursday of Holy Week is Peter’s day. Jesus sees the 12 arguing about who the best of them is and wraps a towel round his waist, picks up the water and does the servant’s job: He washes their feet. But it’s more than just the servant’s job. On the hierarchy of servants this guy is the one just below the bottom rung. His job is to wash the dirt, sand, camel-dung from the feet of the visitors. He probably wouldn’t even make eye contact with them.

But there’s Jesus. On His knees, washing feet.

Until He reaches Peter.

When He came to Simon Peter, he said to Him, “Lord, are You going to wash my feet?” Jesus replied to him, “You do not realize now what I am doing, but you will [fully] understand it later.” Peter said to Him, “You will never wash my feet!” Jesus answered, “Unless I wash you, you have no part with Me [we can have nothing to do with each other].” (John 13:6-8 Amplified)

Peter is horrified about Jesus taking this role. But Jesus reaches him. Peter goes on and asks Jesus to was his head and hands as well. Jesus explains that His disciples are already clean.

We can assume that Peter then lets Jesus wash his feet. Jesus takes the feet that Peter regularly uses to fill his own mouth and washes them.

From the manger in a stable in Bethlehem to the upper room in Jerusalem has been about 30 years, and Jesus is still not above any station. His example clearly reaches Peter and it should still reach us.

So Thursday was Peter’s day. He asked for a bath at the Last Supper then denied Jesus later that night before the rooster crowed.

We know something else about Peter from reading the rest of the book. He may have denied Jesus to save his own skin that night, but he never did again. He went back to the upper room. He sat with the others after the crucifixion, mourning. When the news of the empty tomb comes to them he runs to it to see. The Romans had posted guards at the tomb. If the women had been mistaken the guards would kill Peter as soon as look at him. Peter knows this. He runs.

A dignified Jew of the First Century didn’t run. It was beneath him. It’s something Jesus had highlighted in the story of the Prodigal Son, only this time it’s the son who throws his dignity away and runs.

Peter received forgiveness from Jesus over breakfast on the beach.

I received it in my bedroom in 1985 when I first asked Jesus into my life properly, consciously.

I like Peter.

I can identify with him.

Last year a man I would have liked to call “friend” but only met a couple of times, Dave Duell, went home to be with Jesus. His Facebook page asked for prayers for his recovery, but he went home anyway.

For personal reasons I won’t go into here I had desperately wanted to travel to Colorado and see Dave with my wife. His ministry had a profound impact on my life and I had been trying for two years to find a way to raise the funds to go and see him. It never happened, and that is something I am sorry about.

I first met him about 20 years ago – a timeline that scares me because I realise how old I am now – at a conference in England. He was ministering with Andrew Wommack and Wendell Parr at the “Grace and Faith” Convention. I arrived late – so late it was dark and the first meeting had begun – so I parked my car and went straight into the big top for the service.

Andrew delivered the message, a powerful one which met a need I had specific to that moment in my life and confirmed the call in my heart for what has now grown to be this blog, and has the intent to expand to produce a print magazine within the next few months. The week changed my life, especially my encounter with Dave.

Leaving the first meeting I fell over a rope holding up the tent. Dazed I looked up and this giant hand was extending towards me with a smile that lit up the darkness behind it. I took the outstretched hand and asked “Who’s that?” The answer I got was “It’s just your Uncle Dave”. We chatted for a few minutes, laughing at the way I’d fallen and how the guide ropes seemed to be designed to trip the unwary in the dark, and about how we’d been Blessed by the service that evening. Dave asked me if I was staying for the week, and when I said I was he invited me to find him the following morning. He said he liked to sit at the front – which suited me as I like to be towards the front of the service.

Not knowing who he was we hugged and went our way. I slept in my car – which I don’t recommend – as I couldn’t put up my tent in the dark. The following morning I went and met him at the front of the tent. He’d got a seat on the front row, and I snagged a seat right behind him. He hugged me again like an old friend. At this point I’d not met or heard of any of the speakers at the conference. I was there as a result of a prophetic word given on the Monday with the camp starting the following week. So I’d gone. He got very excited as I told him that, then the worship began.

Anointed would be an understatement. The sense of expectation of God’s Power and Presence was so thick the air was almost physically thick with it. After the worship the main speaker was introduced – Dave Duell. I was about to lean forward to ask my new friend if he’d heard this guy speak when he got up and walked onto the stage!

I was intimidated when I met other leaders by their reputation. The “who am I compared to them” syndrome we all suffer from. And it has nothing to do with who the speaker is, and everything to do with understanding who I am – or you are – in Christ. That was something I knew in theory but saw in practice and really understood that week for the first time.

God is not a respecter of persons. Our resume does not impress Him – He arranged it. What He looks for is a willing heart and individuals open to being used by the Holy Spirit.

In 31 years as a Christian, some of that time in church leadership, some as a member and some where I was “away” from organised meetings but still meeting with other believers I’ve never met a man more willing to be used and humble about it. That week I saw him pray for many people and every person – including myself – received what we had asked for. In my case it was finances, but I watched him pray for a young boy who had one leg about 2-3cm shorter than the other. As he prayed, God lengthened the short leg. Then as the youngster was short for his age Dave prayed again and one at a time, both his legs grew an extra inch in length.

Dave had a simple Faith. He understood that it wasn’t his reputation on the line so he simply stepped out. And miracles followed.

It’s taken 20 years for me to have the nerve to be ready to try to step out the way He did. Too long for me to have the chance to sit and learn from him in the field, but not too long to swallow my feelings of embarrassment and step out myself.

I’ve started small. I prayed for a friend who at the time was a new acquaintance and God gave me a word of Knowledge that allowed me to let Him forge what is now the closest friendship I have, a spiritual kinship in a way I’ve never experienced before or since and since we currently live in different cities one I miss terribly.

But not all my prayers saw answers. I asked and didn’t receive. I sought and didn’t find. I knocked and the door stayed firmly shut. Family members have died and suffered serious illness and my prayers seemed worthless.

Religion tells me that it must be “part of God’s plan” or to pray “if it be your will” when I pray and if nothing happens then it must be God’s answer.

Religion – if you’ll forgive my bluntness – is full of crap.

My dad died at the age of 56 from a glioblastoma tumour in his brain. The vicar prayed an eloquent prayer for comfort for my mum and myself at his bedside, but didn’t ask for healing. I didn’t have the nerve to ask (“who am I to ask” syndrome) and my dad died.

My prayers seemed unanswered. Later that year I was told I was diabetic, and despite praying the symptoms wouldn’t go away.

Prayer unanswered.

Was God testing me?

NO!

What comes from God is Good, Perfect and Pleasing. This sentiment is repeated so often to quote all the references would take me until Lent 2017 to write out.

If it’s not Good, if it’s not Perfect, if it’s not Pleasing then God didn’t put it in your life.

Jesus said He only did what He saw the Father do. He never gave anyone cancer. He never gave anyone diabetes. He never said “Come back later, you need to learn from this”. And I challenge everyone reading this to show me chapter and verse in the Bible where Jesus acts in a way other than to heal and make whole. I’ve never found one. Not in 31 years and more translations than I knew existed 31 years ago.

So what makes our prayers seem unanswered?

Andrew Wommack writes on his website:

“All of us have had experiences when it didn’t look like our prayers were answered. But is that really what happened? The Bible says in Matthew 7:7, “Ask, and it shall be given you; seek, and ye shall find; knock, and it shall be opened unto you.” Is that true? Well, many people say it couldn’t mean what it appears to say, because they can cite experiences where they asked for something and didn’t receive. But you’ve got to make the decision stated in Romans 3:4, to “Let God be true, but every man [or in this case, every circumstance] a liar.” God’s Word is true, not our experiences.” What to do when your prayers seem unanswered by Andrew Wommack

 I’ve seen this in my own life and I’m sure you have too. Circumstances lie to us and ultimately Satan gets a shot past us.

We forget we’re in a war sometimes – especially in Western Society. We forget that we have an enemy who shoots back. And we forget we can get wounded. We forget we have to stand our ground and fight for what God has promised us.

Consider Daniel’s experiences in chapters 9 and 10 of Daniel. The first time he prays Gabriel stands before him within seconds with the answer, telling him he was sent with the answer the moment Daniels prayer was heard in Heaven.

The second time Daniel prays it is 21 days before Gabriel shows up, but his preface is the same – the moment his prayer was heard in Heaven he was sent with the answer – but the enemy delayed him for 21 days in battle.

For 21 days Daniel’s prayer seemed to be unanswered.

Consider King David. Anointed to be king of Israel while a youth he runs into hiding from Saul, praying for God to move for several years before Saul dies and David is crowned king. All those years – many recorded by David’s own hand in the Psalms – where the one big prayer seemed unanswered were acually just time where the enemy delayed the answer.

Joseph spent years as a slave praying for release before he received his answer.

Martha and Mary prayed and asked for healing for Lazarus and he died. But Jesus came and brought their answer with Him and Lazarus was raised to life, called from the tomb after 4 days.

We live in a fast-food mentality in the Western World. Everything needs to be instant. I’ve written before about a sincere apology from a drive-through window that my meal would be another 90 seconds.

90 seconds. What a hardship.

My first computer took 25 minutes to load a game off a cassette that took 2 minutes to play. My current cellphone has more processing power than that computer. My current computer has more advanced technology than the rockets that took man to the moon – and it responds faster.

What’s this got to do with prayer?

“Ask and keep on asking and it will be given to you; seek and keep on seeking and you will find; knock and keep on knocking and the door will be opened to you. ⁸ For everyone who keeps on asking receives, and he who keeps on seeking finds, and to him who keeps on knocking, it will be opened.” (Matthew 7:7-8 Amplified)

 Keep on asking/knocking/seeking. Be persistent in our prayer, not to motivate God, but to move the enemy who would steal our answer.

Everyone who asks, knocks or seeks gets what they need when they persist. And Jesus doesn’t add “unless they did xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx” (fill in your sin of choice here).

Everyone.

Standing firm when everything looks like it’s falling apart is hard. We have battles to fight and standing sometimes feels wrong, but it’s what we need to do.

Your prayers are not unheard. God is not withholding the answer, but it may be being delayed by the enemy. God is not saying you need to learn by having cancer, or no food, or no heat in winter. He teaches us through Scripture.

When your prayers seem unanswered, stand firm.

God will not let you down.

It’s His name on the line.