Simple Hope

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Candle Breakthrough Trust Promises Transformation Hope

OK, so there’s a few “pingback” links here.

You may have noticed I’ve been absent in the writing world for a couple of weeks or so.

I needed a break. Life isn’t always fair, and sometimes we need to step back. I have a mountain of emails to reply to. If you’re reading this and you’re one of them, forgive me. You’ve been in my prayers but life sometimes gets in the way – especially for a Gospel Warrior!

Right now isn’t the time (or place for now) to share everything that’s happened.

But I can share some of it.

There are changes brewing for me. Some Major changes.

I’m planning a move, geographically. 9000 miles. Moving back to England.

Most of the people in my day-job have no idea. But it’s something I need to do.

My hope for growth in South Africa is all but shattered. I’ve been trying to raise funds to help a church in Kenya that has to meet when it can because they have a tree, not a building. Another church needs Bibles and literature to learn from. They’ve asked for help based on what they’ve seen written here.

I’m humbled by the trust these men of God have placed in me.

I’m ashamed at the level of help I’m able to give.

Every day I see “Christians” driving their new cars, shopping in the upper-class malls with trolleys full of luxury items who don’t want to help their brothers and sisters who have nothing.

In fairness, I also see Christians with trolleys full of food and clothes they have bought to clothe the homeless, feed the hungry and who go and offer shelter where they can. This is not a rant about all those hypocrites.

If it were, I’d have to be complaining about myself a lot of the time too.

I’m an incurable optimist. I see the best in everyone. It has got me into trouble more than once. I trust too soon, far too often. The result is I get damaged. And so does my mission.

I spent much of my degree studying marketing and psychology. I hate the idea of using psychology to “sell” a ministry, but I’ve realised it’s what is needed.

Branding is also important, both personally and for Eagle’s Wing Ministries. There needs to be recognition for me personally and for the work of the ministry so if anything happens to me the work can continue.

I’ve been reflecting on forgiveness for the time I’ve been away. Reading the parable of the Prodigal Son, and realising it should actually be called the Parable of the Loving Father.

Max Lucado, one of my all time favourite writers, speaks of the Father in his book “Six Hours One Friday” (available on Kindle via Amazon.com). I’ve gone through half a dozen copies of this book in paperback, worn them out by re-reading them so now I have it on my phone and computer. But his take on the Father is this:

If there is a scene in this story that deserves to be framed, it’s the one of the father’s outstretched hands. His tears are moving. His smile is stirring. But his hands call us home. Imagine those hands. Strong fingers. Palms wrinkled with lifelines. Stretching open like a wide gate, leaving entrance as the only option.

When Jesus told this parable of the loving father, I wonder, did he use his hands? When he got to this point in the story, did he open his arms to illustrate the point?

Did he perceive the thoughts of those in the audience who were thinking, “I could never go home. Not after my life”? Did he see a housewife look at the ground and a businessman shake his head as if to say, “I can’t start over. I’ve made too big a mess”? And did he open his arms even wider as if to say, “Yes. Yes, you can. You can come home”?

Whether he did that day or not, I don’t know. But I know that he did later. He later stretched his hands as open as he could. He forced his arms so wide apart that it hurt. And to prove that those arms would never fold and those hands would never close, he had them nailed open.

They still are.

[Lucado, Max. Six Hours One Friday: Living in the Power of the Cross (pp. 87-88). Thomas Nelson. Kindle Edition.]

I first heard that passage read by Mike Yaconelli at Greenbelt Christian Festival in 1991. I can’t read it without hearing the passion in his voice. I hear in my head the pain of the boy, feel the shame of the businessman.

But I feel the hope Jesus offers as well. The forgiveness.

The hope is simple. It’s the hope of a second chance.

I’ve had more than my share of second chances.

As a biker I’ve had close calls I have no clue how I survived, never mind walked away from unharmed. I’ve walked through gang territory and been untouched when others were terrified for me.

I’ve been spared what insurance companies call “dread disease” even after exposure to so many in South Africa – TB, HIV and many more. I’ve had knives pulled on me, and even once the threat of a gun, yet I never feared for my life.

I walk in Hope.

I walk by Faith.

Faith, according to Hebrews, is the substance of what we hope for, and the evidence of what is – as yet – unmanifested in the physical world we inhabit.

Faith provides a tiny flame in the darkness. A candlecandle which seems like it should be snuffed out at any moment, yet flickers on.

The darkness cannot overpower the tiny flame of a candle, no matter how black it seems. The flame burns on through the night.

I often sleep with a night-light candle burning by my bed (safely in a completely fire-proof holder that cannot be knocked over – I’m not stupid!) The light it gives off is soft. At the red end of the spectrum, giving a warm and relaxing glow that encourages sleep and peaceful mind – something I need very much.

But I light is mainly to remind myself when I wake up that darkness cannot quell this light. And what God has placed in my heart cannot be overwhelmed by the power of Darkness, it can only be surrendered by me.

My breakthroughbreakthrough began a few weeks ago when I visited Jongensgat for the weekend. It’s amazing what being unplugged from the 21st Century for even a couple of days can do for your soul.

Four days with no internet, television, telephone, cell reception and having to cook over a fire – slowly – does wonders for the soul. jongensgat-sea-1And your relationships. For me it reminded me how closely I need God. Even in the work of writing for Him, sometimes it becomes more about publishing by a certain time and less about the message.

It gave me a much needed time of refreshing with my wife. We are closer than we have been for a while as a result. We still don’t communicate as well as we should, but at least we know that now!

When I became a Christian, there was a change in me. Not everyone could see it because I help on to a LOT of pain, but a few could see the transformation beginning. The Featured Image of this article is one of my favourite nature images: a butterfly emerging from a cocoon to begin a new life, casting off life as a caterpillar and becoming something of incredible beauty instead of something that eats your prized cabbage leaves.

That transformation is a work in progress. It will continue in this world until I pass through to be with Him. My Grandfather became a Christian at the age of 16. Two weeks before he died he phoned me, incredibly excited, to share what God had shown him in his quiet time: “He told me to get ready for the greatest adventure I can imagine” was what he told me. Neither of us imagined such a strong man would then pass away so soon – but what an adventure awaited him as he walked through the Gate of Heaven after 64 years of service!

Trust has always been an issue for me. Trusting people when I was young resulted in me getting badly hurt, so I stopped letting people in. I trusted a friend who then set me up on a blind date which led to a very messy month of dating where I had no clue how to talk to a girl – and this particular girl was one I had known when we were very young – I was 5 and she was 4 – now we were teenagers and I had expectations of myself I knew I couldn’t live up to. I don’t know what her expectations were of me because I was too scared to ask! I tried to trust, and I got very deeply hurt. That hurt burned the good memories from a time of innocence as friends in primary school to ash. So the next girl I got involved with I am ashamed to say I did so for expediency. She pursued me, and it was convenient for me to be caught. Not a recipe for a good relationship.

After that I got involved with someone I wanted to trust, but by that point I was so damaged I couldn’t trust myself. All that was left was anger and when cancer attacked a family member that was all I could express. She was hurt, I was hurt and my ability to trust was – once again – damaged.

Then my dad died. My mum and weren’t close and despite her best efforts I found myself alone. I’d just moved church and most of the members didn’t know me. I didn’t want to be a burden to anyone so I became a virtual recluse. Depression set in and four suicide attempts followed on.

But the members of this new church refused to let me stay alone. They inserted themselves into my life – often at great personal risk as I had major anger-management issues back then – and gradually forced me to trust them.

They forced me to trust them by not letting me push them away. They rang back when I hung up on them. Repeatedly. If I then didn’t answer their call they would knock on my door and not go away until I’d let them come in and make sure I was ok.

They forced Love into my life in a way I didn’t expect. It rebuilt hope and trust in me as they refused to simply give up. They refused to give up on a guy they mostly barely knew and had only just met.

For several years, this mis-matched group of people became my most trusted friends.

Much changes in our life as we walk with Christ. And feel free to slap anyone who says it’s easy to be a Christian.

It isn’t.

It’s messy. It’s hard. It’s scary. It means reaching out to the unloved and the unlovely. It means seeing past the darkest part of yourself and seeing the light of Christ shining through in spite of it.

I still have anger management issues. People will tell me to “just do ‘X'” whatever “X” may be, with no understanding of what it is like to be inside my mind and deal with the issues I have. I get the urge to slap people who do that. That’s the “old nature” Paul writes about. I sit and close my eyes and let a tune run through my head until the feeling goes away. Sometimes it takes a long time. Sometimes It takes too long to be able to keep my eyes shut. So I stay quiet instead and take it to God when I get a chance to.

We all have issues we wrestle with. Read my other entries and I’m sure you’ll realise quickly that mine is usually my temper.

But so were James and John. Peter lost his cool and hit Malchus with a sword in Gethsemane. The real issue is how we channel our tempers or whatever it is we struggle with. We have a choice.

Be transformed by the renewing of our minds is the invitation of the Gospel.

It’s not easy.

But the choice is simple.

Facing the Past to Move into God’s Future

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We all have them. Skeletons in our closets that make us feel unusable. Things we wouldn’t want the people around us to know.

“Peter had an affair”. “John left his wife”. “Before she joined the church Anne was a prostitute”. “Alan embezzled to get where he is today”.

Maybe not as big, but we all have them. Events from our past that haunt us. Playing “doctor” as a child and exploring the opposite gender for the first time – or the twenty-first as an adult.

It’s the seemingly little things that haunt us. The accusations that come in the night when we’re alone. Our husband or wife asleep beside us and the guilt that floods our minds. Images real or imagined flood through our beings and we lose sleep. Actions whether taken or not haunt us as God’s Children. We feel the missed mark more acutely than the bullseye.

I remember very little of my childhood. My brother died when he was ten and I was 13, and the majority of the time we had together is more a memory of a memory. There’s very little clarity in my head. I remember the loss. The pain of losing Robin but not the joy of having him in my life.

I remember skeletons we shared with cousins and friends as small children do, exploring out of sight of adults the mysteries of our differences. Why did this cousin play with dolls and this one with toy guns? Robin died in 1985 and personal computers – although available – were things of luxury. We finally got one just a few weeks before he died and instantly all our friends wanted to come and see and play games on it. But mostly we went to other people’s homes and played traditional games.

Simpler times. No cell-phones or facebook to interrupt us. We played and explored as generations had done before.

Something happened as we grew up. Friendship got replaced with BBM and Whatsapp. Facebook dominates the time of the majority of the youth at a time when they need to find out who they are they are too busy trying to find out if Miley Cyrus and Britney Spears are wearing underwear. A few years ago in the movie “True Lies” (1994) a character laments that Axl Rose and Madonna are the one’s raising their kids these days, not mom and dad. 21 years later how much has that deteriorated. Now most parents might be happy for that influence instead of Ashley Madison…

The assault on the nuclear family in the media has been relentless. Pre-nuptuial agreements, contracts settling how equity will be divided in the event of divorce are routine contracts these days. The concept of “All my worldly goods with you I share” is replaced with an addendum “except the lake house in Virginia, the ski lodge in Aspen and the Yacht in Miami.” Marriages are entered into with the expectation of failure.

At a time when families are needed more we have fewer men capable of being real men because they have never been fathered themselves.

I was blessed that my grandfathers both survived the second World War, one as a minister on the Home Front – something he regretted to the day he died as he wanted to go to Europe and fight the Nazis, and the other as a Major in the British Army serving as a motorcycle outrider and accountant for the regiment with distinction gained for valour on the Normandy Beach assaults, D-Day, June 6th 1944.

The foundation these strong men left was passed down to me as an example of what a real man should be. Fearless in battle, both spiritual and physical, a protector.

Too many of my friends growing up didn’t have what I had. Parents had divorced, grandfathers had died and fathers had had no guiding influence because their own grandfathers had died between 1914 and 1918. Two lost generations dead physically or too traumatised to raise sons to be Men.

This is the past we must face.

This is what as Christians we must overturn.

The steady moral decay from the 1950’s through to today, removing Christian influence in schooling in the 1960’s, the rise of a powerful atheist minority who make a lot of noise while the Church stays silent has resulted in a world gone mad. Smaller wars like Korea, Vietnam, the Falklands, Afghanistan, Desert Storm along with genocide in African countries and now ISIS and their atrocities added to “ethnic cleansing” in central Europe makes for a holocaust of slaughter that Hitler himself would be proud of.

We must repent of our past.

Martin Luther King gave his famous “I Have A Dream” speech 53 years ago this year. He called on citizens to rise up and break the bonds of tyranny and segregation. Just 20 years ago my wife and I would be criminals in South Africa as I am white and she is not. I have been accused to my face of betraying my race by both black and white individuals.

It is a past we need to move beyond.

God has a plan for the future of Mankind. He called it “Incarnation”

He took our own form, lived a human life and died a human death so we could have a future in Him after His resurrection.

His plan for the future is what we need to remember.

My wife and I watched “Evan Almighty” recently. God appears in the form of Morgan Freeman and instructs a young congressman to build an Ark like Noah had been told to.

His explanation after a burst dam floods a housing project and the ark has saved hundreds of lives is that to change the world, all we need to to make one act of random kindness a day.

Act of
Random
Kindness.

ARK.

The simplicity of the message is right up there with the parables if we approach it from a Godly standpoint rather than an entertainment one.

What if God’s future were really based on building on Acts of Random Kindness? What if we could effect change simply by adopting a puppy or making peace with a neighbour?

That’s a personal dig at myself. I can forgive people who steal from me – and I do so easily. I have forgiven people who threw the first punch physically (even when I threw the last one) and gone on to have long friendships with them, but forgiving my literal next-door neighbour has caused me great anxiety. My olive branches have been made into kindling to start a new fire. After an attempted break-in on our property which sent our dogs nuts at three in the morning I went round to apologise and ask if they were ok as the intruder had jumped the fence between our properties. I left feeling like I was the bad-guy because his sleep had been disrupted.

Forgiving him has been difficult. And is a work in progress.

It’s also essential for my own growth. Unforgiveness is a cancer in the soul that prevents us moving to the next level with God. To move into the future I must forgive the ones who have hurt me.

All of them.

So do you. We all have the annoying neighbour, relative or acquaintance we can’t escape. Sometimes the easiest way is to decide to forgive, but to sever contact with that person. It’s not always easy. Especially when it’s family – believe me. But in the end we don’t need conflict in our lives. Conflict prevents God from giving us the Best He has for us. Forgiveness opens that door.

So face the past. Acknowledge it, but don’t hold onto it.

Move into the Future God has for you.

You’ll never regret it.
Mistake