All my ways July 31, 2008

“You know when I sit and when I rise, You perceive my thoughts from afar. You discern my going out and my lying down. You are familiar with all my ways. Before a word is on my tongue, you know it completely, O Lord.” Psalm 139:2-4.

You’re there, in my waking moments. There, as I stumble, semi-conscious, rubbing sleep from my eyes. You watch me, awkward and uncoordinated as I am, and you love me. Even if I forget to think of you, your thoughts still turn to me.

My thoughts don’t escape your attention: the excitement of future plans, the uncertainty of relationships, the yearning to see things more clearly; you see and know it all, from the trivial to the complex. You know my most noble intention and my most selfish desire, and yet your delight in me does not shift.

Whether I feel brave or frightened, surrounded or alone, thrilled or desolate; you are Lord of my emotions, and you are constant. My uncertainty does not unnerve you, and you hold on, whether I am trusting resoundly, or doubting nervously.

When I rush around, filling my days with busyness, drowing out the cry of my heart, you’re there too, nudging me towards stillness. You understand the complexities of schedule, you weave in and through my appointments, breathing life into my to-do list.

You call me to sabbath, leading me to places of calm and rest. You minister to me in the solitude, bringing your touch of peace. I sit beside you and we muse together, comfortable in the silence. You watch over me as I sleep, protecting and refreshing me. You dance into my dreams, infusing my imagination with holy colour.

When I am travelling, you’re there too – my constant companion. You stand at my side through long hours on crowded trains. You whisper, “Look up, look out of the window.” And I see you in green hills and golden fields.

We laugh together, you appreciate my humour completely, you crafted it and you love to see my joy. You speak correction too, gently pointing out aspects of my character I need to submit to you, placing a loving arm on my shoulder when I go to step off course. You rescue me when the night draws in and the thunder rumbles, you hold me when tears overtake me, you are faithful through every season of my life.

You preside over my vocabulary. You formed the words on my toungue, marvelling as my gurgling and babbling became coherent speech. You hear the phrases forming in my mind, and you infuse these with your ideas, your thoughts, your truth. You use my story for your purposes, to glorify you. I am awed and amazed by all you are and all you do.

Water Snake Days July 25, 2008

This week has been festooned with intercessory delights. I figured between my allegorical musings I would write about some of the different prayer events I have been to this week, just because I’ve enjoyed them all lots and it reminded me why I love prayer so much.

Can’t remember if I’ve explained the water snake thing before, but Lyndall explains it beautifully in her post here: http://lifeoflyndall.wordpress.com/2008/07/23/mustnt-grumble/

Anyway, so the water-snakery began on Monday, when I was faced with the task at work of sending out our monthly prayer diaries. In the past I may have been heard to grumble, because stuffing 850 envelopes can sometimes feel a little repetitive, and cannot be called the most exciting part of my job! Anyhow, I surprised myself this time by being quite excited by the task. As I handled the envelopes I found myself praying for those who would receive them, imagining how God could move through each of those people, praying that they would be challenged and inspired in their prayer lives. It didn’t feel like mindlessly stuffing envelopes, it felt like putting ammunition into people’s hands.

The next water snake moment was on Tuesday. We have a community meal and then a prayer meeting every Tuesday. It’s one of the highlights of a Wandsworth week. For a number of reasons it’s felt like I’ve missed a lot of those over the last few weeks, so it was wonderful to join in with that again. We had a beautiful meal, followed by waffles. Then we prayed. There were only three of us left, by that point, but it was one of those prayer meetings that just seemed to take a life of it’s own and flow without us directing it. We each got to pray for some of the things God’s been putting on our hearts, so it was a good space.

Wednesday’s Water-snakery was in the guise of department prayers. On my floor at work, each unit takes turns to head this up each week. This week was the turn of the Mission Development Unit. We all gathered, not altogether sure what to expect. I was unprepared for the direct challenge that came accross through this time. We looked at the passage in 1 Corinthians which talks about God using the foolish things of the world to shame the wise, the things that are not to nullify the things that are, etc. We then had to think of the times that God had surprised us over the past week or so, and then write them on small cards and thank God for them. Then we were challenged to pray for more opportunities for him to do that. It made me think a lot.

Thursday was a busy day. We have whole-office prayers each Thursday at 9am, so we all trooped downstairs for that. We started by singing, ‘Praise my soul the King of Heaven’, which is always a good, rousing beginning to any reputable prayer gathering. Then we spent some time looking at Psalm 147, considering the faithfulness of God, and praying for the strength to trust in that. I love this passage because it contains one of my favourite verses: “The Lord heals the broken hearted and binds up their wounds.’ We then sang a song called, ‘If your presence’, which is taken from Joshua and Exodus, which asks how can we do anything, how can we move from this place, how can we minister love without God’s presence. I felt it was a really pertinent challenge for us all, and went back upstairs to my seat with that uncomfortable feeling that accompanies God’s conviction.

Then last night a couple of us headed to the house of a friend for more intercessory capers. I didn’t really know many of the others in the group, but it didn’t matter, and it was nice to meet new people. We prayed hard for Wandsworth, each taking an area or aspect of community. I had to pray about business, which was an intrigue as it isn’t something I find myself praying about a lot, but it was good discipline. At the end of the meeting we chatted some more about some of the stuff God is doing here, and generally just hung out with each other a bit.

However tiring it sometimes is, bouncing from prayer gathering to prayer gathering, I realise that I wouldn’t swap it for the world. I remembered how much I love just getting my teeth into some praying, just showing up where there are a bunch of people with a common goal, listening to words and pictures that people have had when praying and then using them to guide how we pray. I do love the water snake lifestyle!

Flummoxed by Mercy July 21, 2008

Praise be to the LORD,
       for he showed his wonderful love to me
       when I was in a besieged city.

In my alarm I said,
       “I am cut off from your sight!”
       Yet you heard my cry for mercy
       when I called to you for help.

(Psalm 31:21-22) 

I’ve been thinking a bit over the weekend about mercy. About how the way God meters it out doesn’t seem to make a lot of sense, and about how I think we so often don’t account for it or expect it.

I was reading 2 Samuel 24, where David has sinned by taking a census of the number of fighting men available. It’s not the most cheery story, but I was struck by a number of things in it.

Firstly, it struck me that God’s mercy didn’t depend on the Israelites not messing up. That seems like an obvious thing to say, but so often I think we fall into the trap of thinking that God will be merciful if we somehow manage to convince him that we are worthy of it. So often my prayers for mercy come from a place of ‘God, I’ve done all you said, now please help me.’ It’s like God is some fluffy, yet unpredictable figure who needs me to put on a good front. God in this passage is so not like that. We’re told his anger burns against Israel, he sends a plague where 70,000 people die. He doesn’t skirt round their sin and even though he acts in mercy, there are still consequences. Even in this mess, David still affirms a key truth – ‘Let us fall into the hands of the Lord, for his mercy is great, but do not let me fall into the hands of men.’ It seems that, even in his wrath, David knows that God is ultimately just and righteous. At the end of the story, David prays and humbles himself and takes responsibility for the sin. God hears his prayer and stops the plague.

In some senses, the story leaves me with more questions than it answers. Why did God wait until 70,000 people had died – that doesn’t strike me as particularly merciful? Surely counting some men isn’t that bad (after all, we all like to know how far our resources will stretch, don’t we?) And what would have happened if David hadn’t done the repenting thing? Surely decimating his chosen people was going to create problems down the line?

As I was musing over all of this, I thought about situations today. In many of them, we’ve been taught that we have a loving and merciful God, but the evidence doesn’t seem to back that up. Maybe we haven’t lost 70,000 mates to a virilent plague, but there are so many situations where we cry and we plead for mercy and yet those cries seem to go unheard. Even more frustratingly, often there isn’t even a traceable reason for this, unlike in David’s story. And then, we hear about people becoming Christians on their deathbeds, after lives of crime etc. Surely we’d be justified in the odd ‘that’s not fair.’

I was musing about all of this, and I kinda came to the conclusion that I’m glad it doesn’t make sense to me. I’m so aware that I can only ever see a situation from a 2-dimensional perspective, whereas God has the whole picture, the whys and hows and whens. He sees all the possible outcomes. On reflection, I’m not sure I’d like that role.

Trusting that he is merciful is hard, especially when it seems we’ve been waiting in that beseiged city for a long time. But if we don’t have that hope, what do we have? What’s the point in keeping going at all?

It’s at times like this that I remember one of my favourite verses in Hebrews:

“Now that we know what we have—Jesus, this great High Priest with ready access to God—let’s not let it slip through our fingers. We don’t have a priest who is out of touch with our reality. He’s been through weakness and testing, experienced it all—all but the sin. So let’s walk right up to him and get what he is so ready to give. Take the mercy, accept the help.” (Hebrews 4:14-16 MSG).

I guess we just have to work the rest out as we go along?

Prince Caspian June 23, 2008

Last Thursday, my lovely work colleagues took me to the 02 arena in London to see the premiere of this, the 2nd Narnia film. I had never been to a premiere, and didn’t really know what to expect. I loved the first Narnia film, and I loved the book of PC, so I had high hopes for this.

I wasn’t disappointed. It really was a marvellous evening. The arena was huge, the screen was gargantuan and the film itself was amazing.

I’m probably not allowed to tell you about the plot or anything like that, but I was really impacted by one scene in the film especially. It was really near the end, when the Narnians et al are engaged in one of those battles that is about rightness and valour but is not going to end in victory for the good without supernatural intervention.

The Telmarine forces drive them back to a bridge over a river, certain that they can beat them there. And then the sounds of battle fade and we see Lucy, the youngest of the Pevensey children standing on the bridge alone. She is young, I think 10 or 11. All the collected, well armoured, loud forces of the Telmarine stand on the other side of the bridge, waiting for the signal to march over it, confused as to why a small, unarmed, unarmoured girl is standing in their way. Everything is still for a moment, it looks like certain death for Lucy. She pulls a tiny toy sword out of her belt, and they all laugh at her.

But Lucy isn’t relying on her tiny sword to win the battle, because then we see that she is really not alone. Suddenly Aslan is revealed, standing closely beside her. Suddenly the tables have turned and she is no longer a vulnerable little girl facing the violence of her amassed foes. Aslan roars, and everything changes in an instant.

I guess this bit of the film touches me because I have always empathised with Lucy, she is the youngest, she looks weak and insignificant, and yet she has a key role to play in things. She is mocked by her enemies and overlooked by her family and yet she has a special relationship with Aslan, the representation of God. I want to have a relationship with God like that. I want to keep remembering that I don’t have to fight the battles that surround me with my little wooden sword, but in the power of the Almighty God that stands beside me. That is a very comforting thought.

True Celebration June 7, 2008

So, Jacob cons his dad into giving him his brother’s birthright/blessing. Jacob runs away in fear of his life, and ends up stopping randomly in ‘a certain place’ (Genesis 28:11). That night he has a dream involving a staircase, lots of angels and an affirming speech from God about his purpose and destiny. To mark the place, he sets up the stone he used as his pillow as a pillar, to mark God’s promise and presence. He calls the place Bethel, which means House of God.

The thing that struck me about this story today is that Jacob is celebrating God’s faithfulness even without seeing it having come to completion. At this point in the story he is still on the run, without family or a place to call his own. I’m not sure I’d be celebrating with the same fervency.

This made me think about the way we celebrate, the way I celebrate. Sometimes, it is because we have a tangible cause or thing to celebrate - a baby being born, a driving test passed, a new job etc. Sometimes though, it’s more like Jacob’s pile of rocks: we are celebrating something we can’t see in completion yet.

Whereas celebrating tangible things is great, I think celebrating the ‘not-yets’ in our lives somehow sharpens our faith. If, in the moments of aridity and uncertainty, we can somehow find something to celebrate (however small and seemingly insignificant), I believe those things are like stone pillars, set up at significant points in our lives to mark something of God’s provision or revelation.

I’d like to tell you about a stone pillar in my life at the moment, and the way that this reminds me to celebrate even when it seems premature, or simply ludicrous to be doing so. 

Today some of my friends made me a birthday cake and 5 balloon animals (You know the sort you twist modelling balloons to make). It may have looked like a small gesture, but I was really touched. I’m sure Jacob’s stone pillar wasn’t much to look at, but to him it was really significant. For me these balloon animals are the same. I’ve set them up around my room now, and as I look at them, like the pillar, they remind me of celebration and love, they remind me of the promises of God to help me through the hard times and to use all things for good. They remind me that just as God promised his presence to Jacob, I have the same privilege here and now and today, and they remind me that I have some really good friends who choose to celebrate with me too. Such a blessing.  

I’m much better when I have somthing measurable to celebrate, it feels wooly in those moments when I’m praying, “thankyou God for lighting this night up and showing me the paths to walk on,” while it’s still dark and foggy outside.

Returning to the story, a few chapters later, in Genesis 35, Jacob takes his whole family back to Bethel, to the stone he had set up all those years previously, and he builds a proper altar there. We are told that God appeared to him again, promised to give him an inheritance, and reminded him of his new name. At this point Jacob has the benefit of hindsight, he can go back and say, “You did what you said you would God.”

Most times we find ourselves in the 6 chapters in between Jacob’s initial experience and his obdience in returning to Bethel. But we can still remember the memory of the pillars and what they mean to us. There are thousands of symbols we can adopt to do this -  a cross & chain round the neck, a ring with certain meaning, a painting on our wall that reminds us what God tasked us to do.

I haven’t got this celebration thing all sussed, but I have been feeling that increased sense of purity and connection when I’m celebrating even from a place of difficulty or pain. I want to know in more depth what it means to have a celebrating God, how he interacts with us in celebration, and how we ensure our celebrating focuses around transforming actions, rather than our own thoughts or agendas.

Until then I’ll just stick with my balloon creature prayer-buddies.

The Joy of 24-7 May 27, 2008

Friday night afforded me the opportunity to get back into the swing of late night prayer, and I loved it. I was at a church in South East London for their monthly youth night of prayer. There were about 20 young people there between the ages of 15-20ish, and they prayed up a storm!

I’d forgotten the buzz that comes from sitting in a semi dark room, knowing that you are going to be there for the next twelve hours, anticipating where prayer is going to take you.

I’d forgotten how exciting it is to be around a bunch of youth who just so want to pray, and who will do any number of wacky creative prayer excercises as part of this.

I was humbled and amazed to hear some beautiful and honest prayers, you know the type that aren’t slick or polished but raw and heartfelt.

I was amazed to hear them praying for someone in their community who is struggling at the moment. Their grip of spiritual warfare was impressive.

I loved the 3am slot, where we just all stood in a circle and said thankyou to God. It could have gone on for hours, and there was a lovely sense of worship and adoration.

I also loved my faithful armour-bearing friend back home in Wandsworth, who stayed up till 4am, at home on his own to pray alongside us. That was such a blessing.

Most of all I loved it that Our Father caught all of this. That he was listening and present for every minute of those hours. That he strengthened us when the caffiene wore off and guided our prayers, that he even inhabited the moments of silence. That he hovered over the young people sleeping in corners, That he rejoiced and delighted in each of them.

I loved it that a group of them snuck out in the early hours of the morning and ‘tin-foiled’ some of the leader’s cars too. A top moment!!

Revival? May 19, 2008

I can hear that thunder in the distance
Like a train on the edge of town
I can feel the brooding of Your Spirit
“Lay your burdens down, Lay your burdens down”.

Revive us, Revive us,
Revive us with your fire!

 Copyright © 1998 Daybreak Music Ltd.

 Everywhere I go at the moment there seems to be whisperings about revival. “Have you heard what is happening in Florida” seems to be a common topic of conversation in some of the circles I find myself in.

At this point I should admit to a penchant for cynicism. You are reading the musings of a girl who, in her teens, utterly shunned anything emitting a vaguely charismatic aroma. So much so that me and my best friend once walked out of a meeting because, wait for it, they dared to speak in tongues. (I imagine God had a good laughing fit three years later when me and the same friend began earnestly seeking the very same gift… ooops!).

Anyway, I was brought up believing that revivals don’t happen, the gifts of the spirit aren’t for now, this is all there is.

Thankfully God arrested me in my tracks and that view has completely changed. Now I find myself marvelling at the power of the Holy Spirit and praying for more of a breakout of it in the Salvation Army. But you understand when I say that I haven’t always been that open to stuff!!

So my internal response to news of supernatural healings aplenty was firstly reticence. (I probably shouldn’t admit that), but as more and more stories leak out, and as what is happening in Florida seems to be part of a whole host of other concurrent stuff, I have been challenged to stretch my view a little.

 Last night I heard a great sermon about the nature of revival, how the Acts 2:42-47 descritpion is a list of characteristics of a ‘normal’ church, and thus none of us have really experienced ‘normal’. The early church didn’t need revival because it was ‘vived’ enough. The speaker identified some things that are always present in a revival as follows:

• Passionate worship – Christians falling love with God all over again
• Demonstrations of God’s power – signs and wonders
• Salvations – people given the choice to respond to the gospel and choosing affirmatively.

He said that revival is something we can’t dredge up or put on, the Holy Spirit instigates it. But it is something that we can prepare for. We can do this by pursuing the folowing:

• Unity with other churches/Christians
• Courageous faith
• Sincere and heartfelt prayer

After all this, which was all good stuff, we had a time of response and prayer which turned into one of the most powerful outpourings of the Holy Spirit I’ve been in, in a long time. People were healed physically, people received new gifts, there was a sense of expectancy and presence in that room that left most of the congregation awed and silenced. Worship went on and on, every time they tried to stop people just stayed, silent and still in prayer. It was awesome.

 What I loved about last night was that this wasn’t happening in some far away country, replayed on the fuzzy screen of my laptop, I was watching the power of God at work in front of my eyes. He was doing big things, in my here and now, in a random corner of Wandsworth. I recognised the tug of God’s challenge on my heart as my cynicism further dissipated, and I began to believe that this stuff really could happen in my surroundings, in my lifetime.  

 What’s really exciting also is that I have heard repeated stories like this, from churches all over the UK, where expectancy seems to be rising and God’s power is at work. If I couple that with things like the Global day of Prayer, the response to Hope 2008 accross the country, the Pentecost festival here in London, the increase in Street Pastor teams throughout the country etc, I feel like this growing spark of excitement that these are important times. Like the words in the song above, it feels like something is close, you can hear the rumble of it like a ‘train on the edge of town’, and I really don’t want to miss out on what God is up to, through cynicism or self-centredness or plain apathy.

 In the meantime, I want to pursue the three points above – unity, faith and prayer. I don’t know what God is up to and I don’t know what this is all going to look like, but something in me is stirred.

Surely it’s not just me?

Visby, Sweden May 18, 2008

This is another of those posts that I know will probably not do justice to the amazing time we had… hmmm.

So, we were in Visby to lead a week of teaching about different aspects of prayer. On Tuesday we did the mechanics of prayer, on Wednesday – prayer and church, on Thursday – prayer and the community and on Friday – healing prayer.

The town of Visby is amazing, I’d recommend a visit to anyone. It is very old – some of the buildings are from the 12th century, and the section of the town we were in is walled. The town is on the West coast of the Island of Gotland, which has a rich and long history involving trading, pirates and treasure. The attached pictures hopefully show a bit what it was like.

Teaching was so much fun, and we met people from Sweden, Germany, Iceland and Denmark. It was a wondrous cacophany of languages! It was ablessing to worship and pray with the group too.

As is usual with these things, God was working and connecting and bringing about some brilliant conversations, we had ‘fika’ many times, which is like a small snack, over which we discussed boiler room, and what it means to build communities of prayer. I was thrilled to be reminded that these are springing up all over the place.

After school had finished each day, we walked all over the town and explored the windy streets, marvelling at the mix of buildings and the colours and styles. It was like we had gone back 200 years. The streets were cobbly and the whole place was just really unspoilt. It was very very quiet – so different from South West London. Even the pace of life is relaxed and laid back.

Visby’s a very creative place too. Apparently there are more artists per square mile than in any other place. We could well believe it. Something about the place just seemed to bring creativity out. We both commented that it was so easy to write there. I felt like I could have holed myself away on a hilltop and just written and written, it was that inspiring.

Food was yummy too, we had real, authentic swedish meatballs, as well as lots of nice cheese!! My personal favourites were the traditional raspberry pie, and sweetcorn soup (not together though!), we also found a lovely iron-shaped creperie, which is in one of the pictures above. The crepes were fabulous!!

I know there is more I could write, and I probably will, but for now it will suffice to say that we had an awesome time, and are excited about the connections we made out there. I feel privileged to have had the opportunity to meet the people on the Saved2Save course, and to have visited Visby.

Off to Sweden May 11, 2008

As of tomorrow morning, myself and my esteemed prayer-leading colleague are off to the wondrous town of Visby, in Sweden, to lead a week of prayer teaching.

It’s a bit of a heavy schedule, with 4 lectures each day (so we’re leading two each, each day!). So if anyone can spare a prayer or two that would be cool.

We’re back Saturday 17th!

Global Day of Prayer 2008 May 11, 2008

The sun shone brightly down on Millwall Football stadium in South London, as thousands of Christians gathered there to mark the seventh Global Day of Prayer.

London joined over 60 other UK cities, and 210 countries across the world, praying on the theme, ‘Your Kingdom Come… on Earth as in Heaven.

The celebration began with resonating worship, led by Noel Richards, Geraldine Latty, Godfrey Birtil and Graham Kendrick. Children’s choirs, dancers and representatives from the local government of the area also led different sections of the programme.

Joining in agreement, the 20,000+ Christians prayed into a number of different areas:

• For the Street Pastors initiative, which sees Christians taking to the streets and offering a listening ear and practical assistance to those they meet.
• For projects dealing with youth crime and urban deprivation in London.
• For the Hope 2008 initiative.
• For those affected by knife and gun crime.
• For the new Mayor of London, Boris Johnson, and his staff.
• For those affected by natural disaster, poverty and climate change throughout the world.

The father of Damilola Taylor, the schoolboy murdered in London in 2000, led a time of united prayer asking for forgiveness for the perpetrators of these crimes, and for peace and justice to reign in the capital. The congregation sang the words of the prayer of St Francis, ‘Make me a channel of your peace’, as a white dove appeared on the big screens signifying this peace and hope.

Representatives from different people groups living in London led Scripture readings in their native languages, including Hebrew, Tamil, Portuguese, Chinese and Spanish, and the congregation joined in a responsive version of Psalm 8, declaring the Majesty and Glory of God’s name.

The atmosphere in the stadium was electric as people stood worshipping in groups and kneeled in prayer on the pitch. Prayers flowed for repentance, blessing, salvation and transformation for the city of London and further afield.

The event ended with a responsive prayer which was prayed in each of the countries taking part in the Global Day of Prayer. It felt powerful and exciting to be praying words that millions of others would also be lifting to God across the world. We’re all waiting expectantly to see how God moves as a result of the faithful prayers of his people across the globe on this day.

Here are some pictures:

 The gang outside the stadium

 Waiting for the fun to start

 

 Sheltering from the sun!

 Crowds of merry pray-ers