Stars

This is a mix of the wise men and light pollution.

When Jesus was born the wise men were astrologers and astronomers and knew the signs of the times. They noticed a bright star appear in the constellation of Judah and so knew a new king was going to be born, which is why the rushed off to Herod. These guys weren't being dense and saw a star over a stable in Bethlehem, like we see on the cards. No it has been proven that it was a real star in a real night sky.

In the latest National Geographical they were discussing light pollution and how there is very few places now where we can see the sky clearly enough to make out much. Also we aren't really that interested in what goes on up there. Ok so they send loads of money to check we don't get hit by asteroids and also individuals spent money on horoscopes but we don't really gaze up at the night sky too much and if we did we do it so rarely we wouldn't remember stuff.
In fact it stuck me on Friday with that huge shiny moon and the papers saying this was the brightest moon for 50 years and there would be a meteoroid storm how little interested it raised.

Jesus told us to look to the signs and in it we would be able to read when He is coming back, but how many of us take that time out to know what the signs are now and to then know when they change.
We need to get back to being more observant, stop waiting for someone else to tell us, and start looking at what is normal then we can see what is different.

In Difference Circumstances

It has amazed me how different I can be in different circumstances.
On Monday someone ran into my little red car whilst Ian had it parked outside where he works and has left a big dent in the back and the boot won't shut. The driver was drunk, has refused to take a breath test and was going too fast at lunchtime. Now I am very cross about it, grateful that no one got hurt, but also cross that he was drunk at lunchtime and also that he has made no effort to get in touch and even give his insurance details.
Ian was teasing me this morning that I obviously hadn't forgiven him, the driver, as I was still cross and wasn't saying nice things about him. And as I was in the shower I realised how I had changed.
Back when Ben, Tabi and I were in YWAM Scotland my car got stolen from the driveway of the house I was staying in by an underage driver who took it for a joy ride and then smashed all the windows with huge rocks writing the car off. Then I was very quick to forgive even making the Police think I was crazy when I want his address so I could let him know I had forgiven him.
So I got to thinking why was I so different now, when in a lot of other ways I have grown up more as a Christian? And what came to me then was that back in Scotland I was living in a Christian community and in fact when I told people about what had happened people were praying with me to forgive, the whole culture we were living in was much more about going into forgive others, not living with offenses, etc and also there was that accountability and discipling thing. As in my fellow Christians I was living and working with wouldn't have let me get away with not forgiving.
Yet now back in just regular church apart from Ian I don't have any group there just to encourage me to walk the walk and talk the talk. Yes we do see people regularly but because we aren't living in that same closeness, that closeness that involved all of us sharing our hearts with each other, I can keep a part of me back and not have that accountability.
And I am not saying this is the fault of "the church" whatever that may be, but I do think it is the nuclear structures we put ourselves in and the fact that we then only come out to do meeting type things because we are all too busy to really have relationships, whereas the key for what we were doing in YWAM Scotland was all about relationship.
So I will forgive this guy, not for any reason than actually because I have now made myself open on here I sort of have to, esp as I wrote on forgiveness a few days back.
In fact I also have to forgive a friend too who I have taken offense to, which may or may not have been meant to hurt, but that isn't the point. Forgiveness doesn't come with conditions and shouldn't only happen when we have others standing with us.

Believe in what you teach

I have been getting so many revelations every time I rehear the Christmas story that I am just so pleased we get to hear it once a year. In fact it must be the only part of the Bible we get to hear year in and year out. Though I know it depends on which congregations we are at which bit we rehear, or for that matter what we choose to reread.
What I love too about the Bible is because it is a living book, and if we read it and let His Holy Spirit guide us He can keep showing us more and more in it.
Last year it was that Elizabeth let Zechariah sleep with her after he was deaf and also that they were both old people.
This year it is that Zechariah himself didn't believe the stories he taught. Remember he was a priest in the temple and one of his duties would've been to teach the young boys the stories of thier forefathers. They took seriously the command to tell their children the stories of old. But one of those stories would've been about Abraham and Sarah and how God gave them a child when they were old. Now an angel comes along and tells Zechariah that the same thing will happen to him and he can't believe it. So can't believe it that he is struck dumb!!!
How often do we tell others things about God that if it came down to it we wouldn't believe He could do for us???
I think this comes with helping us to dream bigger and to trust God more.
For me it has helped loads because I have heard lots of things, esp recently that God has been saying to me, but I cannot see quite how He can pull it off, but then all these things are things He has done for others, and things I would expect Him to do.
So now I need to believe what I have been teaching to others and wait and be willing like Mary was for God to do what He is going to do His way. And remember with Mary she was willing to let God do something that wasn't recorded in scripture as ever having happened to anyone else.
Now I need to prepare myself to be willing to let Him do that!!

Forgiveness

This word "forgiveness" has been buzzing round me with a lot at the moment. Tabi and I watched Heroes in iplayer and in that Slayer and El come to peace with each other when he forgive her and gets her to forgive herself. Then on Dr Who, a rerun on iplayer, The Doctor says to The Master "I forgive you" and that has so much power. On both these occasions forgiveness changed things.

Do we do enough of it as Christians? There has been an incident recently that I almost got caught up in between Christians and really it all came down to not wanting to forgive that things hadn't gone their way.

Also I don't often see us as Christians repenting. In fact I will quote from my dear friend David Mitchell which he posted on Facebook -
"If I will humble myself...
I hear so much about grace and so little about repentance these days. It seems that, at all costs, we are encouraged to seek other remedies besides calling sin, “Sin”, therefore, we never really repent and opportunities to do so in a church setting are neglected."

Why are we so afraid to repent? and to forgive - others, ourselves and God?
Does it mean admitting we have done something wrong? And admitting we have been hurt?
Do we talk too much about Grace that we do forget that we so sin and we do get hurt?

We have the amazingness of being able to be totally honest with God, and if we fear God and not man and can be honest with God then we can be honest with others. And if we do it God's way then that honesty, repentance, forgiveness will all be done with Grace.

Another quote from another dear friend across the "pond" Chickie Taylor:
"There is a struggle going on in my heart at the moment. It's like nothing is satisfying my soul these days except for the very basic christian things. I can't seem to get excited about anything but the message of God's love."
Hey now if that was all we were really excited about we would change the world.

Bring it on!!!

Liturgy

Is there a point to it or not? In the charismatic traditions liturgy has very much been thrown out. Is this throwing out the baby with the bath water?
in Roy Godwin's book, Grace Outpouring, about the growth of Ffald y Brenin he says they use liturgy based prayer so that all can join in, from whatever background without feeling marginalized or ignorant.
They use liturgy to bring people into a comfortable safe place so they can then encounter what God wants to do with them, rather than having to try to work out what to do next; which was interesting after having some friend round who felt that friends of theirs were caught in some sort of religiosity through their use of liturgy and weren't meeting God for real because they didn't do free prayer.
Now in Ffald y Brenin their liturgical prayer has space for free prayer too, but I feel that especially as the liturgical prayer in Ffald y Brenin has the Bible verses printed with it, at least one does know that what one is praying is in the will of God. And I have found that He uses it to take me to some very deep places.

Pegs!!

I just had to buy these whilst out shopping, though I am afraid that the advertisers will think I have fallen for their jargon!
These clothes pegs were sold as "eco pegs". The reason? Because if you hang your washing outside on the washing line you save lots of energy that you would've used from putting your tumble drier on.
And also they were even better for the environment because they were made from post and pre-recycled plastic. Now I am sure post recycled plastic is plastic that hasn't been used for anything else yet so not able to be recycled. So these pegs weren't even from 100% recycled plastic though the wording could've confused someone, and probably did.
Or has everyone bought them because the wording is just so amusing?

Don't get complacent

We had some lovely friends round for supper last night who we hadn't seen properly together for a while so there was a bit of catch up. They have been through a hard time with various churches they have been in in recent years and have found somewhere that they feel like they can be themselves.
But what stuck me is how much, once one gets into knowing a congregation one can see the human failings and can so easily dwell on that. These lovely people are now going to a congregation with a youth group of about a dozen, the most they have ever had in any congregation they have been in before, and yet at Bath City church we have a 11-14yrs group of 40plus registered, and about 30 who turn up each week. And the older teens, 15-18yrs there must be about 25plus, who do come at their age out of choice, no longer cajoled by their parents.
Also Mark had just had a brilliant healing of his knee during a time of worship on their church weekend away, but again it struck me how things like that have become almost common place where we are and often people don't get excited enough to get up the front and praise God.
We did get spoiled with all the Fire stuff that came from Lakeland, but actually we had lots of this going on already - a large group of young people, regular healings, respected teachings from our speakers who are international speakers and we take so much of it for granted.
So often we have that tendency especially of seeing the negative rather than the positive, a very British thing. So this has got me thinking that even though God has blessed me with being able to "see" things, and at times very much like the Old Testament prophets I need to be like so many of them, and even though I do get to see the negative side at times I need to hear God and what He says on it.
As Patricia King says on her web link how we need to be like Habakkuk and let God gets us to see the blessings He has even if the situations seem bleak
As Stephen Wood preached in our church on Sunday we need to make sure that we don't give the negative things in our lives power by focusing on them, instead we need to look at what God has done before and what He is going to do.
Please God help me to focus positively on You and where You want me to be for now.