One of the things I used to hate about high school (there were a few but I will stick to one!) was walking home in the cold and rain – the rain thrashing my legs as I lugged my body up the hills to my house – I shudder as I remember those days! During my time in high school, I had a paper round – the things you did for money! I earned the grand total of a penny per paper and it was just once a week, I couldn’t have coped with one every day I’m sure. I could either do it on a Wednesday or a Thursday. So many weeks I made the fatal error of not doing it on the Wednesday meaning I HAD to do it on the Thursday come rain or shine. Occasionally I would make the decision to deliver the papers on a Wednesday which made the Thursday afternoon walk home on these weeks, bliss! For these 5 years of my life, I had a routine. I knew my way home, I did it automatically, I didn’t have to think about the streets I was walking on – I knew it well. Our lives go in seasons and so my ‘challenge’ for this blog isn’t really about seasons of routine but rather lifetimes of routine.

I heard a speaker once talk about going home a different way and his point was, if you do that, you will see different things, meet different people, possibly meet new challenges, especially if you’re on foot.

When we first moved to Tanga, 4 months ago now, we knew no one except the Tanzanians who we’d worked with for 17 years – we had no social mates and, fortunately for John and I, we love each others company and so we made it work and it gave us the time to write and develop ourselves. I have to admit though I really missed doing coffee or lunch with girlfriends. I did. In fact, let me interject here, I hope you’ve all freed up your diaries for November! I’m happy to say, it is beginning to change and just the other week, we were invited to a BBQ and I was like a little girl going to a birthday party! I felt so excited that we were going to a social event! That night turned into the start of a friendship that we feel will continue to grow into a close one. We’ve talked recently about the challenges that living in Tanzania bring – and, again, there are many frustrations, BUT I would not swap it because of the richness it has brought into our lives.

We’ve talked on our ‘Under the Banda’ broadcasts (you can access these here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=t0HhuWHmhj4) about spaces and about how God sometimes leads you into openness that seems lonely and scary for a while and you have to learn new lessons whilst in that space. What we have found though is that, after a period of emptiness, He begins to fill that space with people, experiences and things that we would never have known had we not taken those steps. I can’t imagine my life if I had stayed as that schoolgirl delivering newspapers once a week metaphorically speaking. What about you? How do you know what is ‘round a corner’ if you always ‘go home the same way?’ Has your life become such a rut that you never do anything new or different? Maybe you always have the same meals on a Thursday, maybe you take the same thing to lunch every day, maybe you ‘crawl’ into work every day yet you can’t stand what you do. How tragic is that? What you eat is neither here nor there – it’s not tragic but you should try something new, you never know, you might even like it; however, spending your everyday life doing something you’re not enjoying, and you’ve been doing it for years, is. It is tragic. I’m not saying you should walk into your dream job at age 15 and you’re sorted for life – we all have to go through a process of getting to that place of satisfaction in our work/life balance. I have done my fair share of naff jobs so I know all about that season. But what I am saying is, life should be good! God breathed his life into us for us to have an adventure – I’m having one and I hope you are too and, if you’re not, change it. It is in your hands. If you’re in work reading this (I hope you don’t get sacked!) let me challenge you to find a new route home tonight! Who knows what you will see.

Beth and I will be talking in more detail about how to live a John 10:10 life at our conference, ‘Brave,’ in November. We have some amazing plans so you should think about coming – the only proviso is, you must be a girl! Sorry boys! Go to our website and click on ‘events’ for more details, I promise you won’t be disappointed! www.agapelife.co.uk.

The world doesn’t care anymore about what Christians disagree with – it really doesn’t! It really doesn’t! So we are just going to have to go about it in a different way. We are going to have to show that, if lived properly (that’s another blog!) the Christian life holds the most benefits both on earth and in heaven. Who is that up to? You and me! It’s our shift, so let’s get on it! John 10:10