Scene One:

Imagine Abraham – He and Sarah have waited 25 years to have a child. A child that God promised them, a child that they had to wait a very long time for! They even took matters into their own hands just in case God needed some help, and Abraham had a child with Hagar (Sarah’s servant) – , a wrong choice, maybe made because of fear that the promised child wasn’t coming! Eventually, Isaac came! A beautiful boy and the long awaited child of the promise.

One day, – scholars believe Isaac could have been around 14 and even as old as 37 which some Jewish writings suggest – God tells Abraham to sacrifice his son! Wait! What? Did I hear correctly, God? The child of the promise and the one we’ve waited 25 years for. You want me to sacrifice him? ‘Yes Abraham!’

This story is found in Genesis 22. Off they go up the mountain with just the wood! As they get near the top, Isaac begins to question his dad, ‘Where’s the sacrifice dad?’ Abraham says, ‘God will provide, son’ How nervous was Abraham do you think? He was pretty confident and we  know this because he leaves his servant to look after the stuff and he says to him, ‘wait here and WE will return’ How nervous was Isaac? Did he squirm to get off the wood, did he abuse his father with shouts and objections? Can you imagine trying to hold your 14 year old son down on a wooden fire ready to sacrifice him? (At age 14, this might be easier to imagine! Haha! – don’t imagine too hard!)

Just as Abraham is about to do the deed – an angel calls from heaven and says, ‘don’t do it!’ (My version)  I’m sure there were huge sighs of relief all round! And, of course we know that there in the bushes, God indeed had provided a ram for the sacrifice.

Scene Two:

Imagine the disciples. Matthew 10

Jesus’ calling of the 12 disciples. He tells them to go and proclaim the kingdom of heaven – Jesus is sending out his team, but he says to them, ‘don’t go anywhere near the Gentiles’ (v5) Wait! What? Isn’t the Kingdom of heaven for everyone? Of course, but Jesus clearly says, don’t go to the Gentiles. Fast forward to Acts 10. Peter has the dream of the sheet with unclean animals on it and God directing him to kill and eat! Peter says no at first because this went against everything he had ever lived by and known. This was of course, Peter’s directive to go to the Gentiles! The thing that Jesus told them not to do, they were now being told to do it!

These two stories and I’m sure there are others are a great help to us and let me explain why:

God clearly told Abraham to kill his son – then He told him not to.

Jesus told the disciples not to go anywhere near the Gentiles – then the Lord tells them to.

What if Abraham and Peter had stood firm on the first word and ignored the second?

God speaks to His children all the time. And, I believe that there are times that we have to stand on the Word until we see it come into being. But, what these two examples show me is that sometimes God says something in contrary to what He’s said before. Just because God said something doesn’t necessarily mean it’s permanent.

If you’re still standing on a word, just make sure you haven’t missed any ‘memos’ from God that may have changed what He once said.

Hear God today!

I have been thinking a lot about this over the last couple of weeks so I thought I’d write about it! I want to ask you if it’s time that you burst your bubbles! Let me explain!

Throughout our lives, stories happen and, let’s face it, we would rather some, of them hadn’t, but it’s life. Some of those stories could be something we caused, some are caused by others and some are entirely our imagination! Let me give some examples, abuse, divorce for you as a child or an adult, adoption, adultery, alcohol abuse, drugs, rejection, betrayal and so on… I want you to imagine that every story of yours is a bubble!

Kids, and, I think, most adults, love bubbles! It’s great to blow bubbles and watch children running around either trying to protect them or smash them with one blow. I want you to imagine our stories are a series of bubbles! There are some that you have no problem in popping, like the day your brother may have broken the head off one of your favourite dolls! Or your friend who you thought was your best friend in school pinched your boyfriend! You can, eventually go, ‘meh!’ And pop that bubble and move on! Others are a bit more tricky and we can, if we’re not careful, spend most of our lives trying to keep it floating around! So that we and everyone else can never forget what happened to you. Like the day the family member abused you, or the day your partner left your marriage, or the day you were left on a hospital step because your mum didn’t want you or the day you were told you wouldn’t be accepted in the role you dreamed of. These bubbles are little more tricky. As I write, one of my particulars stories comes to mind.

Back in 1996, we were on a church picnic. My husband John was impersonating Ian Botham with the boys on the cricket pitch, and I wasn’t impersonating anyone on the rounders pitch! Suddenly, there were yells and screams from the sideline for John to go quickly. As he walked onto the scene, (tears are coming, maybe I haven’t popped this one yet!) he saw to his horror, that our precious four year old daughter, Beth had been bitten by a dog. It had taken half of her eyebrow away and people were searching to see if they could find it! What followed was 11 days in Morriston hospital, South Wales where Beth received a skin graft. It was a truly horrible time! Everywhere we went, we told the story – he said, she said, I felt, it was awful, John said, the doctors said, Beth did etc. We had it down to a fine art -the whole terrible story! Eventually, I very clearly remember hearing God say to me, and this is my version, I’m sure God was more polite! He said, ‘ Deb, shut up with this story now, it’s time to turn over the page!’ It was so clear to me and I went and told John straight away and we did stop talking about it.

There comes a day when we have to stop holding the bubble in the air!

Let me talk to you about another kind of bubble – an imaginary one! Have you ever made a case against another person for so long, that you are utterly convinced you are right and they are wrong? This epidemic that we are living in right now is creating lots of bubbles! The classic one is: No-one has contacted me, no-one cares about me, I knew she/he never liked me, I’ve got so much going on in my life right now, and no-one cares!

I think you know what I mean. The problem with these kinds of bubbles are, if you find out the truth and that you were wrong after all, you have to burst your bubble and admit that you were wrong. Not easy. Of course the example I gave is a small thing compared to what some imaginary bubbles can become. ‘The divorce was all ‘their’ fault’; ‘I’m obnoxious because of my upbringing’; ‘I’m this way because I was abused’; We have a desire to protect our story, our bubbles and we all have a few. We can find ourselves avoiding certain passages in the Bible, certain meetings, certain preachers, certain conversations because we know that if we allow ourselves to be told something different, it’s going to mean letting go of my bubble and I’ve had this bubble for 30 years. What they did to me was horrific – If this is you, you absolutely don’t want to hear any message on forgiveness, do you? Once you do, even if your story wasn’t your fault, you now have a responsibility to pop it!

Choosing to pop an unforgiveness bubble, a rejection bubble, an insecurity bubble is huge! However, not popping it is huger! (I know that’s not a real word but I use it for effect!) It’s hard though, right? We want to protect our story! And to those around us, we say, stay away with your pins! Don’t you try and burst my bubble! If you’re serious about bursting bubbles, you may have to do it more than once! If it keeps appearing in your life, here’s what you need to do:

Ask this question – Have I really dealt with this? If the answer is a clear ‘yes’ then you need to tell the enemy that it’s done, finished, fin, over!! Be authoritative- the devil has no say over you except what you give him. If the answer is ‘no’ then keep popping!! Every time you see it rearing its head, pop it!

Trying to keep bubbles afloat is exhausting! So, let me encourage you today to grab a pin and go and play bursting bubbles! You will feel very free once you do!

It is a true saying that less is more, but in the context of this blog, I don’t believe it is. We have been out of pastoral ministry in the UK for 6 years and during that time, some things have changed within church life. Three of the main things that I have noticed are these: Communion happens usually once a month – I’ll get to that: a lot of churches only have one service on a Sunday – I’l get to that and many churches don’t have a weekly prayer meeting, guess what? I’ll get to that too!

You may ask, does it matter about any of these things, and maybe it doesn’t for you, but I think that this is a detriment to our churches. So, let me explain further.

Communion

Jesus told us to take communion, the bread and the wine, in remembrance of Him. The horrendous suffering that Jesus endured was for you and I to have life. Communion, I believe is a part of that life. What is the point of Jesus telling us to take and eat if it doesn’t have any affect on our lives? There is more to it than a lot of churches have given it credit for, ask yourself if that’s true.

Many times, it’s a 5 minute add on to our services and, as previously said, happens in a lot of churches just once a month. So, what about the church member who isn’t there on the first Sunday of the month (the usual Sunday) it means they have the potential to go 2 months or more before taking communion! A crucial part of a believer’s life. It’s even worse in Tanzania. In the 20 years that we have been involved in Tanzanian church, we have never once taken communion! Wow!

These next couple of sentences I am pinching from my husband! ‘Communion gives us a chance to Remember – the cost & Jesus’ return; to Remind the enemy that he was totally defeated at Calvary; to Realign, forgive others and be forgiven; Reflect, By His stripes we were healed.’ JB

Just these 4 words have taken communion to a new level for me. Communion is a power. Communion gives life. If we don’t take it seriously there are consequences – read 1 Corinthians 11 if you’re not sure about that. Where communion is concerned, less is not more.

Prayer Meetings

Let me start this section with a very high bar! John 15:7 says this, ‘If you remain in me and my words remain in you, ask whatever you wish and it will be done for you’ I don’t have time to delve into this verse suffice it to say, remaining in Him and the word remaining in you, play a huge part in this verse, it isn’t living how you like and getting whatever you wish, there is much more to it than that, I’m sure you’ll appreciate, but it is scripture which means its true and it is possible! This is our access because we are Christians, yet if you were to ask a lot, not all, of pastors how many people go to their prayer meetings, the answer is usually low or the answer is, we don’t have one! That utterly baffles me! How can a church function without a weekly prayer meeting? The truth is, generally speaking, many don’t really believe God answers prayer and that is reflected by the size of the prayer meeting in your church or by the fact that there isn’t a prayer meeting at all. If you’re a pastor reading this, you may have tried and no-one has turned up. It doesn’t matter, you should do it. Lead by example and the people will come – don’t give up too soon.

To pray together as church is a great exercise. You get to hear the hearts of your people, you get to stand in agreement with one another and you get to pray for things that don’t necessarily affect your life e.g persecuted church, missions, government etc… It’s the engine room. Where prayer meetings are concerned, less is not more.

Sundays

This is the one where you’re probably going to feel the need to do something else right now rather than read on! Haha! Don’t panic, hear me out. I grew up going to church 3 times on a Sunday! Morning, afternoon for Sunday School and then there was an evening meeting! I’m sure many of you were the same. I’m not suggesting we go back to that, but I am throwing out some thoughts about what we may have given up by only having one service. An evening service gives you the chance to help other ministries develop. To encourage preachers, worship leaders etc becomes much more a challenge if you only have one service. An evening service gives those who serve in the morning service e.g Sunday school/youth a chance to go to church. An evening service gives those who have to work on Sunday mornings a chance to go to church! Simple reasons, but nevertheless real. When we were in Porth, we stopped our Sunday evening service but we replaced it with home groups. This worked really well for us as people were already used to going out on a Sunday night! We’re in early days in Newcastle and we are about to trial ‘Autumn Nights’ from September for 3 months. We’ll see how it goes. If you’ve got used to not going out on a Sunday night, it could be harder to get back into it, so, watch this space! A lot of churches function well without a Sunday night and so I don’t think it’s as vital as the other two subjects I’ve talked about it, but it’s worth having a chat about.

Can a church thrive without a Sunday night service, probably. Can a church thrive without regular prayer and communion, I don’t think so.

So, there it is, my thoughts on less is not always more

 

If you’re a movie watcher, you’ll recognise the title of this blog as a very famous line from the movie, ‘Dirty Dancing’ (if you haven’t seen it, let me assure you the film is not as bad as the title may suggest!) I think for you to understand where I’m coming from in this blog I need to give some context! It’s a great movie, set in the 60’s about a teenage girl trying to find her way in life. She finds herself in the staff quarters after show party and is drawn to the very cool character, Johnny, played by Patrick Swayze. She’s trying to be cool too, but when he comes over to her to find out who she is, she blurts out, ‘I carried a watermelon’ she wasn’t lying, that’s what she brought into the party, but, to the cool boy, it wasn’t the best line to come out with! In case you’re going to watch it now, I won’t spoil it, but I’m pretty sure you already know how it ends!

Anyway, fast forward to a few days ago. We were sat with a few missionaries discussing the hard, but necessary job of fund raising. If you put out an appeal to buy a building, sponsor a child, build a home for a widow etc… the funds role in and we are all very grateful that they do. However, if you send out an appeal to buy food, water, electric etc.. funds do not role in. As we were talking, this line from the movie came to me, ‘I carried a watermelon’ I thought about it in the context of missions giving and came to the conclusion that, generally speaking, not many people want to carry the watermelons. Why? Because it isn’t seen as, to use an up to date word for this, ‘sexy’ enough. People want their finance to go to something that is tangible and, probably, it we’re honest, something that helps us feel good about what we’ve given to. Let’s face it, how many people would you tell if you’d paid the electric bill for a missions base in a far-flung country in the world? Much better if you have a picture of a kid on your fridge, right?

Our missionary experience is about to change as we re-locate back to the UK. We will always be involved in Tanzania, it’s just our location that is changing. Because of this, I feel a freedom now to write about these things in defense of my missionary mates who are still on the field. If nobody takes up the watermelon challenge, there will be no projects to support and no kids to sponsor. That’s the reality. Every mission needs the watermelon carriers! You can’t look after people if you have no food, water or electricity. Seems a very simple thing to say, but the reality is, it’s much more difficult to raise funds for these kinds of things. So, if you support missions, and every Christian on earth should (that’s for another blog!) Your missionaries would love it if you sent them some operational money! Offer to pay the rent, buy some food, pay the electric bill! Sexy? No! Vital? For certain!

Let’s be watermelon carriers!

Soul talk

Recently, I jarred my back whilst running. I only had 16 seconds to go until the run had finished and I truly wished I could have turned the clock back. John and I did what we always do first in these situations and we prayed and declared that this would not remain an issue.

It was day one of a new training regime and I was determined not to get stopped so early on! It could have been a natural thing or it could have been something more than that, but, whatever it was, we decided that it could not stay in my body. As the day progressed, I decided to carry on with all the chores that were on my ‘to do’ list and I prayed and spoke words of healing to my back throughout the day. I took ibuprofen and rubbed on deep heat – I’m not against doing that, although I thought the deep heat was going to burn my skin off! I (my spirit) had to decide to carry on, what I (my body and soul) wanted was to lie on the sofa all day and let John wait on my hand and foot! (Do my American friends understand that term?) So, my spirit had to make a decision that went against what my body wanted.

If you know us, you will know that the main focus of our ministry is spirit, soul and body. We are convinced, more than ever, that, generally speaking, the souls (minds, wills and emotions)  of believers are running lives and the spirit part of us doesn’t get much say.

I asked God to speak to me about what was going on with my back and we had a chat or I felt him talking to me in the middle of the night.

I felt God telling me that the reason it is so difficult for the spirit part or the inner-part of man to rule the ‘show’ is because the body and the soul are spoilt and pampered and they often seek and often need attention. So when something hits like what happened to me, your body and  soul wants attention, care, sympathy and I guess, prayer so they maybe go to social media and immediately get said attention. Your spirit, on the other hand has absolutely no need for those things! It doesn’t operate through feelings and it does not need attention from any other human being.  I believe it is healed, strong and fully complete. (2 Peter 1:3 His divine power has given me EVERYTHING I need for life and godliness)

Now, I’m not saying that letting people know your issues is always a bad thing, but I do think we need to pause and ask why we want people to know. I told one friend because I wanted her to know that there was a possibility of me missing aerobics the next day – but I think a little piece of me wanted sympathy! The more people you tell, the more sympathy you get, the more you have to tell the story and it’s possible to lose your focus from where it should be, which, to me, is your spirit and the need for you to attack the reality of a situation with the higher realities of health and strength that is already in your spirit. Did you know that  if you are a Christian, you have the same spirit that raised Christ from the dead inside of you – all the power you need, right there!  (Romans 8:11)

If you want to know if your spirit makes your decisions, shut your body down for a few days and you’ll soon find out! If you go on a diet or if you fast, your body doesn’t like it one bit! It wants to quit, it wants to eat cake or it wants to sleep until the fast or diet is over! How do I know? Through experience! It’s only when you shut your body down that you realise how spoilt it is. Certainly, this is true for Western Christianity.

My desire is to help Christians, myself included, realise who we are in Christ. Jesus died on the cross to not only give us eternal life, but also to give us abundant life on earth. (John 10:10).  Not a life without struggles, storms or mountains to overcome, like jarring your back when running! But a life that can tap into the same spirit that raised Christ from the dead, a life of discipline and of making right choices so that I can overcome the storms of life. That kind of church will speak volumes to the world and I’d like to be a part of a church like that!

We can often just accept struggles – even for years – as if there is no way out and we use people like Job or Paul. Job was the greatest man around at the time and ended up with so much more than he had before Satan tried to take him out.  Paul wrote over a third of the New Testament and his trials all brought glory to God. If your trial isn’t bringing glory to God, then maybe you should question whether you should be living with it.

I jarred my back on a Thursday and I went to aerobics on the following Friday morning. It was more of a statement of intent than the fact that I was healed. I chose to walk in a victory I didn’t yet have. I took it easy and wasn’t stupid, but I did the hour long class. 4 days later I did a 30 minute run. I prayed, spoke, took ibuprofen and rested, but I didn’t give in to it and neither should you.  The goodness of God, for our every day lives, is far greater than we often think.

I have recently been disturbed, once again, about the abuse I have seen thrown around towards fellow Christians by Christians. I wrote this blog 2 years ago! (where does the time go?) So I thought I would re-post it! It isn’t Easter right now, but it was when I wrote it and I’ve left it as it was for effect:

Easter is just behind us and many of you reading this have seen, taken part in, heard once again about what Jesus went through during that first Easter weekend. Even if you’re not religious, if you’re involved in social media, I imagine that some of your friends and family are and so you’ll have seen things – images, videos, gratitude status’ and so on. Unless you live in a cave, you know we’ve just had Easter.

Recently, I was reading the accounts of what happened that day and something struck me in a way it never has before. It made me think a lot and the question that came to my mind was ‘what kind of people actually stand in a crowd and shout, “Crucify Him!”’ Just think about that for a minute – could you do it? I honestly think that whoever was ‘on the stand’ I could not imagine those words coming out of my mouth. They didn’t just say it once; they repeated it over and over…

Matthew 27: 22, 23 & 31

“What shall I do, then, with Jesus who is called the Messiah?” Pilate asked. They all answered, “Crucify him!”

Mark 15: 13 & 14

Crucify him!” they shouted.

Luke 23:21

But they kept shouting, “Crucify him! Crucify him!”

John 19: 6 & 15

As soon as the chief priests and their officials saw him, they shouted, “Crucify! Crucify!”

I ask you again, could you do that? Even if it was someone who had committed a terrible crime, I just don’t think I could send a person to be nailed, that’s nailed – I say again, nailed to a cross!! What kind of people were they? Had they had dinner with their families that evening? Had they been to the synagogue? Had they cleaned their kitchen? Were they ordinary people who turned into savages on that first Good Friday? The only answer I have is that something evil was involved in the hearts of that crowd that day – it makes no sense otherwise or it may have been something familiar to the day and a spill over from the arenas where bloodshed was ‘normal’ entertainment or maybe they were more animal like back then… Thank goodness it was 2000 years ago and a severely ugly part of our history. Or was it?

Shropshire – March 2015

There was a young man on top of a tall building. What was going through his mind? What had happened to him in his life to bring him to this point? God is the only one who really knows. Maybe if this was the year that Jesus was crucified we could understand what happened because they were obviously more thuggish back then? But it wasn’t! It was now and on the streets of the UK. People were telling him to jump!

Here is what one woman said,

“As we walked past, there were some youths shouting ‘Go on, do it – jump’,” she said. “It made me feel quite sick, actually, and then a lot of them were filming it, but to see some grown men filming it…

Grown men filming it! How had their day started? Shower? Had breakfast with their families? Maybe they were on their way home or to work. The only answer I have is that something evil was involved in the hearts of that crowd that day. I wonder what the mood was like around the dinner tables that night, especially of the grown men who filmed it. Do you think they showed the video to their kids? Could you have shouted, ‘jump!’ Could you have shouted ‘Crucify him!’ What gets into the heart of man that would turn him into a savage? Maybe it’s because they don’t know Christ! Yes, that’s it, thank goodness – they don’t know Jesus. Surely if you knew Jesus you couldn’t be so savage or could you?

The other day I stumbled across yet another huge piece of writing on a well-known Christian teacher. I didn’t read it all because there was oodles of it – nicely italicised and emboldened as they made their points about how wrong this man is. There are people, scratch that, there are Christians who seem to have dedicated their lives to tearing down people, scratch that, brothers and sisters in Christ. Have these high profile teachers got EVERYTHING right? Of course they haven’t. Have you? Have I? The comment on this particular article, and there were many, that really made me mad (righteously of course!!) was this one, ‘the pit awaits him!’ The pit awaits him!!! Who do we think we are making judgments such as this? The said ‘pit’ does exist according to scripture. If I’m honest, I wish it didn’t but it does. God does not want anyone to go there. I do not want anyone to end up there. Could you say, ‘the pit awaits him’ about anyone? However bad a person is and let’s face it there have been some unimaginable atrocities meted out on this earth since it began – well after the forbidden fruit was eaten – and we will face judgment. BUT that is up to God and not up to me. To condemn another believer to the pit is the lowest of the low and I hope the person who wrote it will be convicted and remove it.

So, to end… it seems that the crowd that shouted, ‘crucify him’ 2000 years ago hasn’t changed much. Some are even saying that to people on the same side!

These high profile men and women don’t have it all right and sometimes they don’t do the wisest things. BUT they are our brothers and sisters in Christ so let’s leave them alone. If they bug you that much, then don’t listen but don’t slander them either! Leave the judging to God and concentrate on what Jesus commanded us to do – Love (agape) one another as he has loved us…

I realise this title probably made you open this blog and you might imagine I’m going to say I’ve stopped praying or I don’t agree with it or I’m just giving up – I think you’ll be relieved to know I’m not going to say any of those things, but I do want to share are some thoughts of where I’m at with my praying journey. I may have more questions than answers right now, so I’m simply sharing my heart…..

Here is what I know:

God is good. He loves his children more than we understand. He is perfect in all of his ways. He tells us to pray ‘on earth as it is in heaven’. There is no sickness in heaven, there is no death in heaven so I want to believe that if someone appears to be dying too soon or is living in unnecessary suffering (not the kind that may bring glory to God), I can pray the same for my friends/family on earth, right? I want to see results as a direct connection to my prayer.

Some other things that I know:

My prayers don’t always get answered in the way I would like –  My friends die (too early, at least for me). Families break up. Sicknesses don’t get healed. ‘On earth as it is in heaven’…….

You’re probably thinking, well if your prayers don’t get answered, it must have been God’s will for your friends to die. If that’s the case, then why pray? Why not just be fatalistic and say ‘ God, let your will be done’ and head off to the beach? I feel like that is a cop-out. Here’s why I think that: generally speaking, if someone recovers, it’s God’s will and if the same person dies, it’s God’s will – they can’t both be God’s will, can they?

We all get emails, face book messages, tweets etc… asking us to pray for situations that are sometimes just horrible. The church rises, it fasts (if it’s really bad) it prays, tragedy strikes, the church is devastated and we don’t ask why, we just say, Oh well, it must have been God’s will….. So I ask the question I started with, what on earth is the point of praying? I’m tired of being asked to pray and not getting the desired answer.

Personally, I can’t accept this hit and miss kind of Christianity. I just can’t and I don’t want to – I’ll go as far as to say I don’t think God wants me to either. . I want to know what it is to get answered prayer every time, even if that is a ‘no’ and if it’s a ‘no’ I want find out as early in the prayer process as possible, instead of just not knowing. I’ve asked the Lord to help me with this and this is what I think He said.

The church is not close enough to him  to hear his voice. Intimacy is a rare thing. The general level of prayer amongst leaders is puny, therefore the level of the churches’ prayer is also puny. If we would hear his  voice daily, then when tragedy comes, He might just whisper, ‘no need to pray for this, I’m calling my son/daughter home’ Of course, it would still be sad for the people left behind,  but the peace we would all have would carry us through. Instead, the church goes into a frenzy of prayer only for the answers not to come and I,  for one, am left shaking my head asking, what was the point of praying?

We have to get back to taking prayer seriously. I address myself too. Some of you reading this will definitely have a strong prayer life, most of you won’t. That’s because we don’t really believe God answers prayer. It’s not what you say that you believe, it’s what you do, so if you don’t go to your churche’s prayer meeting (if they have one – God help us if they don’t), you don’t really believe in prayer.

God is not mean, but I just think he wants us to know him better. For me, I want to really know how or what to pray in any given situation and to do that, I need intimacy with him. If I can pray confidently, knowing what God’s will is, my prayer life will be lot less ‘lottery’ like and a whole lot more ‘fact’ like.

I wish I had more answers and maybe as I continue to ask, I’ll get more. My challenge to the church is don’t not ask questions. Be bold enough to ask, did we miss something?

The same spirit that raised Christ from the dead is living in you and me giving life to our mortal flesh….(Romans 8:11)  Where is that spirit? On the inside of me!  So, let’s not rest until we see what we all long to see. Will you have to get out of bed a little earlier in order to see it? Maybe…. How hard are we prepared to work for it? …..it’s our shift, let’s arise.

There’s a question with a thousand answers. Depending on where you are coming from when you read that question, will determine your answer of course. Technically, every follower of Jesus is a missionary in the sense of telling your story and living a life that is abundant so as to ‘attract’ friends and family into the kingdom. However, for this blog, I’m talking about those who God calls to up sticks, leave family, friends, the known way of life and head into an unknown, sometimes scary place.

The first time we became missionaries was in 1998. We were asked to consider a role in East Africa and, after much thought (mainly against the idea it has to be said) and prayer, we took on the role. Our kids were 6 & 7 at the time and we landed in Tanzania. We were salaried back then, our kids’ schooling was paid for among other things and we didn’t have to think about raising funds. I remember thinking at the time how glad I was about that. I was having enough trauma with the food, mosquitoes, dark nights (sounds pathetic now) Ghekos, strange noises and so to have to contemplate how we were going to live on top of all that would have been a step to far for us back then.

It’s all very different now. Most missionary organisations have a policy whereby the missionary is responsible for gaining their own support. This is both positive and negative I think.

The positive aspect is that the missionary generally tends to know most their supporters and this creates a great sense of ‘team’. When newsletters go out, in the main, you’re writing to your mates who have made the choice to stand with you as you go and that is a very satisfying feeling.

The negative aspect is that some supporters (not all, thank God) tend to think that they own you and they have a right to judge your life and the way you live. This is an ugly mindset and I’m yet to find out where it came from.

The missionary has two choices here: 1. They live a lie, they do really nice things but never tell anyone just in case their support goes down. 2. They live a lie, they never do nice things and therefore have a less of a life than Jesus died to give them, and if there are kids on the scene, they usually pay a heavier price.

These are some of the things I have heard recently that have been said to missionary friends of ours: ‘You have a microwave?’; ‘You have an Ipad?’; ‘You live by the ocean?’; ‘I wish I was a missionary!’ (After having been on safari)

Someone actually stopped their support of a young girl because she was having too good a time on the mission field! Oh my….

Now, let me say that if all you’re doing is having too good a time on the mission field – after all, there are some very nice things to do, I’m writing this by a swimming pool – I hope we don’t lose £10 from someone because I just told you that! Haha!! Then maybe your/our supporters have a point. They do need to see some fruit for their sowing into our lives, of course they do. But if you work hard doing what you know God has called you to do, then you/we should be free to play hard too shouldn’t we?

Many of the people who use sarcastic comments like, ‘it’s alright for you living in the sunshine’ (yeah, we’ve had that one too), haven’t sacrificed anything. They live near their kids, they have a comfortable home, possibly 2 cars, a microwave (ha), a comfortable salary and yet they seem to imagine we should make all the sacrifices, whilst they make none?! How is that fair?

I’d love it if this blog would stop all the ugly comments that have the potential to turn missionaries into’ liars’, but it probably won’t. So, for what it’s worth, to all my missionary friends, work hard, but also play hard – don’t let the fear of lack of support stop you from going to the beach, having dinner out, going on date nights, letting your kids have fun – personally I’d rather lose $100 a month than give up my life – after all, should’t God be our source anyway?

To our wonderful supporters, don’t go all funny if you see a picture of ‘your’ missionary at the beach, I’m sure you go (granted, not very often if you live in the UK! Haha!), celebrate them – you have no idea what may have gone on the week leading up to the beach. Tell them to have a great time, it will do wonders for them.

Finally, let’s be kinder and nicer to each other.

Whilst reading Maya Angelou’s book, ‘I know why the caged bird sings’ my own thinking made me realise that so do I. Maya recounts her upbringing in the Deep South of America in the 1950’s. She points out the fact that some of the Afro American people really just learned how to put up with their abuse, it was their lot, it was expected and probably, they thought, what God wanted. She admitted words to the affect of, the poorer, more abused and put down her people were, the more God was involved. Yet if people prospered, that can’t have had anything to do with God.

Separate from reading this book, I also discovered another fact about the second word war – did you know that one statistic that has been revealed was that, on average, it only took one guard to control 1000 Jews?  It seems, they (not all, some did stand up to the German oppression – the film, ‘Defiance’ tells their story) were more content to accept their lot than to fight. How easy would it have been to take control of one German soldier? Yes, they’d have sent more, but at least the Jews would have gone down with a sense of dignity and fight. I don’t know for sure, but it makes you think.

So, with this evidence, it got me thinking… some were happy to sing in their cage because that was so much easier than fighting. The known darkness, abuse, oppression, was easier than the unknown. It was easier to sing in a cage than it was to push open the cage door and fly out.

After being in ministry for almost 30 years, I see many Christians singing in cages. They’re happy, content, fed and secure. They are free to sing, they don’t have to feed themselves and they’re comfortable with what they have concluded is their lot.

PLEASE!…. think again. Does God really need caged birds – however beautiful they may sing? Do caged birds really represent Jesus well on earth? There is no answer to that question except a very loud ‘no!’

Jesus’ death was ultimately about securing eternal life for those who would accept it, but I believe it was also about letting thousands, millions of human beings out of their cages and saying, ‘hey, look at me fly!!’

The problem, as I see it, in the church today, is that we have become far too apathetic and we can’t be bothered to find out why we’re in the cage and what we need to do to get out. I say ‘what we need to do’ purposely. Jesus did it all at Calvary. The enemy was defeated. Jesus won! He loves you, He is for you!

However, it’s much easier to stay in the cage and say to pastors, counsellors, leaders, ‘feed me’ ‘care for me’ ‘visit me’ ‘pray for me’ rather than opening that cage door and saying, ‘right! That’s it! Satan, you were defeated! God, what do I need to do to get out of my cage? I am ready to obey and commit to getting free!

Is it harder to open the cage door? Of course it is! Will you get a better life? For sure! If you let a bird out of a cage, I imagine, for a while, it’s not sure what to do for food or protection, but eventually, if it keeps going, a whole new world will open up to it. It’s the same for us. Yes, it’s risky, scary, unknown, but don’t you think that if Jesus died to give you eternal life, life forever in paradise, he has also got your life on earth covered too? If you comply with His word, if you’re open to saying ‘yes’ even when you don’t know what’s round the corner, I’m certain your life will be one amazing adventure! If you choose to stay in your cage, you’ll be safe, comfortable, fed and you’ll be free to sing, but you will miss out on the world that God could open up for you if only you’d open your cage door.

Go on… I dare you……