Today, because I listened to Henri Nouwen in the link below, I found myself thinking about Belinda.

Belinda lived on Stronsay part of my first charge as a proper minister! It was a miracle that she lived at all as some vital organs were missing. She grew to about 2 feet but could never walk, never talk, but she became my friend as she was to many. She died , if I remember right in her late teens or early twenties, during my time in Stronsay but I think about her still from time to time, 30 years on. It was a hard day to see her in a little coffin. I don’t think I will ever forget it. No one tells you in your training how to cope with such things. You just have to find a way….

For me, Belinda was a proof of this simple truth: we need one another in our shared vulnerabilities. She drew forth so much love and laughter from so many people. Somehow just by being vulnerable she created a community of care and love to which she contributed much and from which she received much. She was essential to the strength of the Kingdom of God on Stronsay. She added to the love of that island community.

In a sense she accomplished all of  that effortlessly. She could not hide the fact that she needed the love and care of others. Most of us reading this blog will however face a choice. Will I admit that I cannot manage life on my own, nor can any of us, and we need one another to help each other on until we cross the finishing line together? Such freely admitted and accepted weakness is the means of the creation of Kingdom of God strength! It cannot be formed any other way.

According to the bible if we want a prize then we need to compete according to the rules. In the Kingdom of God the prize does not necessarily go to the one who seems to cross the finishing line first and is  the winner according to what onlookers may see. The person who gets the prize is the one who comes limping, tied at the ankles to other folk, racing/stumbling along together, probably slowly;  supporting others under their shoulders and being supported under their own shoulders; all stumbling along together in a bit of an ungainly awkward fashion as one not very coordinated person that some onlookers may be tempted to dismiss with a sneer, and yet miraculously and inexplicably  and against all the odds it is all held together in the love of Christ and gets there in the end! The rules are help one another, honour one another , prefer one another, submit to one another, be kind to one another, forgive one another, share what you have with one another…. and a lot of other “one anothers” too that we find in the New Testament, all  explanatory unpacking of what it means to follow Christ’s new Commandment to His people: “Love one another as I have loved you.”

In the West we exalt individualism and independence to such an extent it becomes a distorted and sinful thing, but the early church had a Kingdom of God culture which challenged a Greek/Roman culture of individual prowess of the day and must challenge ours too. God gave me a word not long ago that the gods of Greece and Rome are not dead. They are coming alive again, even in the church.

So, are we running according to the Kingdom rules, loving and allowing ourselves to be loved, helping and allowing ourselves to be helped, valuing weakness in others and ourselves, valuing inter-dependence  as the very core of the Kingdom? Allowing others to help me has been a huge challenge since taking not so well… and others have helped me wonderfully well.

I was reading today in 1st. Thessalonians that Paul thought of the Christians he was writing to as being a model for others. In what sense? Well, in  3 ways: they had turned from idols; they had become servants of the Living God; they were waiting for the day when Christ would come again.

I remember hearing a speaker being introduced as a warm person with a model church. He was quick witted and said that warm meant not too hot and model meant an imitation of the real thing!  Perhaps he was just someone who could not take a compliment and had to fend it off through humour!  Paul saw in the Thessalonians a model, a  representation not an untrue imitation of the real thing. Are we true to the model in the first thing that Paul highlights? Have we turned from the idols of success and winning in the form that our culture presents them to us and truly become servants of the Living God and His Kingdom? It seems to me that the person who may well win the prize is the person who might well move the slowest because they are not willing to leave any behind to drop by the wayside un-helped. So my prayer for me and for you is that we will see that speeding ahead of everyone is not what God’s Kingdom race is about. If we are particularly insecure or particularly competitive by nature we need to remember that. The rule for athletes in God’s kingdom is cooperation not competition, save to outdo one another in loving  and honouring one another. It may be that this blog will be read today or another day by someone who wants to expand the influence of their ministry , whatever that ministry may be, but in order to do that feels they need to cast aside inconvenient or draining, or needy people believing that you have Scriptural backing for casting aside such “weights” so you can run more freely. People who need the love of God are not weights…You are deceived. Such an attitude eventually leads to an isolation in which there is no safety which often leads to a fall of one sort or another. I have seen this happening more times than I would care to mention, though it happening once is too often. It has happened to friends with wonderful ministries who ignored the warning signs that they even told me they could see themselves and confessed to me… but did nothing about. It always hurts the body and gives it another wound and another limp.

Did we help anyone today in any way by word, deed, text, Facebook Message, phone call? Did we allow ourselves to be helped?

Just as Henri Nouwen could say in the link below that Adam became his teacher, I can say that Belinda was one of my greatest teachers. I have had many more wonderful teachers in Wester Hailes over these past 11 or 12 years, many of them passed over people who others may look down upon but who have brought me grace, understanding and healing from God. I would not be managing this phase of life as well but for them and what they have taught me.

God bless, and try and make time to watch this link and the one in my previous blog. Remember Hernri Nouwen is speaking as a one time academic who gave up that world to live amongst people with disabilities and make his home with them. He was a psychologist. It is wonderful when people bring Christ and their own field together in a mutually enriching way. Please don’t judge this for fully fledged reformed theology of salvation or for an altar call to repentance. You will not find it here, my reformed friends  You will find Christlikeness ….I am assuming that is what we are all aiming at somehow…I hope I am right in that assumption… if I am wrong then maybe these blog pages are not right for you… or maybe they are precisely what God wants you to read, lest you have all the theology right like a beautiful uniform bunch of  subtly coloured Tulips contained and kept well watered and beautifully presented in a vase for all to admire,  but lose your soul. What would that profit you or me? What would it profit anyone else? Tulips cut off from their roots eventually die.

Kenny

https://youtu.be/Idze_Mg3P2U

A typical conversation between Morag and myself these days goes like this:

Morag: “You are looking pale Kenny.”

Kenny: “No, I’m not.”

Morag: “Yes you are, what’s wrong?”

Kenny:  “Nothing.”

Morag: “…and your hands are shaking…”

Kenny: “No, they’re not!”

Morag: “…and you are  breathless…”

Kenny: “No, I am not. I am fine…”

The thing is  that though I mostly feel well enough as it were, when Morag sees these things happening she is usually right! There is an insight that is part of true love, and I have a rock like assurance that Morag truly loves me. In fact I am sure that she loves more than I am yet able to love myself despite encountering the grace of God. I am not sure why often I will deny need, weakness, not feeling well, but I do, and hide it even from love. However, love sees….

Yesterday was a good day health wise but by mid-afternoon I felt tired and with that comes a certain vulnerability because not everything about me is as well as I would like. I asked Jesus last night how He saw me and He seemed to help me look through His eyes at myself. I saw myself in sculpture form hugging the contours of a tree trunk, perfectly camouflaged, perfectly blended in to the rings and shape and colour of the wood, trying to avoid detection even by the eyes of Christ. I was aware as “I” in Christ  looked at “me” in the sculpture,  that the sculpted me knew the eyes of Christ’s love had seen me, and Christ was quietly waiting for that sculpted me to realise it was safe for Him to see me. (As I said above, why I deny it  or try and hide it from him at times, I have no idea… well actually as soon as I wrote that  I realise that partly through thoughts that have come to me during this illness I do now have one or two inklings as to why I do that, but that is for another day… if I share it at all. It is as though He is willing to share the insights into me that His love gives Him) Last night I knew He could see through the camouflage, and gradually in the work of art I risked moving, almost wanting now to be seen, for I felt I was in the presence of safe compassion. I moved and He stayed still. I moved again and he stayed still, knowing I needed time even with Him to feel safe. Then He stooped and ever so gently followed my contours with the touch of his hand, ministering safety, protection, a sense that everything was deeply and eternally all right: “all shall be well, and all shall be well, and all manner of thing shall be well.” (Julian of Norwich)

There were other aspects to that “picture” which were just for me which it would be wrong to share but I am happy to share a general message which may be true of you as well as me: this is not a world in which weakness fares too well; it can often be trampled on; sometimes it needs to hide.  I hope that perhaps beginning today you will let Christ see you and feel safe knowing He looks at you with the compassionate and the wisest insight of eternal love. Allow yourself be seen by Him.Try and take the camouflage off in His presence and then in the strength of being loved by Him, may you find with increasing boldness that you don’t have to hide from yourself, and may you feel safer when you are with other people too.

God bless

Kenny

Make some time to listen to Henri Nouwen. Thanks to George Wilson for sending this link.

I find it moves me that some are finding these blogs particularly helpful. I hope everyone who reads them gets some benefit from them, but it seems that the blog is a particularly safe place for those who like myself have been brought to an experience of weakness of one sort or another. Of those, some could tick an extra box as it were to say that church has not aways seemed like a safe place, either because their weakness/illness/non-healing in a bit of an inconvenience or an embarrassment, or because the church is heavy on demands of its membership which can make people with limitations of energy feel guilty and even useless.

One of the things I find at the moment is that though my illness is physical, it can affect mental energy levels as well. To concentrate for a long time is tiring. Sometimes that means that I can only take the bible in morsels, or pray for a small amount of time, certainly not as long as would pass muster with many teachers or churches heavy on the demand side.

I just want to say what I have observed: “Little is much when God is in it.” If you are facing weakness of body or mind or spirit at the moment please don’t put impossible demands on yourself or give undue attention to those who make suggestions to you about your spiritual life from a place of abounding health and energy. I say again, “Little is much when God is in it.”

I find that I can chew on a verse or 2 on days when I can’t concentrate for a chapter or 2. On days like that each verse seems to provide more than enough nourishment and living water.

So, a short blog today for those for whom reading a few verses seems to increase the guilt at not managing a fuller devotional life; lose the guilt. I think your heavenly Father is glad when you savour each precious morsel. Think of each word, follow the trails that seem to open up; come back to the verse; follow another trail that seems to open up. You can actually dine richly on one verse for longer than you thought possible. Maybe your weak times are helping you to discover a new life giving way of reading the Word of Life. Allow that to happen; don’t fight it. Don’t give in to the persistent beat of the background muzak of “accusations” and “oughts” and “shoulds.” It can be hard to ignore, but I hope you can find the wherewithal to refuse to dance to that rhythm.

Sometimes because of medication I have this strange recurring dream of eating! I wake up with my mouth moving as though I am really savouring something wonderful. In my dreams I chew and chew and taste, and notice texture and colour and sweetness etc. It is amazing how wonderful something that is not even there can taste! Usually it is cereal of some sort, but the other morning it was delicious non existent Strawberries I was tasting! However, I am talking about something in this blog that does exist and is really there: the Word of God. Learn to take time to taste and savour what you are managing to read and think about. Say goodbye to unnecessary guilt that somehow has caused you to believe your relationship with the Lord is based on a certain quota of the bible being read, religiously. Paul said his ministry  to the Thessalonians was like that of  a concerned and caring and gentle nursing mother and an encouraging Father wanting to encourage the best. In the tone of a caring parent I just want to say to you. “Try and eat something, even just a little thing today, little one!”

I say again, “Little is much when God is in it!”

God bless

Kenny

P.S – You are very welcome to enjoy these blogs and share them with anyone “without money or price!” However, if you ever feel grateful for these blogs and are able to do so, then please make a donation to Open Doors, Scotland. Their website is

http://www.opendoorsuk.org/scotland

In case you have not heard of them, Open Doors works to help our persecuted brothers and sisters throughout the world.

I am still trying to negotiate this period of transition in my life. One thing I have become aware of is the truth that we really use a very small percentage of the brain’s capacity. Time is a relatively abundant gift to me in a way that it didn’t seem to be for so many years. My body and mind seemed conditioned by the demands of parish ministry and wider ministry to always be moving on to the next thought, the next thing. Now I have time to think about a thought for longer or enjoy doing something or nothing for longer. My GP told me today that I must allow myself to do that and not feel guilty about it! I sometimes have to tell my body or mind that I do not actually need to go and do something else. I can stick with the moment and see where it leads, stick with a thought, a God thought, for longer and really use more of my mind’s capacity to think it through.

Actually that can be quite scary. I guess most of my life I have in a sense had to offer bite sized portions of spiritual food to a congregation, truths that hopefully they can easily chew and digest and be nourished by. Business has often meant that I have made the mistake of living on bite sized portions of spiritual life and food myself despite knowing that is not the best idea. With God there is enough time to sit down and eat from a fully laden table even in the presence of enemies and in the midst of battle! Well, that is what Psalm 23 tells us anyway. Part of my own personal experience of God is that He can come to us in such abundance, such fullness that it is hard to cope. It hasn’t happened that often to me but it has happened that God has come to me at times with such power that on occasion I have had to say, “No, Lord!” I know that sounds dreadful but it is true. Surprisingly though saying “no” convinces me it really was God I was meeting with at such times and not an imaginary experience.

On a couple of occasions when I felt His power drew near, I realised this was not a gentlemanly God, it was not the God who seemed content with accurate biblical exposition and hymn singing and prayer meetings and conferences and spiritual rave ups where a great time was had by all and Rev. So and So closed the meeting with the benediction as recorded in the neatly written  and duly  proposed and seconded and signed minutes!  This was a God who could do what He wanted with or without my consent. He could do what He wanted in a church or a school or a town or a nation without asking permission or making enquiries as to whether what He wanted to do would be wanted or acceptable: what God does has often not been wanted by the bulk of His people anyway! It is not possible to charge Him with wrong and for that charge to stick, save when the charge of our wrong was stuck upon Him at the cross. It felt as though to end a meeting would be to risk controlling holy fire that might end up with a few folk including me being slain by the Spirit in the  Ananias and Sapphira sense rather than the charismatic experience sense. It  was as though a hurricane was approaching me at tremendous speed. The thing is, I knew on those occasions that  I was not ready. We talk blithely sometimes about revival and asking God to come by His Holy Spirit. I think revival must be the most terrifying experience in the world when God comes not to simply do our will but His own will regardless of the response  for or against what He does. Revival is not a revival meeting. It is not a few miracles that make us laugh or clap our hands in appreciation, it is not even discovering with joy that God can use us to expand His Kingdom. It is about saint and sinner being caught in the hurricane of a God who sets aside our programmes, our missions, our plans, our endeavours, our theories, who may use us or may set us and our gifts and ministries aside as He moves  and works with extraordinary power in a way that causes men and women to fear Him, whether that is the fear that leads us to turn away in order to hold on to our own lives or the the trembling hopeful  fear that causes me to come towards Him realising it might cost me my life as I have known it.

Today, in a cafe, I felt the beginning of such a moment. I felt He was close…. the God  who needs no permission to do His will. There was something beyond my thoughts about Him going on , something beyond spiritual principles, ideas for a blog, my current ministry. All such thoughts seemed like dross compared to Him, compared to Jesus Himself. He was close,not an idea that I could write about, a principle that I could expound. It was Him….  I started to think of  Him, but it  was almost as though all of a sudden I saw if I go down the thousand and one trails of His life that seemed to open up, well,  will I ever find my way back?… and I hesitated. Will the day ever come when I don’t care if I find my way back, in fact will a day come  this side of heaven when I am truly lost in God? Will it come for you?

My notebook today was excited random thoughts each of which could have led to an ocean of further thought. The words are disconnected, one thought seemingly not bearing a connection to the next.  The handwriting is worse than usual, which is really saying something! I really will need eternity to marvel at this God and so will you. Flesh and blood could not endure this for eternity without  being changed. Even the angels in heaven who have never sinned need to hide their faces to survive. He is the God who is fearfully abundantly Himself, the Lord of Hosts, which just means “many.” We tend to think “The lord of hosts” means the angelic host. Well it does, but “host’ just means many. He did not just make one angel but myriads of them! He did not just make one daisy but billions. He did not just make on star but billions of billions. He did not just create everything in monochrome but has created a whole spectrum of colour much more than the spectrum we know about. There are sounds that human ears cannot hear that dogs and God alone can hear, and he made them for His glory which is beyond what the human eye alone can see, the human ear hear or human hearts imagine.  We need the cherubim and the dogs and everything else that the Lord of Hosts has made to see  and hear, demonstrate and declare even a fraction of His glory!  The earth and all its fullness belongs to Him and is filled to overflowing with His glory. He is muchness, manyness, abundance. He does not just adjust His bounty to the size of a necessity. He is the God who even when He came to this earth in our size nonetheless created enough bread to have 12 baskets full of leftovers; He miraculously caused catches of so many fish that nets begin to break and the extraordinary number  of fish caught was recorded for you and I to read about.

Oh friend, may He come close to you. When he does we will tear up the plans, the programmes.  All that we will be able to say in hushed tones lest we offend Him and He slay us  is “God has come!” And here is the wonder; though He is “Big God” He can come into a cafe, He can come into your home, He can stand beside bedsides as truly as He came to an animal’s feeding trough, or sat down beside a well, or doodled with His finger as He sat on the dust of the earth while others towered over Him. In the words of the brilliant black American Preachers who can preach so much better than us white guys  and  who allow God to interrupt the sermon, “ I tell you, somebody ought to  praise Him right now!”

Kenny

P.S – You are very welcome to enjoy these blogs and share them with anyone “without money or price!” However, if you ever feel grateful for these blogs and are able to do so, then please make a donation to Open Doors, Scotland. Their website is

http://www.opendoorsuk.org/scotland

In case you have not heard of them, Open Doors works to help our persecuted brothers and sisters throughout the world.

It is funny how conviction  of sin creeps up on you when you are least expecting it! I remember listening to  a John Wimber tape 40 years ago, my heresy antennae fully alert, looking to find fault which is second nature to a Scottish Evangelical Presbyterian and a delicious pastime and pursuit that is able to experience ecstasy when it comes across error!  All of a sudden I was convicted to the point of tears that this man loved the Church of Christ while I only loved the part that agreed with me, which was not particularly large though giant sized in its belief in its core  place in the purposes of God for Scotland. Then, another time, I remember listening to a Toronto Blessing speaker, again sniffing the air for the scent of fault. Unexpectedly, I was under a conviction that was so heavy it was unbearable – the conviction  of judgmentalism and of a critical spirit. Those who felt there was no conviction in that move obviously were not standing where I stood, experiencing what I was experiencing. I have never in my life felt so deeply aware that my sin had been found out and had nowhere to hide other than the sheer undeserved mercy of God.

Well, the same sort of thing happened unexpectedly again last night just after midnight which for me is often the time when a knock comes to my heart’s door that makes me have to go empty handed to knock on the door of God to give me something through His Holy Spirit I have discovered I don’t have. I was surfing the web to no real intent and started listening to a programme on Youtube in tribute to Rich Mullins, the writer of “Awesome God.” He died quite young and tragically. He could have lived in a mansion but chose instead to live among poor people on the average wage of a working man. He had no idea what he earned. All his money from his ministry went to his church and they paid him his agreed wage. He championed the cause of the poor and the oppressed. In many ways he was quite a broken vessel but the glory shone through.

What convicted me last night was his attitude towards Prosperity Preachers who are greatly admired in America. He said this quietly: “They are just wrong. They are not bad people. They are just wrong.”

Why is it that we find it hard to adopt that mixture of grace and truth towards those who we genuinely think are in error about some aspect of the Christian Faith? Why is it that so often we have to try and show them not just to be wrong or in error about something, but feel we have to vilify them and discredit them as well? It leads to even people of  integrity sullying their integrity and behaving falsely by putting out of context statements or video clips on Facebook of these “false teachers and prophets.” We are not to rejoice in error but in truth and in what is right.

I spoke yesterday about not being clones of one another, but I did see something in Rich that I want to aspire to.

There are those in the Church of Scotland, and indeed in the Free Church of Scotland,  in the Baptist Church, in the Church planting movement and Missional movements,  indeed in every denomination and  non denomination and Ministry that I think are in error according to the Scriptures. However, there is no need for me to assume evil motive or intention or deny their ministries may do good and do indeed do good. False teachers in the bible were those who seemed to either take away from the sufficiency of Christ for salvation or want to add something to Christ and His cross as being necessary for salvation, whether that was keeping Jewish customs and feasts and so on, or having some sort of mystery religion or Gnostic experience of “fullness” such as seems to lie behind Paul’s letter to the Colossians which I was reading today, imagining I was in the church which received it at first and trying to work out why he wrote what he did to us. Of course there are teachers who are like waterless clouds and are deceptive, but let’s not be so quick to fling these verses at those who may simply be in error. Of course I may fling the word “error” to easily as well. That may simply mean, “They don’t agree with me!” rather than them being fundamentally wrong according to the Scriptures.  Lord Soper disagreed with Martyn LLoyd Jones but at least he paid him the courtesy of saying, “He is right up his own street; it may not be mine, but he is right up his own street!”

Oh let’s not get into smaller and smaller self congratulatory and defensive conclaves as Evangelicals or Charismatics or Reformed  people content with the praise that comes from one another within the “club” whatever that club may be called. Let’s not misapply remnant theology. These  “we, only we are left” remnant clubs  can have an encouraging feel good factor amongst their membership but actually can become quite gnarled angry and sour in their outlook when they move out of their own street or meet those who through different life story and influences live in different streets.  “They are not bad. They are just wrong, ” did a convicting work on me…It could help save you from wasting a lot of energy fighting what you think are battles “ For the Lord and for Israel!” type of thing, but are really just being fought because some of us just like a scrap and have forgotten that the wisdom from above knows when to yield. I am remembering too something that God said to me a few years ago that was even more convicting. Perhaps with a change of the name  He could want to say the same to you: “Kenny this may surprise you but I don’t believe everything about me that you believe!” I mean to say, if He said that about me and my theology….

Kenny

P.S – You are very welcome to enjoy these blogs and share them with anyone “without money or price!” However, if you ever feel grateful for these blogs and are able to do so, then please make a donation to Open Doors, Scotland. Their website is

http://www.opendoorsuk.org/scotland

In case you have not heard of them, Open Doors works to help our persecuted brothers and sisters throughout the world.

Sometimes when I listen to myself preaching I can hear the influences of preachers and bible teachers that I have known over my younger years. I guess that is ok and in a sense inevitable. Sometimes it can go too far, to a quite ridiculous extent! I have heard of people stroking their invisible moustaches emulating a favourite preacher who did have a moustache. I have even heard of bald headed men flicking back a non existent lock of hair because of imitating someone who was influential upon them!

I was thinking today of a phrase of the Apostle Paul which I have mentioned before in a blog: “Imitate me in as far as I imitate Christ.” What does it really mean to imitate Christ? At the very least I guess it means asking  questions like “What would Jesus do, what would He say, how would He react, how would He cope in this moment facing what I am facing, how would He meet this challenge or temptation?” It is not so difficult to work out the answer to these questions so long as we are giving the Bible a central place in our lives and thinking. However there is a thought that runs throughout Henri Nouwen’s writings that suggests another, perhaps fuller meaning: Jesus came as the Beloved of God, and spoke of the One who loved Him and called others to discover through Him that they were the Beloved of God too. He wants us to follow Him in that way as well; to live in this world as the Beloved of God, being a unique manifestation of that belovedness and helping others to discover their belovedness too and live out  a unique expression of that.

So, let’s imitate Christ not only in behaviour and speech etc. but in His awareness of being the Beloved of the Father.  That will free imitation from merely becoming copying and prevent us from becoming a clone even of other believers we admire or being irritated because others  willl not conveniently become a clone of me! May belovedness become flesh for all to see in you and in me. May we help one another to  know that perfect love that drives out all fear and sets us free to be who each one of us was truly made to be before circumstances, other people or we ourselves messed it up!

Brennan Manning suggests the following prayer that could help you. It is very short;  it fits in with the rhythm of breathing in and breathing out; you can say it as many times through the day or night as is needful to set your heart at rest. Especially at those moments when I find my energy reserves low and don’t aways know why, short but powerful prayers are a blessing to me these days more than I can put into words. May this one be a blessing to you too.  In prayer – it may come as a relief to you to hear this – small can be beautiful and powerful! Here is the prayer;  ask Jesus to help you through the Holy Spirit to say it, mean it and believe it:

“ABBA, I BELONG TO YOU.”

Beloved one, why not use that prayer tonight before you close your eyes and tomorrow when you awaken, or indeed at any time of the day or night for that matter?

You might also like to click the link below when you get the time. I find it truly wonderful!

Kenny

Henri Nouwen

Also why not find 15 minutes and click on this meditation on the Abba Prayer by Rich Johnston. It will be time well spent!

P.S – You are very welcome to enjoy these blogs and share them with anyone “without money or price!” However, if you ever feel grateful for these blogs and are able to do so, then please make a donation to Open Doors, Scotland. Their website is

http://www.opendoorsuk.org/scotland

In case you have not heard of them, Open Doors works to help our persecuted brothers and sisters throughout the world.

I was just thinking today of how Jesus could have made things easier on Himself. For example He healed people on the Sabbath who had been ill for years. Could He not have waited just a few hours until the Sabbath was over before healing them? It would certainly have spared Jesus the wrath of the Pharisees on at least some occasions.

This tells us something about the heart of Jesus, that alleviating need and helping people should never be delayed when something can be done right now for a fellow human being.

I had a dream last night of me keeping someone knocking at a door wanting my help:  I delayed in answering and by the time I did they were tired and in pain.

Don’t wait if it is in your hands to help someone right now. Don’t even wait till this Sabbath, this day is over. Maybe a prayer, a phone call or a text, an arrangement to meet up this coming week, or a cheque dropped in the post, or money dropped though their door anonymously this very night would help them and you sleep easier.

Scripture does not seem to look kindly on those who have the wherewithal and the intention to help and either do nothing or delay. The Bible says it  is the  road to hell that is paved with good but unfulfilled intentions, not the narrow path that leads to true life lived in the blessing of God.

I did something about the person in my dream, and I am glad I did! It was easily enough done.

I could have delayed this blog until tomorrow when more would catch it and read it, but again, I feel glad I didn’t. I hope some who read  this will be glad I didn’t delay either…

Kenny

P.S – You are very welcome to enjoy these blogs and share them with anyone “without money or price!” However, if you ever feel grateful for these blogs and are able to do so, then please make a donation to Open Doors, Scotland. Their website is

http://www.opendoorsuk.org/scotland

In case you have not heard of them, Open Doors works to help our persecuted brothers and sisters throughout the world.

Sunday cometh…. and  I am thinking of pastors again. There are precious few pursuing that calling who have not been told once or more, “You are the worst minister this congregation has ever had!” Of course we can bring wrath upon ourselves needlessly, but often that comment is directed towards ministers who are faithfully proclaiming the Word of Life, working more hours than the normal working week, pastoring with great sensitivity.  Most congregations have at least some who have opposed the gospel throughout several ministries before you came, have opposed it through you and will, bar the grace of God, oppose the next minister that will come after you!

Just remember as you stand today with no other bread  to offer other than what God has said in His Word, there are actually a great many on your side. I don’t mean simply within the pews as you look out, though that is more than likely true. That however is not what I am thinking about. I am thinking of that great cloud of witnesses many of whom have experienced hostility even to the point of shedding their blood for Christ down through the centuries that  is referred to in Hebrews Chapter 11 and 12.

Again,  a Hugh Black story comes to mind. He was in a meeting where  as a Pentecostal he was defending the gift of speaking in tongues at a time when that gift was less common in the Scottish scene than it is now. On the other side of the debate was a Professor, a couple of learned Phd types etc etc. Hugh Black felt vastly outnumbered, but then he started to think , “If the first Apostles were with me they would be on my side of the floor! If the whole New Testament Church were here today, they would be with me!” He got to the stage where he felt sorry for Professor So and So and the various Doctors, because they were so vastly outnumbered.

Well, some of you, I know, may be uncertain about tongues. You are outnumbered by the way… but that is not my point today, it is just Charismatic bravado that I could not resist! My point rather is that if you are in a situation of facing hostility for the gospel’s sake, there are indeed more on your side now and throughout time than you perhaps have realised.

I am not sure what the great cloud of witnesses who surround us do in relation to us. If they and we are to be like Jesus, whatever else they do they probably pray for you as He does that for us.

In the past I have known what it is to have butterflies in my stomach on the way to church on Sunday or to a Session Meeting I knew was going to be difficult though not necessarily knowing who would make and who would fire the bullets. I have got the T Shirt, as the popular phrase goes. Actually, that is to make light of it: I have got the scars but can say I have experienced healing too through God’s people.

So if this is a day of butterflies in the stomach for you Man of God, Woman of God, may you be aware of the vast army of which you are part.  Welcome to the company of Hebrews 11! May you not feel so alone by the end of Sunday as perhaps you may feel at its start. To borrow the title of a book by Max Lucado, may you hear, “The Applause of Heaven!”

Kenny

P.S – You are very welcome to enjoy these blogs and share them with anyone “without money or price!” However, if you ever feel grateful for these blogs and are able to do so, then please make a donation to Open Doors, Scotland. Their website is

http://www.opendoorsuk.org/scotland

In case you have not heard of them, Open Doors works to help our persecuted brothers and sisters throughout the world.

One of the finest preachers I have ever heard was Rev. George B. Duncan who was minister of St. George’s Tron in the centre of Glasgow. In my early days as a young believer I was so aware of God speaking straight into my life again and again through his preaching, Sunday by Sunday. For me that was the most exciting day of the week. I knew I would meet with God through the power of His Word. I often saw a glow around Mr. Duncan  and particularly on his face, which I didn’t really understand at first, but I came to believe it was the presence of God, the anointing of the Holy Spirit. I know I did not imagine it because others have mentioned they saw the same. How blessed I was to benefit from that man’s ministry and from the excellent ministry of his successor, the Rev. Eric  J. Alexander, probably to this day one of the very finest and most anointed bible teachers I have ever heard. The memories are sweet and precious to me even decades on in time. It is good to hear of new life blossoming in that church again under the ministry of the wonderful, wise and courageous leadership of   Rev. Alastair Duncan. I was excited to hear recently of fresh growth and the appointing of new elders.

As this Sunday comes around, I am remembering Mr. Duncan speaking in  a sermon about a time when he had been preaching in another church where there was a vacancy. Someone came up to him after the service and said, “Mr. Duncan, we have seen something in the pulpit today that we have not seen for the last 25 years.” Mr. Duncan asked, “What is that?” The reply?  “A smile!”

Mr. Duncan said to us all with incredulity, “Imagine someone preaching the Good News of Jesus Christ for 25 years without a smile!” One of the ways in which Job defended himself from accusation is that he “smiled on those who had no confidence.” A smiling face from an awesomely high pulpit is all I can remember about Mr. Duncan’s predecessor, Rev.Tom Allan who had a quite legendary ministry in the city centre of Glasgow. As  a 3 or 4 year old, it was his smile that made an impression on me. I occasionally find myself remembering it  to this day five and a half decades on in time.

Referring to that incident in the vacant church, Mr.  Duncan went on to say something I have never forgotten in all my years preaching. He said that people come to church after perhaps a week in which they may have been shouted at by their boss, shouted at by their spouses, shouted at by their family, shouted at by their work colleagues, perhaps they have even been shouted at by themselves and then sadly often they go to church on Sunday where they are shouted at and whipped again by their minister!

Fellow preachers, life can be quite a struggle for people. Remember that, as you look out on your congregation this weekend. Perhaps, if you do, it will influence your tone and even your face. Perhaps your face will glow with the Holy Spirit as your words are warmed by the flame of God’s love. You might not know it is happening, but the people will see it, sense it and thank God for it and for you. Indeed they may well still be saying the occasional ‘Thank You’ to God not simply for what you said but even more so for the way you said it, decades from now….

“May it be so Lord, Amen”

Kenny

P.S – You are very welcome to enjoy these blogs and share them with anyone “without money or price!” However, if you ever feel grateful for these blogs and are able to do so, then please make a donation to Open Doors, Scotland. Their website is

http://www.opendoorsuk.org/scotland

In case you have not heard of them, Open Doors works to help our persecuted brothers and sisters throughout the world.

I am not political in the narrow or bigoted sense, but I do have thoughts about things that would be deemed political especially when they impinge on areas of morality or justice. I heard a snatch of an interview about BHS shutting down on the radio today. It is as well I did not know who was speaking as the views of one of them were quite idiotic. He seemed to be to the right of Genghis Khan in the way he talked about people. He seemed to say that BHS was a shop for poorer people and that these customers had caused the collapse of the stores because irritatingly they could not make up their mind to buy stuff! Ah well, it is amazing how the lights can be on but there is no one in!

I should say that that person whoever he was consistently wanted to blame BHS customers for the difficulty partly to deflect attention away from the central core of the conversation which was around the question of should the former owner of BHS be held responsible for doing something about the collapse to help the thousands who will lose their jobs and thousands more who will not now get the pension they have been paying in to for decades in this private company. Sir Philip Green has made over 1000 million pounds from BHS in other words more than a billion pounds. He has just paid his family a dividend of over 400 million pounds. He stands to make another 35 million pounds or thereabouts from the collapse of BHS! He could plug the 500 million pound hole in the pension fund twice over and have quite a few tens of million left out of what he has made from BHS alone, leaving aside other very successful businesses.

The thing is, Sir Philip has done nothing wrong legally, absolutely nothing. But if he chooses to do nothing to help the thousands plunged into the misery of financial want and unemployment, is that moral? Please know I am not judging the man, that is not my place. It is simply this is a live issue and throws up a common modern day dilemma.”I have done nothing wrong” seems to be a phrase that we hear often in the news these days from prominent figures, and is presumably meant to be the end of a matter.

Since the collapse of communism and many socialist parties selling out their principles we are basically left with capitalism  of one hue or another as “the way the world works,” certainly in Britain. Capitalism can be legal and immoral at the same time. Of course at its best it can be both legal and moral but there is absolutely nothing requiring it to do anything more than “doing nothing wrong!” It is not required to model grace which is way more generous than law.

I guess I feel concerned that Christians and Christian churches can fall into the “doing nothing wrong” frame of mind as being a sufficiently Christian goal. The old formal prayers in which we ask God for forgiveness not only for the wrong we have done but for the good we have not done  which always made me yawn in church when I was younger, though sounding a bit dreary and monotonous are good prayers and bang up to date after all! The parable of the labourers in the vineyard makes it clear that going by the letter of a legal contract and no more is not as high as we should be aspiring. It may be the logic of earth, but it is not the logic of heaven. (See Matthew 20 verses 1 – 16.)

I suppose I am saying that the thing about truly living in the grace of God is that one of its fruits is generosity in the way we offer our lives to the life of the world. It really is about going the second mile that no law can demand. It is seeing that though no law can command me to care as though I were my brother or sister’s keeper, God cares and wants me to care as well. How boring and stilted friendships, relationships, marriages would be if the goal was to do nothing wrong! So often in pastoring “fall outs” in my years as a parish minister, my heart used to sink like a stone as someone passionately exclaimed, “But I have done nothing wrong!”

The elder brother in the story of the Prodigal Son kept all the laws of house and home and family, but he had a mean spirit. The Pharisees were particularly angry that Jesus seemed to portray in word and deed and miracle a God who was too generous for their liking, who opened the door at street level into His family and Kingdom.

May God help us to go further than being mean spirited believers who never do anything wrong. That is not only wrong towards others but extremely boring! I remember reading the true story of a tribal chief listening to a Christian missionary. After listening he then asked with sadness, “So if I follow your God, I cannot lie in wait for my enemy and ambush him and kill him; I cannot steal his wife and his property? But I am too old to do these things now. To be old and to be a Christian, they are the same thing, yes?”

I am not condoning the pleasures of sin. Nor am I saying, in quoting that story, that I am agreeing with the chief that to be old is to be boring! However I am saying please don’t be a Christian who lives only in the realm of obeying the “thou shalt nots!” That will not only make you mean but give you a Christianity that will eventually bore you as much as it will put others off wanting to have anything to do with Christ. God save His people from being legal but mean and boring! May God fill us with His generous love and life that cannot be happy doing nothing wrong but rejoices in the right and in doing the right. That is part of the outworking of God’s love in and through us. It is much more fun to throw yourself into a wave than to paddle. Be more dog! Fling yourself in! Dogs don’t stop to think that if they fly into a wave they might swallow a bit of salt water, or that they will have to get their paws dried and their coat will get wet and they will probably have to get a bath when they get home and might not be allowed on the sofa until they are dry again! Keep nothing back! Abandon yourself to the love of God. Jump right in! In fact maybe some of you should literally go and jump into the waves of the sea as a prophetic sign of intent. I couldn’t quite hold back all notes of quirkiness,  despite what I said the end of my last blog….

God bless

Kenny

Of course some dogs are even more dog than others! Watch this…

https://youtu.be/-pmwQKeeUxw

P.S – You are very welcome to enjoy these blogs and share them with anyone “without money or price!” However, if you ever feel grateful for these blogs and are able to do so, then please make a donation to Open Doors, Scotland. Their website is

http://www.opendoorsuk.org/scotland

In case you have not heard of them, Open Doors works to help our persecuted brothers and sisters throughout the world.

I guess you are used to this blog being quirky now and then. Well.., it is today, with bells on!

The blog usually begins to materialise on the page through me asking God something. This time He asked me to think about something. I believe He was asking me to think about what were the commonest needs that I came across pastorally. Well, I could think of several, but the 2 that seemed to present themselves to my attention are marital tension in Christian marriages and sleeplessness. It is a sad fact that many Christian marriages are not in a very good place. It is also a sad fact that so many Christians cannot seem to receive and unwrap the gift of sleep that the psalmist assures us God gives to His beloved.

Here is the quirky bit: Paul has told us to earnestly desire the gifts that would build up the body of Christ, especially that we would prophesy. Well, alongside especially seeking that, this would build up the church a lot; people who had a gift of praying for or helping marriages and a gift of praying for sleep. I have bumped into a few in the former category and fewer in the latter category.

Sleep has often been contested in my life, quite severely. At one point I was in Norway speaking at a conference. My sleep had been dreadful, but I had told no one. A lady whose name I didn’t know, came over to me when I hadn’t asked her, prayed a prayer in words that I did not understand and went away without any explanation! From that moment and through the night it felt as though the inside of my brain was getting a massage… and I slept deeply and woke fresh as a daisy, which is not usual for a Scottish insomniac and is probably quite rare even for  a Scotsman who does sleep well! There was nothing that I could have asked for that could have built me up more! When things have become almost unbearable as they do become from time to time in the area  of sleep for me,  someone seems to have come along eventually and the effect of their ministry and prayer is that sleep has been restored. They have never been famous names in the Christian world, but of course the Christian scene does not always coincide perfectly with God’s Kingdom.

There is a fair bit of Christian and indeed Kingdom of God “help” and literature and courses etc. to do with marriage. There could be more and it could be more accessible financially for more people. The cost of these things is an insult to financially poorer believers as though God can only help you if you can pay for it. Christian help and victory now seems to have the same sort of possibility of accessibility as private medicine; it comes at a price for those who can afford it… but what about ministries in the power of the Spirit to help Christians sleep? That would bless an enormous number of Christians for whom the promise mentioned above, of sleep being given to God’s beloved , is both a promise they believe in and at times a bit of a torment to body, mind and spirit.

Well, I don’t know what you do with this blog today, so there it is! More normal levels of quirkiness will be resumed shortly….

Much love

Kenny

P.S – You are very welcome to enjoy these blogs and share them with anyone “without money or price!” However, if you ever feel grateful for these blogs and are able to do so, then please make a donation to Open Doors, Scotland. Their website is

http://www.opendoorsuk.org/scotland

In case you have not heard of them, Open Doors works to help our persecuted brothers and sisters throughout the world.

There was a period in my ministry and in our life together as a family where we came under prolonged attack. I believe I kept my heart right towards the main perpetrators, but at times I was made to doubt that because of the prayers of other believers. What do I mean? Well, at prayer meetings, there would always be somebody or other who would pray for “Dear….” and name those harming us in a tone of great warmth and friendliness and affection. What is more there would always be a few who would grunt in agreement! When they prayed like that I felt deeply wounded. It actually felt as though the wrong being done which already was like a knife that had been plunged into us sorely, was now being twisted by the hands of believers through their prayers and lack of thoughtfulness. Those who prayed thus, never prayed for me or my family with any sense of care. It was as though the physical attacks and threats against us, the attacks on our property through the night, the wrongs done  to our children, the lies that were being spoken and written about me and the church were a light matter to be passed over. In fact the effects lasted many years.

Did my feelings in the Prayer Meeting show my heart was wrong, that I was not walking in forgiveness? All I know is that Hugh Black who I have often mentioned helped me much more in his prayers over the phone. He had heard something about what was happening, and phoned up to pray for me. “He simply said, “Lord, we come to you concerning that wicked man.” When he said that ,I felt the wrath of God against wickedness. It was so fearful that I almost wanted to run away myself from the release of God’s power and authority into the situation that came as Mr. Black gently prayed. It made me tremble and indeed shake physically, and I am saved! It made me fearful for the perpetrators of the wrong. I have never forgotten that moment. It is indeed a fearful things to fall into the hands of the living God. Somehow that prayer healed the hurt of those other prayers. The fact that God calls us to walk in forgiveness does not mean that I cannot acknowledge there is such a thing as evil and wickedness and there is such a thing as wicked people. Forgiveness means after all that there is some wrong that has been done.

Please remember to speak carefully when you are dealing with people who have been severely wronged. Forgiveness does not mean they should think of perpetrators of wickedness against them as anything other than perpetrators of wickedness against them who will either meet God in white hot wrath or will repent and therefore meet Him in His white hot mercy one day. Yes, our prayer should indeed be for forgiveness for those who wrong us, but that does not mean we need to call wickedness anything less than it is, or in any way disregard the damage done. The devil comes to steal, kill and destroy. He has been a murderer and a liar since the beginning. There are those who unwittingly become his channels, ignorant perhaps of the source of their deeds or the fruit thereof. There are however, those who cross a line in full awareness and offer themselves to be his channels. The bible records Jesus prayer for those who crucified Him, “Father forgive them for they know not what they do.” There were however those who did know what they were doing in the events that led to the cross and concerning them, the same bible in the gospels on the lips of Jesus and in Acts on the lips of Peter uses the words “godless… sinful… wicked.” To use the wrong Scripture in a circumstance or a situation can cause deep damage.

Don’t speak lightly of wickedness or forgiveness to those who have had many years of their lives destroyed by wicked people doing wicked things to them or those they love. To speak of forgiveness before the right time can be a form of abuse. The moment to speak of it will, indeed must come, but let’s think twice before we blithely say, “In the bible, God says, ‘I will restore the years the locust have eaten,’ you know!”

Maybe there is someone reading this who needs to know that God regards something that happened to you as wickedness by the hands of wicked people. You don’t have to pretend anything other or try and believe some other description of the story of the wrong done to you. I hope you might find a person who can pray with you with the honesty, the awareness, the realism and the power and authority of Hugh Black.

This is a serious blog, I know, but there you have it. May it bless those for whom it is particularly meant and help the rest of us to be wise and thoughtful in all our dealings with people.

God Bless

Kenny

P.S – You are very welcome to enjoy these blogs and share them with anyone “without money or price!” However, if you ever feel grateful for these blogs and are able to do so, then please make a donation to Open Doors, Scotland. Their website is

http://www.opendoorsuk.org/scotland

In case you have not heard of them, Open Doors works to help our persecuted brothers and sisters throughout the world.

It is now pretty much accepted that the presentation by Shakespeare of Richard III was a literary necessity more than being historically accurate. There has of course been a lot about W.S. in the news and on T.V. lately. I can’t say that I particularly like Shakespeare but I found myself these days having a greater appreciation than when I was a pupil in Secondary School and may indeed become a fan in years to come. The famous, “Now is the winter of our discontent made glorious summer…” soliloquy is indeed spell binding. Richard’s contentment  has come about because of the outworking of his villainy, a villainy which though devilish is often cloaked in false saintliness when it is helpful to his cause. Things are heading in the right way, in his mind, which basically means things are progressing from the crown for his family in the person of his brother Edward, toward the crown for him himself once he has committed a few murders. “Contentment” is a theme that comes up too in “Henry VI.”  Henry says simply, “I am content,” which seems to be a state he is happy with as King.

When are you or I content? That says a lot about where we are spiritually. Does our contentment depend on things going our way? Can we be content when things are not going in the way we had hoped or planned?

How many lives could be transformed, marriages saved, family life renewed, churches set at peace if more could say with Paul, “I have discovered the secret of being content.” It was a secret that worked in good days and trying days, in days of plenty and days of lack. Paul’s contentment was unshakable. It did not depend on the cleverness of his devices, his skill at handling  or manipulating friends and enemies in like manner to Richard III. It did not depend on things going his way. It depended on a simple, quiet and proven principle; “I can do all things through Christ who strengthens me.” ( Why not read about this in Philippians Chapter 4 verses 12 and 13.)

It matters not whether things go  what you might consider “your way” this day. You can be happy, content, when they do not because you are living in Paul’s shared and open secret.

May you and I be content this day, by the grace of God.

Kenny

P.S – You are very welcome to enjoy these blogs and share them with anyone “without money or price!” However, if you ever feel grateful for these blogs and are able to do so, then please make a donation to Open Doors, Scotland. Their website is

http://www.opendoorsuk.org/scotland

In case you have not heard of them, Open Doors works to help our persecuted brothers and sisters throughout the world.

Today, I found myself thinking about Elijah learning that God was making Himself known to him in unfamiliar ways. Elijah had known God make His presence and will known in very dramatic ways, but there came a day when he did not find God in the dramatic occurrences of a hurricane, an earthquake or a fire, but in the sound of silence – normally translated as “a still small voice.” You can read the story for yourself in 1 Kings 19. It was not that the true and living God would not speak in dramatic ways again. In the New Testament He spoke to the early church and indeed to unbelievers by hurricane, tongues of fire and  also by an earthquake that shook a building. He has done so throughout the centuries and continues to do so today in places where His presence is hungered after and sought in true earnestness no matter how He may choose to manifest His glory.

There is a paradox in  growing in our knowledge of God. He teaches us how to recognise His presence but the familiar must never become merely a process by which God is bound to operate. I remember when I was an assistant minister that my  method of preparing sermons was to take an empty piece of paper, look at a bible passage, pray, look up commentaries, make notes. God met me in doing that. There came a day however where when I was doing the familiar thing I did not find His familiar help or presence. By night time the page was still empty and I thought I would have to get out of the ministry! I think I wrote about that difficult moment  in a previous blog. The next morning though, God helped me, as did my boss, Rev. Ian Paterson, with words of simple and kind wisdom. God  taught me that though what I was doing was an approach to  preparation He could bless, there were other ways for Him to speak to me and help me. I will not share the “ins and outs” of that lest you are tempted to make what I share from that experience yet another process!

It was an important lesson. All of a sudden a fresh grace was released to help me preach. At various times over the years God has come to me in fresh ways to do with that aspect of my calling. I have discovered that as I have listened and learned from His Spirit,  that the well of God’s grace and help is indeed deep and never runs dry. If I keep listening then I know there will be grace to do all that is asked of me for all my days. I no longer have a confidence in methods, but my confidence in God has grown. Sometimes, though, there is an interim period of wrestling until I acknowledge with discomfort  that I am not finding God in the place I have found Him before and then step out not knowing precisely whither I am going, or where I may find His welcome presence resting.

Maybe you did “the same as usual today,” the usual things that help you become aware of God and what He is trying to say and how He is leading but today “it’ “didn’t work!” Well, that can feel a bit scary but see it as an adventure to discover the God you know adding to the variety of ways in which He wants to help you discover His will for you in Christ Jesus. It does not mean you must abandon your normal practice forever; rather God may be putting an extra arrow in your quiver, to help you into the fullness of His will and into greater overcoming.

God bless,

Kenny

P.S – You are very welcome to enjoy these blogs and share them with anyone “without money or price!” However, if you ever feel grateful for these blogs and are able to do so, then please make a donation to Open Doors, Scotland. Their website is

http://www.opendoorsuk.org/scotland

In case you have not heard of them, Open Doors works to help our persecuted brothers and sisters throughout the world.

Paul said he would gladly boast of things that showed his weakness. I guess I am doing that today.

I want to share with you a memory of when I got it wrong. We were holidaying in the North of Scotland staying in a cottage on an estate owned and run by a Christian. I noticed  another resident who looked particularly upset. I thought  I would ask God if He had anything he wanted to say to me that would help her. Instantly a picture came to mind of this young woman washing her clothes in a washing machine and then holding them up to the light, looking very dissatisfied and washing them again, holding them up again, looking very dissatisfied etc. I instantly thought, “Here is someone who does not know they have been washed clean by the blood of Christ. They need assurance of forgiveness.” Armed with the picture God had given, I approached the young woman’s friend. Within minutes of conversation I found out the true meaning of the picture. This sad 19 year old American tourist had lost her luggage en route to Scotland. All she had was the clothes she was wearing which she was having to wash and re wash and re wash. The picture had simply meant that God knew and cared about a 19 year old young woman who did not have all that she needed to be able to enjoy her holiday. Not only had I got the meaning of the picture wrong, but I realised something else as well: He did not seem to want to challenge her with an angry Scottish Presbyterian, “Is not the body more than raiment?” He simply cared.

I got it wrong… but I learned a lesson about the care of God. I need to remember that in this phase of life   on those days when I am more aware of weakness than strength. Our heavenly Father  does not turn everything into a spiritual challenge. Sometimes He just wants us to know He is with us and He cares.

Maybe you need to know that today…

God bless you

Kenny

P.S – You are very welcome to enjoy these blogs and share them with anyone “without money or price!” However, if you ever feel grateful for these blogs and are able to do so, then please make a donation to Open Doors, Scotland. Their website is

http://www.opendoorsuk.org/scotland

In case you have not heard of them, Open Doors works to help our persecuted brothers and sisters throughout the world.