It was a sort of standard party line I often heard from the pulpit: if the world was not interested in the gospel it was because they were itching in all the wrong places. In the zeal of conversion I nodded my head in agreement…

Now, I think differently having discovered over 50 years the Lord’s compassion, kindness and gentleness. I have found that the Lord is extremely interested in where human beings itch.

If you are preaching this weekend, is it connected to where people are itching? Or do you still insist on the party line: I will tell them where they should be itching!

Tell a sheep they are not itching… not very good shepherding. Rather anoint their heads with oil.

If responses I get to stuff I put out on Facebook care anything to go by, here’s what many truly faithful and wonderful believers in the flock are struggling with:

Anxiety…
Difficulty in sleeping…
Financial difficulties…
Long term family difficulties…
Loneliness…
“Unanswered” prayer…

God bless you, shepherd or sheep, or both.

Kenny

It is 5.00 a.m. I am wide awake, enjoying a delicious coffee. I am about to read the Bible and pray and just enjoy the Lord’s presence, having slept well. But, I am remembering the 15 years and more when I was awake at this time having not slept at all, and having tried every medication the doctors could prescribe: to zero effect in my case.

In these days I sometimes went 72 hours without sleep, sometimes a bit longer. For those 15+ years, I rarely slept for more than an hour or two each night. 2 hours felt like a tremendous gift for which I was genuinely grateful. At the same time it was not always helpful when well-meaning believers told me God gives to his beloved sleep! Nor was it helpful when people suggested it gave me time to pray…

Insomnia is awful. It is hellish, and yes, I really mean to use that word. I have no other word to use to describe it.

All I know is that victory came and I now get enough sleep most of the time, though there can be the odd spell where things are not so good for reasons I cannot usually see clearly or pin down.

Why share this? Well, I don’t really know. Maybe in an odd way I hope it will encourage those who are reading this at a time they wish they could just get an hour’s sleep…

I have no easy answers. But I am in a better place now….and that you will be in a better place is what I pray you can still believe for. Hang on in there.

God bless

Kenny

Languishing in what seems to be a dry and comfortless place? That has often been the felt experience of God’s people. It needs to be acknowledged and allowed to breathe, not quickly coerced to obey the dictates of faith and be made ashamed to raise its voice.

A dear friend phoned me late last night with an encouraging word from God he had been given when praying yesterday. Part of it involved the thought of God drawing his finger in dry ground and fresh water appearing.

Today in Psalm 74, I read these words, which seemed like a remarkable confirmation of my friend’s prophetic message: “You split open springs and brooks; you dried up ever-flowing streams.”

If you find yourself in a dry and comfortless place today, it is a good thought to ponder that God may be about to draw his finger on dry ground to open up fresh streams.

Change is not always easy or comfortable. It is not always easy when streams which have sustained us dry up. I am thinking of the truth of a principle Jesus taught: we all tend to say, “the old wine is better.” Yet, as I think of this verse from Psalm 74, I am encouraged. The thought of fresh springs and brooks seems a pleasant one.

God bless

Kenny

I am thinking back to a vision the Lord seemed to give me in Dobbies, of all places, concerning the Coronavirus. I “saw” it, the Virus, sitting in human guise, at a table. I prayed in the vision but when I did, it seemed to know it had to leave the table it was sitting at. However, it simply moved to another. It was not completely free to operate as it chose, but it was still operating.

I believe what I was shown all these months ago was a pictorial representation of the various mutations. I think that is what the shifting tables represents. But I think too what I saw was a lesson in spiritual reality. We are never to be curious about evil, nor to mock it as Peter made clear in his second letter. However when we look at things from the standpoint of what is revealed by God in the bible, we get insight enough to know what to do.

Sometimes victory does NOT come as speedily as we desire or proclaim. To proclaim it always will is to give a false message. It is bravado rather than faith to proclaim or demand in every situation concerning every problem that everything should happen “right now.” There are times when the enemy operates against us by siege, and is allowed by God so to do, even if you or I cannot see the reason God may allow it.

A siege can last a long time, but it fails if those whom the siege is against in addition to weapons have strong defences, ample supplies of water and food etc. “There is a river whose streams make glad the city of our God.” (Psalm 46, Metrical Version)

So despite the variants pray on… but this post is about more than that specific siege.
I hope you can find hope in these same truths if you are living in a long term siege because of other realities in your life, family or circumstances than Coronavirus. A siege, by definition, is intended to last a long time. It is wearying.

Several times in the Psalms we read of God’s help coming to His people at an acceptable time. How often I have wished that acceptable time was NOW! I always want the Lord to come “right early” to borrow words once more from Psalm 46. Sometimes that does indeed happen and the siege is suddenly over when it looked as though it would be a long haul. But often the siege has continued past that point. In those moments I have been forced almost against my own inclination to discover more of the living water and bread of Christ. That sounds terrible as I write it and think about it. I am trying to be honest. There are times when I don’t want to go deeper: I just crave immediate relief.

If you are carrying the long term weariness of a siege, I pray you will discover something of the endless river of the eternal God that Psalm 46 speaks of. It would be worth your while to take time and read that Psalm.

Sometimes in my own experience a siege can last so long that when it is ended you are almost too weary to fully rejoice. In time you will, but it may take a while for weariness to dissipate and strength to be renewed and joy restored.

Why do things often work like this? I don’t know, but it is an important thread of spiritual reality woven into the Bible. The Bible teaches us the Victory of the cross over all evil was real and will be real forever, but the same Bible never encourages us to be anything other than a realist about living in the already here but still coming Kingdom the cross established. The “already here but still to come” salvation that is ours in Jesus can be a really tough mystery to live in.

I am praying today for you, if you are one of the besieged right now. From private messages I know many of you are in precisely this situation. May you somehow be able to taste Fresh Bread as you wait.

God bless

Kenny

I guess you learn something after 40 years or so in ministry in a local church setting and in a wider setting which I seemed to be called to be part of for 1 or 3 decades. Here is one thing I have learned. When people rubbish the past they rarely take anything into a better future. In actual fact they tend to undo ground patiently and unostentatiously taken for the Kingdom.I have spoken with people who saw their calling being to bring what God had blessed to an end so that the “more” could emerge. They actually told me to my face without any embarrassment, that they had been called to bring what I myself was involved in, to an end! They told me that with a straight face and no awkwardness! They told me that was their calling. But they are either no longer involved in Christian ministry or are achieving exaggerated successes, hardly moving the Kingdom on at all and having undone previous progress in order to progress the minimal advance of their own ministry.

Pride comes before a fall.

Don’t rubbish what has been gained , because of the strength of your passion for your own particular passion which makes you sneer obviously or ever so slightly with an unreal smile towards others who in your eyes are Yesterday’s men and women. They may still be standing and bearing fruit after your venture in self aggrandisement has been long forgotten.

know that will not be listened to.

My sadness is only that some of those associated with me have been labelled “ Kenny’s boys,” and dismissed as no longer relevant to what God wants to do today. Of course they were not actually mine! But they were humble and willing to learn on their way to becoming their own man or woman. I am glad that despite being dismissed as irrelevant for what God is doing now, their humble ministries are advancing the Kingdom of God in Scotland and beyond in both new ventures and more traditional ways. Both types of advance are needed. One is not better than the other! I remember in the past that people used the erroneous term “ Kenny’s Boys” in a positive way. It has not been used positively across the board. For some that label placed upon them has led to shut doors , a feeling of being dropped and being inexplicably out of favour, bypassed, no longer the favoured flavour. That is hard. But you know what? Every time I have had a true encounter with God, doors have shut before more doors opened. I have had invitations withdrawn after fresh encounters with God! Several! It seems to have been almost a pattern, if such a concept as “pattern” is not irreverent to the Living God , the God who does not hold as guiltless those who use His Name in vain, attaching it to their own plans, projects, passions, pursuits, prophecies and proclamations.

God bless

Kenny

To be completely honest, I am not sure I still have faith enough to pray with conviction that the Church of Scotland will be spared a decisive judgement from God that will bring it into a worse state than the present decline. I am not sure if I need God’s forgiveness and help with that lack of conviction, or if a line which mercifully I cannot see, has already been crossed from which there is no possibility of repentance thought it may be sought with tears. It may already have been decreed: “I will remove your lamp stand!” I don’t know. I do meet some who declare that they do know the future of the C of S for sure. Some are sure renewal is coming. Some are sure judgement is coming. Some are sure that both are coming and indeed are ongoing. All claim Scriptural warrant for their confident predictions. All may prove to be both right and wrong, at least in part.

So today, as my reading in James 3 taught me more about meekness, especially meekness in leadership of a congregation, I am thinking of Bishop David Pytches. Through the “New Wine” gatherings and network tens of thousands (or more) believers have been strengthened and renewed in the U.K. and beyond, without him Soul Survivor would never have happened, people like Matt Redman would never have brought renewal to the worship life of the church.

One day at New Wine I was with him and his wife Mary as they were looking for a parking place at the Summer Gathering. A rather officious young volunteer on parking duty demanded to see their badge, told them rather ungraciously they should not be on the road they were on or the area in which they were in! I was raging and wanted to say, “ Look, sonny, do you not know without this man there would not have been car parking for you to supervise? He started this whole thing!!!” Instead David smiled and said “ Thank you so much for your help and for what you are doing. God bless.”

Later on in the same week I saw David making his way from the car park to the Leaders’ Tent in torrential rain, with Tesco bags over his shoes, as thousands of all ages thronged past him, scarcely noticing him. He didn’t seem to need to be noticed. He didn’t seek the limelight. He had a great gift of making people feel they mattered more than him and made “you” and your family and ministry the central thing in humour peppered conversation.

Meekness in practice: wider than shorthand definitions.

I saw the same thing as Tommy MacNeil interviewed Bishop Sandy Millar for the service in Martin’s Memorial a week or two ago. Worth watching if you have not done so already.

Men like this, without them knowing it, have taught me so much about how to lead a work of God and see it blessed and fruitful.

God bless

Kenny

How did we behave differently from a citizen of the kingdom of this world in our attitude and compliance with Lockdown restrictions? That may show whether God can yet trust us with Revival. It shows whether our prayers were empty passion or birthed in a desire for that “new beginning of obedience” which is one of the more famous definitions of what revival is, as well as being a sign of its beginning, and the lasting fruit it produces.

I am also thinking of another definition of Revival given by Duncan Campbell himself: “the impact of the personality of Christ.” Jesus constantly lived under restriction: the righteous Will of His Father. In His arrest, trial and judicial execution He additionally came under the unrighteous demands of unjust authority. “He opened not His mouth.” Do we really make it our aim in life to become like Him in His death more and more until the prize of the upward call? Even a sinner can be happy to be meek when he agrees with what is being demanded, is persuaded it is reasonable and fair, and sees it could bring measurable personal advantage. We should be pursuing a greater meekness than that of sinners.

Have we read the New Teatament? It holds out to us this simple truth: the Christian life is supernatural. It means leaping for joy in the face of the most unreasonable treatment by unjust authority throughout all the spheres of human interaction where unreasonable demands can be made upon us and unwarranted suffering endured as a consequence.

In the time of greatest injustice in my life, I remember my spirit leaping and dancing with uncontrollable joy! Joy was not coming from my mind, soul, heart! It was my born from above spirit made alive by God exulting with unbound freedom. Hallelujah! What a surprise! It made me gasp for breath! My mind did not catch up easily with that supernatural joy to be honest. Oh to live more consistently from the spring of Spirit intertwined with spirit as our minds play catch up to learn the beauty that resides in meekness blessed by God’s “Well done!” I never felt from that moment on to this day that I needed to win any argument or be vindicated for my benefit or to enable me to move on.

I am saying all this from having lived for many months under the severest restrictions of Shielding. I could have made it so unpleasant an experience for myself and for others who live with me and live me, were it not for meekness. It is one of the strongest spiritual weapons I know for defeating enemy intentions.

God bless

Kenny

Without meekness we cannot be given more territory in God. We could not be trusted with inheriting the land, for without meekness it is all about “me” or “us” and not about the Lord or about others.

Have we shown meekness in the face of restrictions or fought and disregarded them arrogantly as though such things were for lesser people than me or “us”? “I” or “we” are above law, above authority, above being told what to do, a favoured exception to the rules.

Well, if this is from the Lord…

A propheticky thing that seemed to drop on my spirit with a great thud: “I have been searching the hearts of my people for meekness.”

I believe this is a word from the Lord. It may not be the sort of word we want to hear or receive.

Only those who treasure and practice daily meekness will be part of the Lord’s advance: “In your majesty ride forth victoriously for the cause of truth and meekness and righteousness…” (Psalm 45 verse 4.)

Without meekness, no revival, no matter how passionately we pray. How can we expect God to come in blessing of our hearts are defiant and rebellious?

That defiance of rules in Lockdown may be insignificant to you or to me. It may even be a laughing matter, or something of which we feel proud! Time to realise the Lord is not laughing and repent? Such are the things that show we are ready for the “more” of God, and truly desire that more, however much our pride must be humbled. The alternative is to be passed by when God moves in a day of His power, our prayers disregarded as they were not true prayer, but an insistence on our will, a cross border adventure into witchcraft to manipulate God in the direction of our will.

God bless

Kenny