To those struggling with weakness you would not necessarily have chosen: I hope this helps to sustain you: As I said a few posts ago, I am trying to follow Jesus in knowing the Word that will sustain the weary, asking that I will have an instructed tongue that comes from having an open and instructed ear. I guess that some mornings I may hear nothing for whatever reason. However, this is what I believe the Spirit of God helped me hear and see this morning:

You may think that everyone, everything, even God’s Spirit is whizzing past you, like a train at speed as it goes full pelt through the station where you are standing… waiting. Not so: Wherever the train of life around you, wherever the train of your particular”church” circle is set on going, the Heavenly Father sees His waiting-on-the-platform children and their wondering. Today, you are fully part of His destination. He has no destination in mind that does not involve noticing and responding to your waiting, your longing and the preparation of your heart. The people involved in the rush need you. They need to see what God does for those who wait for Him.

After receiving this soon after waking, I decided to look up the origins of the phrase, “full pelt.” No one is completely sure where it comes from it would appear! However, the best bet is that the thought is of moving something by pelting it. It may have a military origin. Moving is good, but not all movement is good. It depends who or what  is doing the pelting that is causing the gathering speed. If you are “waiting” at the moment, if that seems to be the persisting tone of your days, one of the most useful things you can do is to pray for those who are doing the moving and the shaking, that they will be discerning as to who or what is driving things forward.  The movers need your prayers from a quieter place. They may even find themselves being drawn to you sensing in all their full pelt moving they have lost something they need to find again if the train despite its apparent speed is indeed going to get somewhere other than hitting the buffers.

God bless

Kenny

Dreamed just as I was waking up this morning that someone was delivering an acceptnace speech for an award, a life time achievement award. It was for their career in “Voiceover.” The image lingered. I felt that in it there was a word that would help to sustain the weay, which is part of why I write these blogs.

Voiceover is when someone unseen speaks over what is happening on screen in a film or an advert or speaks off-stage as a narrator in a play or whatever. Or it may be the voice over is the voice of an actual character in a film or play speaking into that role. Voiceover is important. When used properly, it gives sense, interprets, explains what needs to be known but might not be understood without help and guidance.

There is always a Voiceover being spoken into the unfolding events of our lives. The important thing is that we do not allow any old voiceover explanation of the story of our lives. God can help you begin a new voiceover career today, one in which the Holy Spirit in you or You through the Holy Spirit are speaking the interpretative narrative over your own life; a voiceover carrying the truth and tone of the Living God the God of goodness, of redeeming mercy, kind love and purposefulness.

Back to the dream: the acceptance speech. It was a bit like the Oscars, though less emotional and more sincere, with less acting if you know what I mean! Whoever the person was, they were saying a simple “thank you” for all those who had got them started in Voiceover.

Well, all of that gets me to what I beleive God wants me to share. it will not be for everyone but it will be for some of you. The verse/thought of Saint Paul came to mind, admittedly not strictly in context! “When I became a mature adult, I put aside the things of childhood.” There are some reading this who need to let go of your childhood voiceovers ohterwise they may lead to perpetual childishness where you pass on any responsibility for the unfolding shape of your adult life and settle to live as a victim, only remotely functioning when you say “poor me” over yourself or hear others saying, “Poor soul.”

Believe me, The Voiceovers are there in every one of us, but they are not necessarily the Voiceovers of the truth of God. Some of us are very fortunate in that the Voiceovers spoken into our lives from earliest days were from loving parents, from encouraging families who may even have deliberatley sought to echo the truth of God into your life. For some there were lots of postive voices like this, but other voices seemed to have a more powerful and detrimental influence. Voiceovers can be sinister. Was that the case for you? Was your dominating Voiceover the ancient career of one who lies and deceives with a forked tongue? That tongue can be terrifying or silky smooth but poison filled either way. The enemy gives false Voiceover narratives to the events of your life, the event of “you”, suggesting and reinforcing false outlook and a false understanding of our own identity. Of course, the Voiceover he offers can paradoxically be one of complete silence, that can put a sense of  hidden menace into the living of our lives resulting in fearfulness and anxiety.

At some point, whether the Voiceover action of others was good or bad, helpful or a hindrance, we have to begin our own Voiceover career with regard to our life. However, remember that essentially Voiceover does involve a script. What script are you reading and speaking forth this day? May it be true for you and for me that the script we are learning to submit to as Voiceover artists is the one written by the Author of our Salvation and no other.

God bless

Kenny

Woke early, having slept well.  Immediate thought was of those  of you who are struggling with physical pain, severe physical pain. The mantra that, “Pain is a good thing, it tells you something is wrong; think of the leper etc.” does not work. That is more about others finding a cheap answer to the unease in their own faith about your pain.

Please forgive us, the church, for ever minimising your struggle with pain. Praise God for support groups. Often they are fuller of the presence of Christ than a church with impeccable doctrine. There are others near the isolating borders of your pain with nothing to offer but gentle and faithful presence from their own isolating pain.

Believing and declaring God’s Word over ourselves must go hand in hand with honesty before God in the secret place about what is happening in our hearts, which at times will be in line with the Word we are believing and declaring and at times will be quite different. To hold these ingredients together is to worship in Spirit and in Truth.

Today as I woke I saw that some who will read this, are in fellowships that without meaning to do so, foster dishonesty, demanding a forced brightness and joy in the name of so called ‘faith’ which isn’t! To gain acceptance and approval you have had to mask the distresses of your heart, to mask even that some of you are on the Autism Spectrum, that you have Aspergers, or that you are on antidepressants or antipsychotic medication etc. It is making ‘going to church’ an increasing experience of what could truly be called terror, to the point of fearing a panic attack may well happen.

Every so often when I was preaching regularly, the Lord would challenge me to step into approaches to that calling that stretched me beyond my comfot zone and pushed me into a new dependence  uopon His Spirit. (When I can do what I do with my eyes shut, it probably means my ears are shut to the Lord. My confidence has come to rest in my gifting rather than in the Lord.)  I actually find that He does the same with my blogging. I will not bore you by going through the various stages of blogging ventures  thus far, but I will share where I think the Lord has me now in this regard.

My blogging started as a substitute for preaching when illness had made it impossible to continue as a parish minister. However as I blogged from that reality as it were, I soon became aware through responses sent to me that there is a vast underbelly in the Christian world full of people who  struggle with weakness beyond the norm in one form or another, for whom Church and what Church demands is often beyond the realms of possibility in terms of their phsycial, emotional or even spiritual resources.  God gives resources to do His will not other people’s will or even the Church’s will, where the Church’s  leadership and will has taken on an authority that has stopped listening to God and stopped being aware of people. It is easy to feel worthless when you are unable to measure up with what is being asked of you. The feeling can arise that you are not making a very good job of this Chrisitan thing.

Just a few days ago the Lord challenged me. He challenged me to believe that what was true of Jesus could be true of me in some measure at least, by the power of the Holy Spirit. In  Isaiah there are several passages where we hear prophetically the thoughts of Jesus centuries before He walked on earth to think them. In Chapter 50 verse 4  we read this:

“The Sovereign LORD has given me a well-instructed tongue, to know the word that sustains the weary. He wakens me morning by morning, wakens my ear to listen like one being instructed.”

So I trusted Him to do that for me  yesterday and this morning, as soon as I woke. Today, I saw someone arriving at the  door  of a house. Inside there seemed to be a bit of a party going on at which this shivering  wrtetch of a visitor was clearly not welcome. I asked what this meant. I believe this is what was given me:

“Who is that at the door? It is “you” at your most naked, wretched, bedraggled. It is “you” that you hope no one ever sees, whose existence you have told no one about. Will you open the door of love, welcome, acceptance tender compassion and grace to “you”? Will you bring “you” in from the cold or send “you” away into the cold dark territory of rejection once more clothed with shame and panic, unwashed, unkempt? Introduce “you” to your best friend Jesus.”

I hope that may be a thought, a word, that will sustain some of you in your weariness whenever you may happen to read this.

God Bless

Kenny

That familiar thought that disturbed you this morning. You woke up feeling good! Then, like a heavyweight punch in the face it came: “Is  it my fault that things are like this?” That punch has come so often to a bleeding cut. It is the enemy seeking to stretch you out on the floor. It is  the cruel manipulation of your sorrow and grief about what has or has not happened.

At times you have turned your wondering  into a question to God, but He has never answered “Yes” or “No.” If He said “Yes” you could not live with the increased grief. If He said “No” the black boxing glove would still keep hitting you.  He is not into blaming anxious and sensitive  souls. He wants you simply to trust the process of His grace and the purposes of that grace for you and for “them.” You did what you could at that point in time. You did the very best you could. Jesus has always looked upon those who did what they could with tender favour and blessing and affirmation. What the malevolent boxer calls “fumbling inadequacy” Jesus calls “a beautiful thing.”

God bless

Kenny

Due to technical illiteracy concerning blogging, coupled with general illiteracy about all things web or internet related, I keep forgetting that not all of you are on Facebook and not all of you are on Word Press. I am told  if I put something on Word Press first it will automatically appear on Facebook but not the other way round. So then, below I have copied something that has been with me all day and will not go away which has already been posted to Facebook. It will have a niche “market” probably, namely being of interest to those who live or minister in the North of Scotland or its islands. However, it may just interest some of you in other ways, hence its apperance here. Explanation over! I am not saying it is prophetic, but I hope it may do the work of a prophecy in the curch era: that it may strengthen, encourage and comfort the people of God.

While driving up and down the A9 when we lived in the North of Scotland, I was very aware at points in the journey I was crossing in and out of different spiritual territories. For want of a better phrase, I could feel that reality again and again. It was something unrelated to existing formal boundaries, secular or religious. At times I felt a joy in my spirit. At other times, crossing other unseen boundaries a sense of revulsion and darkness. Not so aware of that since moving to the Central belt in 2005. Maybe it is just I am not travelling the length and breadth of the country so often, but just maybe it is because there is something in the plan of God waiting to be released in the North that is very opposed by something not flesh and blood… felt all day I should share that.

Be blessed, you overlooked Northern places. Pray on in faith. Stand your ground. If possible swallow pride and come back into unity where it has been dented. The way back is not always easy. You may get met by suspicion. Humble yourself all the same and there will be blessing in the awkward journey. Some of you need to humbly become sheep again instead of shepherds.

Seek first The Kingdom of God and His righteousness. Pursue holiness in the reverential fear of God. Be submitted to one another in reverence for Christ, in obedience to Apostolic authority and writings in the bible. Listen to no other self-appointed apostolic ministry, in whatever shape or form it comes to you. It is not needed. There is more happening in Northern Places than can be observed with the eye, more than is happening in places further “South” that have the name of being alive. The death around you is real, but where there is death there can be resurrection. That is your hope, the God of Resurrection. Don’t think, “it is happening elsewhere, never here.” It is happening with you. May God give you open eyes to see the horses and chariots of the Lord around you. You have not much strength but you have not denied the Lord’s name and have kept His word. Some have turned away by deliberate choice. Hearts harden and cannot hear pleadings. For some, it may too late. But not for you. Some of you got off the wave and are observers from the shore. It is as though you have not heard there is a Holy Spirit… but you know it was real…you said it once, “It is real.” Get on to the wave again. Encourage others who have been discouraged by you. Encourage one another.

Oh yes, one more thing. Is it him, her, or the Lord. You must choose.

God bless

Kenny

Monday Mornings can be difficult for anyone invovled in up front church ministry. Mondays can be hard for anyone for that matter! Remember that Jesus Christ gives you the right to be called a child of God. So then, whatever people said or did not say yesterday, whatever all your yesterdays say, whatever condemning and mocking declarations seem to be finding a persistent voice, whatever looks and words may be waiting for you as you step out into this day and into  a new working/not working week……..look at yourself in the mirror and say, “Good Morning, child of God.”

You have been chosen in eternity, come for, sought for, died for. You have been bought with a price and are the object of the continuing delight of an eternal love. You are wanted, valued, appreciate by your Father. He proudly owns you as His, delights over you, dances over you to the confusion of angels and archangels who cannot quite see whatever it is He sees in you, but ponder it all the same.

The world won’t necessarily reocognise who you really are today, son or ddaughter of God, any more than it recognised The Son. You might meet no one today who will remind you who you really are. So before you leave the house, or before you settle for another day in the house because of disability or illness, or unemploymen,t or age related struggles, or weakness of mind or body of some sort or another, take one more look in that mirror and smile into your own eyes and receive your smile full of the sparkling ife of God looking back at you: “Good Morning, beloved.” Jesus Christ gives you the right to say that.

God bless

Kenny

Your outburst of violence…

Someone living a shame filled life needs to hear this: It is not a “thus says the Lord” wordy thing, but it came to me in prayer. It may be for you.

Violence happens even in the most intimate of relationships, even relationships between Christians who deeply love one another. Often it is the violence of words. Sometimes it can become physical. There is someone, deeply ashamed, who needs to hear this: “You are not the only one.”

Kenny

As another snowy morning dawned today, these thoughts came to me. Well, I say “thoughts”. The thoughts seemed to change into truth which I meditated upon which seemed to then turn into something to be shared. Here it is then:

Siege: a favourite weapon of the enemy in our battle which is not against flesh and blood. A siege cannot work when within impenetrable walls there is water and bread. A “word thingy” for someone?

“You looked out of your window this morning. Yes, nothing has changed. The snow is still there. Remember that when “nothing is changing,” you have living water within: “There is a river whose streams make glad the city of God, The holy dwelling places of the Most High. God is in the midst of her, she will not be moved; God will help her when morning dawns.…’ “

“The Kingdom of heaven is near.” Just thinking over difficult moments in my life with regard to that truth. So often at such times I have experienced that truth as the touch of divine gentleness and kindness, as gentle but as real as the brush of a butterfly’s wing upon my hair. It is so real as to be tangible. God comes into our sadnesses in this fallen world with kindness that says, “I know, I know….I am with you, with them, in the shadow lands of the coming brightness.” The touch of the butterfly wing of God often goes  unnoticed even by believers.  Should Almighty God not be more substantial than that? Well, He made the butterfly and the lion.

As a charismatic, I love manifestations of the Spirit when they are the real thing.  I regret sometimes that all that people seem to accept as being acceptable in such circles is when God steps in to overturn a situation with raw power, though of coruse it is wonderful when He does that and a cause of  high praise. There have been claimed manifestations of the roar of the Lion of Judah in recent years in charismatic meetings and occasionally that has been very genuine and changed the very atmosphere of a gathering releasing the roar of God Himself against the enemies of human wellbeing. There has been manfiestation of the Warrior roar crying “Freedom” and very occasionally that has been real as well and more than a sort nationalisitic fervour or  release of emotion. We have had macho preaching that has stung like a bee which is once in a blue moon genuinely the Word of the Lord. I have yet to see someone fluttering around manifesting the Maker of butterflies! No doubt that has happened or it will happen in some meeting somewhere  and on occasion  it will be genuine, but I have never seen that yet. I am not sure why.

An overemphasis of any truth becomes an error that stops people finding what God is actually doing, including the truth I am seeking to set forth here.  However, state the truth I must, in the hope that it might just be the particular truth from Jesus that some of you need to hear this very day, a truth that will set you free. Gentle kindness in the midst of an unaltered situation is a wonderful miracle, very precious indeed: indeed to me  it is one of the most treasured treasures of the Mystery of the presence of the coming Kingdom. In a world that is often aggressive and intolerant of weakness, a world that gets angry when things don’t go according to our wishes and sense of justice, gentle kindness can be very counter cultural, the sign of another Kingdom, another world making its presence known where the moleclues of this world’s thinking have become broken, stretched apart, creating many holes through which truth can shine. There are indeed parallel universes intertwined with one another. Faith sees that.

May you taste of the Kindness of the Lord, whoever you are and whatever you are going through: may you help others to taste of that kindness too.

Click here and it might just make you smile!

God Bless

Kenny

Feel I always need to make this sort of intro as there are a wide variety of folk who seem to read either my Faecebook ramblings or my blog. ! From time to time when praying, I seem to be given a word from God which is to be shared as it is a specific word for a specific moment, probably for a specific person, but may be a word in season for several as often there seems to be seasons in God, and for that matter seasons of attack where many beleivers find themselves facing something similar to one another at the same moment. Occasionally, I am given names, but that is very occasional and very unusual for me, probably something to do with levels of faith at any given moment. Sometimes a face appears connected with the message. Sometimes I tell the person whose face I see as the word comes to me, but sometimes I fear that may be seen as being too manipulative and I just put it out there hoping in faith that the right person will see it, weigh it up and have faith this may be God speaking to them to encourage, strengthen and comfort them, the purpose of the new Testament gift of prophecy, which I only experience intermittently to a small degree compared with many.

OK, I know it is still the 12 days of Christmas, but my mind is going on to thinking about hopes for the New Year. My hope is that we will get hold of what the essence of the Kingdom “here but not yet” is about: Justice. In First World Charismatic Christianity the Kingdom has become sort of one dimensional sadly, in that there is a fixation about physical healing and how we can see more of it. That shows how pampered we have become and how out of touch and meaningless we can seem to be in a world that for billions is unsafe and unjust and where wrong often triumphs over many generations. I love the words of this old hymn, and make it my prayer for this and every New Year:

The battle “not against flesh and blood” had to be won in flesh and blood like our own and in flesh and blood circumstances. True then for Him, true still for us. May The Word be seen in flesh throughout the parishes of Scotland. May victories secured in heaven’s throne room by worship and prayer through our Saviour’s virtue and merits, be served on earth in acts of mercy, kindness, compassion, care, to set at liberty those who are oppressed, to bring light into deep darkness. If it is not so, then our claimed victories in heavenly realms are simply an earthly vanity, an unprovable assertion amidst all the empty claims, promises, imaginings and loud mouthed shoutings of the passing centuries of pride and lostness. “As the Father sent me into the world, so I send you.”

God Bless

Kenny

Getting ahead of the season a bit. Thinking of how it takes faith to see answers to prayer. Simeon and Anna saw in baby Jesus God answering prayers and fulfilling promises for the consolation and redemption of Israel. That was not obvious to the eye of flesh. Only hearts and heads full of Scripture mixed with an experience of the immediate witness and revelation of the Holy Spirit could have led to such insight.

Getting even more ahead of the spiritual season into the next big season (thought not as speedily as Cadbury with  their cream eggs in the shops already!), what about this verse from Hebrews? “In the days of his flesh, Jesus offered up prayers and supplications, with loud cries and tears, to Him who was able to save him from death, and he was heard because of his godly fear (5:7).” It would not have looked at all obvious around the foot of the cross that the One who could save Jesus from death was at work, but He was. Who could have looked at the cross and believed for rescue and salvation of a lifeless man marred beyond human semblance except through a gift of faith and holding on to the insight of Scripture that it was necessary for the Christ to suffer and then enter His glory?

(Put this short thought on Facebook earlier today. Thought I should put it here for those of you who don’t have Facebook, either by acident or design!)

I love the story of Mary visiting Elizabeth. True fellowship when the Spirit of God is at work involves affirming the presence and action of God in one another and growing to an understanding of God at work in us that we could never have arrived at alone. Is there someone you could affirm in the waiting time before the dawn of Christmas Day?

God bless

Kenny

OK, all ye misery guts out there, we know it is not true that the little Lord Jesus no crying he makes. Here’s the thing though. I have seen many people over the years cry good healing tears at that line: older people, abused people, folk who have hit the gutter or never got out of there in the first place….it allows stuffed down stuff to surface, as well as a longing too for no more tears.

Only a week tor two ago, I heard an almost exclusively male gathering of men sing it with laldy at The Haven, a place that helps people get free from addictions in the Name of Jesus Christ. Some of their stories almost unbearable to hear let alone live through. “Away in a Manger” sounded like the song of a marching fully clad army with blazing weapons! Astonishingly blessed!

So, all ye demythologising zealots, allow us to sing “no crying he makes” and forbid us not. Myth sometimes takes us deeper into reality than scowling faced, bald, angry truth. Yes, I know you think emphasising that the baby Jesus cried like us would surely help the hurting more, but the “surelys” of our hearts have a logic of their own that the “surelys” of our minds don’t always quite get.

God Bless

Kenny

I cannot check the details, as I had to get rid of the book the two words I quote below came from. It was by Helmut Thielicke. It’s title was either “The Meaning of Life” or “I believe.” I had both, but I had to give them away along with hundreds of other books due to their potential danger to my lungs! To buy a physical copy of either of them now could cost qnything from 1p. to £800 from some sellers! Fortunately there are electronic versions available which means the danger to lungs posed by second hand books can be avoided at a reasonable cost!

Whatever, in the context of talking about a favourite photograph of his, of a nativity play in a prison in which the prisoners played all the parts ( even the angels!), Thielicke warned about making a “snobbish judgement” about folk who don’t perhpas have much to do with God at other times of the year celebrating Christmas. It is a good warning. See in that reality something of the power of the light of Christ to touch, even in our day and age, those who may be afar off. Don’t dismiss it all as sentimentality. Some of it no doubt is, but not all. It is the reach of His hand and Kingdom into the darkness to give even a little passing light. For some it really is the spark of something divine beginning.

I was given a coffee for free in a shop the other day by someone who as far as I know takes no interest in the things of God. In a small way, profit, buying and selling were set aside to allow something else to emerge. There was genuine good will behind it. It led to quite a lengthy conversation about “this time of the year.” Just saying…don’t be a Christian, born again, bible believeing, Spirit-filled  snob about Christmas.

God bless

Kenny

Woke up with the image of someone who has served the Church so well. I know who they are, but I think they were representative of many who have done that and become tired out and a bit disillusioned, which may be you! Whatever, into that God seemed to speak. This too may be for you:

“You have stored up so much knowledge about the church as system. You have understood its components in a detailed and intricate way. You have been a true workman in a shed. That shed is full of shelves that speak of painstaking work and analysis achieved through involvment and getting your hands dirty in the good sense. Many paid lip service to your knowledge but few embraced it or put it into practice. An expert damned by the faint praise and insincere smiles of appreciation of people you sought to serve for Jesus’ sake and glory.

Somewhere in the shed, hidden away in the furthest corner from the door, is an overcoat and some boots, on a coat stand, gathering dust. Put them on. Whatever the future of your expertise, leave that to me. There are times and seasons for everything under the sun. For you, this is a season of recovery from church as system, a system which often chews up and spits out the very best of God’s offered blessing and goodness. Put on the coat and boots. Come afresh into the open air of God. Often people know me and long for me as fire and warmth. I am inviting you into a walk with me that is like the thrill of the coldness of a frosty morning under the clearest of bright skies that will shock your spiritual senses awake and bring back child like mirth. I can restore your enthusiasm, your filled-with-God-ness, so much so that even in those intensely dark moments which oppress you, you will know that with coat and boots on, you can go out and find frosty glistening light shining like twinkling stars on the darkest path. For you, this is a season of lightness of spirit being restored. Believe again for a joy that knows no limit.”

Hope this helps a few of you.

God Bless

Kenny

“Jesus took the five loaves and two fish, looked up toward heaven, and blessed them. Then, breaking the loaves into pieces, he kept giving the bread and fish to the disciples so they could distribute it to the people.” (Luke 9:16)

“Jesus kept giving…so the disciples could distribute…” The miracle is always the Work of the hand of Jesus, the Son of God. Disciples’ hands distribute in His Name.

Every true ministry happening this day is really just a distribution and delivery service, whether it be local ot international. Remembering the distinction between who gives and who distributes might help close the gap between grand proclamations and the works of God actually being made manifest among and through His people.

I wrote this on facebook a few days ago after I had been reading Romans 10:

“You don’t need to search the heavens for a sign or strain to see to the horizons of the deepest widest sea for rescue to appear. Emmanuel: God with us. May God birthed faith be awakened or re-awakened in you and in me to know that, remember that and hear that. He is at hand: He is called Wonderful, Counsellor, Mighty God, Everlasting Father, Prince of Peace: near, with, within, whichever you need to know: not unattainably high or an ocean depth and width away.”

These words came back to me this morning with a personal relevance. Allow me to explain and expand here!

It is just the way my mind works. I think it has been made worse by steroids. What am I talking about? Well, from time to time, especially within a certain period of time after taking my medication in the morning, a hint of facts until then unknown to me, is too much for me. For example this morning I was up early due to having to take a certain medicine after being up for an hour and before I have eaten anything or taken any other medication. I put on the T.V. I heard a story about a ship that was wrecked off the Isle of Wight during the second world war. It was full of South African soldiers.  A huge number of people perished. In fact I think it was mentioned it was the second worst shipwreck ever in British waters. Of the number who perished a huge percentage  were black. They were required in the service of the British Empire, but the South African Government  would not allow them to bear arms therefore they had to serve as carriers and cooks. My mind started working overtime with those little bits of facts. It wanted to delve more into the story, especially to find out the reasoning as to why black soldiers from South Africa could not carry armsarm. Then, a  fear arose within me: there is so much in this story alone that I am ignorant of, so much I do not know. Researching that story alone could take me down roads of learning and knowledge that I know nothing about….

…so I decided to switch programmes. Gardening was on the next channel up. It idid not take long for the familiar fear to arise again: the right sort of soil, what to plant with what for what reasons…so much I do not know. Again, multiple possible roads of learning seemed to beckon.

I am so glad that finding God does not involve searching endless roads of learning. There is a sort of approach to spirituality that Gandhi suggested, namely that God was so worth finding that it was worth looking for Him as  patiently as picking up one drop of the ocean at a time with a straw. In contrast to that endless search approach, we have the story of Christmas.  In  a specific place that can be found on a map, at a time which can be measured in history,  in a baby named Jesus the Son of Mary, God came to us.

It sounds strange but it is thankfully true, that though there are so many things in the world that I cannot ever hope to learn and know,  I can come to know the One who is greater and creator of all that can be known. To find Him is not hard. Religion when it goes wonky thinks it is hard to know God involving  some sort of endless search which never comes to an arrival point. Where is the step ladder by which I can strive to climb up to heaven and meet God? How can I mine the depths of the mysteries of life and death to find the Lord of both? Maybe I can never discover the mystery which is God until beyond death?

The bible says that we do not need to climb up to heaven as though Christ has never come down to us. Nor  need to wait until we go through the valley of the shadow of death to meet with Him as though Christ had never made that journey first.  He has done so. He has lived our life, died our death and offers his risen victorious self for relationship from the other side of the grave to us this side of the grave! He is simply a step of faith away, or better a step of faith near to us.

God is not an idea for the philosophers alone to attain to, not a branch of endless learning better understood  by the intellectually gifted. In fact, i the bible,  God in terms of what we need to know about Him and His heart and purposes for us and for the world,  is a  mystery revealed, uncovered in Jesus,  not a concealed knowledge for the few. There is an approach  to spirituality that seeks to cover up the revelation with mystery again. It can be the mystery of mysticism itself, the mystery of profound language, interesting speculation, or even the mystery that only those who know the most subtle nuances of Greek or Hebrew can ever hope to decipher.

I hope you have the most amazingly simple and  non-mysterious Christmas. May you find in Jesus the one who helps you to worship, for as you discover Him you will find the word “Wonderful,” rising on your lips in praise. May you find His help near to you in day to day decisions in your life, for He is “Counsellor.” May you find Him giving you strength where you are aware you are weak for he is “the Mighty God.” Whatever age you are, may you find the security in Jesus of having an “Everlasting Father.” I pray too He will be “the Prince of Peace” in situations of tension and turmoil within you or around you.

God has made Himself so findable, He plants himself in Jesus in the ordinary soil of our humaness. He dis-covers Himself there to our gaze.

God bless

Kenny

Today I was remembering a walk in a beach a long time ago now, when I believe I saw supernatural in-breaking of the Kingdom of God accompanying the meeting of  the very human need and desire of a small child ,who had been through a time of strain, to walk and play  on the beach. I won’t go into the whole story as many of you will have heard it before anyway. But the result of that day is that ever since I have carried a vision of God’s Kingdom that has a more human need based face than I had before. Oh there was always a human need aspect to what I thought of when I thought of God’s Kingdom breaking in: men, women and children would find their deepest need for repentance and reconciliation with God met. For me there is no greater need than that, but in a sense my vision up until that walk on the beach was a bit limited.

This is the season when we will remember that a child is born to us a Son is given to us… and the Government shall be upon his shoulders, a government that will increase and know no end.

What does your vision of the Kingdom of God breaking in and becoming real look like.

Today I made some rough notes as I was reading some of Henri Nouwen’s writings and also some bits and pieces from Brennan Manning. Here are some half-quotes and the attendant thoughts scribbled in my notebook. Allow me to share them with you with slight alterations to make them remotely sensible to you and not just to me:

Sparked off by H. Nouwen: “When I think about The Kingdom of God, the Kingdom of Heaven, is there room in my  vision for some of the phrases and thoughts awakened by verses about God’s Kingdom in Scripture that H.N.  uses in his writings?

‘… a peaceable kingdom in which all violence has been overcome and (in which) all men, women and children (are) living in loving unity with nature….

…every time we forgive….make a child smile…. show compassion…. arrange a bouquet of flowers….offer care to tame or wild animals…..prevent pollution….create beauty in our homes and gardens….work for peace and justice…..we are making the vision come true…’

I feel thanksgiving arising for Flower Festivals in Churches (never thought that day would come in time or eternity, I have to say!) and Donkey Sanctuaries….Love it!” I wonder if a Pentecostal has ever written a book called, “God’s KIngdom: In praise of Flower Festivals and Doneky Sanctuaries.” Mmm…maybe….

Sparked off by B. Manning: “What does the Government that was placed upon Christ’s shoulders look like. I guess it is the mantle of the cross and its outworking as it grows on the earth is cross shaped too:

B.Manning: ‘accepted suffering is not just a good way of doing things, or an ideal to be carried out when convenient – it’s the only way to overcome evil. The only way. This goes cross grain to every molecule in me, Father. Yet, I pray not my will but yours this day.’

Jesus’s Kingdom will grow on earth through me this day, when I conquer evil in the ways it seeks to destroy the will of God in me or in others I meet this day in my life or theirs, my circumstances or theirs, in the continuing story of God in me or in them. It cannot be reduced to programmes or movements. The weapons at times look inferior, less forceful than the weapons evil uses, but Jesus showed they worked: the cross could be mocked, but the weakness of God (astonishing phrase) was the power of God. Violence, injustice, betrayal seem so hideously strong, but if the government is upon Christ’s shoulder it means despite all appearances, mercy, non retaliation, love, prayer, weakness yielded to God are more powerful still.”

Further thoughts over night:

The cross, the government laid upon His shoulders:

What a comfortable place the uncomfortable Kingdom of God is to live in when you spiritualise it all…..de-flesh the Word, adhere to principles without doing the deeds, turn an altar of comnsuming blazing fire into smoke machine smoochy ballads, remove the life long debt of gratitude from the debt cancelling cross.

I hope my jottings bless you. If not, well they blessed me anyway when first jotted them!

God Bless

Kenny

A couple of thoughts to spark off your own thinking. No need to post your thoughts unless you want to!

Many churches think about John the Baptist at some point in Advent:

Firstly: John the Baptist, according to Jesus, was greater than anyone else born of women, including all the prophets, yet he performed no miracles unlike Elijah in whose spirit and power he had appeared and lived and ministered. There was something about him more important than miracles ( as indeed there was about Elijah) that merited honouring from Christ. What was it?

God Bess

Kenny

Was challenged by a phrase in a book of Advent Readings by Thomas Merton. When we meet or discern error in a church setting can we confront that without being “rebellious or indiscreet” ? Perhaps as evangelicals our zeal for truth sometimes results in our being too ready to shout out about the errors of whatever church, denomination etc. we belong to. That may bring us a certain admiration in the small pond in which we are considered to be a big champion type of fish but doesn’t do much beyond that small pond of preening and mutual admiration.

If we see a wound in a church setting, let’s ask God what we can do to heal it in His grace and by His wisdom.

God bless

Kenny

Over my years as a parish minister, people often spoke with good will into my situation who were not in my situation or in the place of my calling. (Incidentally I had not usually asked them to speak into my situation. Occasionally I had the courage to calmly and politely tell them so, which shocked  and unnerved them!) Sometimes their thoughts truly helped me, often they were pretty useless and unhelpful. When they were unhelpful, it was usually because they were programmatic and glib as though the recipe for “success” being offered was fail safe and unquestionably true for every situation.

These thoughts were awakend this morning, by a book of daily readings I have turned back to many times over the years by E. Stanely Jones. His thoughts for this day were based on Luke Chapter 4 and on two verses which are a mere ten verses apart. In verse 4 of that chapter we read of Jesus being full of the power of the Spirit. In verse 24 we read of this same Jesus announcing a truth that a prophet (himself) was not always welcome in his own country.

The soil matters. I hope that encourages those of you who are maybe in church settings that you know the Lord has called you to, but there is not much fruit to show. You have maybe felt condemned by the implications of some people that there must be something wrong with you, your spirituality, that you are lacking in the Spirit’s fullness or whatever.

The soil matters. It does not all depend on you, man of God, woman of God, tested in the wilderness and full of the Spirit. Don’t allow a charge to rest upon you that is unjustified. May God assure you this weekend that you are in the place you are meant to be and even  in the condition you are meant to be in.

God Bless

Kenny

I have no idea who Kevin O’Shea is but I read something he said and I like it. It helps me be honest about whether or not I am living in “the wisdom of accepted tenderness,” (Brennan Manning).

Here is the quote:

“One rejoices in being unfrightened to be open to the healing presence, no matter what one might be or what one might have done.”

Today, may the God whose kindness and love appeared in the world in Christ to save us (Titus 3:4) help you, whoever you are, to be able to replace with conviction “One” with “I” in the quote. May the church fellowship to which you belong be able to replace “One” with “We.”

God bless

Kenny

Slept really well! 5.00 am wake up. Feeling as fresh as a daisy, having felt extremely exhausted throughout yesterday, for reasons unknown. Was praying a bit, wondering a bit. I believe I heard this from God: “Kenny, others make the assumption that healing would be the best thing for you.”

Well, that released a stream of life and hope, which I may try and blog about soon….but for now, almost an hour of thinking later on, it is a useful thought for anyone of us to to carry in to today: the danger of assuming we know what is best for somebody; somebody whose story, “hopes and fears,” God given dream and sense of Kingdom purpose are perhaps unknown to us or assumed and misunderstood by us as we look on, even with good will in our hearts towards them.

11.00 am: OK then. The early dew of morning is passing away towards noon. 5 am burst of energy giving way to more familiar physical realities. Two thoughts:

1: The contrast is very real. The “condition” I carry becomes so routine to me that I forget the strain it must be putting upon my body and mind. I need to treat myself with a measure of care. That is not self indulgent but is necessary. “Pummeling” myself may have good biblical backing and suits that part of me that is Presbyterian and austere and reflects that part of God’s being that is austere (though not necessarily Presbyterian}. However, even as I am aware of wonkiness returning, strangely enough that very return helps me to remember I am also fearfully and wonderfully made by a Creator God of delicacy, wonder, extravagant variety and unecessary detail and subtlety: an Artist. I need to treat myself as His workmanship, body as much as soul and spirit, with more tender appreciation, interest and attention.

2: The energy burst may be fading, but the truths realised at that moment are still shining bright and true! Glory all the way!

God bless

Kenny

I find that I want to write about many matters to do with Christian truth and experience, so from time to time I try to refocus by asking,”What is my primary purpose behind my blog?” Well, looking back, I was first prompted to begin it when weakness, caused by a physical condition I still have despite much prayer by many faith filled people, made it impossible to continue to be a Parish Minister. However, it was not begun from a negative reaction to that experience, but rather as a desire to share what became very precious, namely the tender presence of God in the midst of frailty and fragility.

On one level that is hardly an earth shattering revelation, in that God coming into our weakness in love is the essence of the story of Christmas which we shall shortly be celebrating. There is of course huge comfort in the fact that God Himself in Christ has been touched with the very feelings of our infirmities. There is within God inside knowledge of what it means to experience human weakness within the limitations of human flesh. That truth wedded to a trust in the atoning power of Christ’s sacrifice and shed blood means we can have a confidence that when we are honest enough to bring our frailties before God we will be met with empathy. It was required of earthly priests under the Old Covenant that they were gentle in their dealings with people. There is a kindness in the merciful love of God that is very real.

However, the reality I have discovered through ill health is that there is a vast underbelly within the Christian Church whose experience is that weakness is not prized or honoured in present day church life and mission. There is a long history to that sad reality. In a faith that claimed to have found the one who was the World’s Messiah and Saviour, the Apostle Paul often seemed to find that with various congregations and individuals his constant moving from weakness to weakness as he was paradoxically being transformed from glory to glory, he was in fact a bit of an embarrassment. Imprisonment, beatings, starvations, shipwrecks, his times of experiencing lack, his being treated as the offscouring of the earth seemed to make a bit of a mockery of the idea that Jesus was Lord and God is Love. Paul had to actually say to someone he was very close to, namely Timothy, “Don’t be ashamed of me.”

Most of my readers will be within the Charismatic fold of the church. In such a fold, illness that seems to not respond to prayer can be a cause of unease, yes, even embarrassment. It can even become a cause of accusation of lack of faith or prayer, or persistence, or insufficiently robust a doctrine of healing. What is true of illness in this respect is true of other forms of weakness too; those whose marriages are failing; those whose children have gone astray; those who have no financial miracles to report in the decade long struggle to make ends meet; those who frequently do not have the confidence to come to a church service or become involved with church activities; those who struggle with depression etc.

You may not like to read this, but there are huge numbers of people, struggling with weakness of body, mind and spirit, who do not feel the Church of Jesus is as safe as Jesus is for them. Yet the truth is that without an honouring of weakness in others and an open owning of our own weaknesses before others, there can be no true fellowship, no true expression of church.

One of the basic teachings about the church of Christ in Paul’s letter to the Corinthians is that the “weak” parts of the body of Christ are essential not only to its health but to its very life. This is a message that the most overtly charismatic church described in the New Testament had to learn. There was a thread of sickness running through its life which could be described thus: “I have no need of him or her.” Sometimes that manifested itself in despising the spiritual gifts of others as being of little, lesser or no importance compared with other gifts. Sometimes it became obvious in other ways. For example, at the gatherings to share food and the Lord’s supper the better off Christians went ahead without waiting for the poorer Christians, the slaves etc., to finish their day’s “work” and come and join them. They ate and celebrated the Lord’s Supper without them. In effect they were saying, “We don’t need the poor.” Some were beginning to feel no need for input into church life in Corinth from an Apostle with a thorn in his flesh, but preferred the theatrics of those who made a great show of their spiritual strength and authority and vitality  by even striking people in the face.

I will expand on this another time, but let me just state it for now:  the church cannot be the church without the honouring, the treasuring, the welcoming and acceptance of human fragility that seems to be an embarrassment to the message that the Father hears and answers prayer, that Jesus is Lord and His followers are more than conquerors, the most truly prosperous and fully alive human beings on the face of the earth.

Your weakness is the most precious gift you can offer to the church for it to become the Church of Jesus Christ. Believe that, whether you are able to get that weakness to  the gathering of the church or not and whether or not it is welcomed when you do.

God bless you

Kenny

Having heard so many stories of the spiritual and church havoc that having an unconverted organist or choir leader can cause in more traditional churches seeking to be true to God’s  Living Word and His renewing Spirit, why is it that some of us in churches of more modern approach have unconverted people in our praise bands?

In my thinking, right or wrong, sung/instrument accompanied worship is just as important if not actually more so than preaching, though if one sees preaching and listening to God’s Word as part of our worship in more than the technical sense, then I guess it all rolls into one.

Would these same churches have unconverted preachers in their pulpits or unconverted people leading prayer ministry or leading their youth work or mission endeavours? Actually, come to think of it, I know of some churches which have the name of being evangelical or charismatic who do have unconverted people invovled in the leadership of these areas of work, or people who may be converted but as at a given moment are living non Christian lifestyles quite happily and even at times boastfully  rather than living humbly in obedience to God’s commanments in Scripture and in Christ  as saved sinners and born anew children of God.

By the way, having converted organists, choir leaders and praise band leaders can create problems too – but they are problems of a different sort with different spiritual fruit and consequences. People are people, even when redeemed.

God Bless

Kenny