It’s better to be weak.

I’ve learnt this the hard way.

I’ve spent much of my life trying to be strong, trying to do things well and to make things look good, trying to show myself to be capable, and thus, to show God in the best possible light. I’ve stood in front of audiences and tried to give the best possible impression. I’ve been heart-broken and strived to put forward a happy face and a sunny disposition. I’ve not had all of the answers, but I’ve often tried to look as if I do.

And now as I think about it, I realise what a massive waste of time all of that was.

My story of learning that lesson takes part one Friday evening in Göttingen, Germany, as we were preparing to lead a youth group about how to share our faith. It’s not often anymore that I feel afraid of speaking out to large groups of people, but now and then, the fear creeps back in, and I find my heart beating and my mind frantically going over all our plans, praying over and over “God, help me”. This was one of those nights. I wanted it to go absolutely perfectly. Oh, how my aspirations were dashed to the ground!

I think that God was trying to teach me something that night; He must have been because it all just went so terrifically wrong! It’s funny, because I’ve definetly come to the conclusion over the past years that it’s a dangerous decision to ask God to have any part in what you’re doing. He’s often got totally different ideas than I do as to how something should happen, or to what I should be doing. At this youth group, the music and my singing was terrible. I mean, laughable. Really bad. The small group I was leading literally went in the opposite direction than I was trying to lead it; actually in quite a detrimental direction. My brain was fried. I couldn’t think. And my heart wouldn’t stop beating violently. And God seemed a million miles away.

After it had finished, I sat down in the prayer room and cried. I felt like a failure.
And suddenly God said… YES. It was terrible. Isn’t that great?
And He meant it.

Because let’s be honest, we live in a world where we’re more noticeable than He is. We can get right up into peoples faces. We can be amazingly kind and gracious people that others aspire to be like. We can look like Beyoncé. Sing like angels. Speak wise words that cause people to marvel. And we can do it all the time thinking that these things will cause others to want to know God.

But as long as we’re standing tall and shining brightly, no-one’s going to be looking at God. They’ll only be looking at us. And that’s a tragedy.

“Star how beautiful you shine
You shine more beautiful than mine
You shine from sea to shining sea
World-wide is your strategy
But shining star I hope you see
If the whole wide world is staring straight at you
They can’t see me…” Dying Star – Jason Upton

The cool thing about this story is that about a week later, we heard that one girl was seriously considering starting a Christian group in her school and a couple of them had decided to go on a short-term missions trip to Costa Rica; all as consequence of that evening, and none of it as any consequence to me. In my weakness, God had shown Himself to be strong. It makes sense because ‘His power is made perfect in weakness’. [2Cor12:9]

Really, it’s about time that I allow myself to be weak, to fail, to depend and to allow God to be God.

A Starbucks Experience.

I believe that God can speak to me. Genuinely. I listen to Him. And ask Him questions. And I’m pretty sure that I’m not crazy when He answers me. So something that I love to do is to listen to God for other people, and to give them a little glimpse of the things that He says.

So one day in Berlin, when the rainclouds had opened their gates and people were rushing to and fro with umbrellas up and no time to talk, we took a seat in Starbucks with a cup of coffee, a notebook and some colourful pens. People often say that God doesn’t talk to them, but I assume that if they’ve never learnt what He sounds like, how would they be able to recognise His voice? We block Him out with our ipods and our TVs and the chaos that is everyday life. And Gods beautiful sweet voice gets lost in the havoc, and on we go living our lives.

Whilst sipping at our lattes, we thought we’d have some fun and ask God details about the way He created the individuals around us to be; their personalities and talents. This is what I heard for a man sitting behind me:

I saw a picture of an arctic explorer, and an image of a globe.
And the phases “Going to extremes” and “Breaking barriers” came to mind.

He was nice-looking man, in his 40’s perhaps, absorbed by his phone and his laptop, obviously working on something, and thus looking closed and slightly intimidating. But this was the guy; this was who God wanted me to speak to. It’s never easy going up to a total stranger in a coffee shop and telling them that God has a message for them, but it’s always the same: take a deep breath, say a prayer and just do it.

… on this occasion, I was really happy that I had.

He looked slightly shocked and laughed somewhat nervously when I showed Him my scribbled list, and told him that I’d asked God about how he was created. Did anything match what he knew about himself? I asked.

He went on to explain that he was from Sweden [he joked that it was practically the arctic…] and that for his job, he travelled constantly around the world making cutting edge fashion films and music videos [he namedropped ‘the editors’ somewhere during our conversation]. He worked with new ideas, exploring concepts to create film and concert experiences that would be at the forefront of creativity and style. Basically, he told me, it was spot on.

I got to see one of his films on my laptop: it was just as he said. Cutting edge.

He loved our creativity in showing God to people, and it was perfect opportunity because my Finnish friend was able to speak to him in his language aswell! He was able to enjoy what we were doing, because in his work, he did something similar, watching people and imagining their characters; only he acknowledged that listening to God was an entire new level.

This man was an atheist. His wife and mother were both Christians, but he’d decided that God was an illusion. He knew about Him, but had no experience of Him. Perhaps the possibility that God actually spoke and apparently knew about Him in such a way had impacted him in a way that nothing had before.

As I turned away from our conversation at last, he repeated “I may be an atheist, but this has really made me think!”.

I love that. Our God is truly alive. He speaks things that are hidden to our natural eyes and ears. We don’t need to communicate history, a God who was at some point, but no longer is. A God who is irrelevant. No; because our God is completely relevant. He speaks in the moment. He has something important to say in every situation and to every individual.

And we get to be His mouthpiece to a world too busy to listen; we can intervene into someone’s average day with an extraordinary message from God.

The Woman and the Rose.

Generosity can be really confusing. It can astound people, freak people out, or completely brighten their day. I guess because it’s pretty uncommon.

I was in Leeds on a ‘faith adventure’ a while ago. We were inspired by Mark 6:8-13, taking only what we felt God said to take, and talking to those He directed us to. And on this particular day, we went to buy some roses and found a good place to hand them out, and to talk to the people sitting around on the benches nearby.

There was one particular lady I remember. She looked pretty exhausted, brought down by life, maybe early 40’s and I approached her, and said hello. I gave her a rose and when she asked why, I told her that we, and God, wanted to show her that He loves her. She thought it was lovely, and said that no-one ever gave her free stuff, throwing in the comment “you wanna gimme twenty quid aswell?” with a laugh. I laughed too, and after a few moments walked back over to my two friends. It was light-hearted and simple.

Then I sat. And I thought, and after some moments I felt that nudge that God sometimes uses, when your heart starts to beat a little faster and it’s like pressure is building in the ‘taking a leap’ department of your soul. Because why not? I really think God wanted me to give her twenty pounds!

Well, it came as a shock to her aswell. She cried on my shoulder and gave me a big hug. She said, never before had a Christian ever helped her, ever said that God loves her. I just said over and over “He really does.”

She didn’t believe in God. And I’m pretty convinced that she used that money on drugs… she practically told me she would. But for her to know that God loves her, no matter what situation she’s in, it’s completely worth it. It’s still her choice. And God will still love her.

I need to do that kind of thing more often, but this is what I’ve been learning recently:
It really is just about love. And it really isn’t about me, not at all. It’s all about Him.

And it’s not about seeing her turn to Jesus, although that’s incredible when it happens. That’s nothing to do with me. All I can do is love and speak to her about the truth. And let Holy Spirit do the rest.

Love changes everything. But not my love; my love is completely insufficient. But if we can allow people to experience Gods love, without our own ambitions getting in the way, that’s when we’ll see lives really changed, from the inside out.

Because true love is like generosity. It can astound people, freak people out, or completely brighten their day. But one step further; experiencing true love changes everything.

Lights Fading.

There’s the street lights. The heat of the favela, the smells of the streets, the carnival drums.

Getting smaller and smaller, further and further away. Fading.

When it becomes part of you, and your DNA seems altered, the language is poetry in your mind and the people are in your heart, and you’re on the plane, above the city, higher and higher, lights fading, what do you do?

“If I rise on the wings of the dawn, if I settle on the far side of the sea, even there your hand will guide me, your right hand will hold me fast.” He reminded me, over and over.

The Lights of the City

When you live for two months in a country, in a city, it’s vines entwine themselves with your heart. It almost becomes part of you. And to leave? It feels like an intense operation, forcing the drums from your head and pulling, pulling, the vines from within your heart.

But I stand on Him. Wherever I am. Wherever I will ever go. He is there. He is here.

He was definitely there. And I feel Him now.

The Sound of Carnival Drums

The drums are still drumming. Even these eight months later, I still hear them, still feel them, and there are times when my pulse still hammers that tune. The voice still calls.

Sometimes it bothers me; was it wise to uproot myself from a home? Will my roots ever grow back, anywhere? Or will my only home now be Heaven? Perhaps, I don’t think that’s such a bad thing.

More of God, More of Me.

Is that even possible? To have more of God AND more of me? Is it even right?

Christians have a whole set of religious language and religious phrases that they use – and to avoid being hypocritical, I admit that I use them all the time. But at the same time, I hate hearing myself do it – because no-one outside of our bubble has a clue what we’re on about, and sometimes I don’t think we even know what we’re saying!

A commonly prayed phrase I hear is “God, I want less of me and more of You!”

I don’t think this is what God wants at all!

Our original design by God is beautiful, for each one of us. Unique and priceless. But as we all know and have experienced, as we journey through life, our original design and who we were made to be gets distorted with lies that we begin to believe about ourselves, and we start to focus on our weaknesses rather than our strengths. We lose sight of the dreams for the future that God gave us, believe we’re not worth them, or that they’re not possible. Disapproving people, ugly circumstances, traumatising events – they all happen. Few of us are who we were made to be anymore.

Over the last three weeks, I’ve been inspired. I’ve been at a leadership seminar called ‘Slingshot’ in a beautiful Swiss village, full of cows with bells around their necks and shutters on windows, and I’ve been poured into by teachers passionate about seeing good leadership in all areas of society. I’ve been hanging out with people with incredible visions for specific nations and businesses and governments. Who could possibly fail to be inspired for their own God-given dreams?

But anyone who knows me well will know that I still have a lot of fear in my life; fears of all kinds of things. Fears of public speaking, fears of what people will think, fears of losing the people I love. Fears that feel like indestructible giants. And I often feel that they’re holding me back.

Outside Geneva Cathedral

God has a lot to say about these fears, and whilst I was away, He showed me a picture of myself. I was standing and looking up at Jesus, in complete awe of Him. And I was very small and afraid. But the longer I looked, the bigger I got. And the straighter I stood. The less afraid I was. I was MORE me, not LESS me. But there was more of Him at the same time.

When we say ‘less of me’ I think we’re talking about the junk in our lives. Our own selfish ambitions, and the things we do which hurt others and hurt ourselves. And the things we do which bring us comfort, but actually take us further away from God. But is this what God made to be ‘me’? I don’t think so. I am not defined by these things.

God isn’t looking for an empty shell that He can fill! He didn’t create us a specific way so that He can get rid of the dreams and the desires that He put inside of us in the first place! He made us with in the hope that we could rejoice in our gifts, and in our hopes, and in our dreams, and use them to bring happiness and love to other people, aswell as ourselves, and to God.

God doesn’t want to suck out your personality. He wants to use it. He doesn’t want to take your creativity and hide it forever in a box. He wants to totally blow up the box and let your creativity explode into being. As we have more of God, He starts to show us more of ourselves.

This is what I want for my life. More of God and more of me.

A Series of Events; Prostitution

A series of events lead me to take a trip to a town near London early this week. This series of events has lead me to care a huge amount about a specific group of people; a group of people that I want to pursue with the love that Jesus has for them.

When I was in Brazil, one of the things which most distressed me was our trip to the red light district. We were going there to pray, to hear the history and to hear what God wanted to say to us about it all.

We stood outside one of the major brothels in the city. It was a big building on a busy street surrounded by smaller brothels and porn cinemas and shops, and from the first floor upwards was a series of small windows, one after the other, indicating the number of rooms. There must have been a lot of rooms, because not all the rooms were street-facing. And each room was available to rent for a woman who wanted to work there.

And so, for a man to enter the brothel, he had to walk in through the front door, and walk upstairs. You’d think there’d be some kind of shame at buying sex like that, but there was a literal queue outside the door; one by one a man would go upstairs, and at the same time, one by one, men were walking down again. Like a factory floor. People on a production line or something. A constant flow. And I couldn’t get my head around it – how bodies can be used so impersonally.

That same week, we watched a film, based on the true story of a girl’s life in Brazil. She was sold to a brothel in an Amazonian town. ‘Anjos do Sol’ is the name of the film – it’s worth watching. This film completely broke my heart. She was literally chained to her bed for a month whilst she was repeatedly raped, and it took until the end of the film for her to escape. It was at that time, when she could have finally left the way of life that had torn her apart, that she realised there was nothing else she could do. She was mentally trapped, despite her physical freedom. And although we like to turn off the voice when we read something or see something disturbing, or an article appears on the news that we don’t want to think about, it’s happening. Even here, in England, it’s believed that there are thousands of child sex slaves. Thousands.

This week, whilst staying near London, I was told that there had recently been an influx of illegally trafficked girls from Eastern Europe, forced to sell sex for £5.00 a time, and without any form of protection. Five pounds. Where is the sanity in that? Sure, the pimps may earn a little more, but the product won’t last for long.

The statistics of the link between prostitution and having experienced sexual abuse earlier in life are at 90%, according to a lady who’s been working with women on the streets for three years now. As I spoke to her earlier this week she told me that she’s never met the 10%; in her experience, when you manage to get to the bottom of it all, there’s almost always been sexual abuse, and prostitution is often used as an ironic method of gaining control of earlier experiences, by at least getting money out of it. So in a way it’s a vicious circle, which for many seems unbreakable. I’m relieved to have a big God who’s in the business of breaking vicious circles when invited to help.

So much unconditional love needs to be given; so much healing needs to happen. And I have the increasing feeling that God wants to teach me to be one of these people who will love unconditionally and non-judgementally.

So anyway, this is something that’s on my heart right now. Just thought I’d share it with you.

Six Hundred Pounds.

I often hear stuff from God, but sometimes it’s a massive struggle for me to believe that my own thoughts didn’t make up the majority of what I heard. And sometimes perhaps they do. But there’s the occasional proof which shows me I’m not entirely crazy.

For example yesterday, my team was just about to talk to God, when someone suggested that first, we ask God about what He’d like to talk to us about.

And so we listened.

And in my mind, I saw a moving picture. It was as if I was looking down from above, and the clouds began to part and £600-00 was dropped down through the sky, almost like what happens when someone steps through the Stargate. Yes I like Stargate. I watched as it fell further and further, and finally I saw it go through the letterbox of the Old Vicarage, the house where we live! I even knew the figure – it was £600-00.

I’ve learnt that it’s good to share what you hear, even if I’m not entirely sure it’s something from God. Often it can mean something to someone else, even if to you, it sounds like madness. So I told the guys I was listening with, and then thanked God for what I thought He’d said. And asked Him to bring us the money! I guess I’ve got used to looking stupid when I’m wrong

Well, this morning, Willem came knocking on our door, and handed me an envelope, which someone had found on our doormat as they went out running this morning. Someone and we’ve no idea who, posted £600-00 cash in an envelope through our letterbox last night. And I heard from God about it before it even happened!

‎One of the reactions this morning was “Who the heck just sticks six hundred pounds in an envelope through the letter box?” Yeah, seriously.

It’s so true. But I love this; I still can’t quite get my head around it all.
Thankyou Jesus He knows exactly what we need.