The Unadopted

There is a street near where I live called the Unadopted Road, and this morning God made me walk down it. I noted that the roads were untarred, some of the houses semi-dilapidated, and the surrounding shrubbery overgrown. I wondered if the Street name was a reflection of the seemingly meagre resources that it appeared the local council must have invested in developing its amenity.

My thoughts shifted to the physically unadopted, the marginalised, the forgotten. The ones we don’t pay much attention to… the foster children, rough sleepers, the poor, homeless, and war-torn. Many of our lives are not directly intertwined with the lives of the ‘Unadopted‘, and so we  most times forget that they exist. We eat three regular square meals a day, have an abundance of clothes to wear, and most of us have a place that we call home, but how often do we remember that there are others who don’t have these basic necessities that we take for granted?

Why are we prone to living for numero uno? Our innate selfishness fills our hearts and minds with thoughts of self-centred priorities.

Recently God has brought to my attention the various needs apparent in the lives of the people that live in the community around me, the homeless guys outside the station where I get my train, the guy outside morrisons that constantly begs for money, the lady with the mental health issue at the entrance to the shopping centre – I’ve wondered at the enormity of the task that lies ahead, how can I make a difference? How can we make a difference? Jesus said: 

“The Spirit of the Lord God is upon Me,
Because the Lord has anointed Me
To preach good tidings to the poor;
He has sent Me to heal the brokenhearted,
To proclaim liberty to the captives,
And the opening of the prison to those who are bound;
To proclaim the acceptable year of the Lord,
And the day of vengeance of our God;
To comfort all who mourn,
To console those who mourn in Zion,
To give them beauty for ashes,
The oil of joy for mourning,
The garment of praise for the spirit of heaviness;
That they may be called trees of righteousness,
The planting of the Lord, that He may be glorified.”

If we call ourselves Christians today, we need to do more than just sing songs about God’s love. We are called to live His love! We are called to be His hands and feet. We are called to make a difference. We need to see what God sees, and have our hearts moved to want to be used in God’s agenda of bringing good news to the poor, and healing the broken hearted. If our hearts are not being stirred towards others, perhaps we have drifted away from the true meaning of what it means to be a follower of Christ..

Lord forgive me for my indifference, and open my eyes today to see the things that you see, and make me sensitive to your promptings, and alert to the needs in the lives of the people around me Make me willing to be used by you to make a difference in somebody’s life today.

 

Advertisements

Catch me if you can

God speaks to me through the most mundane of things, things you would think were almost sacrilegious, like yesterday morning, when my towel fell off the towel rail in the bathroom, and I caught it just before it hit the floor.

He said to me, “if you can catch a mere towel as it starts to fall, and prevent it from touching the floor, how much more can I, your Heavenly Father, catch you when you start to fall!” That made me think… as insignificant as a towel is, I was able to catch it, in its downward flight, because I didn’t want it to touch the floor.

This set my heart on thinking about loftier things, PEOPLE. Mankind, from all races, all backgrounds, making decisions leading them on a downward spiral – the prison inmate whose choice led to imprisonment, the alcoholic whose habit resulted in a broken home and a fatherless child, the teenager whose one night stand led to an unwanted pregnancy.

Is there no hope for the ‘Falling ones?’ Society insinuates that there isn’t much, by its stereotyping and labelling; ‘Drug addict’, ‘Prostitute’, ‘Failure’, ‘Crackhead’, ‘Wasteman!’

The ‘Falling ones’

The genealogy of Jesus Christ mentions a young lady called ‘Rahab’ the mother of Boaz, she was a prostitute (Matthew 1:5). The book of James (2:25), tells us that Rahab was made right with God by her faith, which led her to welcome and hide the messengers sent out to spy (Joshua 2: 1 – 16). She became a part of the solution!

Yes GOD can! With the natural eye, we might not be able to see the treasure in the trash, but with the eye of faith we can. With our natural power we may not be able to change a life, but by the power of God, we can be used as part of that transformation process.

No one is beyond the reach of God’s love and power, no matter how far they may have fallen. Let this truth encourage and inspire you today, as you step out into all the ways that God wants to use you to reach the ‘Falling ones’ today…

The Diversion

So a couple of days ago on my way to the train station, my bus suddenly came to a standstill, no warning, no preparation, just an announcement over the speaker that the Bus would be diverted due to an incident that had taken place. The bus was going to meander through back routes, so I thought it best to alight, and walk the rest of the way to the station.

My thoughts pondered on the truth that God always has a plan in anything that He allows to happen in our lives, and wondered what plan He could possibly have in allowing me half an hours walk to the station, and the possibility of a late arrival at work.

Has your life ever taken an unexpected diversion? A sudden tragedy, the loss of your livelihood, the break-up of a marriage, a health scare, a wayward child? YOU’RE ON DIVERSION! GOD’S DIVERSION! 

Now back to my half hours walk to the bus stop, a few yards away from the train station, I looked ahead, and saw to my amazement, a Pastor who had hosted myself and a friend on a mission trip to Bulgaria last year! God had orchestrated my footsteps (via the diversion), to get me exactly where He wanted me to be at that precise moment in time. Without the diversion, that meeting wouldn’t have happened. All I could do was wonder in amazement at the accuracy of God’s orchestration, and what future plans God had in store by causing our paths to cross again.

When God puts you on a diversion, listen up and be expectant! When Joseph was sold to Potiphar in Genesis 39, he was on diversion. That diversion led to him, as an innocent man being accused of a crime he didn’t commit, thrown into prison, and forgotten, but It was all part of God’s plan of preparing Him to become the Governor of Egypt (Genesis 39 – 45).

The diversions of our lives are all for God’s purposes, the best that we can do is yield to whatever it is that He is trying work out in us. He is master, and sees the full picture, the final portrait at the end of the diversion. Don’t be alarmed by the circumstances that you may be facing today, don’t fall into a state of despair, bitterness, anger, or depression. God is at work, and wants to take us in a completely different direction. Let’s do ourselves a favour, and let Him have His way. He’ll open our eyes to see His Divine intent, if we choose to stay the course…

Isiah 43: 18 – 19 “Do not remember the former things, nor consider the things of old. Behold I will do a new thing, now it shall spring forth; shall you not know it?

 

For big mistakes

Sitting in a screen print workshop, my eye was drawn to the practitioner wiping away a smudge on an image inked onto the print frame. I had thought that because the creator of this image had marred the design by causing an unsightly smudge, all his efforts to create a beautiful work of art had come to nothing.

But in that moment, as the practitioner reassured her student, and effortlessly wiped away the smudge, God spoke to my heart; “If a print practitioner can fix a smudge on a print frame, I am more than able to fix people’s lives when they make mistakes”.

Have you ever made a mistake, done something that you really wished, and knew you shouldn’t have? I have too. Although we don’t set out in life to make mistakes, no one is immune from making them, and when we do (as long as we don’t give up), it’s not the end of the story.

Remember King David? A man who was praised in the bible for defeating Israel’s fiercest terror; Goliath. He gave in to temptation, slept with Bathsheba (someone else’s wife), and arranged to have her husband killed in battle. Adultery, and murder! Grievous sins, and not without consequences, but David came to his senses, repented, and God’s mercy, grace, and forgiveness restored Him.

If you find yourself looking at your failures, and listening to the condemning voice of the enemy, can I encourage you today to cast your gaze on Jesus; the one who died for you. His word says ‘He will not crush the weakest reed or put out a flickering candle’ (Matthew 12:20 NLT), in other words, He won’t put you down when you fall, in fact, He’ll help you get back up again. People around you may point the finger, condemn, and criticise you, but God loves you, and wants to restore you.

Jesus said of the sinner woman in Luke 7, who washed His feet with her tears, and wiped them with her hair : “I tell you, her sins—and they are many—have been forgiven, so she has shown me much love. But a person who is forgiven little shows only little love.” “Your sins are forgiven.”

Truly you are already forgiven, just believe…

 

 

Jesus spoke a curse?

I never fully understood why Jesus cursed the fig tree in Mark  11: 14, that is until yesterday! Wanting to soak up a rare appearance of the sun, and enjoy the wonder of God’s creation, I embarked on a walk around a park in Greenhithe, Kent, featuring a water fountain. The only thing was, the receptacle emitted one puny spurt of water, which led to me expressing rather loudly that ‘it would be better removed’!

I love water fountains, and expected to be awed by a display of aquatic brilliance, but got a mediocre spurt of water instead! All at once, I remembered the story about Jesus and the fig tree, and thought I knew exactly how He must have felt. Excited at the prospect of eating figs to curb his hunger, on His way out of Bethany; from a tree viewed from a distance (created to bear fruit),  He was greatly disappointed!

If I could feel like that about a mere water fountain, designed to jet water into the air for decorative effect; how much more angry must God be when His people, created to bear fruit and give Him glory, fail to do so. This biblical scenario in Mark 11, evoked a strong reaction from the lips of Jesus – a curse.

God wants us to bear fruit! How important it is for us to live out the purposes for which we have been created. If God has created you to bring Him glory with your life, and bear Spiritual fruit, why settle for anything less? He’s created us to live victoriously (please note that this can only be achieved in His power – see Ephesians 2:10), to be the salt of the earth, to win souls, use our skills, talents and gifting to point people to Him, and better our generation.

The servant in Matthew 25, that heard the words ‘Well done good and faithful servant. You have been faithful over a little; I will set you over much. Enter into the joy of your master,’ bore Spiritual fruit. What will the Master say to us when we stand before Him? Will His words commend us for living a fruitful life, or will He be forced to release a curse for ‘trampling underfoot’ the Son of God, and living a wasted life?

The choice is yours…

Everything changes

I recently traveled down to central London on Southeastern trains, and marveled at how much transformation had taken place. London bridge station that has changed so much over the past few years, was being restructured yet again, and passengers were not allowed to alight on majority of the platforms. Trains from my locality don’t even stop at London bridge at the moment.

I marvel at how the fifteen and sixteen year old teenagers that I knew five to six years ago, have transformed into becoming young men and women. Not only have their physical features changed; some have acquired chiseled facial features, and grown beards, while others have become more rounded and feminine, but their direction in life has changed too; some have gone on to College or University, while others have started a family, or entered the world of work or business .

Nothing stays the same, seasons change,  and most of life takes on a cyclical pattern. What does this mean for us as God’s children? It means we cannot stay the same, and I’m not talking in terms of worldly trends, but with reference to God’s changing seasons for our lives. If you have walked with God for any length of time, you will have experienced the movings and shiftings of God, as He moves you from one season to another.

He may have used you extensively in youth work, and then moved you into preaching and teaching, or He may have taken you out of a familiar environment, and planted you overseas in a missionary capacity. We were not made to remain the same. Savour each season and experience, but don’t be like Peter in Matthew 17; who wanted to build tabernacles around his experiences.

Life becomes boring and monotonous when we remain at a stand still and stagnant, and many things can contribute to us stopping the flow of God’s move in our lives, from the fear of the unknown, to adhering to the voice of defeatist thoughts, that plague many a mind of people who are advancing in years. We need to remember what God did with Abraham and Sarah, and they were very advanced in years!

It’s exciting when God takes you into new seasons! There’s the thrill of anticipation and expectation, living out the experience as God intended it; that’s always exhilarating! There’s the blessing of knowing that you’re in the centre of God’s will, and the resultant change in the lives of the people around you, who will benefit from your obedience to God’s promptings.

It’s time for change

Life has its ups and downs, its highs and lows, but if we’re living out our individual adventures in God, even the difficult times become a thing of beauty, because God always has a plan for every valley that He makes us go through; and He’ll give us an encouragement, a testimony, and story of victory to share with others.

If lately you’ve been listening to whispering lies, telling you that who you are now is all you’ll ever be; do yourself a favour! Get up on your feet and do a dance! Dust off those notebooks and dream journals! Shout out loud, telling yourself and the world, that God hasn’t finished with you yet! Be expectant, there is so much more to come… Truth is, you’ve only just begun.

Season’s change

It’s the 7th of February today, but looking at the Christmas decorations hanging loosely outside the house I walked past last week, or the Christmas decorations still sprawled across the isles at my local Walkaround store, you’d be forgiven for thinking otherwise. Christmas was exactly 44 days ago, time has moved on; we’re in a new year, a new season, and a new month. Things have changed, Trump has been sworn in as the new President of the United States, Venus Williams was a semi-finalist at this year’s Australian open, and the courts ruled that the British government couldn’t trigger Article 50  without an act of Parliament authorising it to do so.

Do we know what season it is in our lives, or are we clueless of the changing life experiences that God is presenting to us? Ecclesiastes tells us that there is a season and a time for everything that takes place in our lives, there is:

‘A time to be born, and a time to die; a time to plant, and a time to pluck up what is planted; a time to kill, and a time to heal; a time to break down, and a time to build up; a time to weep , and a time to laugh; a time to mourn, and a time to dance; a time to cast away stones, and a time to gather stones together; a time to embrace, and a time to refrain from embracing; a time to seek, and a time to lose; a time to keep, and a time to cast away; a time to tear, and a time to sew; a time to keep silence, and a time to speak; a time to love, and a time to hate; a time for war, and a time for peace’ – Ecclesiastes 3:2 ESV

Are you in a season of rest, or a season of battle? Is it a time of testing or a time of for productivity and exploits? Knowing God’s timing in our lives, is a prerequisite for us following and fulfilling the plans and purposes that God has for our lives as His children. God may want to start to stretch and grow you, or place greater responsibility for certain aspects of His Kingdom into your hands, or He may want you to spend an extended time of intimacy with Him to equip you with the power that you need to fulfil a new assignment that He is getting ready to give you.

The key is to be clued up and tuned in to the supernatural dimensions of life in the Spirit, we can’t go through life in oblivion to the workings of God’s hand upon our lives. I remember a specific time in my life, when God was preparing me for one of the greatest battles of my life, I sensed something intuitively in the Spirit, but didn’t quite know what it was. I was drawn to seek God more, worship more, and found myself being woken up at a similar time each night. God was vying for my attention. Just before the onset of this particular battle, God woke me up early one morning and gave me a song, it was Psalm 23 sung by Juanita Bynum in a minor key; it was an introduction to God’s next season for my life.

God is so close, if only we would key into the realms of the Spirit that He has freely provided for us, we would never walk alone, we would be alert and prepared for every season that God would seek to take us through, we would never need to be afraid… Can I encourage us today to be like the sons of Issachar that were aware of the times and seasons and knew what exactly what Israel ought to do?

 

Don’t be discarded!

As I looked in the mirror, at the awkward positioning of my grey camisole against my upper body, I said out loud, angrily ‘I’ll chuck you in the bin’! The useless camisole had lost its elasticity, the spaghetti straps kept falling off my shoulders, the neck line was stretched and I was ready to chuck it in the bin! Never mind the fact that I bought it not that long ago. It had become useless. That set me on a God inspired trend of thought.

What do we do with most products or foods that have reached there expiry dates? We chuck them in the bin! The usefulness of the food expires, it reaches a point where it looses its transient nutritional value, and the decaying process sets in. These foods or products become good for nothing, and are to be discarded.

My thoughts centered around the fact that if I could be brought to the point of wanting to discard my top out of frustration, because it wasn’t doing what it was created to do, how much more frustrated and angry does God feel when the people that He created, fail to fulfill the purposes for which they were created ?

“You are the salt of the earth; But if the salt looses its flavour, how shall it be seasoned? It is then good for nothing but to be thrown out and trampled underfoot by men” – Matthew 5:13

 

Then he who had received the one talent came and said, ‘Lord, I knew you to be a hard man, reaping where you have not sown, and gathering where you have not scattered seed. And I was afraid, and went and hid your talent in the ground. Look, there you have what is yours.’ “But his lord answered and said to him, ‘You wicked and lazy servant, you knew that I reap where I have not sown, and gather where I have not scattered seed. So you ought to have deposited my money with the bankers, and at my coming I would have received back my own with interest. Therefore take the talent from him, and give it to him who has ten talents. ‘For to everyone who has, more will be given, and he will have abundance; but from him who does not have, even what he has will be taken away. And cast the unprofitable servant into the outer darkness. There will be weeping and gnashing of teeth.’ – Matthew 25: 24 – 29

The words above in Matthew may seem quite harsh, but they are warnings to provoke us to action. Let’s not end up on the scrap heap of life because we fail to discover who we truly are, and live out our purpose for being created, don’t live life aimlessly. God created each of us to fulfill a specific purpose with our lives, our duty as His creation is to find out what that purpose is, and fulfill it.

The beginning of a new year always affords us with the opportunity to enter into new seasons, to renew and start over. Can I encourage you to live purposefully this year. In order for us to fulfill our destinies, we have to do things differently. We have to do things God’s way. We need to seek Him to find out what He’s saying, be obedient to whatever it is He asks us to do, fill up on the supernatural power (the Holy Spirit) that He has made available to us, and allow Him to help us do the things He’s asking us to do.

Don’t frustrate yourself trying to mirror what the world around you depicts as success; just material wealth and possessions. God measures your success on the completion of the task that He gave you to do – THAT’S REAL SUCCESS.

Let 2017 be the year that you resolve to daily live out the unique plans and purposes that your heavenly father had in mind for you when before you were even created.

Let me leave you with the words of George Bernard Shaw:

“This is the true joy in life, the being used for a purpose recognized by yourself as a mighty one; the being thoroughly worn out before you are thrown on the scrap heap; the being a force of Nature instead of a feverish selfish little clod of ailments and grievances complaining that the world will not devote itself to making you happy.”

 

Kairos

‘Kairos’ is a weighty word, of ancient Greek origin, and having ‘The supreme moment’, as One of its definitions. We were all created with our unique, peculiar destinies encoded on the inside of us, and if we are alert to a realisation (awareness) of this fact, and hold on to the truth that we were created for something unique and special; although we might not know exactly when our alignment with destiny will take place on a physical plane; we can begin to prepare for that one defining moment I call the ‘Kairos moment’; when life’s preparation meets opportunity and we are thrust into our destinies.

Your back ground and the environment you were brought up in, or grew up in are not made to stand in the way of your destiny or ‘Kairos’ moments, in fact they play a big part in giving you the impetus needed to push you towards reaching your destiny. There are thousands of countless stories of people who have risen above a background of pain, backgrounds of poverty, backgrounds of abuse, of rape, of crime and drugs to align themselves with the real purpose for which they were created. They have entered into their Kairos moment.

Let me explain it like this, it’s almost like waiting for the right train to get on. Let’s look at life almost as if it’s like waiting at the train station for the right train to come along (not that life’s meant to be static as you wait for your moment). Many trains pass by, but they’re not the ones for you; then suddenly your train approaches the station, you better be waiting and ready on the platform!

We can react to life’s trials and difficulties in two different ways; like a boxer in a ring, we can use the pain of our opponents blows to bring us to defeat, or to build up an inner strength within us that will bring us to victory. We might have moments when we feel like giving up, when we’ve experienced one negative thing after another, but we need to develop a ‘no defeat’ attitude.

Have you ever watched a boxing match, where a boxer who’s taken a bashing; with blood running down the side of his face, and no physical strength left within him, suddenly rises to defeat his opponent? Remember the film ‘Rocky’? The story of Rocky Balboa, who rose from being an unknown battler to become the heavyweight champion of the world? We need to be like ‘Rocky’, he was confronted by various life crises, greater opponents and an ageing body, but he drew strength from the struggles he faced to help him overcome and succeed.

The Kairos moment is that moment when heaven releases sprinklings of opportunity to thrust people into their destinies, and the hosts of heaven look down excitedly, hoping that us mortals will grasp the open doors placed before us, but how many of us are oblivious to these moments and just ignorantly walk on by, or for those of us that grasp what heaven releases; how many of us stay the course, daily putting in the necessary commitment needed to help us realise our dreams?

From the moment we start to believe that we were created for something unique and special, we need to start preparation for the realisation of our dreams; that nudging on the inside that causes us to look excitedly towards what the future holds for us. We can’t pin point exactly what it is, but there is a force that drives us forward and we embrace the belief that the future holds something exciting for us.

What we have in the present may seem like something really small, but we need to value the natural gifting that we have found within ourselves; it might be the ability to play a particular sport really well, intellectual capacity, the ability to play an instrument, the ability to sing, teach, write, or care for others, but whatever it is, we need to acknowledge it, be thankful for it, and start to use it.

Early on, opportunities will be presented to you where you can use your skills and talents, don’t be unwise and turn down small opportunities expecting something much greater to be handed to you on a platter. This is our training ground for the greater things that God has in store, but we need to go through this training process first. Life happens in stages.

Don’t try to force things to happen in your own strength, your journey to your Kairos moment needs to be authentic. You won’t need to go banging on doors if the process is authentic. The bible speaks repeatedly about ‘this appointed time;’

‘For the vision is yet for an appointed time; but at the end it will speak, and it will not lie. Though it tarries, wait for it; because it will surely come, it will not tarry’ – Habakuk 2:3

At the right time, the opportunity will present itself, your main concern is to be ready for when opportunity comes knocking, so stay connected to God, keep filling up on His Holy Spirit, make sure that you’re regularly oiling the wheels of whatever craft, gifting, talent or skill it is that you have, and don’t miss your Kairos moment!

We’re all infected with the death virus…

Let’s face it, we don’t really own anything; the husbands we marry, the children we give birth to, the houses we live in, cars we drive, the jobs we go to day after day, the clothes we wear. Every thing we think we own is actually on loan, and for a very short period of time. Some day pretty soon, we won’t have access to any of these things

In case you’re wondering where this blog post is leading to, I’ll tell you what prompted it; it was the most innocent of actions, honestly. I observed a mother with her toddler sitting in a buggy, and pondered on how innocent babies and toddlers seem to be, however, one singular action by this innocent looking toddler painted a more realistic picture of what we’re really like as human beings.

This sweet toddler had managed to pull her t-shirt up to her chest and was vigorously chomping on its edges. The toddler’s mum responded by pulling the t-shirt down, and almost immediately, this cutey pulled her t-shirt back up again and resumed her chomping position!

We don’t need to be taught how to do wrong, the sin gene runs through our veins as human beings, and it’s this tendency to do wrong that eventually leads to death; first a physical death, and eventually a spiritual one, unless we embrace the given remedy (yes, there truly is a remedy).

I know, I know, we don’t like talking about death… we attend the occasional funeral, give out condolences, and write comforting comments on the Facebook, Instagram and Snap chat pages of friends, relatives and colleagues who have died, but some how we never seem brave enough to confront our own mortality.

I used to avoid the subject of death like the plague, and convinced myself that life was a long drawn out affair, death was something to think about later; but the truth is, as the years progress and we get older (if we’re opportuned to still be alive), we realise that life really is rather short.

Some day, we (that’s me and you) will be the subject of other people’s condolences; people will gather together to attend our funerals, and this morbid subject of death would have continued to inflict doom and gloom upon the hearts of us mortals if there wasn’t an antidote; but there is, death has been beaten!

The problem is, not a lot of people believe it; and sometimes even those that do, live their lives as if they don’t! Jesus really did die in your place, it should have been me, you and everyone else on that cross (you know, the story talked about at Easter), but He chose to take the penalty for our sins instead, and the reason: ‘He was handed over to die because of our sins, and He was raised to life to make us right with God’ – Romans 4:25

So we can face it squarely (the death subject), and although we don’t own our husbands, children, homes, and are only on this planet for a short space of time; we own our choices, and everyday that God graciously chooses to give us to live. We don’t need to be afraid anymore. Let’s receive the life that God offers through the Spirit of His risen Son, and lets begin to infect this dying planet with the Life giving Spirit of God…

If your heart has been stirred and you’d like to find out how to receive this life-giving Spirit, or you’re a believer who’s drifted away, know that God loves you and wants you to be reconciled to Him. Pray a simple prayer admitting to God that you are truly sorry for your sin, ask Him to forgive you and invite Him into your heart, asking Him to fill you with His Holy Spirit. Now determine daily to live solely for Him…

A great resource to help you on your way can be found at http://www.lookingforgod.com