‘Till I only dwell in Thee…

It’s been ever such a long time since I posted a blog.  I’ve missed it…

Time was one constraint for an awful long time.  Unlike when I was at university, while I was working, I didn’t have buckets of free time or the odd few late nights to protract residence amidst the solitude of my study.

I once noted that in my teenage years I often felt like another link in the chain of endless human mechanisation.  I often prayed that my adult life would be different and, granted, for a time, it was.  Lately, however, that has faded into distant memory.  The 9-5 machine dragged me into it’s inner workings and secreted me there with little hope for escape. 

Thankfully, I didn’t completely remove myself from my hopes and dreams.  I exercised my right to write, albeit mostly fiction, and I continued to pray that I was making a difference to someone’s life, albeit here in Ballymena and not in Belfast where I often thought that I would spend my days…

For those of you who don’t know me personally or for those who have lost touch in recent years, I’ve been temping in a local college library.  It’s been a strange experience and it has swung from extreme lows to, most recently, elated highs.  I think I realised about a month ago that, actually, I quite liked that job.  For years I’d insisted that I wasn’t a librarian and I didn’t want to spend my days there. In the fairly recent past, however, I concluded quietly and to myself that actually, I didn’t to be a librarian to enjoy working in a library.  The pleasure that I could derive from just helping someone in any capacity was immeasurable.  When the students bid a fond farewell to me on their last day I realised that I was heart-broken to see them leave. Moreover, if the cards they gave me were sincere, they were maybe a tad sorry to have to say goodbye as well.  It means a lot to know that you’ve helped someone, even in the smallest of ways like finding a book for them.  The librarians often spoke in grand terms of customer service and learner satisfaction but, for me, helping someone was never about the profile of the company.  I thanked God daily for giving me opportunities for indiscriminate acts of kindness.

The inherited problem with temping is that, one way or another, it ends.  I guess it’s all in the name… Temporary…

When the librarian told me, going on a month or so ago now, that my job was coming to an end and that if I was needed in the next academic year, it would be for a fewer number of hours, I was gutted.  I was heartbroken to say goodbye and crushed that I may well never see the students who I’d come to know so well ever again.  If I did get back, I’d be a stranger to most of the new folks – a drifter who sidled into the library a couple of times a week.

I prayed about it a lot and a few nights I even drove into the campus just to sit staring at the sign while praying, hoping for some grand epiphany or revelation…

It never came…

The thing is, this isn’t just a concern which has pounced on me for the first time in the last couple of months.  This situation feeds into a much wider problem which has plagued my adult life thus far – What do I do next?

I’ve already mentioned how, for a time after university, I was deeply upset that my path didn’t seem to lie in Belfast where I invested so much of my soul – hopes, dreams, visions and prayers of mine had seemed to orbit that city for two years and yet, when I left my direction to God and prayed that He would place me where He wanted me, I ended up in the most unlikely of places…

For a year and a bit, God put me in Antrim – a town which I’d maybe passed through twenty times in my life.  I had good times and bad times there, all of which were ultimately overshadowed by the sad news that the college group intended to close the Antrim campus down.  With that news came the news that I was moving as well.  With no need for extra staff in a campus which was being run-down, I was to move to the campus in my home town of Ballymena.

Again, my prayers over the summer months during my job move echoed my confusion.  Why was I in Antrim?  Did I achieve what I was supposed to there?  Did I do what God needed me to do there?  What awaited me in Ballymena?  As it turns out, it was a wonderful year.  I met some amazing people, made some great friends and really felt like I’d helped a lot of folks.

So this summer I’m faced with the same confusion.  Am I to stay in Ballymena?  If you put me here God, why are they cutting hours?  Am I supposed to leave?  Was I making a difference here?  Why can’t I continue to make a difference?  What’s next?

Wow… That’s the million-dollar question right there, isn’t it?  What’s next?

I’d be willing to wager that if I end up tagging this post with Christianity and even one or two random folks stumble upon it for that reason, they’ll be asking the same question.  What’s next?  I mean we all ask that question daily, right?  Even if, unlike me, you are settled in a job then maybe you’re asking that question of your personal life. 

What’s next?

I wish I knew what to say to answer that question.  I wish I could answer it for myself.  I even wish that I could say (to both you and me) that it will be something good…

So many folks are fond of quoting a portion of Jeremiah 29 in these situations:

“For I know the plans I have for you,” says the Lord. “They are plans for good and not for disaster, to give you a future and a hope…”

Jeremiah 29:12

I think, however, that the context of this verse can mean more than the verse itself.  Jeremiah was writing this letter to exiles – captives removed from Jerusalem and held in Babylon.  Jeremiah wanted to reassure them  that God had not forgotten about them – that His sons and daughters who felt trapped there were still in his mind and that He would look to them.  Jeremiah makes it clear, however, that it’s no quick fix:

“Build homes, and plan to stay. Plant gardens, and eat the food they produce. Marry and have children… You will be in Babylon for seventy years. But then I will come and do for you all the good things I have promised, and I will bring you home again…”

Jeremiah 29: 5-11

I think that’s the important part.  Maybe we get disappointed because we naturally assumed that because we are Christians, God is going to make everything come up our way and maybe that’s not always going to be the case.  Maybe Jeremiah’s wisdom need’s to be at the fore of our minds in this case.  Make the best of it.  God hasn’t forgotten about you.  He has got good things planned but it might be a wee while yet…

That still leaves me in a quandary… What next?  Whatever it is, I will make the best of it and I will trust that ultimately God has something in mind, but still… What next?

That’s a question I still can’t answer because I don’t know.  All I can do for know is pray and trust that God will grant me the wisdom to know where He wants me – that He will open the doors which I need to go through.

I was coming home from a friend’s house tonight and I hit Ballymena at about 11:45pm.  The dark hue of the evening clouds were shot through with the faint brightness of the waning day.  It was beautiful.  I decided to take a detour to the college campus which I’ve called home for the last year.  I stopped my car and I prayed.  I prayed for wisdom – to know what to do next.  I prayed for guidance – for instruction on how to take the next step.  More than anything, however, I made the same prayer I’ve made since I became a Christian – I prayed that God would take my life and do with it what He wanted to – whatever that was.

An amazing song struck up on my car radio.  My ipod was playing the Brooke Fraser album I’d bought on itunes last week.  The words of her song, simply entitle Hymn, struck a real chord with me.  I think her words really reinforced my prayer this evening.

In the introduction to this blog, I described it as something like a travel journal – charting my voyage through life.  As the years pass and looking over many of the concerns and fears I’ve charted on these pages thus far, I’m starting to believe that maybe the journey itself isn’t the thing to set my sights on.  Sure, it’s the scary part – not always knowing which turn to take next or where I’m going to end up – but maybe there’s no need to fear that part when I’ve already got my destination plotted.

I’ll keep travelling whatever roads I’m set upon ‘till I only dwell in Thee…

If to distant lands I scatter
If I sail to farthest seas
Would you find and firm and gather ’til I only dwell in Thee?

If I flee from greenest pastures
Would you leave to look for me?
Forfeit glory to come after
‘Til I only dwell in Thee

If my heart has one ambition
If my soul one goal to seek
This my solitary vision ’til I only dwell in Thee

Hymn by Brooke Fraser

Gather Soldiers…

"The world is changed. I feel it in the water. I feel it in the earth. I smell it in the air.”

Every now and again one just gets a feeling that something has changed or, indeed, is changing.  Somehow, I feel that change this evening.

Somehow I get the feeling that time is coming for us to rise up…

Somehow I get the feeling that it’s time for revolutionaries to stop dreaming and start acting on those dreams…

Somehow I get the feeling that the war which the New Testament speaks of; the war within ourselves; the war within peoples hearts is about to change in some way…

Somehow I get the feeling that the battlefields are shifting…

Somehow I get the feeling that the belligerents are changing…

Somehow I get the feeling that we need to marshal the troops…

Somehow I get the feeling that we, ourselves, are being marshalled…

Somehow I get the feeling that this is a call to arms…

“This is a call to arms, gather soldiers
Time to go to war
This is a battle song, brothers and sisters
Time to go to war”

Vox Populi – 30 Seconds to Mars

Redemption has stories to tell…

I spent a week recently clearing out a store full of books withdrawn from the library in which I work.  Some of the things I found were amazing, particularly the few books I found on local history.  I found one which vividly recounted a few tales from the poverty stricken in Belfast at the beginning of the twentieth century. 

When I found this book, I snapped a picture of what was displayed on one of the pages and posted it to twitter asking:

http://twitpic.com/1byfxn – A homeless man in Belfast, 1909. I wonder if he thought things might be better a hundred years on…

I’m not the best authority on matters of the homeless in Belfast.  For some genuinely moving tales about how the people there have inspired and have been inspired alike, read my good friend’s blog where he discusses (often at length) how he befriended a vagabond on the streets of that city and how he learned so much from him.  There are other Belfast based blogs which tell similar tales of friendship, of hope and, sadly, of loss.  Local artists have also covered the subject with much greater creative depth and with more passion than I could probably ever offer.

Still, sometimes even I can’t help but think back to rows of soiled sleeping bags which often lined the alleyways behind Primark in Belfast as wonder, have any of them found their hope yet?

Allow me to digress momentarily in order to make sense of where this post is ultimately going.

A couple of years back a friend and I decided that at some point in life we wanted to from a Journey cover band.  Ours, however, would be different to any other Journey tribute band in that we would sing all of our songs whilst affecting a Belfast accent.  For some reason, it seems to endear people to local musicians so naturally, it would spell success for us.

For months now, I have been practicing my version of Don’t Stop Believing with a Belfast twang…

Someone who heard it recently commented that it sounded like I was a busker or a homeless guy trying to gather some spare change down Royal Avenue. This comment made me impulsively include a homebrew bridge into my Don’t Stop Believing cover which began

…Spare some change?

I was playing this tonight when I suddenly realised Gee, what if this was some homeless guy’s plea for a few quid for a cuppa?  What if his story was a part of this song?  What if his story was this song?

While I was playing, I started to ad lib in some sections between verses as if the homeless guy singing this song was telling his story to someone.

When I reached the end, I realised how the story, how his story had to end: Don’t Stop Believing… It’s like a gospel plea isn’t it? Don’t stop believing, don’t stop perusing that hope and hold onto the faith that there is goodness around the corner.

I wrote his story down because I wanted to remember that this might be someone’s story.  Can you picture him, sitting on a piece of newspaper outside Subway on Great Victoria street… A nescafe paper cup in front of his crossed legs and a poorly strung guitar on his lap, reciting his story, his song to you as the masses walk by in ignorance of him? What if someone did stop and share his story.  What if they shared a story with him.  What if they shared their hope with him?

I can’t not picture it…

She’s just a small town girl,

Living in this lonely world.

She took the midnight train going anywhere.

I’m just a city boy,

But I used to come from near Dunloy.

Fell on rough times so now I’ll sleep almost anywhere.

She came out from a smoky room,

There I was bathed in stale car fumes.

But she patiently listened to my tale, it went on and on and on and on…

…

Sitting here on the streets of Belfast,

All alone no one noticed me.

Don’t want drink or drugs, just want some

Spare change for a cup of tea.

Haven’t eaten for three day straight,

And that was what was left on a paper plate

By some business man at the Europa hotel

Who threw it at me ‘cause he knew I smell.

…

Strangers, waiting, up and down Royal Avenue,

Their shadows, searching in the night.

Finding rest now, in an alley behind Primark,

Hiding somewhere in the night.

Can’t get a job to get my fill,

But everybody wants a thrill,

I’d pay anything to roll that dice, just one more time.

Some will win and some will lose,

Guess I was born to sing the blues but

This movie never seems to end it goes on and on and on and on…

…

She told me about her church that evening

But her story seemed to take all night.

I listened to her talk about this Jesus,

Who she said to this world is a light.

I wanted to believe her ‘cause her story talked of ‘Hope’

And some nights when I’m lying here I feel like I can’t cope.

But I’m nothing more than a bumb, can’t you see?

It’s hard to believe anyone cares about me.

…

Strangers, waiting, up and down the Sandy Row

Their shadows, searching in the night.

The warm glow from a Church window, seemed to draw me nearer and nearer and

The Son of God met me there that night.

So don’t stop believing, hold on to that feeling.

Redemption has stories to tell.

And my soul sings Hallelujah…

Jacob [was] all alone in the camp, and a man came and wrestled with him until the dawn began to break. When the man saw that he would not win the match, he touched Jacob’s hip and wrenched it out of its socket. Then the man said, “Let me go, for the dawn is breaking!” But Jacob said, “I will not let you go unless you bless me.” “What is your name?” the man asked. He replied, “Jacob.” “Your name will no longer be Jacob,” the man told him. “From now on you will be called Israel, because you have fought with God and with men and have won.” “Please tell me your name,” Jacob said. “Why do you want to know my name?” the man replied. Then he blessed Jacob there.

Genesis 32:24-29

For the last week or so, I’ve been struggling with God.  Even when the pain was at it’s greatest and God was truly wrenching at my soul, I refused to let go, I kept wrestling with Him. 

Tonight, God blessed me…

Now I’m not saying that everything is all better now and my life is perfect…  In fact, if tonight reminded me of one thing especially, it’s this; the suffering, the pain in the offering, the bearing of our own crosses, all of these things are as much a part of the Christian experience as the blessing…

I still think that it’s ok to admit that we struggle with God from time to time.  God didn’t love Job any less because he had it out with Him.  He didn’t love Jacob any less when he held God in stalemate until He consented to blessing him.  I don’t believe He loves me any less for struggling over the last week… If anything, maybe if I hadn’t had the struggle, I wouldn’t have received the blessing in the end…

All maybes aside, all I can say is this.  Tonight, I don’t want to wrestle with God.  I just want to lift my hands and proclaim You are high and lifted up…

Lord of all the earth
And all of heaven
I come and seek Your face
Worship You with all I have within me
Humbled by Your grace

Every heart every nation
Every tribe all creation
Will bow before Your presence and sing

You are high and lifted up
You are high and lifted up
And my soul sings hallelujah
To the Lamb
The Lamb of God

Lord of righteousness
You come in glory
Bright and morning star
All my days I’ll worship and adore You
Healer of my heart

Every prayer every cry
You alone satisfy
We will lift Your praise
Again and again

Majesty
Majesty
Jesus Lamb of God
Majesty
Majesty
Holy are You Lord

Hillsong – High and Lifted Up

The corner of 1st and Amistad…

The library in which I work is completely empty.  I haven’t actually seen another person since I turned into the car park this morning.  The lack of sound, of business and of activity just makes me sense that everyone must be feeling the same as me today… weary.  I managed to tidy up a few loose ends first thing this morning and in fact anyone who follows my Twitter will know exactly what I started with;

http://twitpic.com/aziop – Back to work… Back to overdue books and ‘The Fray’…

A few hours have passed since then, but two things have remained the same.  Firstly, I’m still weary.  Secondly, I’m still listening to The Fray…

I found God on the corner of 1st and Amistad
Where the West was all but won
All alone, smoking his last cigarette
I said, “Where you been?” He said, “Ask anything.”

Where were you, when everything was falling apart?
All my days were spent by the telephone that never rang
And all I needed was a call that never came
To the corner of 1st and Amistad

The early morning, the city breaks
And I’ve been calling for years and years and years and years
And you never left me no messages
You never sent me no letters
You got some kind of nerve taking all I’m worth

Lost and insecure, you found me, you found me
Lying on the floor
Where were you? Where were you?

Lost and insecure, you found me, you found me
Lying on the floor, surrounded, surrounded
Why’d you have to wait? Where were you? Where were you?
Just a little late, you found me, you found me.

Why’d you have to wait, to find me, to find me?

You Found Me – The Fray

I knew that today would be a frustrating day.  I guess thats one of the biggest problems with working in a college library.  Even though the college closes (per-say) the library stays open.  It’s a completely different place during the summer compared to what it was during term time.  To be frank, it’s staggeringly lonely…  I mean I know that libraries are always quiet places but thats not just what I’m talking about.  Even though they were (fairly) quiet, just having students here gave this place a sense of life.  Books were being read, notes were sprawled out across tables and everything was set to a symphony of computer keyboards tapping with a sense of urgency.

Now? Now the books sit dormant, unread; thier raison d’etre unfullfilled.  The computers sit turned off; their spark of life removed by the absence of thier busy masters whom they had faithfully served.  The chairs sit neatly pushed under empty tables except for the odd one which remains slightly askew, almost in homage; appeasing the ghosts of unfinished essays and imcomplete reports. As for me… the humble guardian of this CandleKeep;  the keeper of it’s tomes…  Here I sit, bound by the silence and subservient to the minutiae which inhabits it…

A job which mere weeks ago was perfectly pleasant has become a trial.  In all seriousness and fantasy-esque narrative aside, when this place was busy and alive you did feel like a keeper of knowledge; like a jack-of-all-trades and a master of one or two.  One day I actually delivered what might as well have been a geography lecture to four or five kids who had taken an interest in the world map behind my desk.  The next I was making up an excel spreadsheet for an I.T. class project.  At some other time I had to teach myself visual basic to try and get our library software to work.  Some days it was just as simple as knowing where a book was but even that was fulfilling.  Now I’ve been reduced to mere inputting; to typing stuff up… It’s not a lot of fun.  It’s repeditive.  Frankly, it’s boring and unchallenging.  Deep down, I had always hoped that I’d never become part of the 9-5 monotony and now it seems like that’s exaclty what I’ve been assymulated into.  Returning to fantasy narrative, this place is dead and I feel like boatman, ever-destined to travel back and forth along it’s morbid banks; my only solace being the coin which I receive for passage…

Truth be told, I don’t think that this feeling of weariness is confined to work.  In fact, I think that what I’ve described above is just part of a much bigger picture.

I talked some of it out with a good friend of mine maybe a week or so ago.  It was a difficult conversation to have.  Even now, I’m finding this hard to type but I kind of want to persevere regardless. 

This time last year I went to a seminar organised by New Horizon entitled Blogging For Jesus.  I raised a question at the end of the seminar which the group dwelt on for a little big of time.  I was curious about the issue of honesty in a blog.  I used the example of the book Rachels Tears which uses extracts from Rachels journal to illustrate her relationship with God in the years, months and days before she was tragically murdered in Columbine High School.  What I wandered was whether the fact that Rachels journal was private and that she never expected anyone else to read it made the content any different to a blog where the author knows that the content is accessible by all and may tailor it to reflect this fact.  In essence, what I was asking was a question of honesty; Do we occasionally omit details from a blog purely because it is a public space and we don’t want others to know our innermost insecurities?  In short, the answer is yes but, similarly, I don’t think that such omissions are confined to our blogs.  I’m sure everyone is guilty of this at times but I think, to frame this all in the context of what I’m talking about, it can seem like an especially easy option for a Christian to simply not divulge problems, insecurities etc to those around them rather than deal with them in a forthright and direct way.  I’m especially guilty of this and, to bring the subject matter back to what I was talking about, it’s one of the reasons that both my conversation with my friend and writing this blog is especially difficult.  Simply put, both require me to open up and reveal the deepest thoughts and feelings inside me and that scares me. 

I think that it scares me in a few ways.  Firstly, I’m terrified of it somehow damaging my witness; I would hate that people would look at frankly how weak I might seem and think that there can’t really be that much strength found in Christ.  Secondly, I’m terrified of how other Christians might see it.  I think thats a problem we’ve created for ourselves within western Christianity; this sense that we’re all somehow bulletproof and can’t possibly stand up and admit to being weak or broken or tired or weary lest we be seen to have faltering faith.  What we get, instead, is thousands of people turning up to Church on a Sunday morning or C.U. on a Monday night, or Youth Fellowship on a Thursday or whatever, each one a picture of perfection and hapiness on the outside but inside, a mess.  I think that we’ve become so obsessed with the religiosity of it all that at times all we see of our brothers and sisters is merely a facade to hide what’s really going on.

I’m guilty of erecting such a facade.  Friends continually tell me that they are so impressed with how I deal with everything so faithfully as I politely smile and nod but at times, am falling apart inside.  Still, however, I can’t possible come out and say what I’m really thinking lest I be patronised or condescended.

Let me clarify a few things;  I’m not losing my faith.  I’m not angry with God.  I don’t need another helpful verse (Like Jeremiah 29:11) to be quoted at me over and over again.  What I need is for everyone to drop their own facades and in turn let me drop mine…

There’s no shame in saying that we all struggle with God from time to time.  It isn’t a sign of weakness.  At least if we in the Christian church came to terms with that, we could struggle through it together instead of hiding it in public and breaking down in private.

Yes, I’m struggling at the minute…  I can’t help but wonder where everything is going.  Truth be told I can’t shake the feeling that my life seems to be going nowhere.  I can’t help but be curious as to why I’m stuck in a dead-end job that right now is driving me nuts.  I don’t know why I trained for four years in something which I love only to find that I have nowhere to go with it.  I can’t fathom why I can’t seem to find a sense of belonging in any local Church.  I don’t understand why God called my Dad home in the years when I feel like I needed him the most.  I feel like I could really use a break…

I think it’s ok to struggle with this stuff and let me explain why with reference to The Fray.  Frontman Isaac Slade has had a couple of things to say about the song You Found Me on both the bands official forums as well as in the press.  It’s a tough song to get your head around so I might aswell quote it from the man himself;

I dreamt I ran into God on a street corner. He looked like Bruce Springsteen and he was smoking a cigarette. I had it out with him and asked “Where were you when all this bad stuff was happening to these very undeserving, good people.”

You Found Me is a tough song for me. Its about the disappointment, the heart ache, the let down that comes with life. Sometimes you’re let down, sometimes you’re the one who lets someone else down. It gets hard to know who you can trust, who you can count on. This song came out of a tough time, and I’m still right in the thick of it. There’s some difficult circumstances my family and friends have been going through over the past year or so and can be overwhelming. It wears on me. It demands so much of my faith to keep believing, keep hoping in the unseen. Sometimes the tunnel has a light at the end, but usually they just look black as night. This song is about that feeling, and the hope that I still have, buried deep in my chest.

Can you imagine someone standing up in Church and saying I had it out with God.  I don’t imagine it going down well.  This kind of reaction has been enstilled into me aswell.  In that conversation with my good friend the other night, I mentioned how I had had a utilitiy room confrontation with God.  I was standing in my utility room, all of this rubbish just welling up inside me and getting the better of me and, to be honest, I had it out with God.  Even for me, my first reaction thereafter was one of shame.  I slumped against the utility room wall, slid to the floor and hung my head as I remembered Job 38:1

Then the Lord answered Job from the whirlwind: Who is this that questions my wisdom with such ignorant words?

A couple of weeks back I bought The Punisher: Warzone on DVD.  There is this really poignant moment in it when Frank Castle is sitting in his Church talking to his Preist about how far he has taken his vengance, about judgement and about Matthew’s gospel.  The Priest closes saying “God be with you Frank.”  Castle replies

Sometimes I’d like to get my hands on God

Isaac Slade, Frank Castle and I are all examples of the same issue.  None of us, even the fictional Castle have lost our faith; our belief in their Father God and in the Grace of his son the Lord Jesus Christ.  Each one of us, however, struggles with God.  As Isaac said, it can wear us down and in many ways, the fact that we keep our faith is a testament to how much we can take and how God keeps us strong.

The other night, that same night I had the conversation with my friend, I really struggled with God.  In prayer, I used the same words that I used a few paragraphs back; God, I could really use a break…

In the Old Testament, Jacob found God.  Granted, unlike Isaac Slade, He didn’t appear as Bruce Springsteen on a street corner.  He did, however, appear as an ordinary man in the middle of Jacob’s camp.  Jacob didn’t put on a facade or pretend that everything was wonderful for him.  At the same time, however, he wasn’t losing his faith.  Just a few nights previous he had prayed for God’s help and His blessing;  he needed a break…  When Jacob found God… he had it out with Him.  Genesis 32: 24-29 recounts how Jacob wrestled with God until the morning broke;

Jacob [was] all alone in the camp, and a man came and wrestled with him until the dawn began to break. When the man saw that he would not win the match, he touched Jacob’s hip and wrenched it out of its socket. Then the man said, “Let me go, for the dawn is breaking!” But Jacob said, “I will not let you go unless you bless me.” “What is your name?” the man asked. He replied, “Jacob.” “Your name will no longer be Jacob,” the man told him. “From now on you will be called Israel, because you have fought with God and with men and have won.” “Please tell me your name,” Jacob said. “Why do you want to know my name?” the man replied. Then he blessed Jacob there.

Jacob struggled with God and not even in the spiritual sense that I’m talking about, but in an actual physical sense.  Even when God delt him a crippling blow, Jacob refused to give up.  He continued to struggle until God blessed him…

I can empthaise with Isaac Slade.  In some ways, I can even empathise with Frank Castle.  Sometimes you do struggle with God.  It doesn’t make you a bad person or even a weak, faltering Christian… maybe it’s just because we’re human, I don’t know.  All I know is that if we can learn anything from Jacob, it’s that sometimes blessing can come straight out of a struggle with God.  More than this, it’s important that we don’t hide the fact that we’re struggling.  Jacob didn’t hide the fact that he had wrestled with God for fear of being shunned, no.  We’re told that Jacob renamed the place where his camp had been Peniel, which means the Face of God because it was there that he had met God face to face.  Even more than this, however, it’s important that we, as a Christian Church, change how we look at our struggle with God.  We need to break down the barriers between one another and that may mean being completely honest and open with our brothers and sisters.  We should also be aware that such honesty must occur without fear of reprise.  If we’re endeavouring to be Christ-like, we shouldn’t be judging one another anyway and yet we do and we fear judgement from eachother and this isn’t a good thing.  Everytime Paul offered adivce and prayer in the new Testament, he did so lovingly, sometimes having not even met the people to whom he was offering his loving words.  I think it’s time we got back to this…

As for me?  Well, I’m still struggling.  As ever, it’s help to make a note of it all.  It always helps to work through some stuff on the old blog and it would have been hypocritical of me not to do it in an open and honest way.  If you’re struggling, I hope and pray that you can take some comfort from this and if it helps in any way, then thanks be to God…

I Feel the Thunder in the Sky…

So I started a new job coming up on four weeks ago.  I’m working in a library in a local college.  It’s a pleasant job, there can be no doubt about that but I’m still not entirely sure that it’s what I want to do with my life… or indeed if it’s what I’m meant to do with my life… To be honest, that’s just a little aside to serve as a brief contextual introduction for what I actually want to write about tonight.  This afternoon one of my colleagues turned to my and said that she had taken a pain in her head.  She concluded that it wasn’t a migraine or any kind of prolonged pain but that rather, as she put it ‘it’s going to thunder…’

From the place where morning gathers
You can look sometimes forever ’til you see
What time may never know
What time may never know
How the Lord takes by its corners this old world
And shakes us forward and shakes us free
To run wild with the hope
To run wild with the hope

The hope that this thirst will not last long
That it will soon drown in the song
Not sung in vain
And I feel the thunder in the sky
I see the sky about to rain
And I hear the prairies calling out Your name

Calling Out Your Name – Rich Mullins

Several weeks ago my good friend and I reached a kind of consensus. Any of you who read these snippets of text that I post here will know that I’ve been deliberating for some time about dreams and visions which I thought might just have been relating some time to Belfast; that city which I called home for four years.  You see, in my head, I always kind of assumed I be staying in Belfast; I thought I’d found a home there, made friends there, built up fellowship there, worshiped there, praised there and so on and it just never crossed my mind that I’d leave.  It was difficult for me to commit to any long term accommodation there given that I couldn’t find a job there and didn’t want to be paying rent that I couldn’t afford but I guess I always just thought that things would work out and that ultimately I’d end up there.  In many ways, while getting a job in Antrim seemed to shoot down my chances of a life in Belfast in the near future, it was also an answer to prayer in that I was finally getting some direction about where God wanted me in the mean; clearly, He wanted me to be living at home in Ballymena.  What was hard, however, was trying to figure out why I’d been led to feel like I was a part of something awesome going on in Belfast only to be prematurely removed from it.

Maybe I let myself become a little overwhelmed with those ‘feelings,’ I don’t really know.  What I do know, however, is that I spent months obsessing over it; trying with every free minute to interpret and divine a message from those dreams and visions… trying to make sense of it all.  I ended up not sleeping simply because I couldn’t stop thinking about dreams and prophecy and how every night that went by was another night that I didn’t dream about anything significant… At times I got caught up in frustration and frustration which bred doubt; doubt over whether God really was moving… whether the Holy Spirit really was traversing the streets of our humble city or whether it was just the imagination of a young man obsessed with fantasy and fiction who simply yearned to find his place in the big picture… maybe even dreamed that that very same place would be one of importance… one where he could make a real difference.  I let my thirst for understanding dictate my thoughts, my actions, my music… everything.  Nothing would do until I uncovered the truth…

I guess when I found out that I was going to be working in Antrim I was kind of disappointed.  I mean for so long it had felt like myself and other dreamers like me were on the cusp of uncovering God’s real plan… the real hope for Belfast and now I was being geographically extracted from that.  I took a few days of prayer to try and get it all into some kind of perspective in my head.  I think I found that perspective…

For so long, myself and my good friend had been searching for the answer within the dreams and visions that we had bore witness to but all the time we had been working under one assumption; that the answer was there to be found… I guess I’d maybe missed the point altogether.  Maybe, just maybe, God wasn’t giving us the answer… Maybe He was asking us questions… Maybe He was looking at his servants in that city and wandering “…are you ready for this?”  “…can you get to this place?”  “…will you prepare the way?”

More than this, I realised that in becoming so obsessed with a vision for Belfast that I’d completely forgotten about the rest of my duty… Was I looking so hard at one city that I’d forgotten about another one altogether?  I mean there I was sitting day by day in Ballymena pining for a visitation of the Holy Spirit to Belfast… I’d taken myself to Ballymena… but left my mission in Belfast.  How many opportunities did I miss?  How many souls could have been brought even one step closer to Christ if I had just accepted that where I was was where God wanted me to be and brought my testimony to them instead of leaving it with the people nearly 30 miles away?  If I’m honest, I felt that I hadn’t so much lost my sense of purpose but rather that I’d just forgot to bring it with me when I packed up my things almost a year ago now.  I was convinced that that was much worse;  it’s one thing to not have a sense of purpose, but something much more troubling to have one and not to recognise what it is…

So one night, by the faint glow of my monitor, I chatted to my good friend over the internet.  We concluded that maybe it was just a matter of time;  that all we need was some patience and that God would reveal His plan to us when His time was right.  We agreed that maybe the answers just weren’t there to be found at that time… That, yes, we had been blessed with these dreams and visions; these thoughts and feelings, but that maybe we simply had to appreciate that, at the minute, it wasn’t the only thing that we had to be concerned about…

So that was that… The real vision for Belfast; Dare You to Move, that city in the rain, tents, evangeline and rear-view mirrors… they were moved to the proverbial spiritual backburner to bubble and simmer until the time was right; until we were ready… Until He was ready.

I had mixed feelings about it… On one hand, I was no longer obsessing about something which I had been reaching for but could never grab hold of.  I had a little bit of peace.  On the other hand, this “thing,” this movement which I been part of and which unlike so many other aspects of my life actually seemed to define me and give me purpose and drive was (at least temporarily) gone. That saddened me.  It still saddens me.  It’s been a few weeks since then and I just feel like I’ve become part of this mechanical existence; another cog in the inner workings of the nine to five production line…  I haven’t felt as close to God as I did on those nights at 6am in Helen’s Bay and I just haven’t felt like I’ve had the same zeal for mission, for praise, for prayer and for worship that I had this time last year and before.  I guess what I’m trying to say is that despite now realising that my purpose is to be wherever God wants me to be and do whatever God wants me to do… I haven’t found either where that is, or what that is… and that, in itself, is a saddening thought.

I was driving down the motorway into Belfast this evening to meet with some old friends.  The clouds had been gathering all day and I think everyone just ‘felt’ like we were on the brink of a downpour.  Then something odd happened.  I passed my good friend on the motorway; that same brother who has been at my side when trying to sort through all of this.  It wasn’t that long after passing him that I crested a hill to see the city sprawled out in front of me.  With that view filling my eyes, it finally happened; it poured.  The thunder cracked and the lightening flashed over the valley which houses the city and the rain came down in torrents.  Lanes were soon invisible on the motorway and everyone slowed to a crawling pace as we continued to approach Belfast.  Then the song playing on my Ipod ended.  I had been playing a wee playlist I call “great tunes” on my afternoon drive and was about 6 or 7 seven songs into a shuffled 85 track collection.  That guitar intro stuck up and I simply smiled… Here we were, myself approaching the city and my friend somewhere in the rain behind me, journeying into this place that we’d had such hope for all because of dreams and visions like the one which had been set to this very song… I check my rear-view mirror on the off chance that my friend was behind me… He wasn’t, but on seeing my eyes in the rear-view mirror, I just smiled again…  With the rain persisting, I just thought of the people in the city at that very moment…

Some sitting in cars with their wipers trying to keep pace with the torrents… Some walking through the streets with the harsh weather beating against their faces… Some at home, looking out their windows and being occasionally illuminated by the great sheets of lightening…

Earlier in the day my colleague had sensed the thunder… At that moment in time, thinking about those people, I sensed that even though we had put our vision, God’s vision on the backburner, there was more to come… God hadn’t finished yet… Rain was falling now, but in time, we’d see the Holy Spirit coming down on that City in torrents…

Yes, at the minute I feel a wee bit lost and uncertain about where life is going.  Yes, it seems like at the minute we have to wait on God’s plan to be revealed and yes, maybe when the time comes I’ll be completely geographically removed from that plan.  Beyond all this, however, was the thought that some day God’s plan will be revealed… Not just His plan for Belfast but His plan for my life, for my friends life, for the lives of His countless followers and, ultimately, for every soul on this earth. 

Maybe some day I can look back at the last few years in Belfast and be thankful that I had even a little part to play in it all, even if it was just to have a simple vision of real Hope for the future…

Healing rain is coming down
It’s coming nearer to this old town
Rich and poor, weak and strong
It’s bringing mercy, it won’t be long

Healing rain is coming down
It’s coming closer to the lost and found
Tears of joy, and tears of shame
Are washed forever in Jesus’ name

Healing rain, it comes with fire
So let it fall and take us higher
Healing rain, I’m not afraid
To be washed in Heaven’s rain

Lift your heads, let us return
To the mercy seat where time began
And in your eyes, I see the pain
Come soak this dry heart with healing rain

And only You, the Son of man
Can take a leper and let him stand
So lift your hands, they can be held
By someone greater, the great I Am

Healing Rain – Michael W. Smith

Dare you to move…

It starts the same way that it finishes…  It finishes the same way that it starts…

Time slows down and the army and the light break into the darkness.  Now it is their turn.  Now it’s time for them to take back ground… To liberate those overcome by the darkness… To reclaim them for the light…

“The light shines in the darkness, and the darkness can never overcome it…”

 

 

A vision?

It’s like glancing at the entire world except through a single persons eyes…  It’s as if in seeing what he’s seeing we are being greeted into a new story, a new tale, maybe even a new era of significance.  As the world flashes in front of his eyes its like someone’s saying

“Welcome to the planet… Welcome to existence…”

Then, it’s like the focus changes.  It’s no longer about the world in it’s entirety…  It’s like it’s just about one place… A city?  A ruined city?  His city?  Somewhere important?  I don’t know…

It’s like something’s happening… It’s like some bizarre metaphysical game of chess where all the pieces are moving until the time is right…  Are all the pieces in place?  It feels like it…

“Everyone’s here… Everyone’s here…”

It’s like the eyes through which we can see this all unfolding are important somehow…  It’s like this one man is important…  It’s like he’s a Captain or something… It’s like everyone is waiting for him to do something…

“Everybody’s watching you now… Everybody waits for you now…  What happens next?”

He speaks…

“I dare you to move…”

All over the ruined city people start to pick themselves up and shake the dust and dirt off the rags which they are wearing as clothes…

“I dare you to move…”

More people get to their feet with this odd glint of purpose in their eyes…

“I dare you to lift yourself up off the floor…”

The whole city is now on its feet.

“I dare you to move, I dare you to move… Like today never happened, today never happened before…”

That’s it isn’t it?  All of this is happening in the wake of ‘something’… But what?  A single moment which changes everything?

The figure looks around the city and his voice of narrative becomes an inward one… It’s like all of a sudden we’re privy to his thoughts.  His thoughts… Thoughts filled with renewal, with hope, with purpose driven zeal, with a power to change…

His thoughts? 

“Welcome to the fallout…” 

Across the city this mass of people, now on their feet, turn to doing things which they remember… Things which mean something to them…

In one crumbling building the people are forging weapons… Swords maybe?  No… Something different… They’re pouring over an ancient text… Words of wisdom… Words of comfort… Words of hope… Words of assurance… These words; these are their weapons… This is their sword.

“Welcome to resistance…”

Is this what these people are?  Resistance?  Counter-culture?  A peculiar people? 

Some are gathered in a different building… Singing… Can you hear singing?  Some of the people throw their hands in their air… Others, their knees to the ground…  Familiar words?  Worship… Praise… Adoration… Awe…

“The tension is here.  The tension is here… Between who you are and who you could be… Between how it is and how it should be…”

Who are we?  Who could we be?  How is it?  How should it be?  Is he asking us to change?  Change…

Change… There needs to be a change.

The figure stops thinking and begins to call out again.

“I dare you to move…”

The people who were inside; those who were reading, preparing, singing…  They move out of the city… Away from the ruins

“I dare you to lift yourself up off the floor…”

They start to gather.  An army?  An army waiting to hear his marshalling call? They stand.  They are ready.  He calls out to them…

“I dare you to move, I dare you to move… Like today never happened, today never happened before…”

Is he a captain?  Is He a King?  He carries Himself like a King… Like a King speaking to an army before a battle. 

Inspiration…

“Maybe redemption has stories to tell…”

Redemption… This one word strikes a chord with the army… Deliverance, salvation; a part of each of their lives… Their testimony… Their story…

“Maybe forgiveness is right where you fell…”

Forgiveness…  Again, they react.  Each of them are forgiven…  Each of them are loved…  Despite their faults, despite their failures… Despite their falls… 

Some look back to the ruined city behind them… To their past… To their brokenness…  He senses their remorse.

“Where can you run to escape from yourself?  Where you gona go?  Where you gona go?”

No need to run… No need to escape… No need to go… No need to hide from themselves… from ourselves… from the past…

No…

“Salvation is Here!”

Many things follow… Shouts.  Cries.  Tears but one thing above all …

Readiness.

They charge.

Why?  Against what?

Can you see it now…?  All around the ruined city. 

Darkness.

It seems like the very darkness itself is a belligerent…  Another side in this war…  Another player in this game…

It sees the charge.  Above the noise of the people it can hear the captains battle cry.

“I dare you to move…”

He calls again, striking fear into the heart of darkness. 

“I dare you to move…”

The darkness shudders.  It senses something more…

“I dare you to lift yourself… to lift yourselves up off the floor!”

More than just the people… 

“I dare you to move…”

More than just the Captain… 

“I dare you to move…”

Something else behind the army…

Something beautiful and yet terrifying at the same time…

A Legion.  A Legion of light…

The Captain continues to call out

“Like today never happened,”

Their charge stays on course and as the Captain cries out

“ today never happened,”

Every memory of that one moment which changed everything

“today never happened,”

All fear, all regret, all shame, all remorse, all brokenness, everything…

“today never happened before!”

… is gone.

Time slows down and the army and the light break into the darkness.  Now it is their turn.  Now it time for them to take back ground… To liberate those overcome by the darkness… To reclaim them for the light…

“The light shines in the darkness, and the darkness can never overcome it…”

 

 

“In the beginning the Word already existed. The Word was with God, and the Word was God. He existed in the beginning with God. God created everything through him, and nothing was created except through him. The Word gave life to everything that was created, and his life brought light to everyone. The light shines in the darkness, and the darkness can never overcome it.”

John 1:1-5

The Hazards of Love…

I’m going to keep this entry short tonight because my brain is in no order for some protracted discourse on the natures of the heart.  Rather, I wanted to share some statistics with you.

I had a great conversation with a friend over msn the other night.  It was one of those mythical late hour man conversations about relationships, women and feelings and stuff which few of ever care to admit really take place.  In it we discussed everything from our singleness [Humorous sidebar; I actually typed singletude until I stopped and thought about it] to loneliness to the concept of ‘the one.’  That last point, in particular has had me thinking a lot about relationships recently.

I was thinking tonight about that common phrase we all love to use when contemplating relationships; in particular their endings or indeed their lack thereof.

There’re plenty more fish in the sea…

It just kind of rolls off the tongue doesn’t it?  Tonight, however, I actually started to think about how many fish there really might be in the sea.  Now don’t get me wrong, I’m in no way naive enough to suggest that there is, in fact, any kind of scientific understanding which can be retrofitted onto our comprehension of love.  I have a friend who enjoys reminding me that love is nothing more than a chemical imbalance in our brains.  Call me an old romantic or whatever you want but I shudder at that notion.  Anyhow, this is beside the point.  Our notions of how scientific processes and our understanding of love do (or indeed do not) interact aside, there are some basic numbers which we can crunch to get closer to some estimation of just how many fish there are in that great big sea. 

Tonight I took a look at some general estimations of world demography, Northern Irish demography and world religious statistics.  I mean with all of the numbers I have flying about it does all come down to a little bit of estimation but nonetheless, it is interesting to see just how many fish we are talking about when we so idly use that phrase.

I mean, at the most basic level, if we start with the total population of the world which I’m taking as somewhere around 6,790,062,216 we can eliminate all the men leaving the female population of the world at in an and around

3,377,071,728

So after that we have to take age into account.  I was thinking about myself in this whole process and I’m 23 so I was thinking give or take a few years each way and lets find the percentage of the worlds population of females between the ages of 20 and 29

553,024,833

That done, I really did some guess-timating and eliminated about 4% for those of a homosexual persuasion

531,754,647

After figuring that out I had to whittle it down a little further.  I had to subtract anyone who doesn’t share my fundamental beliefs, that is to say my faith in the Lord Jesus Christ.  So I ended up with a figure indicating the number of straight female 20-29 year olds who profess a Christian belief (in 2001 it was estimated that roughly 1/3 of the worlds population was Christian)

175,479,033

I guess, however, there is a big difference between those who are nominally Christian and those who actually practice a belief in a way which would fit with my life.  For that reason I actually scrapped the previous figure and calculated the number of females who are estimated to have a practicing Evangelical faith (6.9%)

36,691,070

So I got to here and I was like, gee, that’s cool.  I don’t know what realm anyone would have to be in not to describe over 36 million women as plenty!  With that in mind, however, I thought that I’d focus the scale a little bit more, taking the process detailed above but using the 2001 Northern Ireland Census figures to find out what that number was on a more local level  

Total Population – 1,577,836

Female Population – 808,765

Female Population 20-29 – 126,976

Straight Female Population 20-29 – 122,092

Christian Straight Female Population 20-29 – 40,290

Evangelical Christian Straight Female Population 20-29 – 8424

Wow, 8424… 8424 fish in the sea.  Still, I guess its still plenty right?  Well it is, but I didn’t stop stop there.  In Northern Ireland, only about 49% of the population is single so you have to take that into account leaving

4,128

Still, over 4,000 women out there who are potentially a match is still a pretty high number.  So, I focused it in one last time.  Only 1.8% of the population of Northern Ireland live in proximity to me in the greater Ballymena area

74

Now, this is where the estimating gets really really dicey and probably into the realms of the un-quantitative but I heard somewhere that you also have to eliminate half of this final number for “intelligence, sense of humour, compatibility, ex-girlfriends and blood relatives.”

37

… and that’s it.  37.  37 fish in that big ol’ sea.  It kind of makes you think doesn’t it.  In my head I tried to remember back to the last time I was in town and how many people I passed in the local shopping centre.  Moreover I tried to think about how many potentially fitted into that age bracket.  It’s staggering.

I guess I should frame this all in it’s context as a kind of poignant conclusion.

The one?  I’m becoming more and more disenchanted with the idea of “the one…”

In the end, all of it, relationships, crushes, love, “the one…” whatever, it’s all meaningless…

What changes?  Nothing at all.  Sometimes you think you’ve found something good and then you end up with a few weeks of torment…

…or do you?  I mean yea, maybe that’s happened in the past, but don’t you look forward?  Don’t you look forward to the possibility that someday there will be someone who you truly find something special with?

I think to myself time and time again, yea, I like that girl, this could go somewhere and then it doesn’t…

… but at the same time, I like to believe it will. 

I like to believe that it will go somewhere, that we will make something of it, that I’ll find someone to share the rest of my life with and even when each one of those “likings” doesn’t pan out, I still have the hope that the next one will…

It’s true, I, like many others, hope to find that special someone someday.  I mean call it what you will; destiny, Divine ordination, “the one…” whatever term you use to describe your hope for a future relationship it all boils down to the same idea… That someday we’ll find some one special person to spend the rest of our lives with.

I guess it’s not that daunting a prospect when you think about about the six billion people on this earth; I mean surely someone, somewhere fits the bill right?  Well, when you start to think about it that little bit more literally and maybe frame it somehow in the context of the statistics above, maybe there aren’t actually that many fish to choose from in that wonderful sea we’re all so fond of mentioning. 

It could be true, however, that’s there’s another way we can look at all of this.  I was watching a T.V. show tonight in which one of the main characters said that the chance of one person finding their “the one” is like six billion to one and that you’d have better luck winning the lottery.  How much does this sentiment change, however, if we start to think a little more literally about finding our “the one” in that big sea of fish?  I mean its one thing to say that we have a six billion to one shot, but isn’t it something completely different to say we have a thirty seven to one shot?  You could say that those are much more favourable odds right?

Either way you spin this one, it’s all a bit overwhelming.

But I pulled you and I called you here,
And I caught you and I brought you here
These hazards of love, never more will trouble us.
And these hazards of love, never more will trouble us.

The Hazards of Love IIII – The Decemberists

Caught a glimpse of Your splendour…

So I posted a tweet just over four hours ago now saying that

It’s not that I can’t sleep… It’s more that I don’t want to sleep

It feels like, for most of this early morning, I’ve had this deep sense that ‘something’ important was going on.  After the last few years of my life, years when I’ve heard God speaking more than the rest of my cumulative years of this earth, its hard to ignore feelings like this.  So, I didn’t go to bed.  I stayed up.  I put on a little music, I dimmed the lights, I made a cup of earl grey tea and I sat down in front of my pc.  Initially I was just going to start writing and see if anything would come of it; anything important that is.  It’s something I’ve done before to great avail but tonight, I don’t know, I just didn’t find a spark.

So I started to work on something else, something I had intended to do for a while.  You see a good friend and myself often chat about visions and dreams and what they may well mean for us, for Christians everywhere or for the whole world.  One of these dreams has, between us, become affectionately known as the Dare You to Move dream.  What’s interesting (and at times highly confusing) is that not only are we, at times, gifted with a new message to try and define but also none of our definitions ever really seem to be written in stone.  Sometimes, feeling like we’ve been struck by a moment of divinely ordained epiphany, we get this new perspective on things; our understanding shifts and the entire process of interpreting these messages goes back to the beginning… It’s like we’re in a constant state of flux and any night we also semi-expect that one of us will be on the txt at a ridiculous hour of the morning with a new piece of wisdom which starts the dynamic process all over again.  The Dare You to Move dream has not been exempt from this phenomenon and, in fact, has most recently undergone a change of state and returned to its fluidity once again.  I’ve been hoping to catalogue this change in understanding; to put down into some kind of archivable format our most recent musings on this most vivid of visions.  That’s the second thing I started tonight.  I got a little into this one but again, just got stumped somewhere in the middle.  I guessed that this wasn’t the reason for staying up either and moved on…  As it turns out, this project may not have been completely removed from the ‘something’ which I was actually staying up for.

Pretty much every single one of my musings in these late hours is somehow related to this one topic; dreams and visions.  I guess that growing up in a pretty much conservative countryside Church didn’t exactly broaden my knowledge on the subject.  In fact if you had asked me maybe three years ago what I thought on the subject I’ve have said that it was ludicrous to think that Christians could experience the same kinds of manifestations of the visitation of the Holy Spirit that, for instance, the disciples in the book of Acts did.  Know as to why I held this almost pseudo-preterist view, I couldn’t tell you.  Ignorance may well have been the key propagator but I genuinely can’t think of any reason why I was just quite so adamant. Obviously, given my writing this paragraph, my views have since changed.  The main component of this change was, and is usually, scripture.  Simply put I believe that scripture supports the idea that the Holy Spirit could well implant in our minds dreams and visions which have some relevance in the world today.

“And it shall come to pass in the last days, saith God, I will pour out of my Spirit upon all flesh: and your sons and your daughters shall prophesy, and your young men shall see visions, and your old men shall dream dreams…”

Acts 2:17

How am I sure that this refers to now?  It all comes down to our understanding of the phrase ‘the last days.’  In the last paragraph I made a sweeping reference to preterist eschatology which holds that some of the things predicted in the Bible concerning the ‘last days’ or ‘end times’ refer to events which already happened in the first century after Christ’s birth.  It’s true that some of the things which the Bible predicted could well have happened as preterism dictates.  let me explain how this doesn’t conflict with my own eschatological view.  You see as, I understand it, the Old Testament teaches that history will be defined simply by two ages.  The first is what the Hebraic portion of the Bible refers to as ‘this age’ and the second is termed ‘the age to come.’  The tenses are set up like this because the point of transition between the two ages is marked by the coming of the Messiah – the Lord Jesus Christ and, of course, for Old Testament authors, this event hadn’t transpired and so they deemed the age which they were living in as ‘this age.’  The birth of Christ, recorded at the start of the New Testament, heralded the advent of ‘the age to come’; an epoch which would witness the death and resurrection of Christ, the birth and spread of the Christian Church, Christ’s second coming, the end of the world as we know it and the foundation of a new Heaven and a new earth.  Given that the ‘pouring out of the Holy Spirit’ as chronicled in the Gospels and the Book of Acts would only happen after Christ’s resurrection and would cease to happen after his Second Coming then ‘the last days,’ as far as we can scripturally understand this period of time, has to be between these two events.

So if I’m so sure that dreams and visions can and indeed are being given to Christians across the world today then what exactly does it mean for us?  Well, again, scripturally speaking, dreams and visions are of immense importance.  In the Old Testament God declared that He would speak through dreams and visions (Numbers12:6). As we’ve just seen, the New Testament teaches that God will communicate through dreams and visions.  These two points of fact taken, what do we know about these dreams and visions which God has used/will use?  God does very significant things within dreams; the Abrahamic covenant itself is an example of this. God has also told us that He will ‘counsel’ us at night through dreams. The Psalmist said "I will bless the Lord who has counselled me; Indeed, my mind instructs me in the night" (Psalm 16:7).  Take a look at Daniel and Revelation as well; two books chock full of dreams and visions associated with the future, with instruction, with warning, with hope… and the list goes on.  I guess what I’m trying to say, in short, is that I believe that this stuff is important… important enough to take notice of and important to try, with God’s help, and make sense of.

I think it’s fair to say that this is what myself and my good friend have been trying to do since we kind of twigged that God might just be trying to speak Christians in Northern Ireland and, more specifically, in Belfast.  Don’t get me wrong, I’m not trying to insinuate that Belfast is some kind of spiritual focal point – the only place where we can hear God speak.  No, I mean for all I know this kind of stuff is going on all over the world.  Moreover, for all ‘we’ know all these dreams and visions mean more than simply a hope for a little city in Northern Ireland – maybe its all about global hope… who knows?  All I know is that the two of us have sat and collated all the dreams and visions that we know of and have tried to make some sense of it all.

Something occurred to me tonight though… In all of this, all of those prayers for wisdom in dealing with these visions, all of those requests for more dreams and more understanding, all that hope for one moment of epiphany… In all of that, I never asked God the one direct question – “God, what does this all mean?”  I mean I guess I’ve asked it in a round-a-bout way, but never have I asked that one concise, unambiguous question.  So after all my wandering and musing about how tonight was somehow ‘important,’ I resolved to asked that one question.  As it turns out, that was a lot harder to do than I first expected…

So I sat down on the floor in my study with just the faint light of a scented candle flickering against the wall.  I refused all of the leather-bound, multi-translation Bibles on my shelf, instead electing to go to my room and retrieve that worn little blue  Bible which has accompanied so many of my journeys through these dreams and visions.  I decided to read a little of God’s word before my time of prayer.  I turned up Micah and started to read through it.  As is with Gods word, SO much of what I was reading just seemed to speak right to my heart.  Micah 7 in particular just found all kinds of resonance with me.  I’d had a conversation with a good friend recently about how he to was experiencing that kind of weariness I wrote about in my last post.  He to seemed apathetic towards change given that, at times, it feels like we’re speaking to a world that doesn’t even want our help; a world which is consumed with evil and yet seems to enjoy it…  We chatted about how sometimes it feels so hard to take a step forward in love when the rest of the world seems to be pushing us back in hate…

How miserable I am! I feel like the fruit picker after the harvest who can find nothing to eat.  Not a cluster of grapes or a single early fig can be found to satisfy my hunger.  The godly people have all disappeared; not one honest person is left on the earth.  They are all murderers, setting traps even for their own brothers …  As for me, I look to the Lord for help. I wait confidently for God to save me, and my God will certainly hear me. Do not gloat over me, my enemies! For though I fall, I will rise again.  Though I sit in darkness, the Lord will be my light.

Micah 7:1-2, 7-8

Those last few words really hit me oddly.  I looked at the little candle light just across the room from me.  Walking over and retrieving it from the coffee table I prayed a wee pre-emptive prayer – God, tonight I’ll sit in darkness and I pray that you’ll be my light.

I blew the candle out…

Sitting on the floor I started to pray.  I prayed for many things but particularly for wisdom, for understanding, for a revelation, an epiphany… I asked “God, what does this all mean?”  Then I realised something.  I was terrified…

I started to think about some of the times in the Bible when God granted visions and dreams as well as wisdom and understanding and I could literally feel my heart pounding in my chest.  I thought about how the Lord sent the angel Michael to offer revelation and understanding to Daniel (Daniel 10).  I thought about how God revealed his plan to Mary through the angel Gabriel (Luke 1).  I thought about how Isaiah was called to the throne room of the Lord God himself (Isaiah 6).  I thought about Belshazzar’s vision in Daniel chapter 5.  So many things rushed into my head that just seemed to utterly terrify me.  Here I was sitting in this little dark room praying for God to once and for all explain all of this stuff and yet I hadn’t considered what that could actually mean.  I couldn’t open my eyes…  I was genuinely petrified that I’d open them to see an angel standing in front of me or to see some ethereal hands writing on the wall next to me or maybe even find that I was no longer in my room at all.  Silly as it may sound the last few seconds of Assassins Creed even popped into my head and I was distraught at the possibility of turning around to see some luminescent apocalyptic message on the wall behind me. 

I eventually brought myself to open my eyes to find the room as it was, my heart still pounding in my chest.  I was disappointed in myself at first.  I couldn’t figure why I had been so terrified, especially after having asked for so long for that little glimpse of God’s glory and His wisdom and feeling that tonight, of all nights, I felt somehow close to it.  Then I recalled something…

That night there were shepherds staying in the fields nearby, guarding their flocks of sheep.  Suddenly, an angel of the Lord appeared among them, and the radiance of the Lord’s glory surrounded them. They were terrified…

Luke 2:8-9

I guess I had assumed that because I had so long desired to see just this kind of ‘radiance of the Lord’s glory’ that I’d somehow be ready for it.  After tonight, I’m not sure…  Perhaps it’s just me and maybe I alone need more time and more preparation.  I can’t help, however, but wander; all those nights in worship when we cry out “Lord, show us your glory…”

… Are we even ready for it?

Let this be my last salutation …

There’s this weird balance in every single episode of Scrubs.  It’s like even though its a sitcom and never fails to deliver on laughs, the humour never detracts from the serious message which resonates through every storyline.  Just one such message really got me thinking tonight.  You see, long story short, Dr. Cox, ardently believing that sooner or later everyone in Sacred Heart stops caring about hopeless cases, praises Carla for “hanging on quite a bit longer than the rest…”

You know, had you asked me like five or six years ago, I’d have liked to say that I’d never stop caring…  Truth be told, however, I think that lately I have grown so cynical towards the world in general that I’m not even sure I could admit, with full honesty, that I truly care.  Just over a year ago I mentioned in my blog that

I’ve become very cynical of late and as someone pointed out to me this evening, that’s not necessarily a good thing.  Walking down the main street in my home town last week, I became very aware of the sheer volume of teenagers thronging the tiny streets.  I remember complaining to a friend about them over coffee, describing them vividly as a bunch of emotionally charged, angst-ridden ‘losers’ who don’t really have anything to complain about but will do anyway just for some much wanted attention.

On top of that, it really hasn’t been that long since I described Belfast, this city which I supposedly love so much, as a city which seems almost far from Grace.  Similarly, when I was talking recently with my Aunt about all the atrocities which plaster our news headlines these days, I was almost hopelessly quick to comment on the fact that humanity is just in utter ruin.  I know that this is all bound to seem rich, coming from someone who, only a few weeks and months ago was talking about meta-ideologies like peace and hope… I’m going to sound so clichéd when I say this but, truthfully, I want to believe that those ideologies do exist somewhere, even buried deep down, within peoples hearts.  The truth, however, is that as each and every day, month and year goes by, I just look at the world, in the state that it’s in, and wonder just how much easier it would be to give up on caring…

People all over the world can you hear me
I’m singing this song to you
I know how it feels to be lost and so weary
Something tells me you do too

I Believe – Tammy Cochran

So this is probably one of those points where my post might seem like it’s all disjointed but really it’s just that I’ve been struck by a thought and I kind of want to run with it so you’ll have to excuse me momentarily!

I’ve been getting into the old Twitter of late.  The other night at some unholy hour I posted a tweet from my phone whilst in bed noting that I couldn’t sleep, probably because Revelation 18 was on my mind.  Basically, Revelation 18 talks about the rise and fall of the Babylonian economy.  Now, don’t get me wrong, I wrote a whole dissertation on the fact that contemporary events often stir up a fever for Biblical prophecy when they seem to inflect events predicted in prophetic books of the bible, so I am not being naive enough to jump to any kinds of conclusions on this one.  This aside, however, it was on my mind and clearly noteworthy enough for me to commit to my diary of banalities on the internet.  Another tweeting friend of mine asked why it was bothering me and after I had explained my friend simply replied

Well, if so, why worry. Were on the winning side already!

I think on reading this I exhaled in agreement, nodded my head and rolled over to try and sleep again.  As I tried to sleep, however, this played on my mind.  You know, biblically speaking, he’s 100% right.  I mean I’ve talked at great length in previous posts about the Christian assurance of heaven.  Still, however, I couldn’t stop ‘worrying’ about it.  I mean if judgement was to be passed on the world today or tomorrow would I just be happy to ‘be on the winning side’ or would I remorsefully look at the faces of friends and family who didn’t know the saving grace of Christ with a sense that I’d let them down… If it were to be the latter, how could I ‘live’ with that?

I suppose, to bring this all together somehow, what I’m trying to say is that while yes, it would be easy to stop caring about the world could we truly live with ourselves knowing that an act like this on our part may well prevent even just one person from having the chance to come to know the Lord Jesus Christ?  After all

But how can they call on him to save them unless they believe in him? And how can they believe in him if they have never heard about him? And how can they hear about him unless someone tells them?

Romans 10:14

I guess what I’m trying to say is that lately I’ve let my own cynicism breed a kind of apathy within me; its as if a growing disdain for humanity is slowly excising any care which actually remains within me.  This is a flaw and one which I will have to work on because do you know what?  If a teenager, who I had passed on the street and mentally labelled an utter jerk one day, committed suicide the next… how could I live with myself?  If I realised that that woman, who today I judged to be a ‘tramp,’ wouldn’t be there tomorrow… how could I live with myself?  If I’d crossed over the street to pass by that old man who slept in the alcove next to the chip shop, only to find that he wouldn’t be there the next day, or even the day after that… how could I live with myself?

I remember a friend of mine at school once saying that

“It’ll be a good day when a Church can throw a party for a prostitute.”

It’s a good day when a group of Christians can throw a party for a vagrant…

It’s a good day when a group of Christians can mourn the loss of a tramp…

This isn’t a biographical self-help post.  Nor is it a biographical self-pity post.  This is a message.  You see I think its true; that sooner or later, many of us just stop caring about those hopeless cases. It’s just so easy to get caught up in cynicism which makes manifest this sense of apathy and disdain. There are, however, one or two special people in this world who seem to ‘hang on just a little bit longer than the rest of us…’  People who don’t let the state of the world or even of individual people turn them away from caring… That’s a special quality and an even more special and stronger indication of a faith and a hope greater than can be expressed on this humble piece of webspace.  The sad fact is this… Even those people who do hang on can be dealt hard hard blows…  blows which can be the very thing which tips someone over the edge and make them question whether or not it’s actually worth caring…

I’ve seen boys fall to pieces
Grown men cry out for Jesus
’Til there black and blue
I thought God was on our side
Weren’t we suppose to be the good guys
That would never lose…

Didn’t I – Montgomery Gentry

You know all night I’ve been listening to the soundtrack to ‘We Were Soldiers’ and I guess it’s left me with a poignant conclusion to this whole thing.  It’s also a conclusion which, as per the wonder that is God, fits in with so much of what I’ve felt and written about in the past.  This ‘whole thing’ – life, humanity, this planet, everything which goes on…  for Christians it’s like a war.  Is it any wonder that Paul talks with military rhetoric in so much of the New Testament?  It’s like every new day, every person we meet, everything we see, hear or do… it’s like a battle.  Right now, I guess I’m just feeling a little war-weary.  Despite this, however, I can’t help but be inspired by those people who day after day are going ‘over the top’ into a dirty, evil, hate-filled world in order to gain just that little bit of ground in the war; pouring their heart and souls into a battle for God’s Kingdom.  Maybe that’s what make’s it harder when a battle ends in some way that we never saw coming…  Maybe that’s why it’s easy for people to lose heart…

To those people I say this.  Take heart.  You know, at the end of the day, whether you consider a battle to be won, lost or otherwise, at least you gave it your all.  You didn’t sit back in the trench tired and weary of a world which doesn’t seem to want your help.  You fought for the Glory of your King; your sword imbued with words of love, your boots bearing words of peace and your shield, a shield of of faith.  At the end of the day… the Gospel was your last salutation…

Now get ready…

… the war starts again tomorrow.

And tomorrow..?

…Tomorrow I fight to.

I miss you
Miss you so bad
I don’t forget you
Oh it’s so sad.

I hope you can hear me
I remember it clearly.

The day you slipped away…..
Was the day i found
It, won’t be the same

I didn’t get around to kiss you
Goodbye on the hand
I wish that I could see you again
I know that I can’t

I hope you can hear me
Cause I remember it clearly

The day you slipped away…
Was the day i found
It, won’t be the same

I’ve had my wake up
Won’t you wake up
I keep asking why.
And I can’t take it
It wasn’t fake it
It happened you passed by

Now you’re gone
Now you’re gone
There you go
There you go
Somewhere I can’t bring you back
Now you’re gone
Now you’re gone
There you go
There you go
Somewhere you’re not coming back

I miss you.

Slipped Away – Avril lavigne