I send the link to this blog to quite a lot of people who haven't yet found their faith. It's possible that some of them might feel, sometimes, that the language used here, together with the ideas premised upon our hope in Jesus, sounds bizarre and slightly crazy. I thank them for not expressing those thoughts to me, but in all honesty not too long ago I'd have been thinking the same thing if I'd read what my brothers and sisters and I are writing these days.
I struggled with this for a while. My life changed last year in April when I had a God-experience. Nevertheless there were remnants of worry about 'what would people think' if I chose to express myself in a way that some might call delusional. Believe me when I tell you, for years I obsessed about what people thought of me. As an estate agent, my whole life was centered on doing and saying the right thing because I lived under a microscope where I was 'expected' by many to display weaknesses such as greed, dishonesty and so on. So for me, integrity became everything - but the cost of integrity is that once you slip and make a mistake, even if someone thinks you've slipped and you've not, then your reputation will be stuck half way up the Basingstoke Canal without a paddle.
Yes, I worried - but now I don't. How much better it is to live life in a way that acknowledges that we ALL do wrong - you don't have to be an estate agent, you just have to be human; but through the grace of God, we know we are forgiven so long as we repent and seek to get back onto the narrow path. Once you have that thought firmly in mind, think then how blessed we are that we live in a part of the world where prayer and the open expression of our love for God is not an offence as it is in some other parts.
Above was meant to be a short preamble for my suggesting that take a look at this article by Pete Greig.
Read this and you might be surprised that prayer is so despised by some even in the 'free world', that an organisation would waste hundreds of thousands of dollars to discourage it. Interesting, isn't it, that their way of making the world better is to plaster it with advertising billboards!
Last Monday the Outside Light Trustees had a meeting. We do so every couple of months and try to discern how Outside Light is unfolding. All this was very fine but it left Mary, John H and Malcolm R alone to meet with the young people at The Vyne. This is Mary's brief report:
"John H., Malcolm R. and I tried our hand at circus skills. Eileen had organised an event evening for the young people and included in this was someone who taught juggling etc. Have to say we were shown up by some young individuals who were good at juggling sticks and balls and throwing the Diablo. This distraction was great - someone noted that while their hands were busy juggling etc, they weren't smoking!
Although only a few from Outside Light, We knocked a ball around into the night - had good conversations, including a long one about one lad's aspirations. In the MUGA tennis was played, and the evening had a really positive feel about it."
The best result from Monday came this afternoon, though. John H is a recent volunteer with Outside Light. This is what he wrote: "Just to add , thankyou to Malcolm and Mary that prayed for my younger sister Katie who is currently suffering from depression and struggling with a few areas in her life. She is starting to feel a bit better and is facing the world again. Your prayers are working so thankyou so much." I asked John if he'd mind me sharing that on the blog, partly because of the link above that speaks of prayer in different tones. My reponse to them is to pray for them. If you're reading this and you have faith, will you please joing me, and also pray for Kate?
Much love
John
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