230509

Enough.

What is enough?

I guess you could carve out enough as being of ample provision. If something is enough, it will satisfy your immediate need. 

Quench your thirst. 

Enough is an amount. 

So last Thursday I went to a worship and prayer evening at Westborough URC in Guildford with a guy called Sean Feucht from an organisation/movement called Burn 24/7 (http://burn24-7.com).

For me? It was amazing. Ever since that night, I have been changed...because I was in His presence...the courts of the King.

I started the night praying something that had been coming out whenever I had been writing in the approaching days of wanting a glimpse of God. Wanting to touch the hem of his garment and have a face to face encounter with Him who was and is and is to come. 

And you know how you start a night of worship with something in mind and God fulfills that in a completely different way to that which you would expect. When I think of a face to face encounter I think of seeing in my minds eye, in my spirit what Jesus looks like.

But what ended up happening for me, I think was an encounter of the heart of God. Having a revelation of just who God is and responding to the call that is upon myself and the Church as His sons and daughters.

There was a part in the evening where Sean started singing about God being more than enough. And as all 50 or so of us (some more acclimatised to the stylings of worship than others) joined in on that I started in my own space to pray out loud about God. About how He is more than enough. About how he can change a nation. A continent. This planet. In a whole day should he so choose. 

He can make the most scarlet of garments appear white as snow.  He can take a persons broken heart and restore it. 

He is more than enough to restore love and worth and identity to the 18 year who sells her body in the night in slavery. 

He is more than enough to change this city. Our city. Any city.

More than enough to shine in the darkness and poverty that lies on our doorstep.

It almost breaks my head when I think of it. 

I have more than this to say. But it's still rebounding my head and I can't wuite make sens of it just yet.

So until then.

It was a Saturday night when I first heard it...we started at 8pm.
In one of the top rooms at the Guildford Baptist Centre where numerous men and women young or old from around our fair city had spent in prayer that week. 
We went in not just to spend time in prayer, but to spend time in worship. You know those times when you get together and worship just for the sake of worship? Those times when you come just to pour perfume upon the Saviours feet...to lavish all that we are upon all that He is. 
It was one of those.
I think it was after some light catch up conversation and discussion of what everyone was feeling in the air, that we listened to this track. This track that I know some of you have heard. The 22 minute monster from IHOP that asks 'Do you know the way that you move me?'.
If you haven't already heard it, then you should. 

I've been fortunate enough to have some time off this Easter. Last week, I went and met my first nephew, William David Norton Cornall...who is soon to be joined by another nephew or neice. On Tuesday I went for a walk...kinda like Forrest Gump went for a run. I discovered some woods not too far from where I lodge on Monday and so liked them that I went to explore some more on Tuesday. It was just one of those days where I got to the top of one hill and wanted to find another hill that went higher so I ended up walking 10 miles.
Anyway.
On my train journeys and on the numerous little rambles I have taken this week I have been listening to that track. 
Each time I listen to it, I go back to the question of whether or not it is actually possible for me to move the heart of God. To stir God's heart. 
I mean what have I got that could do that?

I think that each one of us has the capability to move the heart of God. We each have the capacity either, in prayer or worship or in compassion, the ability to move and stir the heart of God. 
I find it astounding that whilst God was knitting me together in the womb of my mother, that he would be placing the things that move my heart in there aswell. The things that I love in life, God put them there. 
So he knows what moves me. He knows that there is no other place that I would rather be than in His courts, singing songs of praise to Him. He knows that I long to see rivers of living water flow amongst his people. And that I would be lost without all He has done for me. 
There is so much more.

My point being. 
That when we seek God in the light of something He has placed upon our hearts, surely we can move Him. Surely if we ask Him to render the heavens and come down, He will. 

The idea of being able to move the heart of God for me is quite mind blowing...because it suggests that God would care about who I am. 

In Jesus, my hope is cast.
May the hope of the Saviour hold strong for all my days.
For the call of Christ is so strong and intriguing, what reason would I have to pass it up or ignore?
For far greater is the Saviour that is in me than those the world offers me.
In Jesus, my hope is not disappointed. 
My heart can never be cast down.
For He is king of all and the Saviour of my soul.
He is my very cause.
My very reason.
All of my days.

The first love

You are Alpha and Omega

We worship you our Lord

You are worthy to be praised.

We give you all the glory

We worship you our Lord

You are worthy to be praised.

010508

So I've been thinking. 

I'm sorry, I just can;t help it at times. For example, I was lying in bed for 2 hours trying to sleep. In the end I had to switch the bedside lamp on and empty my head before I could even think of resting my head.

But today was another matter. I arrived back in Melbourne after a couple of days away in New Zealand. Something that hit me whilst in an Auckland Internet cafe was this:

'God, give us your heart is a very dangerous prayer.'

Might not come as much of a surprise to many of you but this generation is writing this into their songs and praying it into their prayers. 

I have a theory about this that I have constructed in one afternoon. So there may well be loopholes and gaps which you intellectuals want to poke it...not my problem.

So my thinking is that the generation of christians that I belong to in the western world are emerging from what I think has perhaps been a confusing time for the church (again, please be reminded that these are just my thoughts). We've had the rise in popularity of the mega-church, the prosperity gospel and lots of other teaching claiming 'you'll be rich if you give us yer money', and the gospel according to positive thinking. 

I think that this generation are reacting. We are. We are the reaction generation. We are the 'who gives a fcuk' generation. Atleast I know that I am. 

And we are very much hungering for something more. We are thirsty for substance and danger and a live that captures our attention. If you're going to live and die for a cause, it may as well be on that you believe in with all your mind, body, heart and soul. The Vision and the Vow by Pete Greig is an amazing book. I truly wish that I had got my head into that book years ago...I still haven't managed to finish it, but the Vision that Pete bases the book around is truly inspiring and makes my heart pound. 

I listen to alot of worship music and am hearing more and more songs about justice and the breaking of our hearts for that which breaks God's heart. 

It's almost a prayer of remorse. That we're saying 'God, we're sorry that our hearts aren't broken for the least of these...Break them we pray.' 

I have prayed some pretty outrageous things in the last few years and am now getting the answers. I would pray things about love. About the fact that our love in our lives is and should be a direct response to the love that christ showed on the cross.  I have prayed that I will go wherever God sends me. That I will sing whatever God puts on my heart to sing. That I will go to the ends of the earth for love. 

And you know what? 

I wouldn't have it any other way. I know that by praying outrageous things, I am going to get trying and outrageous answers to prayer and that my living out that response to prayer may not be easy, or comfortable or seem to make sense to some people, but I will never be able to turn around later and say 'what if...'

God, I never want to be able to ask the question 'what if...'. I mean sometimes it's inevitable...but I don't want to if I don't have to.

That is all.

Starbucks

Just sitting in Starbucks.

I missed out on an opportunity to say hello to some people I know that God wanted me to talk to. You know how I missed this? Because I didn't to look like an idiot. I hate when that happens. I hate when I ignore the voice of God. That's the worst thing.

Connect group here I come.

What can wash away my sin?

What can make me whole again?

Nothing but the blood of Jesus. 

The blood of Jesus.

Is it just me or are there aspects and concepts within Christianity that we have to constantly refamiliarise ourselves with. I guess thats what was meant when Paul instructed that we should constantly engaging in the renewal of our minds. 

And I don't think that comes through listening to some music or by just sitting down and waiting for God to place a tablet of stone in your lap with the answers. That's my figurative attitude by the way. But I guess you could say that Christianity requires more of you than your time. It requires your heart, your dreams, your love - all of which I believe God placed within us for his glory to start with. 

It's like life is the playing out of this diverse and ever changing relationship between us and God. God pursues us through life...and he never gives up. 

Would it be right to call us brothers and sisters in Christ the carriers of the pursuit?...if that makes sense. We carry the love of God that seeks the lost, the hurting, the lonely, the orphaned, the poor. We are the carriers of justice and all that is right.

That is why I pray 'Break my heart for what breaks yours'. That is why I desperately want to understand the ways and intricacies of Gods love. 

But I'm just getting back to a place where that's possible...and I've got Australia in 5 weeks. Which if I'm really honest...I cannot wait for. I hope that I can find God...it's like God hides in different countries for different people. Or that you just feel more at ease and more open to the voice of God when you are goodness knows how many thousand miles away from working nights, worrying about where you are meant to go to church and constantly trying to analyse your own mind and thoughts.

Maybe...just maybe...I can disconnect from those pressures. 

Please...let me disconnect from those pressures for those 5 weeks and get the perspective and revelation that you know I need.

(Listening to: Hillsong United - The I Heart Revolution: With Hearts as One) 

I just ate like...2/3rds of a loaf of bread...