lent25

 Just a quick update on what happened today.  Before I left home to pray I felt it was important to ask Keith to pray with me.  He hasnt been involved with the situation until now so I gave him a brief update as to what I was hoping to pray for and he covered me in a powerful prayer.  I can only think of one or two times in the 25 years of our marriage when I have 'submitted ' to Keiths authority as the spiritual head of our house (not because Im unsubmissive!!! but because the situation rarely arises where it seems overtly necessary)  I remember discussing our marriage vows before our wedding and opting to say that I would obey him.  I genuinely believed that I would probably never need to 'do as I was told' in my marriage because we were aiming to be a partnership.  And right enough, despite a few heated discussions and disagreements, there has never been an issue over which we couldnt work out a middle way.  But I did also believe that spiritua...

 Had a bit of a moment yesterday.  The sun was shining and I wanted to try to get focused on my prayer appointment today so I went for a walk.  Its about half an hour to the local garden centre which has a large cafe.  I was listening to worship music on the way and the playlist just happened to be perfect to help me pray. I got to the cafe which was chock full of elderly ladies - literally bus loads of them. It was so busy. But I got my coffee and found an empty table where I continued to listen to music.  All of a sudden, in the middle of the noise of the coffee shop I felt the presence of Jesus. I saw myself kneeling in front of Him and He had His hand on my head.  It has been a long time since Ive had that experience - many years, but I have felt it before and the last time it was all about the favour of God being with me.  It was a moment of incredible peace and weird intimacy in a busy public place I dont think its any coincidence that yesterday ...

 Im going to do something I dont think Ive ever done in the 11 years of writing the blogs - take one whole post to ask you all to pray for something very specific Tomorrow (Friday) Im going to go and pray with someone who Im pretty sure needs deliverance. This is really important. The person concerned has been struggling with their identity (not gender identity) for about a year, believing all sorts of lies about who they are and their value to Jesus, their family and the world.  A negative spiral is now becoming a suicidal spiral - and whilst I genuinely dont believe that all mental health issues have demonic roots Ive been pretty sure for a while that this one has. The issue thats going round in my head is to do with my Messiah complex 😂😂 In my head I am pretty confident about going into a deliverance situation - I know what to do and I absolutely know beyond a shadow of a doubt that no amount of darkness is a problem for Jesus. This person is a Christian, so we are talkin...

 Im currently running at about 6 out of 10.  Which is better than last week when I was in danger of falling below 5.  I usually maintain about a 7.5.  Which is perfectly acceptable but obviously could be better. A few years ago I adopted this scoring system with a friend of mine who was going through a mental health crisis.  I didnt want to keep asking how he was. But I really did want to keep asking how he was.  So in order to have a shorthand which didnt involve any need to explain we would just send each other a score every now and then.  At that point he was only managing a 4 at best.  When he got down to 2 I started shouting about getting to the doctor and started checking in every day.   Id like to be a constant 9 or 10 obviously. But having spent quite a long time hovering around a 2 or 3 Im now happy enough to be cruising at a content but not wildly euphoric 7.  With the help of the pills.  There is so much focus on men...

 Two things happened yesterday.  Rory won the Masters and I had to sit at the gate of the dump for fifteen minutes waiting for the truck to pick up the massive skip things and move them about. This was somewhat annoying. But it enabled me to watch the process which involved a huge hydraulic crane thing picking up the container and dragging it onto the back of a big lorry.  It made me realise that I dont know how hydraulics work.  So when I got home I looked it up. Im sure you know this cos you are cleverer than me. But hydraulics work on the principle that a stable liquid put under pressure can exercise a much greater force under the right conditions. Somehow in my head this relates to Rory McIlroy spending 14 years going back to Augusta again and again trying to win the elusive green jacket which was going to put him in the history books.  His talent is unquestioned but its probably no greater than the talent of all the other players on the tour.  The tale...

 I dont know about you but these days my Facebook timeline seems to just be full of adverts and competitions.  Every day someone is telling me that if I like and share something I can be in with a chance of winning anything from a house to a chicken coop.  There is something very enticing about the thought that we might win something just by clicking a link or buying a ticket - and I have to confess that Ive won my fair share of random things over the years. Todays thought is short and sweet. Jesus offers us the dead cert win of eternal life if we just like, follow and share Him. Its a no brainer isnt it? 😁