Surrounded by your glory..what will my heart feel?

I had a great phone conversation last night catching up with the lovely Gaby Barrera. I love talking to her cos she's one of those people who asks me the questions that matter - like "what are you learning?" and "how has your marriage grown in the last year?" and "how has your relationship with God grown since you got married?".
After our conversation I sat and thought more over her questions and begun to realise that honestly my relationship with God is not as healthy as it should be. It's easy to make excuses as to why I struggle to find time to get alone with God but if I wanted it that bad I would make the time.

I then got to thinking about the fact that really the most important relationship in life is our relationship with Jesus because it's the one relationship that will out last all others. One day I will meet Jesus face to face. What will that be like? That will depend a lot on what my relationship with Jesus is like in this life. Would it be like one of those awkward times when you bump into an old friend you haven't seen for a while? Or would it be like being reunited with your best friend? Or would it be like meeting someone for the first time after hearing a lot about them from others? Or maybe for some people it wouldn't be a big deal at all cos they spend so much time hanging out with Jesus in this life that it would just seem like normal.

How about you? If you met Jesus face to face right now how would you feel?

And how much time are you investing in growing your relationship with Jesus? Think about how a young couple prepare to spend the rest of their lives together. They spend time hanging out together, talking together, on the phone to each other loads, spending loads of time together - all to get to know each other better and lay a good foundation for the relationship that will last the rest of their lives. How much more effort should we put into growing our relationship with Jesus ready for when we get to spend the rest of Eternity with Him in Heaven?!!

So, are you spending time with Jesus? Are you reading stuff that helps you to know Jesus more? Are you spending time with people that help you grow closer to Jesus? What have you done today to grow your relationship with Him?

“If I hurt you, it's not what I wanted” - troy

The saying goes 'Love hurts'. I'm starting to realise how true that is. With love comes pain. It's just how it goes. As soon as I open myself up to care about a friend, relative, partner, whoever, I am opening myself up to pain and disappointment. It may just be a small thing like the disappointment of someone not being there for your show or a friend not calling when they said they would. Or maybe you’ve been unfortunate enough to experience the deeper hurt of betrayal by a friend, a parent leaving you, a partner cheating on you.

I recently experienced a couple of painful incidents - thankfully none of those major ones but it still hurt none the less. One incident was painful because someone upset me. And the other was painful because I upset someone else without meaning to and felt awful that I had caused them pain. At first the pain made me want to withdraw. I figured the easiest way to deal with it would be to just cut that person out of my life so they can't hurt me and I won't ever have to feel the pain of knowing I've upset them again.

But as I was ranting to God about my feelings and telling Him my master plan of how I would avoid future heartache, He made me realise something.The only way to avoid being hurt by people is to avoid people! All people! Everyone. If I cut myself off from every person who ever hurt me or let me down soon there would be no-one left in my life!! We are all imperfect. We try our best to love each other but we get it wrong. The Bible says ‘God is love – who ever lives in love lives in God and God lives in him’. The flip side of that is that when we are disconnected from God, we are disconnected from love – we love in a less than perfect way. And so we hurt each other without meaning to.

To those of you who are close to me, who dare to love me, here are 2 things that are certain in this life that I want to warn you of....
1) You will hurt me
2) I will hurt you

I suck at loving. If effort counted I’d score very highly. But somehow, no matter how hard I try, I get it wrong. I appear to have been born with my foot in my mouth. And I appear to have transmission problems when it comes to love. What do I mean when I say that? I mean that when I try to transmit love through my words or actions, somehow it often seems to be received much differently than I intended it. Often what I meant as a blessing is received as a curse!! Do you ever feel that way? Do you ever feel like the world would be a safer place for others if you had the words ‘I will hurt you’ tattooed on your forehead? Because then people would have different expectations of you. Then they wouldn’t be so surprised when you forget to call or say something stupid and so maybe it wouldn’t hurt them (or at least hurt less). Perhaps then they wouldn’t expect you to just know how to love them right and never make mistakes.

Why do we have such high expectations of each other? I mean, we’re all different. Love isn’t a one size fits all kinda thing. We each require our own special brand of love – some like hugs, some don’t, some need loving words, others need gifts and others couldn’t care less about that stuff as long as you give them your time. For some reason we expect each other to be mind readers and to just know that we need a hug right now or will get offended if you don’t text back. And then we get hurt when it turns out that our friend or partner or parent doesn’t fulfil our unspoken needs!!! It’s utter madness.

Anyway, I digress, back to my poor ability to communicate the love I feel. I do love you. But I don’t know how best to show that I love you. And so I make my best guess and often guess wrong. Or sometimes I do know how to show you love but I still manage to make an arse of it anyway. Either way, at times my words or actions cause you to think I don’t care when the reality couldn’t be further from the truth. And then you feel pain. And for that I’m very sorry.
Please help me to be better at loving you. I’m trying to master the art of telepathy but until I’ve got it down would you please tell me how you need to be loved. What do I need to do or not do, say or not say? And please have patience with me while I’m learning. I’m never gonna get it totally right but I promise to keep trying.

Enough about me...let’s talk about you...

You will hurt me. No matter how hard you try not to, it’s still gonna happen. One day you’ll make a flippant remark, or forget to call, or get drunk and make the biggest mistake of your life. And you won’t mean to hurt me – cos you love me and you’d never ever thinkingly cause me pain. You’d rather die than do that. But still, despite your best efforts, it’ll happen. Even if you stay away from me to try to avoid hurting me, you’ll still hurt me cos I’ll feel the pain of your absence and the hole you leave in my life by not being there. You will hurt me!!!

But I’m learning to be ok with that. I accept that it’s gonna happen some times. Not that I’m giving you permission to just hurt me willy nilly you understand!! But good friendships are worth fighting for right? Keeping my friendship with you is more important than preserving myself from ever feeling pain. And besides – God is able to heal even the deepest pain or the most broken of hearts. There is nothing you can do to me that He can’t put right. You can’t protect me from ever feeling pain – much as you want to. Instead, I ask that you’ll keep trying your best to love me and that you’ll trust God to look after me when it goes a little bit wrong.

(Perhaps it’s not just me you’re trying to protect from pain. Perhaps you’re also trying to protect yourself from pain – the pain of knowing that your words or actions are the source of my tears. The pain of feeling helpless to be able to fix it. And the pain and guilt of the memory of the other tears you have caused in other lives in years gone by. Just a thought.)

Just a small digression on the subject of pain....I’m learning that pain isn’t always a bad thing. I shouldn’t fear it or run from it. Pain isn’t nice but at least it makes me feel alive. And pain gets my attention. It often causes me to sit up and take note and rethink how I’m doing things. It helps to show me where I’m going wrong. Pain also makes me appreciate the good times all the more – it brings contrast. And the most beautiful thing about pain is the way it drives me closer to God and to the people around me. You can be sure that whenever I start to think I’ve got things all sorted and I don’t need anyone else that will be the time pain will come into my life. And I’ll cry out to God or fall into a friends arms sobbing uncontrollably (or both). And we’ll share precious, intimate moments together that we never would have done if it wasn’t for the pain. I wouldn’t miss those moments for anything!!!

And a word about love.....Love isn’t just a mushy feeling that comes and goes. Real love is an action and a choice. When I feel hurt I can choose to run away or I can choose to keep loving you despite the pain. God still acts with love towards me no matter what I do or how much I hurt him or try to run away. He loves you like that too. And I want to learn to act with love towards you just like He acts with love towards you. So, I may feel hurt or angry towards you sometimes. I may really dislike you some days. But I will always still love you until the day I die....maybe even longer.

In order to keep loving, grace and forgiveness are required. If I can’t show you grace when you’re grumpy or forgive you when I’m hurting then there’s no hope for us. Grace and forgiveness makes the world work. Without it we’ll be living in a world full of broken relationships and broken people. Wait....we do live in a world full of broken relationships and broken people. Looks like we need to learn to show more grace, need to learn the art of forgiving.

So, I’ll do you a deal. I’ll show you grace and forgive you when you hurt me. But please will you show me grace when I mess up too? Will you keep forgiving me for the sake of our friendship? Please don’t give up on us. I really hope that you think our friendship is worth fighting for.

I love you

I wanna walk like you.....

Just read this Bible verse that hit me smack between the eyes.
Check out 1 John 2:6...

"Whoever claims to live in Him (God) must walk as Jesus did".

Woah!!! What a challenging statement!?! Take some time to think about it and really digest it.

Here's a few things to consider as you do...
1) Do you claim to live in God? Do people know you are a follower of Jesus or do you keep it quiet?
2) The verse says that those who claim to live in God MUST walk as Jesus did - it's not just a suggestion, it's a necessity!
3) What does it look like to walk like Jesus? Take some time to read the gospels and see for yourself. How did Jesus treat people? Who did he spend his time with? What was his relationship with God like?
4) One of the main things that stands out about Jesus is the miracles he did. If someone was sick he didn't just wish them well - he healed them!! He raised th dead, turned water into wine, calmed storms and walked on water!!! The thing that challenges me most about this verse is that I don't see many signs and wonders like that in my life. Why? Because, unlike Jesus, I fail to put to use the power and authority that has been given to me by God's Holy Spirit. If I am to properly walk as Jesus walked then I need to make some changes.
What about you?

What's on the telly box?

Argh!!! TV is starting to bug me. It's just full of such rubbish. It's mostly visual junk food seasoned with a generous helping of adverts trying to convince us who to be, how to look, what to buy. Where is the quality creative programming designed to feed our hearts and minds and souls?!!!

A choice to be made

I think there is a lot to be learnt by watching small children. I sometimes think they are my greatest teachers haha.

Imagine this with me for a moment...

...a small child is trying to tie his shoes laces by himself despite the fact he is way too young to be able to manage this feat. His father sees him struggling, sees his frustration and moves towards him to help. But the stubborn little boy grunts and grimaces in his Father's direction. 'no daddy'...'me do it'... the little boy insists.

And so the Father backs off. He respects his son's wishes and leaves him to it - but is still watching from nearby. He's ready to help just as soon as his son asks but not a moment before.

Finally the boy admits defeat. With a grumpy look on his face he cries 'dad'. And in less than a moment his Father is there. He scoops his boy into his arms and swings him round. He tells his son how proud he is of his efforts. And then he gently sets him down and says 'let's do it together'. And so that's what they do. Of course the Father does most of the work but some how makes the boy feel like it was mostly his work. In my experience good parents have a real gift for doing that...

It occured to me that I can learn a lot about what it means for God to be our Father by watching how loving parents interact with their kids. I think that God treats us a lot like the Father in this story. He loves us dearly and is always close by and wanting to help. But he respects our desire to do it alone - he's a complete gentleman, doesn't force himself on us.

We all have a choice about how we live. We can live with God or live without him. We can live life our own way according to our own plan. Or we can live life in partnership with God, following his plan and living life with the help of his Holy Spirit (which is given to us as a free gift when we believe and trust in Jesus). And God allows us to make that choice for ourselves. And he totally repects our decision. Like a loving Father, he doesn't like to see us struggle alone and he's always close by secretly willing us to turn to him for help. But he never forces his way in to our lives. He always waits to be invited. In the Bible, Jesus said, "I stand at the door and knock." Will you let him in? Or pretend you didn't hear him?

A friend of mine recently made the decision to invite God into her life. I'm amazed by the difference I see in her. She's still the same fun loving, crazy, creative girl I know and love. But there's something different now - like a whole new part of her has been awakened. Living life with God isn't always easy. In fact often it's harder. But it's a bigger adventure, you feel more alive. Living for yourself is certainly easier but seems so meaningless. Living for God gives you a sense of purpose - you are living for something greater than yourself. And you're no longer doing it alone either. My friend certainly isn't finding life easy at the minute but there's this amazing, inspiring sense of peace and joy that she has. And it kinda rubs off on you as you talk to her. It's obvious to see that her new found relationship with God has transformed her (kinda like how being in love can transform a person and bring out the best in them) and she has hope and a sense of security through all her troubles because of it.

So, what will your decision be? Will you let God in or do you still want to go it alone?

Christian Skaters Conference 2008

Just got back from a great weekend in Scotland and thought I'd tell you guys all about it. We set off for Dundee at 9am on Thursday and headed to Bristol to pick up Sarah. After a quick coffee break we were back on the road. The drive to Dumbarton was pretty smooth and uneventful. In Dumbarton we stopped at Unit 23 skatepark for 'skate church'. Every Thursday evening kids show up for a free skate session and a 15min gospel talk. We went on our way to Dundee last year and I was amazed by what is going on there. The team just share their love for Jesus in a simple and honest way - no multi media presentation, nothing flashy, just simply share their heart. And the there really respect that. For more info have a look at http://www.deepercall.co.uk/ Please pray for the owner of Unit 23. He's not a Christian yet but is very supportive of skate church. He's having financial struggles which has led to him having to charge more for church to happen there. This meant that church had to stop for a while and now numbers have dropped from 120 to 20. Please pray that things will pick up again and the team won't get too discouraged.

After our stop in Dumbarton we continued on to Dundee and very welcome nights sleep.
The conference ran from Friday til Sunday. There was about 35 of us from around the UK and even some from USA too. It was great to see old friends from last year and meet some new people too. I love that the conference is so small -it creates a beautiful intimacy and a real sense of family. It was a really good few days of worship, prayer, seminars and of course skating!!! The seminars where on subjects like fundraising, project development, discipling skaters and running successful events and competitions. On the Saturday night we ran a skate comp at the park and one of the guys gave his testimony at the end. As far as I know no-one made a commitment to follow Jesus that night but we did have a couple of people come and ask questions after. Please pray for the seeds that have been sown there.

On Sunday morning we joined with a local church to hold a church service on the skate park. Was great to be able to worship God together.

Sunday lunchtime was the end of the conference and time to begin the looooooong drive home. It was wet and windy and seemed to take forever. And it didn't help when the sat nav took us round and round and all over he place looking for a petrol station!!

We stopped off at Overtoun house on the way home. It's a castle in Dumbarton that a church is converting into games rooms, dorm rooms, bed and breakfast, sheltered housing for women in crisis and so much more. To see more details about this amazing project look at http://www.overtounhouse.com/ Perhaps you or someone you know would be interested in going up there for a week or two to volunteer your skills to help with the renovations?

Well, we finally got home at 2am on Monday morning. I'm still very tired and feel like I have a lot to process.

For more photos check out my facebook page. And if you want to check out more about Christian Skaters UK then go to http://www.christianskaters.co.uk/ a little later this week to see the brand new website!!!

Best book in the world

The Bible never ceases to amaze me. I've just been reading Revelation and yet again I've come away excited by what I see God doing. Just felt like I needed to share my excitement with you all. So.....check out Revelation 22 (http://www.biblegateway.com/passage/?search=rev%2022&version=51). It's the final chapter, the climax, the conclusion of history.
But first, let's go back to Genesis (cos we all know everything starts in Genesis - right Joe?!). Genesis chapter 2 and 3...
First we see man in the garden of Eden and all is well. God walks there and talks with Adam - they have a close relationship. The tree of life is there. There's no disease or death or decay.
Then us humans make a fatal error and as a result get kicked out of Eden. God places angels to guard the garden and the tree of life so we can no longer have access to either. And a curse is placed on all of creation. From then on mankind (and indeed the whole of creation) is subjected to death, disease and a disconnection from God, creation and people.
But it was always God's desire to restore things back to the days of Eden. So, flick forward to Revelation 22 and what do we see? It talks about a new creation that we can be a part of. And what does this new creation include?
v2 the tree of life is there and now we're allowed near it again. In fact, 'the leaves of the trees are used for the healing of the people'.
v3 "no longer will there be a curse on anything" - OH MY WORD!!!! Just spend some time meditating on the full implications of that statement.....
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and then check this out...
v14 "Blessed are those who wash their robes. They will be permitted to enter through the gates of the city and eat the fruit from the tree of life." It's like we're being allowed back in to the place we were formerly banished from and now we are allowed to eat the fruit we were never allowed!
Doesn't that make you excited? and thankful? and worshipful? Doesn't it make you just wanna fall down and worship just like John did when he heard this from the angel? Doesn't it make you wanna join in with the cry of v20 "Amen, come Lord Jesus"?