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Saturday 12 October 2013

Up The Mountain: Teach Us Your Ways

And it will come about in the last days
That the mountain of the house of the LORD
Will be established as the chief of the mountains.
It will be raised above the hills,
And the peoples will stream to it. Many nations will come and say,
“Come and let us go up to the mountain of the LORD
And to the house of the God of Jacob,
That He may teach us about His ways
And that we may walk in His paths.”
Micah 4: 1-2

It’s great to have hungry people around, people you haven’t got to entice to eat, dangling morsels before them in case they  may just fancy a little something, but people who are hungry, hungry for the word, the ways, of God. 


There’s nothing much better in life, as far as I am concerned, than for people to come to us mountain dwellers (see above verses) and say, “We want to learn God’s ways so that we may walk in His paths.” It was happening last night at the New Friends course at Coventry Jesus Centre. 


We asked our new Middle Eastern friends if they had managed to read anything from the Bible this week. “We’ve been very busy this week,” they said. “We’ve only managed to read Luke and John’s Gospel.”


I remember days when, at school as a teenager, I could not put the Bible down. Bible verses were written in my rough book, pondered and learned; it was food for a hungry soul. I longed and longed for God, to know Him more. Yet, last night I felt a little ashamed: my new friends are hungrier than me.


Such appetite is a mark that God is doing 'His thing' - creating passionate followers of Jesus who long to love and know Him and love all that He loves. 


Healthy babies guzzle and grow - very quickly in fact. If we need anything, it’s hungry babes. No, they are not streaming to us, not yet, but they’re coming, and in my heart, I find little more exciting.

Saturday 5 October 2013

Diamonds in the Rough - Addicts, Prostitutes, Old Ladies

Diamonds in the Rough - that’s the name of my blog. It’s called that because I believe, I know, that sitting in the garbage-littered streets, sheltering in the dark alleyways where men bed for the night, tucked away in the secret places where people are abused, raped, imprisoned, paralysed by fear or overcome by deep grief, yes, there, in the deep, darkened places of the earth, are the hidden 'diamonds in the rough'.

Some may describe these places as god-forsaken but that is far from true - God hasn’t left them at all; here He walks, calls out to His lost people; He’s doing His thing ... and He wants us, His people, to do it with Him.  


Now, to illustrate my point, here’s an account of a few 'diamonds in the rough' I have met in the last week or so.... 


G... was helping his friend  who was intoxicated, asleep and lying on a bench, sorting out his clothes and stuffing them into a bag which unfortunately had split. Now, G... had had a few drinks himself but wanted to talk and asked us if we could step aside to talk alone. He told us he was homeless and really loved Jesus, that Jesus had never left him, was always with him - even in his present plight. He had been to Bible college, been baptised in the Holy Spirit and even belonged to Hillsongs  Fellowship but his life had taken a downward turn. “Can I pray for you?” he asked us. (We don’t often get asked that!)  “Of course,” I said. He put his arms around us, prayed and then we talked.


G... confessed his life was not given fully to Jesus at this present time. We all knelt down on the grimy, sunlit pavement and, at his suggestion, sang together, “I surrender all.”  I’m not the best chorus leader but what a moment it was! It was my birthday too and what better moment than to sing that old-time hymn again.
 

                                               *         *         *
Then there was A..., sitting alone and passing the time of day in the last of the autumn sunshine. A... told us he had had an out-of-the-body experience a few years ago when on drugs. He saw sparks, human souls, leaving the earth. Was this his time? A voice, official-sounding, like the bank manager, announced, “This one is not ready yet.” That had jolted him to ponder eternal matters. 


A... was interested in Islam and wondered if Jesus and Mohammed would be friends if they had lived at the same time. We explained that being a Christian is not about following a code; it is primarily about meeting and having a friendship with Jesus. One of my friends with me was once a Muslim and A... was intrigued. She must have travelled a long way in herself to convert, he commented.


As we talked to A..., an old lady appeared, broached and smartly dressed. “Can you pray for me?” she asked. Her brother-in-law was very ill. Tears rolled down her cheeks. A..., my two friends and I held hands in a circle with her and prayed. She thanked us sincerely and we hugged  and then she walked humbly away. A... shook his head; he was clearly moved. “I felt the power of that prayer,” he said.

 Leaving us, A... said he would go to a church he had connections with. 

                                        *         *         *

"'My son, you are destined for better things than this. It’s time to get yourself together.' I’m a Hindu but the Holy Spirit spoke these words to me in a dream a few months ago,” C..... told me as we sat and chatted and added,  “I know it was the Holy Spirit.”

“Following my broken marriage, I’ve been homeless for ten years, sleeping rough on a piece of cardboard somewhere. In the past two years I’ve had ten friends who have died.  Two died of hypothermia under the bridge when it was very cold (-7). When you have alcohol in you, you can’t feel the cold.


“I’ve had a huge capacity for drinking but, after my dream, little by little I cut back. I’ve not had a drink now for 2 1/2 months."


                                    *         *         *

And the end of my week I was pelted with an egg (glad to say not a rotten one) and suffered a bruised and cut face but you know, I’m glad. That’s what happens to the prostitutes round our way and, we know, there’s plenty of rough diamonds amongst them.  In fact, two days later I met one of them, sitting in tears in the bus stop opposite where we live. “I’m selfish, I’m broken,” she sobbed, “and I feel alone.” I prayed with her and, you know what? I knew Jesus had already been there, with her, in the darkness, doing His thing.

 

 Rough diamonds? They come in all shapes and sizes - respectable old ladies, alcoholics, drug addicts and prostitutes included. They're God’s speciality! I only pray that we, Church, will not leave them in the dark places but work with our Father who longs to mine them and bring them up, out of the darkest places, into Light.