God knows what He is doing

My parents have a habit which drives me to absolute insanity, they are both unashamed channel hoppers. You can be watching something and then out of nowhere they will skip through hundreds of channels, then decide there is nothing on, announce that TV is rubbish and turn it back to the channel you were watching just in time to catch the credits, gee thanks Mam and Dad.

But the other day when my mum did this she landed on a TV show I have never watched called Touched by and Angel. As I said I have never seen this show before and have no desire to ever watch it in the future. However the one sentence of the show I did hear did catch my attention.

"God always knows what He is doing, sometimes that is the hardest part to accept"
               Monica Touched by an angel

I was struck at how true this statement is. As Christians we should all accept that God has a plan and He knows exactly what it is that He is doing. His plan is the Master Plan, a plan to end all plans and the only one that is sure to work. It is a perfect plan that we should accept without question, but its not that easy is it?

We are human, we have doubts and because we are not perfect and know it we can sometimes struggle to understand a plan that has no flaws, that unlike us is perfect. As the quote says accepting that this plan is perfect and God does know what He is doing is often hard to accept. Things happen in our lives that we struggle to understand, that we can not see how they fit into the plan. Yet fit into the plan they do and it is not our place to question how or why.

God always knows what he is doing. Accept that and follow his plans and you will find yourself not living an easy life but certainly living a truly blessed life.

All that I am

People may know that I am currently in a running battle with my Dad about me choosing to take a wild change in career to follow what I believe God is calling me to do. Because of this we are both looking for opportunities to push our points home and win small victories. This weekend I score a victory in the mission to win my Dad over to my point of view.

It was when the choir in our Church sang a song called All that I am;

(Chorus)
All that I am,
All I can be,
All that I have,
All that is me,
Accept and use Lord,
As You would choose Lord,
Right now today.


Take every Passion,
Take every skill,
Take all my dreams,
And bend them to your will,
My all I give Lord,
For You I live Lord,
Come what may.


(Verse)
Often I come with my problems and cares,
Running to you when distressed,
But I must give You the whole of my life,
Lord I must give You my best.


(Chorus)

(Verse)

Life has no purpose unless it is yours,

Life without you has no goal,

All that fulfils me is doing your will,

Knowing that Your in control.

(Chorus)

                             (William Himes)

I don't know how many people outside of the Salvation Army will have heard this song, but it is one of my favourites and is possibly one of the most beautiful songs I have ever had the privilege of singing or listening to. There is a beautiful but tragic story behind the song which has caused there to be a haunting melody to this song which in my opinion makes it even more powerful as for me I feel that you can sense the presence of God within it. The composer wrote this song as his wife was dying of cancer as a way to help himself cope and try to make sense of what was happening in his life and the loss he was preparing for. I think it speaks volumes for the faith of William Himes that he was able to write such a powerful song about serving God in such a dark time.

There are two lines in particular which resonate deeply within me every time I sing or hear these words and I have highlighted them above. "But I must give You the whole of my life, Lord I must give you my best". The reason these words resonate with me and why they have helped in the disagreement with my Dad about the direction my life is taking is that I have a couple of options with what to do with my life. 

On the one hand I could go out in to the world and continue in the career I have begun and become a wealthy and potentially a well known scientist. With this route comes security and a clear direction and progression into the future, I would be in control of my life and would be able to support my family so that they would have no worries in life any more. 

The other is to follow a calling which is only getting stronger the more I think about and consider it. In following the direction I believe God is calling me would require turning away from 8 years of education, a significant financial investment and any control over where my life would lead. In this option I would go where I was sent, when I was sent and would earn only a tiny fraction of what I could following the other option.

However God keeps teaching me that money is not important and that when I need it the financial aspect of things will be taken care of. He keeps showing me time and again that if only I trust in Him he will make sure that I want for and need nothing. Also if I am to give God the whole of my life and my best then surely I must give Him them now.

My Dad's argument is not that I should not follow God's calling, but that I should go and work in science for a few years, earn and save a decent chunk of money and then follow God's calling. And while on the surface of it this sounds sensible, it is not following what God is saying, it is not giving my all and my best and it surely is not relying on God to provide all things as He has promised. It may be hard, it will surely be a challenge but I know that if I trust in Him I will make it through, if I trust on His goodness and Grace there will be nothing too big to get through. Hopefully through my actions and faith my Dad can learn that he does not need to do everything on His own and that trusting in God is a more viable option than relying on oneself. 

Advent Challenge Day 22

This challenge is now complete, please feel free to browse all of the 

completed tasks via the Advent Challenge tab.

When the task to help someone came up I was unsure as how to go about completing this task, so I decided just to wait until the opportunity arose. I trusted that God would give me an opportunity to complete the task in a way that I wouldn't be able to do myself.

Turns out my Dad needed some help with something he had planned for work. As it is coming up to Christmas he is having a small party in his office this lunch time and he needs food cooked for them to eat at the party. Since I love cooking and am told I am quite good at it my Dad asked me if I would mind cooking some things along with my Mum for the party.

And so I managed to turn out a few dishes before I had to go to work. My Dad requested that I make wings and glazed sausages to go with the savoury dishes my Mum was making and some sweet lemon tarts for a tasty desert.

This is not the way I thought I would be completing the task when it was selected but since I had no idea what I would be doing I guess it is not a bad thing. It also helps with the slightly strained relationship with my Dad at the moment, hopefully repeated acts like this will lead to him being more accepting towards the plans for the future, but we will see.

I am now drawing close to the end of this series of challenges with only 3 days to go and then it is Christmas. These next 3 days are going to be very busy and fitting these last tasks in is going to become increasingly difficult, but after getting this far into it I will endeavour to complete all of them satisfactorily. But to find out you will have to check back each day until the end of the tasks. In addition to this I am going to make the first mention of a new much shorter series of tasks I have been challenged to do over the holiday period. I will go in to much more detail in another post nearer the time but basically between the 26th and the 31st all my posts will be single words. You have my friend Caron to thank for this, please check out her blog its really quite interesting. I am not quite sure how this will work or how I will complete this but it may be interesting to check out and see ow it does work out.

But anyway back to the task in hand, the next task in the Advent Challenge will be task number 24. Pray for what you are thankful for this Christmas. Check back for tomorrows post to see how this challenge goes, until then, Merry Christmas.

Attend a Divisional/Territorial Meeting or Congress

So last week I selected to complete the challenge of  Attend a Divisional/Territorial Meeting or Congress. The reason I selected this one and did not pull it from the hat as I have done is that these events do not happen regularly and this one was a big event. Regardless this is the task I had to do and so I best tell you guys all about it.

The task actually began the night before if I am honest with a conversation with my parents while we were cooking supper. The crux of the argument was from my Dad that I would not wear any clothes which had more than the normal number of holes in them. This for those that don't know me being a dig at my trademark torn jeans. These jeans of which there are many pairs are worn everywhere with the exception of work and general bumming round the house, they are very much a part of who I am. After giving a short but polite response that I would wear what I wanted as there is no dress code for meeting Jesus I retreated to my room. After a short conversation with a friend of mine it was decided that there was another way to express my individuality without upsetting my parents. There were a number of Biblical quotes thrown round to honour my parents and so it was settled that I would do nothing to begin the day on a bad note.

So on the morning of the Congress I surprised my parents by being dressed quite snappily and being quite bright and bouncy despite it being 6am, not a time I see very often. And so we headed off on the long drive to the congress in a minibus filled with members of my Church. This was a particularly boring section of the day which I chose to listen to my ipod and catch up on the news with a cup of tea. Probably not the best way to spend time preparing for such a big event but it at least put me in a very good mood, especially the tea.

Once we arrived I met up with some friends and left the people I had travelled with to spend time with my friend who has been invaluable to me in my spiritual growth. We found our seats and sat down and waited for the service to begin, happily enjoying the lolly pops I had pocketed before leaving the house. This service was possibly one of the biggest moments in my life so far, and definitely the biggest moment in my Christian life since becoming a Christian. It wasn't that this service was the best I have ever been to but it was the right moment for something big to change in my life.

During the service there was a period where the mercy seat at the front was opened up for those who wished to use it. Now the mercy seat is something I normally do not agree with, I feel it is often abused and used for the wrong reasons, that it is used by preachers and congregation alike as a symbol of public recognition of sins. But that is for another post. However on this morning I was sat there in my seat with my friend on their knees in private prayer knowing that I had to go to the front and talk with a particular minister. The minister in question is someone who I have talked and prayed with before about my past, present and future with God. The last time we had talked it was regarding my Dad and telling him about my future, and I knew that day was the day I must tell him. And so I went to the mercy seat to pray with said minister and asked for courage and strength to talk to my dad. The rest of that story can be found here.

Now the rest of the day was a great opportunity to meet up with old friends, catch up with people I had not seen in a while and generally enjoy the atmosphere of the congress. For the rest of the day I was a bit euphoric and nothing was able to dampen my spirits, not even running out of lollies before the evening service was about to begin. Although the evening service had a better preacher and was widely regarded as the best of the weekend I personally did not gain as much from it as I had the mornings session. However I did sit through the whole service feeling as high as I have for a long time.

The drive home was a little tense with my Dad sat next to me, but he did not want to talk about our earlier conversation and my Mum was more concerned about the outcome of Strictly Come Dancing. However although my Dad did not want to talk about our conversation he was strangely talkative for my Dad. I know that the news I gave him was quite a bit of a shock and that it will take him some time to get used to it, I can see that in time he will come round to the idea and support me.

So all in all I believe that it is another successful challenge completed. And so that leads me on to what my next challenge will be. As it is remembrance Sunday today I will be completing the challenge of Attend a service of remembrance for this weeks challenge. As usual you can catch up on all the previous weeks challenges and the challenges yet to come on the Soldier's Challenge tab or by following the link. Check back next week to read about this weeks challenge and see what is in store for me the week after when I will again be pulling out one of the remaining tasks from my hat. Hope you have a great week and feel free to visit any time to catch up on my daily posts through the week.

So what next

Well I spoke the other day about my weekend and the events that it included. So now I have told my Dad of my intentions and what I believe God is calling me to do, what happens next?

Well two things swung into action yesterday. The first is that I spoke to the area leaders of my Church last night and told them of my intentions officially and spent some time talking to them about my life and God's work in it. There is still a small amount to be done here and worked on before I know for sure the reality and likely time line for this plan but this should hopefully happen quickly in the next week.

The second thing is a little more advanced in the planning stage. This is my desire to move to Vancouver for a year and work with a project there. The project is working with homeless and vulnerable people in Vancouver and with an aspect of training in Christian ministry and being a radical Christian. As this work is similar to what I am doing now it would be a natural progression and an amazing experience. As someone who relishes being thrown into the deep end and learning new skill from experience this is likely to be a fantastic opportunity. I have secured almost everything I need to do for this and the only thing that remains is talking it through with my parents further before I apply for it and commit fully to it.

So there is a lot going on in my life right now but it is all exciting and God centred. Within the next few weeks things will start coming together much more solidly and then I think I will be ready to make the announcement to the world what I am planning on doing with my life. But I know that the next few weeks, months and years are going to be very exciting and full of adventure. Some would say the events that have led me to this point would make me a very lucky person, I would disagree, I would say it shows I have an awesome God who loves me.

My weekend

I have some good news to share today. If you have been following this blog you will know that something I have been struggling with recently is talking to my Dad. Not just in general, usually I have a very good, if somewhat strained at times, relationship with my Dad. As we both have very similar personalities we can clash spectacularly at times. But there has been one thing in particular that I have been struggling to tell him. Well this weekend I finally did it.

This weekend was a significant one for me. It represents the first major Christian event I have attended as a Christian. I wasn't sure what to expect but was very excited and looking forward to it a lot. Not only was this going to be a great opportunity to meet up with and spend time with many of my Christian friends, but it was going to be an experience like no other so far in my Christian life. Despite some points at the event I came away with a very good experience and had the chance to talk to my Dad about my life in the future.

The other major event for me this weekend occurred during the morning worship session. During this session the front of the conference hall was opened up as the mercy seat and many people flocked to use it. Normally I do not like this sort of thing as I feel that in many cases it is used for the wrong reasons or for a public display. I have had in the past many problems with the mercy seat and still feel very uncomfortable using it myself. However Sunday morning I felt as though I had to go. I tried to resist it but the feeling kept growing inside of me. It increased to the point where I felt that my heart was about to explode out through my chest. And so after much internal struggle and in full knowledge that my parents, family, church members and friends would all see me do this despite my thoughts on it I took the long walk from the back of the conference hall to the very front. All the way down I had my eyes fixed on one point, on one person, the area leader of my Church. I have spoken to him and prayed with him about my future and felt that his prayers and guidance would help me right then.

I have no idea how long I knelt, talked and prayed at the front with him but as soon as I was down there on my knees I knew that I had made the right decision. While there we talked about my plans, my aims and my ambitions. We talked about God's plans for my life and how they affect me and my plans. What I am going to do and where I am going to go. We talked about how I have found it so difficult to talk to my Dad about these matters and how that affected it all. We then prayed about all of this and that I would find a way to talk to my Dad. And after this I made a commitment, that I would give my life, such as it is, over to God, that I would let Him use it as He sees fit.

And so lunch time came around. There was a few options I had, but I grabbed my parents and asked if we could go somewhere to eat on our own thus setting the scene to talk to my Dad. So we found somewhere quiet to eat, we talked about the service and then life in general. I was finding it really difficult to broach the subject about my future, but towards the end of the meal I finally plucked up the courage. And so I told my Dad that I was thinking about changing my life plans in order to align them with God's plan for my life. The reaction I got was not great, although it was better than I was expecting. I always knew that he would not accept it at first but I am hoping and praying that he will eventually come round to the idea.

Anyway, after I told him I left him with my Mum to talk and went off on my own. I was feeling both elated and slightly depressed at the same time, paradoxical I know. But the feeling of relief and happiness that I had finally told my Dad about things, but also the sadness that he had reacted as badly as he had. Now I know that I am set on this path I can begin to follow things through officially and start following God's plans and not just talking about it.

I will post more on this subject soon, I would say more but do not want this post to become excessively long. Hope you all had a great weekend, and hope you have a fantastic week.

Read the Corps mission statement or newsletter

Ok on a normal week this would have been very easy. This week not so. The reason for this is that the mission statement is written just inside the front door at my corps and my Dad is the person who writes the newsletter, in a regular week anyway. But this week I have not been to my corps (I have been elsewhere) and my Dad is on holiday. Therefore this challenge has required a little more effort than it would have done any other week.

But just because this challenge required effort did not mean I wasn't prepared to do it, and to be honest it was the easiest challenge so far. All it required was a quick visit to my corps website to read both the mission statement and the current newsletter.

So here is the mission stament;

This Salvation Army corps is a part of the universal Christian Church.
Our Message is based on the Bible.
Our Motivation is the love of God, as revealed in Jesus Christ.
Our Mission is to proclaim His gospel to persuade people of all ages to become

his disciples, and to engage in a programme of practical concern for the need
of the community. 

Our Ministry is offered to all regardless of race, creed, colour or sex.

So there we go, another week of the Soldiers Challenge down, click on the link to view the othr tasks completed and the upcoming tasks.

This weeks task is to read a book from the New Testament, check back next Sunday to see how I do in this weeks challenge.

A story of a flat tyre

So last weekend I borrowed my Dad's little car to go away with friends for the weekend. The weekend went really well, we all had a great time and didn't want it to end. But after a road trip of well over 500 miles I finally arrived back home and went to bed for a well needed sleep. The next day my Dad and I for a run to the shops decided to use the little car instead of his usual one, when I noticed the rear tyre was flat. Then started the shouting and the accusations because of course since this tyre was flat the world was about to end and it was all my fault. But then I had used the car, it had happened on my watch, what could I say. So I listened to him shout and bit my lip not to retort. So we filled the tyre and it seemed to be fine, so we drove it to the shops and decided to keep an eye on it to see if it stayed up. Well this morning it was flat again, cue more shouting, and I was told to change the tyre. Not a difficult job so off I went with the jack in hand to put the spare wheel on the car. Half way through Dad decides to come "help" giving orders and telling me how uselessly useless I am at practical things because I am an academic. Again biting my lip so as not to say anything to make the situation worse. Once the tyre was off Dad had a look at it to see if he could find the problem, what damage could have caused the air leak. Lo and behold there was a whacking great nail in the tread hidden from view while on the car but shining away now the wheel was off. With the normal attitude of my Dad, with no apology for the last week of grief he said, hey maybe this nail made the tyre go flat. And with that he went back into the house. Now if ever I needed grace to handle any task it has been this week with my Dad. I have something huge to tell him and every time I see him there is a huge wall in the way that I can see no way past. Sometimes me and my Dad can be kind of close, in the way that men where I live are mutually respectful of each other. But recently our relationship has been strained. I am hoping that I can make the break through soon as I am fast running out of time to talk to my Dad about this and know I need to do it soon. But I don't want to tell him in a situation that is going to turn it into a confrontation. Hoping that with God's help I can find an opportunity to tell him soon.

In other news, the second linked Bible study with Caron should hopefully be ready to post on Monday. We have had a short chat about it and hope to make it a fortnightly thing. Let me know your thoughts on its success or failure and if you have any suggestions for future Bible studies let me know on jerrathorn@gmail.com and we will hopefully get to look at them at some point.