Our story as we see it!

Having a Siri moment

Something made me almost “bust a gut” in traffic yesterday! It has been a while since I have laughed so hysterically while driving in afternoon congestion, but this one had me lose it completely!

I am perhaps one of the few (?) who find Siri useful and helpful, especially when caught at traffic lights and a quick push of the mic button on my phone brings up a (sometimes) coherent and willing assistant to take dictation!

And so it was … I needed to send a quick text to see if my daughter was ready for her lift home as I drove into the town where she was.

What follows is my “discussion” with Siri. Because Siri knew I was driving, everything was repeated to check if I was happy with the steps and commands understood. Enjoy the conversation!

Me: Send a text to Vania!

Siri: OK, I can send a text to Vania Thompson for you. What would you like it to say?

Me: I’m back in Lurgan, can I pick you up?

SIri: I updated your message. It says, “I’m back in love again; can I pick you up?”. Ready to send it?

Ahhh!  No, thank you!

It’s my birthday! (Sort of)

It was 20:30 (8.30 pm) approximately on 1st July 1973 while I sat having a smoke with my dear friend Grant. He had come to know Jesus in a radical way only weeks before. A sense of being turned inside out and scrubbed! (That’s another story for maybe another day!).

The change in his life was black and white. Instantaneous. Unpretentious. Real. I had never seen anything like it. He was the same old Grant, but completely different too.

We had done drugs together. We had been involved in Satan worship together. Now he wanted nothing more to do with any of that. I had tried to entice him back by inventing some stories, and telling him some true ones too, but he was having none of it. He looked at me one time and I felt the thud in my chest as he said, “I have found something so incredible, Pete (my school and second name), and I can never go back!”

I had been jealous of what he’d found. And lonely. Then desperate. Now, on this Sunday night at the age of sixteen I was internally cornered, in this damp, old, windowless worker’s canteen, where we used to escape for a drag in our free time. I bowed my head and prayed with my friend to give the reins of my life to Jesus.

The rest is history as they say. The change was instantaneous. My friends noticed it. My family. And most of all, I knew I was different. I chose that day to spend the rest of my life telling people about Jesus.

What about you? Did you ever come to a similar crisis of belief and commitment, or, like my Mum, did you just believe the Gospel message as it was revealed from childhood?

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The thin line

Hebrews x 23 says:

“Let us hold fast the confession of our hope without wavering, for He who promised is faithful.”

In these past couple of weeks, with my daughter bravely stepping out to go to Canada for her YWAM Arts & Music DTS, I have been struck by how there can be such a thin line between faith and presumption.

One thing is clear. If God has spoken about something and made a promise, He WILL be faithful to fulfil it and come through. 

However, it can be a terribly scary journey! The silence of Heaven in certain times of waiting - especially for what has already been promised - can be downright unnerving! 

For this reason I have always felt that the most important thing in “successful” - we’ll look at that word another time, maybe! - Christian service is ‘hearing right’. If we hear God pronounce about something then we have a rock upon which to fix our belief.

What is sad in Christian service is weariness. Too weary, or even lazy, to pursue God much or anymore. Our thrill at pleasing our Father in Heaven is dampened by life’s circumstances or gone altogether. One friend of mine said to me last week a very poignant phrase … “It is so tragic when older saints give up believing God for the impossible!” YEARS of proving God faithful, with a mountain of testimonies under our belts, and yet now we cannot believe God anymore. Yes, very sad.

What struck me about the verse above today was this. Confession. There is something powerful about speaking out what we believe. Firstly, when God comes through, it is an encouragement and a witness to others. Secondly, it really requires you to come out of the shadows and nail your colours to the mast. Thirdly, I believe God loves that bold faith and rushes to the ones who demonstrate it.  Watching my daughter step out alone in bold faith about such a big step in her life (for the first time without us ‘hearing’ with or for her) was a thrill to watch (as well as a white-knuckle ride!). But, boy! did God rush to meet her!

So this seems to be the process, biblically and in my experience:

1. Hear what God wants and is saying
2. Believe the promise in your heart
3. Confess it to others when necessary and when He permits or prompts you to do so
4. God will fulfil His promise, His way and in His time … always!

What about you? Do you find it hard to hold on “unwavering”? Is the confessing part the sticking point for you? Do you find it hard to hear God? Have you got a “God is faithful” story to share? Or do you feel you have ever been let down by God?

How are you looking at this New Year?

Storytelling in the Ukraine

A small team of N Americans joined me to lead a series of three workshops in Odessa and the Kiev area at the end of October/beginning of this month. It was a thrilling time with some of the fastest learners we have seen anywhere. Feel free to open this linked letter to read about the trip and see some pictures of our experiences.

Strange words

I have always loved the story of the young king and amazing reformer in the Old Testament, King Josiah. What that man did to turn round a nation from gross and despicable religious practices and immorality is an inspiration for any would-be world changer!

His story can be found in 2 Chronicles 34 & 35 if you need to refresh yourself about it.

One thing that struck me with sadness recently though, was the end of the story.

It can be found here:
After all this, when Josiah had prepared the temple, Necho king of Egypt came up to fight against Carchemish by the Euphrates; and Josiah went out against him. But he sent messengers to him, saying, “What have I to do with you, king of Judah? I have not come against you this day, but against the house with which I have war; for God commanded me to make haste. Refrain from meddling with God, who is with me, lest He destroy you.” Nevertheless Josiah would not turn his face from him, but disguised himself so that he might fight with him, and did not heed the words of Necho from the mouth of God. So he came to fight in the Valley of Megiddo. (2 Chronicles 35:20-22 NKJV)

The story goes on to say that Josiah was shot by archers and died!

What struck me is this … No matter what my history with God; no matter what great things I may accomplish in zeal and commitment to Jesus, is my heart able to hear the word of God through “an enemy” as easily as through a friend (or through “normal, expected channels”)?

Sometimes I wonder if it can be easier to hear the word of God through a donkey than through an ‘enemy’?

What unusual ways has God spoken to you? Are you accustomed to hearing His voice? Got any “strange channel” stories of God speaking to you through unconventional means?

Will the Irish rise again?

A number of years ago, during The Troubles, a motley crew (one teen, three pensioners and I) decided we had had enough of the bombing and killing, and we met to pray for ‘a move of God’ in our region, and to refuse to allow terrorist acts to happen in the village areas where we lived. 

God answered our prayers and those of others who prayed.

Our local church was once on record as a place where the Gospel hadn’t been preached for 150 years, and, had a large congregation without a known believer in it.  Now the church sends missionaries out, and receives missionaries from all over the world, and has experienced many moves of God. The Gospel is now faithfully preached there, and most of the congregation has come to follow Jesus.

Way back then, God often showed us where evil was brewing and where bombs were moving. We would pray until we knew that the evil He showed us was not going to happen and that He would turn things around. Subsequent news reports would announce ‘foiled terrorist activity’ and the like!  

Exciting days of creating with God on our knees and seeing Jesus work in many lives.

Fast forward some decades I return home from serving Jesus overseas and I’m distressed at the lack of the fear of God in the land, the ignorance of the Scriptures, youth hell bent on self-destruction and without boundaries, the sensual and sensational that fills once respectable newspapers and TV channels, the attacks by our own politicians on our education system (long the best in the U.K.). 

Further … Laws now being passed, or proposed, are leading us to the destruction of the family, an ‘equality’ that leads to increasing disrespect for women, things like genderless public lavatories, perversion seen as normal and biblical values seen as hate crimes!

What is happening to the land of saints and scholars? Will the Irish, who purportedly “saved (Western) civilisation” from utter destruction, be able to do it again? Do we have any modern saints and scholars who can turn a tide of evil with God’s help?

I was reading about (8 year old) King Josiah in the Bible this morning. He was used by God to turn his nation ‘from the brink’ of destruction to the worship and service of the Living God. I long to see Jesus loved and followed in this land again, and more than before.

What do you think? Will the Irish rise again? Any examples of that happening now? Do you know of any (motley crew or otherwise) who are ‘prevailing with God’ and saying ‘No!’ to the hellbent course we’re now taking? What has God been saying to you about this land? What is your heart’s cry?

Willows by the watercourses

For a number of years now I have been really rooted in some promises that I feel God gave my wife and me about our girls and their descendants. I have had the habit of praying for them (and at least four generations down the line from now) in the light of this.

The promise was the first part quoted below from the Bible:

I will pour My Spirit on your descendants, 

And My blessing on your offspring;

They will spring up among the grass 

Like willows by the watercourses.

~ Isaiah xliv 3b-4

What struck me this morning was the ’springing up’ and the ‘willows’ in the second part of the quote.

Amarilis and I have prayed for a long time that our children would ‘spring up’ from mediocrity into being world changing reflectors of His Glory.  

Also, I have always loved willows. Especially ‘weeping willows’. There is something majestic about them. More feminine than oaks. Something about the beauty, the shelter, the reach, the movement and sound as the wind blows, the sun glinting off them … captivating! They are gorgeous trees, made all the more attractive when situated by quiet streams or rivers.

I feel like the Lord gave me a promise today that my children (to the 4th generation at least) will be like willows by rivers and streams, alive with movement, sound, reach, beauty, providing shelter and telling their story of the Creator. 

Has God spoken to you through nature? What are the promises you have received that are your daily prayer?

The draw of the promise

Whenever I see a rainbow, like this one I saw last Friday night at Beltrim Castle, I am reminded of the promises of God and of His faithfulness. Rainbows just do that for me.

There is also a certain escalating excitement about the promises of God and what is going to happen (by His grace). His promises just ‘draw you in’.

His promises to build His Church, and that ‘the knowledge of the glory of the Lord will cover the earth as the waters cover the sea’, are happening. It is amazing, and a privilege, watching God work, and working with Him. (What could be more fulfilling?).

Last Saturday (14th) was just plain exciting! As a family we got together with a young couple from a nearby town, who have been unable to find ‘interactive church and community’ locally, and were hungry for ‘something more’. For some time now they have shown an interest in starting a simple church and in using (Bible) story, with discussion, to learn and explore more of God and His Word together. I have been coaching them in this process.

Anyway … we had a blast! We met for a BBQ, and followed the format of Acts 2:42. We delved into a Bible story in great depth (“apostles’ teaching”), got to know one another more (“fellowship”), shared delicious food, remembering Jesus’ work for us (“breaking bread”) and prayed for one another (“prayer”). 

A new simple church has been launched and more people want to join it. We’re thrilled!

Back in time!