When God Says No!

One of the ideas that has been giving me food for thought lately has been, what happens when God says no.

The church often encourages us to share answers to prayer so as to bless and encourage others.
This is great, and can be used to increase our faith in prayer, and to demonstrate the goodness of our God.
So many of our worship choruses are to celebrate victory and overcoming the enemy. I would be the first to encourage this because this is echoed in so many places of scripture. Many of the Psalms are written in praise and adoration of the goodness and faithfulness of God.
David was one to extol the greatness of the Lord, and the many answers he saw to his prayers when he had been delivered out of all his fears.

Yet we know that this is only half the story. When people share from the front about how good the Lord is because He has come up with the goods just as they had prayed, and how wonderful He has been to them in answering prayer I have to confess there is something inside of me that says, yes - but would you be saying this if He hadn't come up with the goods?

When was the last time you heard somebody share that they have had a pig of a week. This went wrong, and that relationship was disastrous, God seemed a million miles away, their prayers were bouncing off the ceiling, and then the cat was sick all over their Sunday best!











You see when I read the Psalms I do read about the blessings, the victories, the wonderful deliverance of the Lord. Yet I also read of David crying out in Psalm 22, "My God, why have you forsaken me. and in verse 14 "I am poured out like water, and all my bones are out of joint. My heart has turned to wax; it has melted away within me".

I think we need to learn a lesson here. Yes, its great to tell of all the blessings that are ours every day of the week. Paul exhorts us to rejoice, and says again, to rejoice.Yet let us be real and honest too when things are not so great.

He pleaded with God three times to remove the thorn in the flesh, and God said NO!
There are going to be times in our lives when God says No to us too.
How are we going to handle this if all we ever hear about God from others are the wonderful answers to prayer they have received.
Lets not be afraid of bad news.



Habbakuk could say " Though the fig-tree does not bud and there are no grapes on the vines, though the olive crop fails and the fields produce no food, though there are no sheep in the pen and no cattle in the stalls, yet I will rejoice in the LORD, I will be joyful in God my Saviour".

How do we get there? Paul said that after God told him that although he wasn't going to get a yes to his prayer about that thorn, he would learn that God's grace is sufficent. That it is in a place of weakness that he would know strength.

I look forward to hearing someone sharing, "that this prayer hasn't been answered, that door is firmly closed, this healing just simply doesn't seem to be happening, but I am learning that when all this is apparantly going wrong Gods grace is constantly sufficent".

When all is going pear shaped lets have the courage to declare "Isn't God good!

Walking and Talking

The photo is not a pretty one I have to agree!

But let me explain. This year in January someone laid down a challenge. How about doing the Itex walk?

The Itex walk is an annual charity walk that takes place in June. It entails walking the whole perimeter paths of Guernsey in one day.
This includes 15 miles of cliffs at the start that have a total of 4200 steps incorporated in them. The walk is a total of 40 miles.

The walk starts at 04:30 and can be done in your own time with checkpoints along the way with refreshments and much needed encouragement.

It is not advised to take part unless some training has been put in, because of the conditions along the way.

So I accepted the challenge and spent many hours plodding the roads, in the dark, in the cold, in the rain, in gale force winds, early in the morning, after a day at work. You name it I walked in it!

By the end of May I was up to 100 miles a month! However I could never get beyond 15 miles because of cartilage problems and sore feet.

Yet the reason for the rough picture is, this was taken at the successful end of the Itex walk.

It took me 14 hours, on what was the hottest day of the year, and the last 7 miles were with severe blisters on the soles of my feet. But Hallelujah I did it!! Plus raised £500 for charity.

Why the reason for the post?
A couple of reasons.

Most of my training was done on my own so it gave loads of time to reflect, listen to my I-Pod, and let the Lord do some talking without to many distractions. It reminds me that God's favourite time with Adam in the Garden of Eden was walking and talking.

You never know what you can do unless you try.

When you think you have reached the end of your resources God kicks in with His.

I have a couple of other things to share on perhaps some future posts, about the lessons the Lord has been teaching me while I have been walking with Him.

So watch this space, and please don't think I always look like this, I had just walked 40 miles!!

You've got a nerve!

Strange day today.

It started in the local Accident and Emergency department!!

I've been troubled these last two weeks with a trapped nerve in my neck and shoulders and have been having treatment for it.
Last night in bed things took a very sudden turn for the worse. My whole neck went into excruciating spasm that had no relief throughout the night.

Hense my visit to A&E this morning.

The doctor gave me a short dose of valium to endeavour to relax the area. Within an hour my eyes wanted to close and the edge was taken off the intense pain.
It has indeed been a day of rest!

Yet in the midst of the pain in the middle of the night, what a comfort to be able to say "Thank you Lord that even though I am in agony you are still in control, and you promise to turn even this to my good".

Rubbish

This is the subject that seems to be occuppying more inches of print in our Guernsey Press that any other at the moment.
We live in a wonderful island. It has outstanding beauty almost everywhere you look.
The trouble is that where there are people there is rubbish!
Also what compounds the problem is that it is a small island with only limited options to deal with it.

• Concern is raised that the only existing landfill site is filling rapidly and will soon be closed for business.
  
• The possibility of incineration has been ruled out as too expensive,
  
• and the option of exporting our waste to nearby France was recently thrown out by our local government.

The problem however is not going to go away.

I too had a whole lot of rubbish that needed getting rid of. The Bible calls it sin.

The trouble was similar to Guenrsey's, I couldn't bury it because I was already full of rubbish.
I couldn't export it and make it someone else's problem - nobody wanted it.

Thank God that Jesus was prepared to come up with a solution. He said "Give me all your rubbish, and I'll deal with it.

Not only did He want my rubbish, but He wanted to exchange it for something so much better.

We used to sing a song that went:-
He gave me beauty for ashes
The oil of joy for mourning
A garment of praise for a spirit of heaviness
That we might be trees of righteousness
The planting of the Lord
That He might be glorified
Now that's what I call a solution to the rubbish problem!