Musings of the Heart (Scarlet Thread)

I am fully aware that when I see things that force a response in my heart, it is most probably likely that the "problem" lays 100% with me. So it is from this position that I write. I know that when I identify things in people's lives that I self righteously identify as sinful and worthy of judgement, it is usually as a result of significant pride in my heart, that either is blinding to the fact that sin is greater in my life, or that I have moved from remembering the grace on which I stand. If I start finding fault with people, and I start speaking judgement… I have often had to repent upon realising that the sin lies in my life…
I have been wrestling through a 'lack of peace' with a few things… and the fact that I realise the root of the issue is most probably in my life has really burdened me. I just have a lot on my heart at the moment and feel a bit trapped. The reason I feel so trapped is that I really cannot share it in many contexts since I would hate it to cause division and confusion.
I am really struggling with church and Christianity and my expression of church. I love God, and realize my salvation is based on Jesus' complete work on the Cross. I am not pointing fingers at a specific church. I love and respect my leaders, and acknowledge the massive selfless sacrifice people have made to contribute and build into my life. I have always been committed to the family God has me in, and committed to the vision God has for my family.
I lost my peace a couple months back. I had started regularly attending the intercession sessions on Tuesdays and Friday morning. It was during this time that the warning light came on in my spirit and my peace flew out the window.
In the UK they have any number of Television Channels with Séances and Astrologists and Illusionists. I obviously don't watch them, but have on occasion while channel flipping come across these channels where I have seen 'Séances' who prey on audiences. They usually have an Audience of a couple hundred, and the 'Mind reader' or 'Séance' who will stand in front of a live audience , and say things like... "I think, I feel there may be a woman, but it may be a man, who is sitting in that part of the audience. (PAUSE) but no, it may not be there, I feel it may be over here on the right. A woman, or maybe a man who has recently lost a man. Yes that's it, I think you have recently lost a male figure in the past while, or in the past but it is still seems like it was recent. Yes, you lost your husband,  or maybe your son.. it may be a boy or a child." I don't watch the stuff, but in the short exposure to it I realised the obvious superstition attached to it. I also recognised the potential for the occultism, but also that the Séance was manipulating responses and reading body language and at the end of the process eventually found someone who had recently lost a husband or a son or even their dog. I know how possible it is to manipulate people by eliciting an emotional response. We are usually unable to think with rational clarity if we are emotionally engaged. That's why all these Scam Emails work. You switch on someone's 'greed' switch, and they let down their defence to believe that they really do stand to receive millions of dollars from some deceased president in a distant country.
It was during these sessions that my 'warning switch' was flipped. I lost my peace. I have to admit that it was not instantaneous. I cannot say that one person prayed one thing caused me concern. All the prayers were biblically sound intercession from pure hearts. But it was during the intercession, that I realised that the sense of disquiet I felt was exactly the same as what I had in watching the Séance on the television channel. Over those couple weeks I listened to my family members in intercession share things they had 'seen'... things that they 'felt' God was 'saying'. I really sensed that I was seeing a spirit of superstition at work.
This is where it becomes difficult, I have just thrown a stone at the Church … and I don't mean a specific church, I mean the Bride… and I spent the next weeks repenting for my pride and arrogance that I could question people's motives. So I looked inside myself and questioned how many times I have 'manipulated in prayer'. I know how to press the right buttons. I can bring a man to tears by praying about 'sonship', or about ' God's purpose and destiny and promise'… all good things… but when wielded manipulatively in a self promoting fashion… it was pure witchcraft. I had to repent of praying 'emotionally' for people in the past. My heart has been to bless and see people established… but if I am honest I have prayed manipulatively upon more than one occasion in the past, in order to establish myself in the eyes of others.
I believe with all my heart that God speaks to His children. I have no doubt that God desires to speak to His church and through His church. I believe I have 'heard' God guiding me clearly and specifically through His Word, and by the gentle 'nudging' of my heart, and even through visions. I have testimonies of how God has used Words of Wisdom to powerfully bring about change in lives. During one service, I believed the Holy Spirit was showing me a picture of a girl in a wedding gown who had been raped. Her wedding garments were torn and tattered, and she was soiled. I shared it, and when I called the pastor the next day to repent and say I am sorry for sharing such a crazy thing in Church, he told me not to worry that a girl had responded and God had ministered powerful restoration to this girl who had seen her chances of future marriage and intimacy destroyed by the abuse she suffered. A girl came up to me two years later and thanked me and told me that she was the girl who responded. So yes, I do believe in God speaking now, himself, and through his children, and through normal family members, and through prophets, and through nature… and yes even in intercession in pictures.
But, I came to a realisation that what I was seeing and discerning what not the 'voice of God'. I sensed that I was seeing in the intercession and intercessors the same 'superstition' I had seen in the audience of the Séance programme. I see so much superstition in the Church. I feel like a member in the audience of séance show, with people prophesying and seeing figments of their imagination and proclaiming it to be the word and the will of God... I see superstition and manipulation in prayer...And before you feel I am judging people.... I point my finger at myself! I am the worst of this counterfeit....
I had someone pray for me in February and He said... 'I feel God showing me a pen'. I thanked him and blessed him. In the same breathe it caused me concern. When I read God's Word, He speaks eloquently with awesome prose/poetry... He speaks so clearly to Adam, to Eve, to the Serpent, Noah, Abraham, Jacob, Laban and Joseph ... and that is only in Genesis... When God speaks in images to Jeremiah it is an incredible clear and distinct communication…its beautiful poetry:-
"The word of the LORD came to me, saying, "Before I formed you in the womb I knew you,before you were born I set you apart;I appointed you as a prophet to the nations.""Ah, Sovereign LORD," I said, "I do not know how to speak; I am only a child."But the LORD said to me, "Do not say, 'I am only a child.' You must go to everyone I send you to and say whatever I command you. 8 Do not be afraid of them, for I am with you and will rescue you," declares the LORD.Then the LORD reached out his hand and touched my mouth and said to me, "Now, I have put my words in your mouth. 10 See, today I appoint you over nations and kingdoms to uproot and tear down, to destroy and overthrow, to build and to plant."The word of the LORD came to me: "What do you see, Jeremiah?" "I see the branch of an almond tree," I replied.The LORD said to me, "You have seen correctly, for I am watching to see that my word is fulfilled."The word of the LORD came to me again: "What do you see?" "I see a boiling pot, tilting away from the north," I answered.The LORD said to me, "From the north disaster will be poured out on all who live in the land. 15 I am about to summon all the peoples of the northern kingdoms," declares the LORD. "Their kings will come and set up their thrones in the entrance of the gates of Jerusalem; they will come against all her surrounding walls and against all the towns of Judah. etc etc etc"

I am not pointing fingers at the intercessors, or at the pastors or at the church.... I know that if there is a problem with the church, it means there is a problem with ME... because I am the church... And it is likely that my rebellion and pride filled heart needs to cry out to God for mercy.
If God speaks today, and I believe He does, when was the last time I heard him speak with the poetry of His conversation with Job:-
" Would you indeed annul My judgment? Would you condemn Me that you may be justified?Have you an arm like God?Or can you thunder with a voice like His?Then adorn yourself with majesty and splendor, And array yourself with glory and beauty.Disperse the rage of your wrath;Look on everyone who is proud, and humble him.Look on everyone who is proud, and bring him low; Tread down the wicked in their place.Hide them in the dust together,Bind their faces in hidden darkness.Then I will also confess to you That your own right hand can save you."Look now at the behemoth,which I made along with you;He eats grass like an ox.See now, his strength is in his hips, And his power is in his stomach muscles.He moves his tail like a cedar;The sinews of his thighs are tightly knit.His bones are like beams of bronze,His ribs like bars of iron.He is the first of the ways of God;Only He who made him can bring near His sword.Surely the mountains yield food for him,And all the beasts of the field play there. etc etc"

If God speaks today, and I believe He does, when was the last time I heard him speak with the specific clarity of His instruction to Peter:-
"...go to the lake and throw out your line. Take the first fish you catch; open its mouth and you will find a four-drachma coin..."
I feel that the Donkey who had its mouth opened by God to rebuke Balaam was more eloquent than what I am seeing and experiencing at the moment.

Where am I going with this.... I know God speaks to His children, I am concerned by what I am seeing and am part of...What I discern to be false prophesy and testimony...I also realize that I don't want to swing the other way of "Thus Sayeth the Lord"... because much of what I have seen of that from American 'prophets' who have been prophesy such conflicting things that anyone trying to discern the voice of god from them would be even more confused.

I cannot judge... but I desire to 'hear' my God like He intends His children to hear him...I don't want anything to do with superstitious false testimony... and I am concerned. I don't want to sow confusion or bring division, or cause people to stumble. I am aware that in life when I start finding fault with others, I need to very quickly turn my fault finding inwards, and repent, because I invariably find that my attitude is rooted in pride and rebellion etc. Here is the second point that is crucial to my understanding of where I am at. DESPITE REALISING THE PROBLEM MOST PROBABLY LIES WITH MYSELF, I HAVE TO BE AWARE THAT WHEN MY PEACE LEAVES ME, IT MAY WHEN BE FOR A VERY SOLID REASON THAT I SHOULD INVESTIGATE AND NOT IGNORE.

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Musings of the heart (Secret Garden)

I love my church family. It has been a difficult year for me, but I point to my own inability to adapt to change… but despite this I love my family. I love the members. I love the guys in Intercession who sacrifice so much of their time to sow seeds for the future life of the church. So please hear my heart. This is not an attack against a specific church family. I realise that to share what is on my heart openly in any other context will cause people to be defensive, or cause huge offence, or sow massive seeds of confusion. I have instead wrestled through this in an attempt to come to a place of repentance myself so that I can resolve this without this process hurting my family.
There is something else that I need to repent of. At the same time as my warning light was flipped that weekend I starting thinking over my walk with God and the 'Expression of Church' I am part of. I have been in church since I was born, and gave my life to the Lord as a young boy. As a family we regularly attended Church and my Mom and Dad walked lives really worthy of praise in the way they brought us up to love God. Despite this I remember hating being dragged to church each week. I had to sit and listening to hour long sermons week after week for the past years and years. I realised that apart from a couple years of rebellion, I have been listening to teaching and sermons week in and week out for 32 years. I have suddenly become incredibly bored!  I LOVE HEARING GOD's WORD FOR 'NOW'. I love sitting under the teaching of someone who has waited on God for a Word , and then speaks something that is timeous and has impact... I love the freshness of God's Word when I directly see lives (mine included) changed by God's clear and specific Word for a church. And don't get me wrong, I realise the need to teach the basics. But I suddenly found myself spending an hour of sermon repenting for my boredom and judgemental heart and rebellion while I sat listening to 'lectures' rather than the Holy Spirit bring the Word to life. I had to repent, because my heart was rebellious The sermons felt like lectures, and I didn't sense them as God's Word for now to be honest they were simply Bible School lectures on Demons put into sermon format. I spent much of the service repenting of the rebellion in my heart. Then I really felt shattered by my sinful heart when 3 people recommitted their lives after the sermon… I prayed that God would forgive me for my heart, and that if I had to sit through a lifetime of sermons to see people come to know Jesus, so be it, even if I became bored. The gift of life was far more precious than my desire to be entertained. So I feel terrible that I would entertain such judgemental thoughts again.
Despite making a choice to repent, I kept being reminded of how I sat through hours of church services as a child. It was a recipe that was followed week in and week out. We had the procession with a Hymn, and then we read through and prayed through the same Liturgy week after week...stood up, kneeled down, stood up, sat down, repeated the Lord's prayer, and the Nicene Creed... and then sat for the sermon... I lasted 12 years before I asked my parents if I could move to a new church. This was during the 80's and God's Spirit was being poured out on South Africa. I joined a local youth group and with my family and my Minster's blessing I moved churches to a place where I sensed the Holy Spirit and the Life of God in the Church. I remember how I suddenly felt alive! I was filled with the Holy Spirit so powerfully I was floored and was unable to walk properly for hours afterwards. God's Spirit burned through my body like a flame or pins and needles. We left that town, but I remember walking into a Godless School as seeing God minster powerfully through 3 of us who were on 15 years old. We went from 3 people praying and fasting in the forests of Nelspruit over the weekends to 5 people who used to wake up in the mornings at go and pray over the school to God to large prayer groups that filled classrooms crying out to God for salvation for our school. I loved God, I knew God, I knew Holy Spirit, I had courageous faith. We would lay hands on the sick and see them healed. It seemed our faith was unstoppable.
I have to admit that I feel the same boredem now as what I did sitting in the little Church in my youth week after week after week. I sense emotionalism in worship, I see and sense that we have glorified worship and music production above God. I keep wanting to cry out what was in Matt Reddman's heart when I was 19 years old " When the music fades, and all is stripped away…"
I am NOT HAVING A GO AT A SPECIFIC CHURCH… please hear my heart. I have really struggling and battling with my expression of Church and the Expression of Church I am part of.
I feel like I am back in a service in Church in the town I grew up in where I am worshiping by following a liturgy that I have learnt off by heart, but that has lost its relevance and its power. Having said that, that church is now filled with life, and God is moving powerfully in that church and through that church in that town.
In 1998 when I was part of a missions organisation, I became so aware that the organisation I was part of was sick. The organisation had received incredible mandate from God during the Jesus movement of the 1960's. But then in 1998 it was still applying God's plan for 1969 and I sensed that God had moved on. Missions were never meant to be carried out by a central institution like the one I was part of. God intended the local church to reach out. But in the 60's there were thousands of hippie youth joining the church who needed discipling and needed outlet to share their faith worldwide… this organisation is now hurting more than helping. I have had to minister to at least three young people who have become deceived during their time working for that organisation, and was even asked by a family to go and try and convince a young 18 year girl to go home to her family after she ran away to this institution and rebelled against her family who love and honour and serve God. In London I had first hand experience of the Salvation Army. William Booth was sent by God to minister powerfully to the East End of London… these days they have huge administration buildings with Charity Stores, and are working as a 1st World Charity with massive overheads. They have lost their relevance. God has moved on… The salvation army in stuck in the past.
I feel as if I am stuck in an expression of Church globally, who follow a meaningless routine week in and week out, because it worked once... I give no freedom for the Holy Spirit to change lives... and when I do, I allow the same superstitious drivel I spoke of earlier. Sometimes someone will bring an awesome word that is straight from the heart of God. At other times I have heard the people share a prophecy or a Word, and sensed that the person feels the need to fill the silence with a random scripture that bears no real fruit in the life of the church. I really feel like I am sitting through a traditional church service looking out the window... counting the minutes till I can get out of the building and do real life with real people. I long for the time I was 15 years old. Holy Spirit was the air I breathed, ie I sensed God's presence with me tangibly and saw Him change my life and other's day in and out. I read Acts, believed that was how church was supposed to be, and we simply took it for granted and lived Acts. Now I am walking in superstition and manipulating people for the advancement of self, or simply in deception.
 
I experience the same thing in churches all over... we (I) have lost our (my) first love, and have settled for the same trap of the orthodox churches of trying to revert to Liturgy... to Church in a Box.
I cannot live in this desert anymore. Something needs to change. I AM FULLY AWARE MY LIFE HAS TO BE THE FIRST TO CHANGE. THE PROBLEM LIES WITH ME…NO ONE ELSE.
I want to hear God's voice as Moses did, I want to be part of the Church that Jesus started one in which there is love and genuine relationship. In my quiet time on Wednesday I realised that everything I do, needs to be out of 1. relationship with God, and 2. in relationship with others.
I am seeing a church who have a limited understanding of salvation. People who hold onto the 'baby Jesus lives in my heart' philosophy. In short, I don't think I can buy into the expression of the Church that I am now part of... I do not feel I can covenant myself to it.
 I agree strongly with the view that we need to eat our vegetables at the same table we eat our dessert and meat… ie I realise that I cant just look to be entertained… and as part of a family it sometimes means sitting at the table eating broccoli because it is good for you. But I have to respond to my lack of peace and ask God… Am I in the right place? Do you want me to consider my options in terms of church? I need God to answer the concerns on my heart about the Expression of Church.
"Father, please forgive me for any pride or rebellion in my heart. Please will you correct and discipline me Lord. I really desire to be in your will, and not act according to my own will, but walk according to both your will and your purpose for me in the season you have me in now."

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Brick Walls

Spent a frustrating hour trying to have an objective discussion about Land Reform. I again realised that unless we can agree in every South African's right to life, dignity& opportunity...it is a futile discussion that will not mature beyond the prejudiced perceptions and narrow-minded generalisations.
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Tantrums in the Candy Aisle

In the movie City Slickers, the character Mitch Robbins bemoans "Have you ever had that feeling that this is the best I'm ever gonna do, this is the best I'm ever gonna feel... and it ain't that great?" This observation has often struck a tender cord in my experience of life. How often have I asked myself "is this the best I will ever be, the fastest I will ever run, the furthest I will ever jump?" Like a spoilt child throwing a tantrum in the candy aisle, I demand my share of this world, I shout at the heavens, I tally the journal entries in life's ledger, and cross check against my peers.

Those I have mentored buy supercars and waterside apartments. Those I have partnered with buy island resorts and golf courses. And as I audit my life, I experience a sense of lack. I grieve my lack and loss relative to their excess.

During periods of review this realisation has ignited many new endeavours to establish my virility, creativity, and youthfulness as result of the accounting of regret when the finals totals are tallied. Despite perfect health, a world class education, a top 2%paycheck, caring friends and a loving family; I regularly lament my lack, and bemoan my insignificance in the light of comparison with my wealthy and 'happier' peers.

How can any man who has a roof over his head, who eats 3times the Recommend Daily Allowance of Calories, who drinks imported coffee from organic cardboard cups, who takes 4weeks vacation a year on private yachts, who travels the world and who owns too many clothes to fit into his wardrobes; bemoan his lack?

My annual coffee bill is greater than millions of families' annual food bill. I own three pairs of designer sunglasses...three pairs of sunglasses that are worth more than the value of a human life in the world war zones.

I have travelled the world, made my first million, lost my first million, made my second million and spent that second million. I have fallen in, experienced rejection in, and rejected someone in love. I have experienced loss, experienced life, and even attempted to take my own life. I have celebrated and mourned, laughed and cried, danced and limped. I have kissed a lover, used a lover and abused a lover's trust. I have deceived a friend, lied to my family, dodged the taxman, and stolen while no one was watching. I have faced death in the face of Ak47's and enjoyed relief on my freedom. I have defended the vulnerable, fought for the freedom of the downtrodden, and exposed racist's prejudice. I have never missed a meal !

In the face of this excess of life I bathe in, both good and bad, I am forced again to ask "Is the best I'm ever going to do, the best I'll ever feel, the best I will ever be, the fastest I will ever run, the furthest I will ever jump? If it is ... and "It ain't that great!"

I remain the spoilt child throwing tantrums in the candy aisle!
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ταυτότητα

Searching for identity : Ψάχνοντας για την ταυτότητα

Young love lost

"He can run, but he can't hide." Joe Louis (1914-1981)

I find life tensioned between a rock and a hard place;between a rock and a heart break... Do I chose to live in the heartland of prejudice, or move to the precinct of the memory of heartbreak. After a year of butting heads with narrow minded right-wingers who are unable to loosen their grip on their corrupt ideology, I have given up trying to convert the stubborn to a philosophy of respect for his neighbour apart from skin colour.

A man needs a place of peace to lay his head albeit it a long journey home at the end of his day. But by choosing to move to a neighbourhood more embracing of every mans right to life and opportunity, I find myself choosing to lay my head on a bed of thorns; remnant of the once blossoming roses of young love that is now bereft of life and thus to subject my heart to the suffocating distress and agony of seeing the one I loved in another man's caress.

I will convince myself that I suffer for a greater cause, this small deception surely not a crime in its innocent mask of the folly of young love lost.

Accessory to Crime

Arguing a secular Israel's "God given right" to an illegally occupied 'promised land' at the human cost of Palestinian's basic right to life, cannot be morally justified on ANY level. Failure to challenge this Apartheid by reasonable individuals is paramount to being an accessory to murder. An armed struggle by Apartheid victims is surely justifiable?

Stale Cheques and Spinster Morality

Einstein is supposed to have said (paraphrased) that we should try not to become men of success, but rather to become men of value. It appears that I may have been barking up the wrong 'ambitional' tree!

In my short life I have changed course numerous times on account of the revelation of Einstein's sentiment. Four years have passed since I resigned a directorship, and walked away from a lucrative business contract that had expended years of establishing ground work, for the satisfaction of the desire to uphold the core value of the 'striving for integrity.' Two years later I walked away from a 98th percentile remuneration package at a London firm to pursue a core ideal of pouring out my life in the service of humanity rather than selfish materialism. Despite the apparent altruism, it never takes long for my keel to cut the path of least resistance to my nature of greed and self-centredness. Two years on I find myself again pursuing the upper tiers of maslovian utalitarianism and self actualisation, while others shred their bloodied fingernails as they attempt to claw their suffering families out of lives of poverty.

"Try not to become a man of success but rather to become a man of value." Is it becoming too late to cash this cheque?

Where did it all go wrong?

The couch philosopher arrogantly proclaims insight into the failing and flaws of individuals, corporations, politicians, governments and God. Yes, despite my piety, I secretly harbour criticism even for God. How often I look at the failings of society and blame it on God. Is God to blame for poverty? Is God enjoying popcorn and soda in a premium cinema seat while viewing in 30x60ft the misery and pain of man? Those who have reasoned God out of the equation must surely sleep blissfully.

The theologian's brainwashing of decades of Sundays screams in my consciousness that "God is good!" Should I blame the devil for the baby choking on its vomit. Is it diabolical that a young mother discovers the tentacles of death growing in her breast. Is the pulpit correct that man bears the responsibility of his own evil? I wrestle with my morality everyday. Does the 7year old naked boy at the traffic lights, begging for bread, bare the righteous judgement of a kind God, or the deserved penance of his own sinfulness? Only the self-righteous could possible consider the inner aside that this forgotten and forsaken child should 'Just get a job!" I struggle, in secret, to reconcile a loving God to the inner vortex of emotions a woman must feel the first time she sells her dignity to feed an addiction which left her letter choice.

I bare the scars of consequence and the cloak of shame for decisions made for me, and pathways chosen by me in the diminished candlelight of youthful insight. Yet, I will not blame God, nor man...but myself alone! My faith remains, albeit challenged.

Revision births direction!

At a point in man's history he has to journey backwards in order to make forward progress. To journey without review is to crawl blind to the scouring that shapes a man. Am I what I am because of yesterday's kiss on the lips of my identity?