IT IS ALL MY WIFES FAULT!!!!!!

It's been an interesting few weeks on a personal level. The funeral of an old school friend who died very quickly from Cancer, shook me harder than i cared to admit and bought home my mortality to myself in a very real way. Did a wedding blessing that caused me a whole heap of trouble from certain quarters, some i expected others i didn't but i would do the same in a Pastoral sense again (so that means bye bye for some of you) The house move seems to have hit a brick wall (pun intended) so we a started running with our back up plan, only to have another viewing take place this week AAAAAARRRRRRRRRRRRRGGGGGGGGGHHHHH will do for now.

But through all of this i have learnt something important. My time frame and Gods time frame are different, i can only see the end of my nose with a mirror or by going cross eyed ( not a good look) God sees the whole picture from my side, while walking with me. So why do i do this when i know God is in control? in my life i have heard God at times as audibly as i here Judas Priest playing in the background now. What's different today? It's my wife's fault, it's all her and nothing to do with me. You see when i was single hearing the voice of God only affected me, it only mattered to me or the situation i was in. Now i have to take account of the woman i love, but more importantly her spiritual walk as well, i'm no longer just me, we are one flesh, one mind and one body and walk together in God. This for me is a massive learning curve, having to listen to the other side of my life, listening to the person who probably knows me best, and it's not the same as discussing it down the pub with your mates over a beer.

My walk with God is my responsibility, i'm responsible for how i act, what i do, who i offend, who i make happy. But the other side of that coin is i'm not an island i'm married and need to think about how my wife feels about something, do i miss the old days? you better believe it. Would i go back to them? NOT A CHANCE IN HELL.

It's important to have that spiritual connection with your significant other, Paul says " do not be unequally yoked" there is a good reason why that is. If God tells you to sell up and move to where ever, you both need to agree on it, you can't fly solo with a significant other in tow. There are 3 significant people involved in our marriage God, my wife, and me. Thats the way it needs to be,
like i said the last few weeks has taught me a great deal, i have seen things differently, i have lost friends because they do not agree with me, and that actually hurts. It's easy to say "well they were not real friends" and that is a cop out. My relationships with these people actually took time and effort to build they should be more important than a disagreement over nothing, but hey ho thats the way it goes.

Bless ya people may God show you something new each and everyday, and if he is not ask him where you need to be looking for that something new.

The world of illegal dogfighting!!

There is a very frightening trend going on in Christianity at present, and it probably poses a bigger threat than anything the devil could throw at us. I'm not a naive person, been around the bloke far too many times to be that way, and i know these things have always gone on, they have always happened. So is today, now any different? Yes it is, because we no longer live in a big world, due to technology we live in and on a very small planet, and that causes us problems. Because despite the good an online community or forum can do, it can and does cause a lot of damage. This week i left a forum i belonged to because to be honest on a personal level i see little of Christ in it, and a lot of humanity and not in a good way. The week stated badly when i received an email from a minister who said that because i used the wrong word in an argument the perception was " you could be seen as ill-educated" i never replied to it because in all honesty there was little point in doing so, i maybe ill-educated (tho i'm not) i speak from the heart and hope it hits home which is what we all do at some point, i just tend to live my life that way.

So what is this big threat? DIVISION it's happening more and more and getting worse. It's either one or the other in the USA you are either a conservative Christian or a Liberal Christian, in the UK it's traditional evangelical or a Liberal and never the twain shall meet. This is not just about politics, it's also about how you believe in the Bible and the God of the Bible. So we have people from the evangelical wing being less than Godly and not seeing that they are, we have Liberals being less than Godly and denying they are. Justification of the rants take many forms, " Oh it's just a robust debate, we have learnt so much since the Bible was written, in the 21st century there is no place for the supernatural it's not scientific enough" all these things could be seen as true depending on where you are coming from.

This then flows into a massive argument and a point scoring exercise and eventually turns to bullying. Of course none of those involved would class themselves as bullies, but there actions are little, if no different than the kid who steals the lunch money of a younger kid in the playground. This gets played out on the world wide web where people can look in, people who are not Christians look in and see believers in Christ acting like jerks, and being less than Godly and we all think we are right. This brings us onto the other problem that comes with division "the need to be right and have the last word" we have to be seen to get the last word in, heaven forbid that someone could make a valid argument and we may have to shut up and concede. We are meant to be a body of believers, followers of the one true God, if our bodies reacted like some of us do today we would be in hospital on life support because our vital organs would not be functioning. There comes a time when we have to stop the petty mindedness, stop the one upmanship and look differently and just SHUT UP before we do more damage.

On that note i'm going to shut up.

Peace

Andy