A re-post from April 2008. One of my favourite quotes.
I've been reading a really interesting book by Donald Miller called 'Blue Like Jazz'. It's his own journey towards faith. Here's a great quote:
'I am early in my story, but I believe I will stretch out into eternity, and in heaven I will reflect upon these early days, these days when it seemed God was down a dirt road, walking towards me. Years ago He was a swinging speck in the distance; now He is close enough I can hear His singing. Soon I will see the lines on His face.'
How wonderful. May I always hear Him singing. And one day, too, I will be so close as to see the lines on His face.
The Psalms are the hymn book of the Bible. Full of worship and praise.
But also full of lament, crying out to God that His purposes would be
fulfilled. Psalms of lament comprise the largest category of psalms, making up
about one third of the entire book of Psalms - beautiful poems or hymns
expressing human struggles.
Last week at our Revival Prayer night, we experienced something really
special.
The couple leading worship that evening were from the Ukraine. Running
for their lives and having lost everything back in their home country, they have
been with us for some months now. That evening, Petruso was on bass and Nathalie
sang (names changed).
As Nathalie led in worship, we moved into singing in the Spirit.
And then. The most beautiful thing happened.
Nathalie began to sing of living through pain, of trusting in the hard
times. A God who is there in the most difficult of times, One to be worshipped
all the time, whatever we face.
We knew what Nathalie was singing about. Together we began to get caught
up in the worship – and the lament. Together we sang, together we cried out for
Ukraine. Together we thanked God for His protection, His love, His providence –
He will have the final say.
Such an awesome moment and one I haven’t quite experienced before,
despite over 50 years as a Christian.
And then there is such rejoicing in this revival too.
Eighteen people
were baptised in water last Sunday. Young and old. Different backgrounds and different
nations. Some from Sikh and Muslim families too. I’m sure I wasn’t the only one
losing his voice towards the end, such was the rejoicing.
The big idea is that if you release big business, allow for mammoth
wage rises for top executives and abandon tax disincentives, the nation thrives.
The success then ‘trickles down’ to benefit everyone.
Within the policy is an assumption that those at the top
will want to benefit those at the bottom, that they are keen to benefit the
nation, not just their bank accounts.
History shows that those in power rarely look beyond
themselves. For every philanthropic executive, there are twenty more intent on
securing their own seven figure salary and the
payments to their shareholders. Where’s the trickle down to the poor? It’s not
there.
Well done to Yvon Chouinard, the Founder of Patagonia clothing.
He’s putting the whole company into a trust and ensuring the plan to make
clothing from recycled plastic continues to have a future and that profits go
towards managing climate change. Not so well done to the COE of Manchester
Airports group who awarded himself a pay rise of 25% (£500,000) this year taking his total
remuneration to £2.5m.
The latter is far more common than the former. To assume the
rich are not greedy is to ignore the truth as reflected in the Bible: ‘Whoever
loves money never has enough; whoever loves wealth is never satisfied with
their income.’ (Ecclesiastes 5: 10)
The change of tack last week by our extreme right wing
thinking Government will mean the rich get richer and the poor get poorer.
I remember as a kid watching the Beatles sing ‘Hey Jude’ on
Top of the Pops. It was like nothing I’d heard before. And the audacity to keep
on singing at the end well beyond the usual three-minute pop song time limit.
I was taken aback again this week, watching (belatedly) The
Voice on ITV. Part way through, the audience cajole Tom Jones, one of the judges,
into singing. At 82 years old, he’s not lost his ability to sing. But it was his
choice of song that got me.
He lost his wife to cancer a few years ago. It was a
turbulent marriage on occasions, but one that lasted. A friendship that started
as 12-year-olds, they were married for nearly 60 years. As he began to sing,
the emotion in his voice was unusual. About someone being there for another,
but not crumbling if they fall. He explained at the end that it was about being
there for his wife, Linda, and promising her he would carry on after she had
gone. These were his words:
“My wife, you know, she was dying of lung cancer, so I said,
you know, I was always able to fix stuff, to do things if she needed me, I was
always there. She said, 'Don't crumble with me, don't fall now, you've done
everything you can, you must carry on and do what you do.’”
It’s hard to be there for someone close to you but see that
for once you can’t ‘fix stuff’. His response in song was poignant.
At the end, another of the judges, Anne-Marie, said it was
one of the best moments in her life. And it wasn’t TV hyperbole for a change.
Two major out-workings of revival in past centuries have
been repentance and salvation. There are many others including the work of the Holy
Spirit in a physical way and in exuberant worship, for example. And we have been
seeing plenty of that. But repentance
and salvation are pretty key to all revivals.
We are observing a new outworking of both of these at
Chroma.
Repentance was very much front and centre at our revival
prayer meeting a week or so back. People were called forward should they want
to repent of anything, praying with someone, and seeing it dealt with. The
queue went to the back of the room. My guess is these may have been small
issues, but in revival, small issues are big issues where it stops you knowing
a closeness to Christ.
And salvation. I guess we have seen close to 100 people
saved within the church this year, and many more than that on the streets
working with Mission24 and other groups.
