My Days - the 4th one and others...

It's on the radio and in my devotional today - about the importance of understanding - whether its the meaning of instruction or the presence of God in your life, His word or the purpose he has for you - and the pressing in to achieve these things.

It was the firsty time I'd been asked to lead ...I was expecting to just keep someone company in our service.........I wasn't ready or prepared - just had my guitar - and was fearful for all the wrong reasons - just started to strum a few really muffled chords when my Pastor appears from stage left - jumps out and starts to strike up the tunes on the piano.....

After the music, I said to myself " thank you for digging me out of that hole !!!" - Little did I realise that my Pastor had just come from a funeral !!

This is Dunns River Falls in Jamaica - March 03 - why I'm showing this.....

Today has been a bit of a trial - well at least soem of the main events for me. I'm not sure whether it was today or during my rebuilding of my computer, but somewhere along the line, I seem to have deleted some of my song files that I've been working on over the last couple of years - infact my entiure working directory has gone somewhere - as a former IT expert, I 'm taking this rather personally - I'm not supposed to fall at this fence - this kind of stuff is my bread and butter so what's going on eh? There was at leat two or threee signs that the drive was going to fail and for some reason, I've decided to copy my stuff from a known safe place to this dodgy drive and the rest is pretty predictable...The whole sorry situation was topped off by me losing all the wife's stuff as well - photos, documents artwork the lot...
After some hair pulling and some "why me" moments, a desire for calmness was met by the reality of the LOrd knowing all things and having a purpose even for this - admittedly a difficult thing to get to grips with but I managed - I hadn't rebooted at this point and it was all that was left to do - once I'd done this there was no going back ( some people have the cash to go to data recovery services - I dont !! )so the machine stasrts itself up again then it starts to check errors on this shonky drive - I nearly shut it down because it was taking so long but in the end ( about an hour later )th "my documents" folder popped up on this drive - alas no music but all wifeys stuff at least. When she got home, I told her about the machine etc - she said she had been given a word for me that I should be doing more writing and maybe this loss of my music was to allow me to produce more written work !! One way of looking at it I suppose - I am thankful that God didn't leave me in the land of High Anxiety - I'm so grateful to my wife for passing that message on - even if my heart and mind hadn't engaged with the value of this alternate perpective....still got lots of backing up to do and shunting of data - the sidetracks are coming thick and fast - I'm trying harder to tell,write etc...
Amen and Amen

Another week goes whizzing by - The re - union of our # 7 Tres Dias was on Saturday - well attended - not as squeamish as I thought it would be - howevewr, I was a bit mad at my self for not brining my cross or guitar to the place - These thing are supposed to be part of me. Its like when you break something given to you accidently and the person who gave it to you says " dont you care ? " or something like that. Not to make you feel bad - but it does - and you do !! It's easy to say it's trhe enemy or the Devil that interfered with your best intentions and politically right on to acceet it as an opportunity to learn "next" time - but at this time I struggle to keep my cool so I need the help of The Lord to get me through so I dont make myself forgetful and not feeling ( this must be the kind of feeling they call eating yourself up!! ) I'm still wanting to sort out my computer still shouting at the cat, still wanting to know more of Jesus instead of knowing about Him ( that was the topic of discussion at Church today )

I'm celebrating the choice of our Muisc director to finish today's morning service with a song I sourced for Him - There's musicalns much better than me involved in the praise team - but if you communicate a feeling to someone then percieve a reply in a way that suggests acceptance and approval it's become more than what it was. I thank God for a choice made and "cuircit" completed

Amen

I've just lost my cool because I previewed my epic entry and it's just disappeared - I 've got to go sleep now - I'm so tired and a bit unsure how to regard this event - maybe I was writing out of turn and saying something I might regret, who knows ......I'm just gutted with machines, theif of all kinds and flesh.....Lord forgive me and have mercy on your tools and mine

Amen

You need sunshine AND rain to make a rainbow - sometimes, you need a bad day to know what a good day is. Sometimes you may need to see someone's hurt to realise how blessed you are - sometimes when it's so qwuiet, God shouts at you and when a stranger says something that upsets you ( and makes your blood boil by being right up themselves in hypocresy) well even then you get a chance to see your self and ask the Lord for a portion of Grace and sweet mercy - to take away that bitter taste - and when he does you can be sated and rested. The Lord can only work on us if we let him so let him have his way and be in his arms always.

My Wife has one of those Suncatcher things - caught this bit really nicely I thought - Thank you God for wifes and sunny bits

I should have written about this one ages ago - One of the motifs of the Tres Dias is an eagle. Many years ago, when I found myself being a homeless teenager, I ended up staying in the house of my school music teacher, a very kind lady who had her own issues with the Lord but was trying, in her own round about way to get through and "be an overcomer". We used to stay up to silly hours of the morning having theological sparing bouts - this continued throughout most of our friendship. She lived in an area of London called Crystal Palace - there is a football team of the same name and thei logo is... an Eagle
At our prayer meeting last night, our Pastor had a story to tell about going all the way to Isreal to have the Lord have him meet up with a man who lived just round the corner from him at home - thew book our Pastor was reading at the time , which he'd acquired by a long winded method was wrriten by the same fellow - and he had'nt realised until he'd pulled it out to offer him as part of their "what are you doing now " - type conversation. The story had lots more to it - this is the jist of it.

There was alo a reminder of being aware of what we watch and allow to enter through the Gates of our souls (eyes) - Moral depravity
in films and on television is a topic that mean " you're a killjoy" to many people - my brother in Christ, Sean, put the point to observe quite consicely by saying " A glass of orange juice loses it's appeal once you know its laced with arsenic - you wont see it with your eyes but it's there and you know its there.

I apologise for the fragments that I offer - sometimes I read it back and it sounds OK sometimes that act will stop me writing what I feel ( or at leat that what I think ) so I just "try some"

God willing, I'll remember what it was I wanted to say with regard to Isreal, praying for and converting Jews and the video we saw.

Did that sponsored run today ( Lap for louie ) with the boy - He managed to do 3 1/2 laps of the 1370 metre lap by himself and got carried for the remaining 1 1/2 - not bad for a five year old. Louie's Mum might have a job for me doing some sporty stuff with kids in Stockwell of all places - the Lord will have to fill in some blanks on that one.

Later I took part in a street mission with members of my church in Norwood. They are a challenge but I see it as part of my obedience to the Lord - to spread the Gospel and "sow seeds". If the groud isnt ready for seed is not my look out - something I was made more aware of thoday so I'm thankful for that new knowledge. We didnt speak to many people today - but I dont think it's a competition in that sense - ended up walking for miles from where we should 've been - had to use one of my precious bus tickets on the way home - but as I got off the bus I looked down on the groud and found a valid travelcard!! which meant I could take the train home today - God IS good. Back in Clapham, I had a reality bite - beggars on the street - I saw one actually crying on the street. I didnt have the boldness to stop and engage him in coversation - I just gave him the change in my pocket and a tract from my bible case - it didnt stop his tears - I only pray he could read the tract before dismissing it - even if it's the last thing on the earth he can relate to. I just pray also to show more love when the time comes.

.. whilst trying to get out of the house , I got side tracked by the nedd to get on the computer and write this comment about guess what? "Getting out of the House" so whats my point ? The enemy's taken advantage of my weakness and got me stalling from witnessing to the real world so I'm herer trying to write all this arty stuff instead " what I said I would do " when I went to bed last night so plaes God forgive me, meet me and stay with me while I try to "Do a ting" Amen

The sponsored run for my sons school. The thing is that I haven't got any sponsors on my list - with little chance of getting many more on - I just have so much difficulty throwing myself at people with things like this - its an area of which I feel embarrassment of the highest order - Its not that I'm afraid of people I just can't or won't get over myself on these things and yet I can go with somne other strangers to knock on peoples doors, talk to strangers - which is what I'll be doing after the run - we'll be getting a pep talk first - if only I had the talk before the run... and if I had enough horse shoe nails.....

so many people have so many things tied up so so many other things with links, hyper this and sub - scripted that going everywhere and I WILL HAVE MY SHARE OF IT ALL ..... eventually

It's almost remimisant of The Fast Show where we had Paul Whitehouse saying everything was "brilliant" That's what it's like when the Lord lets you get hold of music sometimes ( some might say it's the enemy and they'd have a point!!! ) Some music just makes you want to lift up your hands and give all the thanks you can muster to the Almighty Creator, the name above all names. And yet somethign sweet sounding to me might give someone else migrane eh, or put them off their worship times , make them forget the words that are part and parcel of the experience. I will still thank God and pray the eneny 's dealt with by the stripes and in the power of his blood