God…

“You don’t believe in God do you?”

I admitted that I did.

Suddenly the whole table were doing (what was cruelly called) ‘spastic-impressions’ at me.

My heart sank.

It was my first day at Bourne Country Primary School in 1988 and I was ten. I was the new kid in school. My family had moved to Eastbourne in Sussex (and I really didn’t want to go). My dad was the new Vicar of the local Church.

 I might have only been ten but I knew I had committed social suicide at that school.

 I had only been at that school about ten minutes.

As I went through secondary school I did get a hard time about having a dad as a Vicar and for believing in God.

I remember asking once “why is believing in God so bad?” –the response was “’cos it’s gay!”- which really wasn’t what you’d call a compelling argument. Basically, people didn’t believe in God because it wasn’t cool to.

But whether or not something is cool or not doesn’t effect whether it is true or not.

Ironically with hindsight the people who telling me ‘Christianity wasn’t cool’ were also proudly showing off the lilac and luminous yellow shell suits!

But I must admit as I grew older I did wonder if I was simply a Christian because of the way I was brought up… Maybe I’d been brainwashed? But by that point it didn’t really matter anyway as to be honest although I believed God existed, I didn’t really have much to do with him! My belief in his existence didn’t really make much difference to my life! I was what theologians called an ‘egocentric isolationist!’ –I’m quite impressed that I could spell that!- basically meaning I believed God existed but would rather do my own thing than take any note of him.

All this came to a grinding halt when I was 19.

When I was 19 friend of mine called Sam died suddenly I remember walking along the beach in Eastbourne, the rain beating down violently and the waves roaring, whilst I shouted at God that ‘I did f***ing believe in him!’ 

Just think about that as a prayer for a minute… ‘I don’t f***ing believe in you!’ – Clearly I did believe in him otherwise I wouldn’t have been shouting at him!

For me I didn’t want God to exist because I was angry with him. Strangely if God didn’t exist then none of the things I was angry about could have been his fault

Was it Peter Pan where whenever someone said they didn’t believe in fairies one died? Maybe I was trying the same thing?

What I didn’t know was 6 months later I would be kneeling on the floor of a Church, with tears in my eyes, telling God that I wanted to live the rest of my life as his follower.

What about you?

I wonder how many people reading this don’t believe in God because they are hurting about life and want someone to blame? –Maybe that’s you?

Yet there might be other people that struggle with the whole philosophy about God’s existence… they may not have an axe to grind, they’re just unsure and exploring. Maybe that’s you?

Or maybe you are somewhere between the two, lots of questions, unsure of  whether or not God exists, but this question eats away at you… If this is you, I’d challenge you to pray this simple pray “God, if you are real, show me!”

I believe this prayer could change your life!

Truth… Can you handle it?

Tom Cruise: I want the truth…

Jack Nicholson:- You can’t handle the truth!

I love that film… I was thinking about truth but I’m running ahead of myself…

There is a saying ‘the truth hurts’. I was thinking but why does it hurt?

I guess we have all had an embarrassing moment when someone lets us down and blurts out something deeply personal that we had told them in confidence… most of us have that playground memory of a mate letting us down… Even the memory as I type this the memory triggers those old feelings of embarrassment and shame.

The shame and embarrassment of exposure (even for minor indescressions) proves that the truth really does hurt us.

Once someone I worked with laid into me in an unprovoked but really nasty personal attack, afterwards I challenged him about what he said and his excuse was ‘what I said about you was true!’

A couple of days later I saw Piers Morgan interviewing Simon Cowell; Piers Morgan challenged him about the way he talks to people on his T.V shows his excuse was exactly the same: ‘well I’m just telling the truth’. 

Words like ‘truthfully’, ‘honestly’ can be no more than a clever cloak for what is really simply bullying nastiness. Yet however many people tell us encouraging and up building truth it is those negative words that we seem to take more seriously and take deeper into ourselves and do more damage.

Truth (or a perception of the truth) can really hurt and damage us.

So the truth can hurt.

Sometimes we need to hear the truth… sometimes letting someone carry on and being deluded is as cruel as wollaping them with home truths.  I remember going our once and there was a girl on the dance floor with her skirt stuck in her knickers and her ‘friends’ were cruelly letting her dance away making a fool of herself.  Denying the truth can be as cruel as walloping someone with home truths.

The truth might hurt but so does the absence of truth. (And I could do a whole other blog about how lies can smash lives too).

It is interesting the power truth has, it can build people up or utterly destroy them heal or hurt. The same truth e.g. ‘you’ve got broccoli stuck in between your teeth’ and it may feel completely different. The WHO and HOW of truth are almost as important as the truth itself. One person may tell us the truth to save us from embarrassment whilst the other person might tell us the same truth to belittle us.

God’s honest truth:

The description of the Holy Spirit in John’s gospel as ‘the Holy Spirit of all truth’ or ‘the Spirit of Truth’ might make us feel uncomfortable. God is all knowing, he sees everything, he knows everything about us, and I do mean EVERYTHING!

He’s also Holy, in other words pure… so his standards are perfection again that makes me squirm a little in my seat knowing how unholy and unpure I am, how I even fail to meet my own low standards.

God’s Holy Spirit isn’t a Simon Cowell type bully that rips into us when we least expect it nor is he like the nasty colleague that gets a kick out of telling you things you don’t want to hear.

In the Bible there is a letter John wrote in which he describes God in just three words: ‘God is love’. So when the God of love is also the Spirit of all truth when have nothing to fear (in fact the Bible also tells us that perfect love casts out all fear!).

God is Holy and truthful, yet the Bible says, even though we mess up all the time, even though some of us have done some pretty bad stuff, God still loves each and everyone of us.

Jesus said: ‘No greater love has anyone that he gives his life for his friends’, our God put his money where is mouth is, showing his love for us when died on the cross.

‘Are you worth it’

God says: ‘You are worth dying for!’

…and as I said earlier, the Spirit of all truth isn’t going to be telling you a porkie!

The Holy Spirit reveals truth to us not to hurt us but to bring us healing, he wants to build us up rather than knock us down. Yet he loves us too much to keep us to keep us cruelly deluded like those girls did to their poor friend in that nightclub in Eastbourne.  

When I did a placement at theological college working with people with drug and alcohol dependency I sometimes winced at the directness of the therapists and yet saw that this revelation of truth brought freedom, healing, restoration and wholeness.

The Holy Spirit will reveal the areas of our life that are sinful but he also points us to Christ’s cross by which our sins can be wiped away and our consciences cleansed.

So the truth is I am not perfect, I mess up all the time… I am not holy and squeeky clean, when I pretend to be I might be able to fool myself (and other people) but not God!

Yet the truth is that ‘if we confess our sins, God is faithful and just and will forgive us all unrighteousness’. It is true I am a sinner! It is also true, that God has forgiven me, and remembers my sin no more! It is true I am a saint, a Holy one of God, because God’s love and generousity is greater than my sin!

 But there is more…

The Holy Spirit reveals to me, that I’m not God! I’m not master of my universe, I can’t add even another day to my life!

Yet he also reveals the liberating fact that I don’t have to be God, God’s God so we don’t have to be!

He (the Holy Spirit) will reveal our total dependence on Christ for everything, we might be able to add an extra five minutes to our life, but the gift of God is eternal life, through Jesus.

The truth is, I’m a bit of a looser, I can’t do life on my own, I need help!

Yet the truth is that we don’t have to go it alone, Jesus says he will never leave us or forsake us, not only that the Holy Spirit of all truth shows us that the God of love is total trustworthy and awesome faithful. As he shows us our weaknesses and failures he also shows us his goodness, grace mercy and kindness.

When he shows us our limitations he also reveals the mighty power of God.

Yet God will only send his Spirit of all truth into our lives if we are willing to engage with him.

The bible describes Jesus as knocking on the door of our lives waiting for us to respond and meet with him.

We can handle the truth if it comes from the God of love?

My story…

I’m a Christian… but I’m not a Christian because I’m English! –although some people really think that!

Some people think being a Christian is short hand for being a nice person… but there are lots of really nice people, that aren’t Christians!

I’m not a Christian but because I’m English, I wasn’t born one! I’m not a Christian because I think I’m a good person, to be honest I quite often disappoint myself!

In fact my dad’s a Vicar!

That still didn’t make me a Christian.

In fact now I’M A VICAR! (Still feels weird writing that!) Yet that still doesn’t make me a Christian!

Being a Christian is a choice I made… In fact it’s a choice I make every day!

First time I thought seriously about faith was when I was littler, maybe four or five… My dad was training to be a Vicar in London and we were at a very dull Church in Cockfosters (-When I tell school kids I say North London as they giggle too much at the word Cockfosters)!

Now we were sitting fairly near the front of Church, and I was looking up at this Vicar… now when you’re a kid everyone looks huge! He was also standing in one of those pulpits, and I was looking up at him, and could see straight up his nose… I was thinking, man, it looks like epping forest up there!

…he was also one of these people who spit when they talk, now sitting on the front row was really a bad place to be! I was thinking, wish I’d brought an umbrella –or a pair of welly’s!

He was talking about God, about judgement, about how we had all sinned, how we’d offended a Holy God… God was judge of all, King above all Kings, rar rar rar…

Anyway, my little knees were knocking together in the pew… I was pretty scared.

God sounded like some horrible headmaster that I was scared off.

You know when your little and you pull the covers over your head? Okay, so maybe that was just me?!

Anyway, I thought God was pretty scary… but as I said earlier my mum and dad are both Christians, they told me that Christians aren’t people who are scared of God but rather people who are friends of God.

In fact the whole story of the Bible is of a God who loves us and wants us to be in relationship with him… That’s the main message of Jesus, who lived, died and rose again so that I could have a relationship with God, so that you could have a relationship with God!

They want on to say that I could be friends with God, but needed to say sorry for the wrong things in my life, ask Jesus into my life, and live for him…

So I said a little sweet prayer, dear Lord Jesus, I’m sorry for the times I’ve been naughty, I want to be your friend, help me to live how you’d like me to, please come into my life, Amen.

Did okay, for bit, well, ish… anyway it really went down hill when I moved to Eastbourne, all went down hill when I fell for an older woman, I was 10 ½ and she was nearly eleven.  Her name was Sam. –Samantha-. Her dad was churchwarden where my dad was the Vicar.

You know when you’re a kid you go out with someone, but you don’t actually go anywhere!

Anyway, I moved to Eastbourne, and realised that the kind of life I wanted to live the kind of life God wanted me to live were two very different lives!

For a while I had a foot in both camps, don’t know maybe that’s where you are?

Half in… I guess I thought of God as a heavenly insurance policy, I said “the prayer” so I’d be okay if I got hit by a bus, but in terms of making a difference my every day life not really! I could talk the talk, all the gear but no idea, outwardly I looked alright but my heart wasn’t in it!

I’d pray if I thought I’d get a detention, I might read my bible if I found it on one of the rare occasions I tidyed up my room!

Anyway, when I was 19, I was coming out of the off licence and I met my friend Sam, she had gone proper off the rails… I used to think, I know I’m a bit bad but I’m not as bad as her!

Anyway, she was having a fag outside londis, now this offy overlooked my dad’s Church. Sam asked me if I still went along to Church.

I replied that I’d rather find out about God when I was 40 or 50 and settled down to be boring!  (How agest was I!)

But you know what that was the last time I ever spoke to Sam as she died a couple of weeks later… totally unexpectedly.

Now, I was used to people dying. I worked in a Nursing home, but Sam was my age, she was my friend, she did many of the things that I did…

It made me ask all those big questions again, what about life and death?

Or more personally…

What about my life?

What about my death? 

I wrestled with these questions for about six months, and on Easter day, I ended up in Church with a mate from work –I hadn’t meant to go, I sort of stumbled into it!-

Anyway this crazy vicar guy was talking about the prodigal son. A story Jesus told about a son who leaves home with a load of money from his dad and ends up skint working in a pigsty (luke 15).

Yet it felt as this story was my story.

I’d gone away from God.

I realised that was where I was. In the pig sty, in the poo!

I had a choice, stay where I was, or get up and no longer play at being a Christian, but do it properly.

I made the choice… I said to God, “You know how much I’ve messed it up, you know I’ve not been a good Christian… I really want to follow you and live your way for the rest of my life…”

You know what? As I prayed that prayer I felt such an awesome sense of God’s love, that he loved me, that God welcomed me back.

Which is exactly what happened in the prodigal son story… the father (whose meant to be representing God) saw his son (meant to be us) whilst he was a long way off –a familiar spec in the distance- and rushed to meet him threw his arms around him, kissed him and threw him a party!

That was a long time ago now! (I’m now 32!).

I’m not saying lifes been cushy since (as it hasn’t) but it is the best choice I have ever made!