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I'm Engaged!

The good news with me is that I asked my wonderful girlfriend (now fiance) Joy to marry me and she said “yes!” It’s so great, I’m really enjoying being engaged and can’t wait to start planning a brilliant wedding and then getting to spend the rest of my life with Joy! One of the best parts of getting engaged has been phoning round lots of family and friends to tell them, lots of excited reactions. It’s also been fun referring to Joy as my fiance, makes me chuckle every time I say it!

Proverbs 5:15 says “Let your wife be a fountain of blessing for you”. Joy has already been a fountain of blessing to me and I know that fountain of blessing will continue to grow as God brings us closer together. I also have to try to be a fountain of blessing in Joy’s life, to love, encourage and strengthen her. What an exciting challenge that is!

Come as you are

I was at a meeting yesterday where I heard two friends, Maurice and Joyce McDonagh speaking on Mark 5:21-43. In this passage a local synagogue leader called Jairus comes to Jesus because his daughter is dying, he asks Jesus to come to his house and place his hands on her so she would live. As Jesus is heading for Jairus’ house, a woman who has been hemorraghing for 12 years sneaks through the crowd and touches Jesus clothes and she is immediately healed. Jesus, feeling healing power go out of him stops to find out who the woman is. The woman fell at Jesus feet and he says to her, “your faith has made you well, go in peace you have been healed.” By the time all this happens Jairus’ daughter is already dead. But Jesus still goes to the house brings her back to life.

Maurice and Joyce said many good things about this story but something they touched on that really spoke to me was how different the two approaches to Jesus were. One, Jairus, was a man of high standing, a leader in the synagogue. He had much to loose by going to Jesus, many of his fellow Jews particularly the Jewish leaders would not have approved of him going to Jesus. Of course he could have lost his daughter had he not gone to Jesus but he had a lot of other things to loose by going. It doesn’t say what happened to him after this, perhaps he lost his job. The other person, the hemorraghing woman had tried everything to stop her bleeding, spending everything she had on doctors bills and, it says, this only made her bleeding worse. She has nothing to loose by going to Jesus. But both had the common element of faith in Jesus. They both believed Jesus could and would heal.

In the modern day one of the people could be a respectable high flying stock broker with a fancy house and fancy car, the other an alcoholic who had lost their job and been disowned by their family. Both need the transforming healing power of Jesus which can be theirs if they just believe.

Jesus wants us to come to him as we are. We are all broken people in a broken world. Jesus wants us to come to him whether we have much to loose or nothing to loose. The most important thing is that we believe in Him and what he has done for us. No matter who you are or who you think you are, there is so much more to gain than to loose by asking Jesus into your heart. I love these two parables in Matthew (ch13:44-46) that point to how precious the salvation of Jesus is.

“The Kingdom of Heaven is like a treasure that a man discovered hidden in a field. In his excitement, he hid it again and sold everything he owned to get enough money to buy the field – and to get the treasure, too!

“Again, the Kingdom of Heaven is like a pearl merchant on the lookout for choice pearls. When he discovered a pearl of great value, he sold everything he owned and bought it!

I am thankful to Maurice and Joyce for this reminder of Jesus love for us and desire for an intimate relationship with each one of us.

Running

I have been inspired by a few people this week who have been running. My girlfriend Joy was in a relay team who ran the Belfast City Marathon between five of them. I’ve been doing some running with her in the build up and it’s been really good fun and a good and cheap way of keeping fit. I was struck by how psychological running is, you have to be mentally prepared to keep running even when your legs feel tired or you’re out of breath. A couple of other friends ran the entire marathon and to do that you really do have to believe you can keep going for 26 miles because you’re body will be telling you from an early stage you shouldn’t be doing it!!

I was quite inspired to have a go at a marathon myself, we’ll see how long my enthusiasm lasts. I think it would be a real achievement and it’s a great way of raising money for worthy causes.

There are lots of biblical references comparing life to running a race, I’ve put a few in at the bottom. How you live life and enjoy life has a lot to do with how you are feeling as well. People will always say you can’t do things but if you choose to ignore them and believe you can do something then you just might succeed, if you believe the people who say you can’t do it and don’t try you will never know if you could have succeeded. There are many examples of missionaries who went to particular areas and were told they would never succeed. However, God told them they would succeed so they stuck at it and many churches grew up because they were running God’s race not man’s.

“But they that wait upon the LORD shall renew their strength; they shall mount up with wings as eagles; they shall run, and not be weary; and they shall walk, and not faint.” Isaiah 40:31

“Remember that in a race everyone runs, but only one person gets the prize. You also must run in such a way that you will win.” I Corinthians 9:24

“Therefore, since we are surrounded by such a huge crowd of witnesses to the life of faith, let us strip off every weight that slows us down, especially the sin that so easily hinders our progress. And let us run with endurance the race that God has set before us.” Hebrews 12:1

Moyallon Camp

The new website that’s been designed for Moyallon Camp is up and running and they have a link to my blog on it! So I thought I better return the favour and give them some advertising. Moyallon Camp is actually two different camps. Junior Moyallon Camp is a weekend in June for 10-14 year olds and Senior Moyallon Camp is a week long camp at the start of July for 14-18ish year olds. They are both run by Quakers mostly based in Northern Ireland. If you know anybody within these ages ranges then you should encourage them to go.

I’m going to be cook for the Junior Camp which will be a challenge, trying to please fifty 10-14 year olds in the food department is not an easy task! I’ll also be a leader at Senior Moyallon Camp. It is such a privilege to be involved in youth camps with people who are in their formative years in many ways but particularly spiritually. I learnt an awful lot about who God is and how much God desires to have a relationship with me through Jesus from my time at both Moyallon Camps as a teenager and it is a Blessing to be able to give some of that experience back to the current group pf campers.

The speaker for Senior Camp this year will be David Shepherd, the Principal of Belfast Bible College. The theme is ‘identity’, what is our identity in Christ? How does our individual identity call us to live in the world? I’m really excited about what God’s going to do at camp this year and I’m already praying for those who will come that they will meet Jesus for the first time or strengthen their relationship with him through Camp.

The Story of Stuff

I was reading my friend Wess’ blog and he had a post on the video below, called the Story of Stuff. It’s 20 minutes long but it’s really worth watching. It makes you think about how much you are consuming and how unaware you can be about where things have come from and where they go before and after you consume them. There’s a few interesting comments on it on Wess’ blog

Celebration of Hope

It’s Monday and I’m reflecting back on last weekend where the main event in Belfast was the Franklin Graham lead Celebration of Hope. Franklin Graham is, of course son of Billy Graham and has taken over his father’s evangelistic ministry since Billy’s retirement. I was able to get involved in the Christian Life and Witness courses which I have blogged about before and become an “Encourager” at the event itself.

It ran over 3 nights and I went on the first night. It was very special with around 7000 people packed into the Odyssey Arena, not coming to watch the Belfast Giants Ice Hockey Team or Girls Aloud but coming to find God! There were a few bands to start off with and it was such a joy to worship with so many people. One of the speakers said that there are thousands of people in the arena but God’s looking at you. God was delighted with my worship of Him even among thousands of worshippers.

I was really impressed with what Franklin Graham had to say. His message was simple, God loves you and he wants to be in relationship with you, that’s why He sent Jesus to die on the cross for our sin. He spoke for maybe 20 minutes but he captivated the audience with his message, you could have heard a pin drop in the arena as he spoke.

On Saturday morning it was “Kidzfest”, which was led by DuggieDugDug who was fantastic. Again preaching a simple gospel to the kids that God loves you and you can be a friend of Jesus. I had the priviledge of ministering to three young people who had come forward to accept Christ into their lives in my role as an Encourager. I was inspired by their simple desire to be Jesus’ friend, one of them insisted that we close our brief encounter with the Lord’s prayer.

On Saturday night I realised the importance of prayer in all of this. I had to work so I was unable to be at the Odyssey. Despite the organisers hiring out 6 cinemas in the complex to relay what was happening in the arena 1500 people were turned away because they couldn’t fit them in! I arrived home at 9.30pm and prayed aloud for 30 minutes that many more people would ask Jesus to control their heart and life. I heard the next day that was about the time over 1000 people had come forward.

I know that it’s not about numbers of people so many of my prayers have revolved around the people who have accepted Christ desiring to serve the church in Northern Ireland and beyond in many ways. To build up the church, to care for the sick, hungry, imprisoned (Matthew 25) to go on and share the gospel with others (Matthew 28). The Celebration of Hope is taking this very seriously as well. After each service a team of volunteers staying up as late as 3am collected all the names and details of those who had come forward to try to pair them with a local church and send them more literature, what a ministry those volunteers have provided. They will also be invited to attend a series of classes run by local churches including prayer, bible study and aspects of the Christian Faith.

Reflecting on the weekend, I am just in awe of how the Holy Spirit can work in so many people’s lives in the same place at the same time and I’m thankful to God for all that occurred.