Sometimes following Jesus can feel a little bit like standing on the edge of a cliff. The only genuine way to go is to carry on walking forward but to do so risks falling off the edge. To not carry on walking risks being stuck in the same place where nothing will ever change. I guess what I am really trying to say is that to follow Jesus requires trust, or as Brennan Manning once called it ‘ruthless trust’.

As a kid, I was really into the Indiana Jones films. I watched everything to do with Indiana Jones and, at one point, I might even have wanted to become an archeologist until I realised they didn’t all have whips and guns. In the third film of the trilogy ‘Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade’ Jones is standing on the edge of a massive drop. There is literally nowhere else to go other than forward but logically that would mean he would plunge to an almost certain death. Indiana Jones throws some dust and what it reveals is that there is an unseen path across the chasm. He puts his first foot forward, trusting the unseen path and emerges on the other side. It was literally the only way he could continue along the journey of the last crusade.

Life is so often like this. Psalm 119:105 tells us that “[God’s] word is a lamp for my feet, a light on my path,” whenever I read these words I always get the impression that God shines a light just for the place where our next footstep will land. He rarely shines it any further. Recently, it became very clear to both my family and myself that I needed to give myself full-time to building the CVM Cymru ministry across Wales. However, to do this I would clearly need to trust God to provide for us as a family. As we pondered this decision, other factors came into play which meant it was more and more obvious that to step forward into this was the only way for us to move forward, but to say the path was not clear would be an understatement. At the time of writing this, I have indeed taken those first few steps and it is amazing to see the ways that God is shining His light for every step and proving to me that when we trust in Him he will never let down us down.

So, may I encourage you to trust God, even if that feels utterly counterintuitive. None of us ever choose to get frozen to the spot, frightened to move forward and unable to go back. But, let’s be honest, so many of us have found ourselves in that very place at some point in our lives.

God is the God of his word, he never lies, he never changes his mind or loses interest in us. Jesus is deeply, deeply committed to leading us into his Kingdom forever and every step we make is as important to him as it is to us and we can trust him implicitly.

I will sign off with this amazing promise that God has for everyone of us:

“For I know the plans I have for you,” declares the Lord, “plans to prosper you and not to harm you, plans to give you hope and a future.”

Jeremiah 29:11

So, if you are standing on the edge of the proverbial cliff today, feel the fear but face it anyway, trust God and his promises for you. If you need to throw out some dust so that God can reveal part of the path to you, do it, but then step forward confidently. 

Too many of us are letting life hit us, when if we truly walk with the Lord, we can positively hit life and live it to the full.

Human endeavour, the quest to be the first to achieve something is a fascinating subject. Throughout history men and women have pushed and smashed through boundaries, for example 12 years ago in September we saw the first successful human powered circumnavigation of the world.

Jason Lewis from Dorset set out on his journey on 12^th July 1994, from Greenwich. The expedition of over 46,000 miles, that Lewis thought would take 2-3years, took him over 13 years (4,833 days to be precise). Throughout, Lewis used only human-powered modes of transportation; on foot, by bicycle, roller blades, and a pedal powered boat. 

It really does not feel like it was that long ago that we were making plans for Christmas 2018, but that was last year. My wife and I had just moved across to North Wales, our son was just in the throes of getting used to his first term in school. We had lots of expectation, lots of hope, lots and lots to look forward to.

In my mind’s eye, I can still vividly see all the bright Christmassy lights that decorated the town of Llandudno, especially the pier. It was mesmerising and it was entirely unusual to us as a family to be approaching the Christmas season and, at the same time, to be hanging out near the sea.

I think, more than I had done for quite a while, I approached last Christmas with a sense of anticipation and excitement. The main reason for that excitement was because we knew Christmas was going to feel very different.

I have that same sense of anticipation and excitement this year too.

I recently read a quote from one of my personal spiritual heroes, Dr Martin Lloyd-Jones (all the greats come from Wales):

“The doctrine of the incarnation asserts that our Lord took unto Himself a full human nature. It was not merely partial, it was complete. He did not merely take a body to Himself. He took on Him complete human nature, body and soul, including spirit, that He was truly man… We stand before this mystery of godliness, God in the flesh! The strangest, the most amazing thing that has ever happened. It is so supreme that I expect it to be unusual in every respect, and I find the Scriptures tell me that it was. He was conceived of the Holy Spirit, He was born of a virgin named Mary. Man was entirely excluded; It was entirely the work of God.“

Sometimes I think we can get too caught up in the festivities of the season. There is nothing wrong with enjoying the colourful lights, great food, doing the school carol concerts and all that stuff. In fact, seeing my son dressed up in a cow onesie last year will live long in the memory. But what we must never allow to happen is to lose sight of the real reason for the season. 

That Jesus Christ, Son of God, God Himself, would come to live with humanity. That He would not only be God living among us, but that He would also be entirely human Himself. That He would do this because it was the only way any of us could be rescued, forgiven, healed and set free from Satan’s vice-like grip on our lives. 

Well, that takes my anticipation and excitement to an entirely different level.

I have been a Christ-follower for a good number of years now.  I tell you this: I still find the Gospel story ‘unusual in every respect’. I have never got used to the act that Jesus Christ, the Son of God, placed that level of value on my soul and on the souls of every other person in history.

You may well have heard these verses many, many times before but let me share them with you one more time:

“For God so loved the world, that he gave his only Son, that whoever believes in him should not perish but have eternal life. For God did not send his Son into the world to condemn the world, but in order that the world might be saved through him.“

John 3:16-17 (ESV)

My hope for every one of us during this Christmas season is this, that we may have clarity of sight that shows us just how much we all need Jesus Christ. When any of us looks back over the course of 2019 and we see all the difficulties and challenges we have had to face or when we think over the losses, the heartbreaks and the hurts, may we then understand that we can only break the enemy’s vice-like grip on our lives through the power of Jesus Christ’s incarnation. That very same incarnation that then led to His crucifixion and ultimately His resurrection and eternal victory over sin, death and all forms of condemnation.

The true wonder of Christmas is this: in Christ we have been utterly set free and that the new, spiritual, birth that we receive as a gift from Him will never be taken away from us. We will have new life for all eternity.

Now, I do acknowledge that we live in a very broken world, and even as Christians we do experience the same tough times as everyone else. But, this is the true Christmas message; there is another life after this one and God wants us to spend both this life and the one to come with Him.

May I humbly recommend that if you have never known this freedom in Christ, that you use this Christmas season to attend a local church, or find a Christian friend who can help you know Him personally. It will genuinely be the best Christmas gift you will ever have had or ever will have.

If you want any help with any of the above please do reach out to the CVM team

I was reminded that the early pioneers to America, whilst pioneering – had arrows shot at them! Pioneering can be tough!

When we consider the Lord’s Prayer, Gods desire is that things on earth may be like things in heaven. We are reminded in the prayer that we ask for Gods kingdom to come so that both heaven and earth are joined under God.

I wonder if God has a comfort zone?

Assuming for a moment that he has, God stepped out of his comfort zone to create a planet and then populate it with all sorts of goodies, including human beings. He then had this fantastic idea to build into this planet a thing called ‘being spiritual’. So that all the things on the planet will recognise him and the trees of the fields will sing for joy! And humans can be in a perfect relationship with him and one another, ‘on earth as in heaven’. 

Okay it creaks around the edges, well quite a lot, but I like the idea of God being a ‘planet pioneer’. He has the odd arrow fired at him, complaints about this and that, loads of humans who just turn their backs and don’t get it. However against this background God decided to stabilise things and set up a new venture called the, ‘Human Church’. To make it work he again stepped out of his comfort zone and sent Jesus, His son, (yes God has a Son) on a mission into the interior. It didn’t look too bad at first, water to wine, bread and fishes, boat trips, days out at the beach. But if only he would keep his hair on and stop whilst the going was good! But no, as he matured into full on pioneering mode he became even bolder and the more he antagonised certain groups of people, then he began to find himself in trouble. Eventually he overstepped the mark and was done away with, much to the relief of those whom he antagonised. Some of his mates, well they were on board at the start but when it came to the crunch, where were they?

But something clicked with those blokes, his mates, who having run away now had a different appetite for pioneering. However they stayed together albeit under something of a cloud (well you would be if you said or made promises you couldn’t keep and when the going got tough had legged it)! So they went off fishing, but God the pioneer hadn’t finished with them yet, and neither had Jesus. He knew they had to eat so he got a barbeque going on the beach; he gave them a shout to bring some of their fish and to have a bite. Normally pioneering isn’t as scary as this, but they thought Jesus was a ghost!  So to see Jesus standing by the barbeque calling out for his lunch, well that was a bit scary! For Jesus had been killed on the cross; but here he was risen from the dead, what a Pioneer this man has turned out to be. Remember that time when they saw Jesus walking on water (Pioneers can do amazing things),

All in all it worked out quite well, they all made up and forgave each other and said sorry and I love you. So Jesus said, ‘I’m off now, over to you.’ 

‘Well, hang on a minute what do you mean, ‘Over to you’ – What kind of pioneer are you Jesus?’

‘Well, I’m the kind of pioneer that says you’re ready, off you go! He said just that, he said his mates were ready to take it from then on! 

Okay Jesus made some promises, and we know he is good at keeping promises. But the wilderness is not an empty space which is all cuddly and soft; it is full of those things called human beings.  God then had another good idea, one that Jesus helped put in place. He gave them his Spirit to help decide how to build the human church. Yes, a human church, the kind of place where he and humans could connect. He obviously knew that it would be a potent mix; he is after all a pioneer God. He clearly thought that this is a good idea because it’s been working for years and years now and there doesn’t quite seem to be an end to it… well, not at the mo’.

Actually I think God is quite pleased with his human church, because God told Jesus that it would be Jesus’ church, Jesus would be the head of the church. That takes some courage, to be the head of the human church, it keeps him busy and there is no-end of complications with the humans, but somehow he makes sense of it. And it works, amazing!

Just a thought!

Stay blessed.

I quite like golf. I am not a good golfer, but I do quite like golf.

Mark Twain once said that “…golf was a good walk ruined”. I think he was wrong, though I do have to admit that in my case golf is a good walk made 2-3 times longer. 

Not that long ago, I went to the local driving range. I got my basket of balls and went to a booth as close to the centre of the range as I could–my thinking here is simply that I rarely hit the ball in a straight line so being in the centre gives me the best chance of actually hitting the range whether I hook it or slice it. They do say that it is not the winning that matters but the taking part, when it comes to golf that really has become my personal mantra.

In the booth next to me was an older gent. It did not take me long to realise that he was a good golfer. In the time it took me to spray the range with golf balls like I was using a machine gun, he maybe hit one or two balls that glided through the air and hit his intended flag points every time.

At first I was a bit annoyed with him, I just thought he was a bit smug, obviously had too much time on his hands or he had made a career out of board meetings on the fairways over many years. Not that this would always necessarily be a bad thing.

But then, he turned to me, smiled and said hello. He complimented me on the distance I was able to achieve and then said “…and you can hit those balls really fast”. That actually made me laugh, I clearly knew that it was not as much of a compliment as it might have sounded at first.

What happened from there was that this guy showed his heart. He actually wanted to help me become better, he wanted to show me ways in which I could get the ball to land where I intended it to land. The following is a brief summation of what he said:

“Before you ever hit the ball you need to prepare yourself for the outcome you want to see happen. Don’t get obsessed with just hitting the ball, but take in your surroundings. Understanding the environment is vital. Is it windy or overcast? Is the terrain flat or undulating? All these factors you already know about, but you are not being attentive to them. You focus too much on making sure you hit the ball fair and square. Golf is a game of finesse, feeling and intelligence. The success rate of your shots will only ever be as good as your understanding of your environment and your preparation before taking each shot”.

It reminded me of something that I read a couple of years ago about prayer. The writer made a big deal out of “there is a way things work”. In life, in sport, in prayer, in everything there is a way things work. I realise that in lots of ways in life, I am spraying golf balls all over the range. I tend to think that the harder I hit and the more of them I hit means the more successful I will be.

The problem with that is that I maybe hit one or two decent balls out of ten and the rest are totally wasted effort.

I told this guy that he had really helped me, not so much with golf but with life. I went on to say that I work for a Christian ministry and that in the same way as preparing for a shot in golf is vitally important, so it vitally important to prepare well in life and ministry. He was slightly blown away by our vision to lead a million men to Christ. He was even more blown away by the CVM Cymru vision to see the nation of Wales come back to Christ! But I think he was chuffed that he had helped me think a little bit clearer.

The conversation ended there, but I do think that I will be going back to the driving range again very soon.

I left that golf range reminded once again that ALL of life is a gift, and God speaks to us in the most unlikely moments of our days. At CVM, we love the church, we are passionate about seeing the church grow. But what if there are times when God’s Cathedral looks more like a golf driving range than a one thousand year old ecclesiastical building?

Just a thought ..

A few days ago I was chatting with an amazing person about life, hopes and dreams. It was during the course of a meal that I was invited to by a Christian charity who were celebrating their 5th birthday as a ministry. 

The conversation could be best described as ‘life-giving’!

Now this guy was in his early 20s, and he spoke like a man who had all his life before him. He spoke of the things that he wanted to achieve in life, the ways in which he believed God wanted him to spend his time and his resources. He spoke of his girlfriend and the amazing stuff that she was involved in and how proud he was of her ambitions too. 

I sat there, as a bloke in my mid forties and listened. 

Last year at Remembrance I considered the question ‘who are you remembering?’ and the fact that not all of us know someone in the Military, but we do know others who have given their all in service of others, be that in the Emergency Services or as a member of the general public. 

I want to follow on from that and consider how we remember those we have never met or knew. In 1989 HMS Brilliant was part of the UKs Armilla patrol operating in the Gulf, protecting UK shipping during the Iran / Iraq war. The day before she was due to enter Mombasa, Kenya, for two weeks R and R her Lynx helicopter crashed on the coastline south of the town killing 9 members of the crew. A memorial was erected at the site of the crash, which I visited on three separate occasions over the years. We conducted remembrance services at the memorial, and cleared it of vegetation etc. Over the years the memorial fell into disrepair and the plaque etc was removed and I believe it is now in the chapel at the Mission to Seafarers at Mombasa. 

I did not know any of the 9 personnel killed in that crash, so why should I remember them and be involved in those services on that remote beach in East Africa? 

Firstly because I wanted to say ‘Thank you’ for their service, although they had not died as a direct result of conflict, they served in Her Majesties Royal Navy and were prepared for whatever that might mean. That in itself warrants saying ‘Thank you’ for in my book (some may not agree!).  

Secondly, because it helped me.  No, I did not know them, but acknowledging their sacrifice and willingness to give themselves for a greater cause helped focus my mind on my own attitudes towards others. Yes, I had signed on the dotted line the same as those 9 men, but was I actually prepared for what that might mean? I guess in times of war and conflict it was all brought into sharper focus, but no-one actually expected to go away on a peacetime deployment and not come back.  Was I ready to accept that? On examination the answer actually was ‘yes’ … 

Jesus made that ultimate sacrifice for us, he died on a cross for you and me, that we might have eternity with him. Was he prepared for that when he came to earth as a man? I would say he knew what lay ahead for him, but he still had his moments of ‘not sure about this is there another way’ .. (In the Garden of Gethsemane before he died).  

So on this remembrance Sunday, as we reflect and remember those who have made the ultimate sacrifice for others in war and peace, lets not only think about them and say thanks, but reflect on what that means for us as individuals. What causes would we be prepared to make the ultimate sacrifice for?  

Those of us who are Christians, who have ‘signed on the dotted line’ are called to follow Jesus, and imitate him. How far are you prepared to go to fulfil this commitment? What are you and I prepared to sacrifice in order not just to remember his sacrifice and say ‘Thank you’, but to add ‘I’m up for this come what may … 

Image Credit: Zhen Hu

You may be reading this and not be a Christian. That’s okay but this is a message for those who are Christians.

You see I was troubled for a while about some of the life style choices I am being asked to make, and I should say, have made. There is confusing multi-messaging coming from many different sources, some Christian, many secular. I am frequently being asked to live in a certain way, I need to have a body honed to perfection, groomed to an acceptable level, and I need to smell great and have the right clothing to hang on this perfect body. I am also told to live in a certain way, yes have values and views but I must accept others values and views but not allow my views to hurt or distress anyone. I need to eat, but I don’t want to be a secret eater to please all those who disagree with my eating habits. I’m a carnivore. I can have political views, I can have religious views, I can have no view at all; but I must live with consideration for all other people and not do anything to harm them.

Now I have a problem with all of that.

Over the summer months I have been giving my personal physical condition quite a bit of thought. It is not that I am badly out of shape, but I do spend a lot of time in my car and that has had a fair impact on my body over time. So, in real terms, it has played itself out in my life in the following ways: my belly is always before me, I have had some consistent back pain, my energy levels are not as high as they used to be and I have become more partial to studying the inside of my eyelids whilst watching television in the evenings with my wife.

Now I know, I know none of these symptoms are really that serious, or even that hard to correct. I can almost hear you say ‘GET A GRIP’ and you would be in your rights to say that to me. But I have been giving this some serious thought because I genuinely believe that part of being a good husband, a great dad, and all that I can be for God requires me to be in the best possible physical condition. The same need could be applied to my emotional and spiritual conditions too.

In fact, at CVM we are really quite serious about all this and have an entire code devoted to all that I am sharing here:

 “I regret to inform you…”

As a consequence of some of the major wars, WW1, WW2, the Vietnam War the following words were used in a letter sent to surviving family members:

‘I regret to inform you…’

There is a moment during the film ‘ Saving Private Ryan’ which shows a middle age woman washing dishes, as she looks out of her window she sees a car driving up to her house. She goes to her front porch to receive the visitors, one an army officer and the other a priest. The woman collapses knowing this can only be bad news. Three of her four sons have been killed whilst fighting the enemy: ‘I regret to inform you…’

Five words that indicate profound suffering and which can crush an individual, bringing devastating loss. Confronted by loss of life these five words are never welcome. A family is torn apart by grief, indescribable loss and irreparable separation. ‘I regret to inform you…’. I wonder; with so many millions of telegrams sent to so many people during the First World War did this form of expression, at its source, retain its meaning? Did it became impersonal, just words on a paper, relentlessly day after day the words were typed; only the person’s name was changed. Was this a mini war industry; needing an army of people who could only responded in this way to death and sadness? Those receiving such a letter were left to respond to this, the most intrusive correspondence, full of tragedy, unbearable. It is heart breaking.