RE-THINK YOUR THINK

So just for a moment stop what you are doing and just think about your day or maybe even your week so far.

Ask yourself (as I asked the same of myself) this question:

“ How many times today, or this week, have you questioned God with why your life is where it is, why things go on around you that you really do not like, why is it that you have things so tough?”

It may be that you have to go back further than this week. The question is still valid and I ask you just to think what was going on when you challenged God with that type of question.

Now it is clearly possible that I am the only one who has ever raised the question of “Why me?” to our Father God. However, I suspect that anyone reading this can probably relate to a time when they have almost cried out “Why me?” and can relate to what I am referring to.

So as I am the one writing this piece no one will be that surprised when I say that I did not have to cast my mind back too far to find myself asking God why it was that I was so hard done by. I have asked Father God why my circumstances (call it “life” if you will) are the way they are for me.

My thoughts around this have really been triggered by my wife coming into our bedroom (where I have my office area and I work when I am not travelling around one place or another) and sat down and just said “Why is life so hard for us right now?” Now when she asked that she wasn’t really aiming at challenging God but more it was borne out of frustration for certain situations we are involved in as a family.

But as I thought of what she said I knew that I had internally asked the same question not that long ago as a bit of a challenge to God, and I have for some time now considered the way I asked that question and the circumstances around it and decided actually I needed to Re-Think My Think (re-think the way I was thinking).

I am not sure that I have completed adjusting the way I think but I certainly have made a start and will continue it on. So I do not write now from a position of suddenly having everything sorted out and in a knowledge that I will never raise that question before God again, but I do think I may begin to answer the question for myself in a different way.

Those of you that know us will know that as a family 2011 has been quite a difficult year. My youngest daughter (not yet 14) spent 8 weeks at the start of the year in a residential clinic for a serious eating disorder. My mother passed away just before my daughter came out of that clinic, and shortly afterwards while I was working in the USA my wife experienced a breakdown. Right now my daughter is continuing to struggle with image, the eating disorder has returned and as a consequence she cannot cope with mainstream schooling and my wife continues to fight her breakdown and is under a number of medical treatments for it.

Have I prayed for God’s intervention in all this? You bet your life I have!! Have I seen breakthrough. Occasional glimpses yes, full breakthrough no. Do I continue to pray – yes I do!! P.U.S.H. Pray Until Something Happens is the saying and I will continue to do that and hold on to that.

So as I have pondered my “lot” and cried out “woe is me” I have looked around at the circumstances of others and had cause to say “Thank You God, there but by Your grace would go I”

I look at a friend with a daughter just 16 years old fighting a very aggressive cancer and going through extreme chemotherapy, stem cell surgery, being constantly sick, not knowing what the future may hold, but being two of the strongest and bravest people I have ever met. I and many people from varying churches around Norfolk continue to lift them up in prayer (they do not attend any church at this time and I do not know their spiritual standing) as we know Jesus can, and does, heal all independent of their faith. There is somewhere that I can truly say “There but for the grace of God………………….”

I have friends who have recently experienced a horrendous situation within their family involving a vicious attack on one of their family members, resulting in hospitalisation. Again somewhere where I can say “There but for the grace of God………………….”

Just a couple of weeks ago we had a Suffering Church Sunday where we set aside time to consider those people in this world that are persecuted simply because they are Christians. People who know that, just by standing up for Daddy God, means they could be put to death. We may all think the country we live in is marginalising and attacking Christians but very few who read this are facing the risk of death for their faith. Could I do that? I honestly don’t know, as much as I would like to think I could say “yes”. Again somewhere where I can say “There but for the grace of God………………….”

And I am not using that phrase glibly or in disrespect for the circumstances those people are in, I am just genuinely expressing that it is by Gods grace that I am not facing those hardships.

So even though when I look at what is happening in my family it is hard, at the end of the day these are the people I love the most, but actually I can see how God continues to protect us and pour out blessings on me.

Think about that for yourself when you ask God why things are so hard. I have said before in another blog that we are told we will be “overcomers” and that God has overcome the issues of this world:

“I have told you these things, so that in me you may have peace. In this world you will have trouble. But take heart! I have overcome the world.”

John 16:33

         

“For everyone born of God overcomes the world. This is the victory that has overcome the world, even our faith”.

1 John 5:4

“Who is it that overcomes the world? Only the one who believes that  Jesus is the Son of God”.

1 John 5:5

“You, dear children, are from God and have overcome them, (evil spirits) because the one who is in you is greater than the one who is in the world”.

1 John 4:4

John 16 actually tells us that we will face trouble, hardships and problems. It’s fairly simple. We cannot be overcomers if there is nothing to overcome.

So I have seriously taken this on board, and whilst I am not stupid enough to say that I welcome hardships or want to see my family or friends hurt or suffering in any way, I do want to be an “overcomer”. I do want to know what it is to defeat the problems faced and I do want to receive victory through Jesus Christ and therefore I am learning that these tough times are ways in which I can be taught these things.

Let me just share something else.

2011 has been personally hard. But it has also been a time of spiritual growth of deeper and greater understanding of who daddy God is and the things He has in store for me and the things He has anointed me in and anointed me to do, and I have learnt to find the confidence to be willing to step out boldly, to take a chance on looking silly or maybe that is other people seeing me as silly when they perceive I have something wrong. It has been about learning more and more to listen to what He is saying to me and reacting to it and not just saying “Oh that’s nice”! Let me just put some specifics behind that, not to boast or anything like that but to do what this blog site was set up for – to encourage:

Every week I am entering into deeper places of Worship and I have an absolute assurance that that is the anointing He has given me and that has been made clearer than ever before in 2011. God has now opened the opportunity with the help of the Leadership Team at my church to drop “activities” I have been involved with, all good and all serving the church, but not what I have been anointed to do, something my brother made even clearer to me today and now focus on my area of anointing.

A network of Christians has been revealed to me at the company I work for and we now join for a weekly prayer meeting every Wednesday morning. We cannot all always be there, either in person or on the conference call, but the time is set in our diaries and we are collectively praying for our colleagues and situations at the same time wherever we are. It has been a real blessing and there has been a bond created that was previously not there. I have been blessed this year to find a new brother in Christ as a result of this who has prayed for me and my family and just become a great blessing on me – thank you God and thank you Peter – you know who you are!!

I have been blessed with now “hearing” Daddy’s prompting and stepping out and acting upon that. The truth is He was always prompting me but I just didn’t listen. And some of the circumstances have not been within my normal “comfort zone” but I have been so encouraged when receiving confirmation that my response to a prompting of the Spirit has been absolutely on the mark for the recipient of the action I then take. It is so very exciting and I eagerly look forward to hearing more of His prompting.

Finally I have travelled through time!! Or time stood still for me. YES REALLY. I will blog this in full separately but many people have heard about this already and know the story. I know some have "pinched" it and used it in something they are speaking about. It’s amazing. It’s impossible. It happened. It was ALL God!!

All of these things have happened during a year when, as I started by saying, circumstances have been tough. But whereas previously I have called out “Why Me” I have changed my view, and am learning, even when it is so very hard, to say “thank You my Father”.

So be encouraged that even in your toughest times father God does not stop wanting to bless you and encourage you and to strengthen you.

So will you start to “Re-Think Your Think”?

God Bless