2011 ENCOURAGEMENT TO STEP INTO 2012

Firstly may I just wish anyone reading this a Very Happy New Year

No matter how hard 2011 may have been a New Year provides opportunity to have a fresh start with renewed eagerness and expectations.

This blog was originally intended as a close out to 2011, and in part it still is, but it has moved to become a foundation on which to build for 2012.

I am actually going to try and keep this short (okay you can stop laughing now), however most importantly I want to encourage you to step into whatever God has planned for you with eagerness and boldness.

With apologies for repeating what many of you already know let me set the background to 2011.

In January my youngest daughter, (then 13), having been diagnosed with Atypical Anorexia, was admitted on a residential basis to The Priory Clinic in Chelmsford Essex. We had to cope with her not being at home, worrying about what was going on with her and travelling between home and clinic. During January and February my Mother found that the bowel cancer she was being treated for had got worse and chose not to continue further treatment to allow her some quality of life during her final days. Sadly the advancement of the disease was worse than she and my Father had believed and she passed away on March 8^th. Two days later (March 10^th) we attended a vital meeting at the Priory Clinic that resulted in my daughter being released back home (she had been having weekend home visits and had spent time with her Nanny before she passed away). Having come home we continued to have weekly counselling visits and went through a number of issues including a serious self harming incident. Then whilst I was working in the USA I was contacted by my eldest daughter to find that my wife had suffered a nervous breakdown and I had to immediately return home 4 days into a 14 day working trip. My wife continues to receive treatment as does my daughter and it has been an on-going story for us throughout 2011. Added to everything are concerns for my Fathers health especially now that he was living alone.

So I cannot hide the fact that whilst I know people who have had what I would consider a far harder year than we have, I still would conclude that 2011 had been a very hard year for me and my family.

HOWEVER…………………………

I have said in a few blogs that we serve a mighty and faithful God who wants to shower His blessings upon us. He does not wait until things are “good” before he will do that. He keeps giving if we are only willing to step out and take hold of what he offers.

So really what I want to do is encourage you. No matter where things are for you right now, I want to say if you stay close to Him, listening for His prompting, His quiet voice (or sometimes His loud voice) and are willing to get off your backside and step into something you may not be so familiar or comfortable with then I truly believe you will be blessed even when in the middle of adversity. Let me share just some of what happened for me during 2011:

• TIME TRAVEL – Oh Yes – no other way of describing it – at the time I received the call to say my wife had had a breakdown and during making the journey back home to the UK, I moved from the arrival area “F” in Schipol Airport Amsterdam Holland to departure gate “D6” in less than 60 SECONDS!!!!! I fly through that airport regularly and I and others to whom I have shared this story in full, have walked and run that same route a number of times and on average it is 15 – 20 mins and certainly not 1 minute. There is so much more to this story, but in short I was VERY low, didn’t really want to face the issues at home, but also new I needed to be at home to start picking up the “pieces” that were collapsing all around me. I had managed to get a last minute flight, going via Schipol to the UK and had a huge time constraint between landing in Schipol, to departing again. I had asked some prayer warriors to pray for me when I was in the USA. So after landing (and after departure delays in the USA) God decided to intervene and allow me to travel what I needed to in 60 seconds and as a result meeting my departing flight for the UK with time to spare (and that flight left promptly on time). God is Good!! So Good!!
• PRAY FROM MILES AWAY – One Saturday in November I was in Norwich with one of my daughters on a rare Father Daughter day out. We were taking a late breakfast when I suddenly felt a compulsion to pray for two friends who were as far as I knew around 100 miles form where I was. I had not had any recent contact and up to that very point I had not been thinking of them. I didn’t do anything for a while (maybe the feeling would go away and it was just wind, thought I) but pretty soon the feeling had become what I can only describe as an ache. So I wrote a fairly lengthy text asking them to forgive me if I was totally off target but saying I just felt I needed to pray for them and ask for Daddy’s arms to be wrapped around them and His presence to be very real and close to them at that moment. I heard nothing and received no text back or any other communication. By the Monday I just thought I had everything wrong and I had miss read the prompting I felt and thought Id just leave it at that and apologise to them both the next time I saw them. That evening I was going to my friend Rob’s commissioning as a representative of the Christian Police Association (I may have the title wrong but anyway representing God within the police force). When we had finished and on my way to the car I checked for missed calls from my mobile (like a good boy I had switched it off for the service). On it was a missed call and message from my friend whom I had sent the prayer text to on the Saturday. After the pleasantries he said “now to the text you sent”. Oh dear I thought, I got that wrong!! But I hadn’t. At the very moment the text was sent he and his wife were receiving some prayer and counselling at a conference and were battling against some stuff that was going on in their lives. They both said they were amazed at receiving the text but knew that it was of God because it spoke right into what was going on for them at that very moment.
• MORE PRAYER – Now I have quoted two amazing prayer stories (well quoted one about to quote the second), but I would be the first to tell you I have never felt called to be a prayer warrior. Not that I do not believe in the power of prayer and not that I don’t prayer but I do believe certain people have a gifting in praying for others and I have never seen that in myself. But 2011 has taught me that if I listen to God and hear Him or feel Him prompt me I will go with that flow. So a couple of weeks ago at our church, after the service had ended, a guy who had been coming regularly for a month or so, strolled forward to sort of say goodbye as he was moving away and just to chat a bit I think. I had seen him around and although no one had ever told me I knew him as John. Anyway he was talking about a lot of things happening in his life and I knew he really needed some prayer. So I looked around for one of our male prayer team members or at least a male/female team. John spotted me looking around and said “sorry I am keeping you I’d better let you go”. Realising he had seen me looking around I said “No I was looking for a prayer team member but couldn’t see one as it looked as though they had all gone to grab coffee” So I asked him if he would like me to pray for him. Ad he said yes. So I said “I’m just going to ask God to bless you John and that he helps you this week as you make some difficult decisions”. “That’s great but my names not John it’s Kevin”. OH wow so where did that come from? So I told him, “I’m really sorry Kevin it’s just that whenever I look at you I get the name John screaming at me and I have always thought that was because it was your name, I don’t know how I got that wrong I’m sorry, but we can still pray”. “Actually” he said, “Jonathan is my sons name” Oh boy when God prompts He doesn’t get it wrong does He!! So I prayed for Kevin asking for a blessing and then in the middle of praying I was prompted to pray for John. I knew nothing of him and Kevin had said nothing but I just prayed for their relationship and that there may be a strong bond between them”. By the time I finished praying Kevin had a few tears rolling. He explained that his relationship with his son was almost non existent and that he had been trying to look for ways of mending that broken relationship.
• BLOGGING – All through 2011 God has been opening my eyes to knew things and understandings form His word, or through things I have heard preached. And since October this year I have thoroughly enjoyed putting some of this down as my “blog”. And I am so very grateful for the feedback I get. Not always on this blog site, that’s okay, but I have received a high number of emails from people who have been encouraged. And that is just fantastic. That even in a life situation where for most of 2011 it has been a struggle, God has allowed me to be an encourager of others. Not because I get everything correct, not because I now know everything, but because I have learnt that I have so much to learn and I am hungry to be taught.

God just proves Himself to be amazing each and every time I listen to Him, or when I feel at my lowest, He finds a way to encourage me and remind me that nothing is impossible when He is in charge.

2011 has taught me to listen, to read and digest the Word and study more. But more than anything it has taught me to not be afraid of moving out of the soft easy chair that has been my Christian experience for so long, but to step out into a new area where I am less than comfortable and therefore have to really place my trust in His leading and prompting and I have begun to learn to tune my ears and mind to hear more of what He would have me do.

So regardless of what 2011 has had for you, as we now start in 2012 may God richly bless you and the members of your family so that you might become a blessing to those around you.

God Bless