What a few weeks!

It is really hard to believe the last few weeks have only been a few weeks. It started with family tragedy (which I will talk about at a more appropriate time), then business presentations, choreography assessments, and finally a show!

The family tragedy element I will try to leave out of this blog, out of respect for my family. I will concentrate instead on everything else.

Ok, the business presentation....

This is something that I will again go into more detail about in a future blog, because it is part of something much bigger that I believe God has put onto my heart.

It has been such a mad rush trying to get everything together, and there have been so many times when I have thought 'This is never gonna happen', and then thought 'No, if it is of God, which I believe it is, then he will make it happen, I just have to keep faith.' It was one of those situations where I HAD to rely on God, because I was winging it; I couldn't see really past the next couple of minutes of work at any given time. Not saying that I wasn't working hard, but large amounts of the time I was winging it, as I think we all do to a certain extent; Hoping that if we keep ploughing on, it will all come together.

The day before was a nightmare day; with one person suddenly saying they had to leave for a doctor's appointment, leaving us a person down. When that happened I really didn't know whether to laugh or cry. The rest of the team worked so hard; I have been blessed to have had them on my team.

And actually, i think this is a great time to mention just what they each achieved; One of them managed to get over their fear of writing academic work by plunging himself right into it; The amount of times I would get home and find him working away. Yeah, he found it hard, but he stuck at it.

The other managed to produce a fantastic website. He never needed any reminding or prompting, he just got on with it. He also turned into reality the company Logo, and created all of the design elements. I think both of them did some fantastic work.

I remember the night before, me and one of the others on my 'team', stayed up pretty much the whole night trying to get everything finished. Part of the work was to write a journal. We only had one computer between us, so we were doing 15 minute shifts.

It must have been about 4 in the morning, and he was on the computer. I decided to use this time to just pray and worship; I went into the other room, stuck on some worship music, and suddenly felt something hit me. It was like God whacked me into action. In the next half an hour of working time, I must have easily written 1000 words. I was finished by 5.

I woke up again at 6 to get ready for the presentations, which started at 8:30. I made sure that I spent a good deal of time again before this praying.

The presentation went really well. I really felt God moving in that room when we did it. The three of us seemed to really pull together. The presentation itself seemed to pull together. I think that we all seemed united behind the idea. Bare in mind as well that we'd only had about an hour or two's sleep between us.

This is an area of my life that I had very much included God in. I would dare to say actually that it is God's idea that he has very much had the grace to include me in.

Healing

On Wednesday night, I did some healing on a friend of mine's leg injury. I have since heard back that the healing worked, and the leg is much better.

'Why Make A Song And Dance'

One of my regrets whilst doing this show, is that I didn't make enough time for prayer; Because of rehearsals, I missed things like cluster meetings and worship sessions, without really making up the time anywhere else. This led to a lot of times when it felt like something was missing.

The times I did pray though made a massive difference; I remember on the Friday night, for example, I spent the remaining seconds before going onstage to sing my Solo, asking God specifically to 'speak' through the performance. This was actually the first time it felt like I was telling the story to the audience. it felt like I was preaching a message rather than just singing.

On the other nights, he also helped me to manage my nerves; Nerves are a funny old thing; You can be completely confident one night, and flooded with nerves the next, and on the Saturday night, I was really feeling it. I could feel a gulping reflex developing in my throat, and i knew it was going to be a job of nerve - management. I prayed to God for help getting through this - for strength, and I saw that he was right by me, as he had been the other nights.

Yes, I was still nervous, but I managed to get through the performance with this gulping reflex, without it being derailed.

I think as well, it is just a massive comfort to know that he is there, onstage with you, and that he can help to make up for your shortfalls. I remember I really felt him there on the first night, and although I came of the stage with legs that were so much like jelly they were ready to cave in, it was a real comfort to know that he was there with me, holding me up, supporting me so to speak.

It was really nice to hear encouraging comments back from people as well; The head of faculty said to the head of performing arts 'My God! Hasn't Joe improved!' Well I genuinely believe that this is down to the impact that God has had on my life, the changes he has made in me since I came to faith, and all of this is available to ANYONE who asks God for it, and comes to faith. It is so hard to believe that I have only been going to church for a year, and I am so excited to see what he is going to do in me in the future.

Anyone reading this – Christian, Atheist, Agnostic – here is my challenge to you. Close your eyes, put your hands out if you want to, and just ask God to come into your life, to reveal himself to you, to work within you, to bless your life, to give you strength, or for anything else you feel like you need in your life. Maybe you feel it’s time that you gave your life to Christ. Spend as much time as you need, and don’t forget to include some listening time.

Technorati Tags: Faith,God,Exams,Cheltenham,Prayer,Performing,Worship,University

If God Is For Us, Who Can Stand Against Us?

Like a lot of us, I have a heavy exam period coming up, and I have been worrying a lot recently. Then when I was worshiping on the way to Christian Union last night, I suddenly thought ‘Why worry?’; We have this amazing God, who created the entire universe. If what we are doing at any given time is of him, and we involve him in it, then he is going to bless it! If whatever we are doing is not of him, then it really shouldn’t matter to us if it doesn’t work out.
Incidentally after praying on it, releasing it all to God, I felt so different; Rather than feeling worried, I felt confident. Rather than feeling down, I felt lifted. I felt so anointed for the task ahead. When I got back, I was suddenly able to do lots more. When you allow God in through prayer, it can change everything.
As Romans 8:31 says: ‘If God is for us, who can stand against us?’

“And if our God is with us, then who can stand against us?”

Technorati Tags: Chris Tomlin,Our God,University,Exams,christian,Prayer,Jesus,God,Faith,Worship,Romans 8,If our God is for us,who can stand against us?

Another Update…

This morning I went to the early service at Trinity, as I was going to a friends Baptism in Cheltenham in the evening. Today the talk was on confession – confessing our sins to both God, and fellow men, as well as confessing the good stuff from God.
One of the things talked about was confession in relation to reconciling with your ‘neighbour’. The idea of admitting to them you have sinned against them, and asking them for forgiveness. This then set off a spiral in my head; there was someone last week that I thought I might have sinned against, but wasn’t entirely sure. It was nothing major, and nothing that I had really done on purpose, but as soon as I had realised what I had done, I immediately felt bad about it, and apologised to God… But the problem was that actually admitting it to this in this situation would have undoubtedly done more harm than good, because it would have just unsettled them, and opened up a whole new can of worms. What do you do in this situation? This confession thing is hard than you might first think!!!!
When I spoke to God about it, he seemed to say to ‘move forward’, which I interpreted as meaning ‘move on’, and in this case, not to tell them. I decided whilst walking home, that next time I saw the person, I would ask him to speak into the situation.
As soon as I got back from Church, it was time to quickly have some lunch, and then straight back out to do some drama workshops. This was a workshop that four of us had developed as part of our business project for our personal development module at Uni. I was running late, so when I got there I had the perfect opportunity to try out what we had learnt this morning about saying to people we have done wrong to ‘I’m sorry, forgive me’.
I remember on the way to this workshop really feeling God suddenly anointing me for it. I was on my way, preparing myself and praying, whilst listening to ‘King of Wonders’ (I don’t know about you, but I personally find it helps allot to focus myself on God, and get into the ‘God-zone’, by listening to worship music).
The workshop ended up going pretty well in the end, and we got out of it everything that we needed to. God seemed to give me a calmness and confidence that sometimes I can be lacking, especially when I feel under-prepared (we had only decided on exercises last night, and this was our first experience as a ‘company’, running our own workshops). I am very positive about this project, as I think God has been blessing it from the start; The whole idea came out of a prayer just under a year ago… Still, this is for another blog! Maybe in two weeks time….
After the workshops, It was off to a friend’s baptism. Whilst i was on the bus, I decided to test what I felt God had told me in the morning, by talking to one of my Christian friends about it. I confessed to her what I had done, and talked about the situation. We agreed that – like it had seemed God had been telling me, I shouldn’t tell her, because it could open up massive cans of worms and cause hurt rather than it being for the right reasons. What we decided, was that I should instead correct the sin (just a case of correcting a bit of information I had given somebody, without going into too much detail).
The baptism service was great. It was wonderful that they were all young people getting baptised! Me and my friend both agreed that Kendal Road Church was very nicely ‘Youth Orientated’, and the the Vicar and his wife were really nice; it was a nice touch that even though we had both only visited there once before, they both remembered our names.
It’s amazing what humbling experiences baptisms can be. I remember going in there and feeling almost quite cocky – holyer than thou’. When you start hearing people’s testimonies thou, and seeing how God has effected them, it really puts you back in your place, but in a good way. I had a ‘word’ for one of the people who got baptised. I wasn’t sure whether it was any kind of prophesy, but I wanted to keep to a deal made during the week that if I felt like God was telling me to say something, then I would say it, as long as it was scriptural true, and encouraging. It was ‘If God is for you, then who can stand against you’? I quickly realised that in this case, it was probably because one of the songs earlier had used that verse, but nonetheless I was pleased that I had taken the step of faith. It also, btw, marked the first time that I had actually spoken out in a church in a service.
Ended the evening with a friend of mine talking about how someone they know has died today. I am very slowly learning to apply the art of listening to God in my conversations with others, and without going into the details of the conversation, I cannot express how much it helps as a Christian to be listening to God through these moments. He just changes how you deal with it, right down to the smallest subtlety. By listening to him, you allow him to use you to speak into the specific situation. I am trying to make it habit to listen to what God wants me doing NOW, as well as in the future
Just as a final note, one of the things that was mentioned in the service this morning, was something Barack Obama said at a prayer breakfast a few weeks ago…
“When I wake in the morning, I wait on the Lord, and I ask him to give me the strength to do right by our country and its people. And when I go to bed at night, I wait on the Lord, and I ask him to forgive me my sins and look after my family and the American people and make me an instrument of his will.”
This seems like a great prayer for all of us (maybe changing the ‘country and it’s people’ bit). And I’m wondering if it’s something that anyone reading this blog could attempt to do over at least the next week. We all know how powerful prayer can be!

Technorati Tags: Prayer,Baptism,Confession,Faith,Trinity,Sin,Worship,Christian,God,Jesus

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For The Week Ahead…

Technorati Tags: John,Jesus,God,Faith,Worship,Son of God

Today when I was filming a Kid's programme, I had a fair amount of free time on set, so I decided to use it to read the Bible. For those of you who don't know, as a fairly 'new' Christian, I have decided to read through the gospels, because this is what God has told me he wants me to do. I am currently on John's gospel.

I wasn’t to share with you a bit of what I read, because I found that having this passage on my mind and in my heart, really added something to my worship that evening in church. I urge you to read it, meditate on it, keep it in your mind during prayer, and during worship over the next week. For all those who have ever been asked ‘Does Jesus actually claim to be the Son of God?’ This is Jesus himself leaving it in no uncertain terms who he is, and why we should be so thankful to him. This is the NLT Translation:

John 5: 16 - 47

Jesus Claims to Be the Son of God

16 So the Jewish leaders began harassing Jesus for breaking the Sabbath rules. 17 But Jesus replied, “My Father is always working, and so am I.” 18 So the Jewish leaders tried all the harder to find a way to kill him. For he not only broke the Sabbath, he called God his Father, thereby making himself equal with God.

19 So Jesus explained, “I tell you the truth, the Son can do nothing by himself. He does only what he sees the Father doing. Whatever the Father does, the Son also does. 20 For the Father loves the Son and shows him everything he is doing. In fact, the Father will show him how to do even greater works than healing this man. Then you will truly be astonished. 21 For just as the Father gives life to those he raises from the dead, so the Son gives life to anyone he wants. 22 In addition, the Father judges no one. Instead, he has given the Son absolute authority to judge, 23 so that everyone will honour the Son, just as they honour the Father. Anyone who does not honour the Son is certainly not honouring the Father who sent him.

24 “I tell you the truth, those who listen to my message and believe in God who sent me have eternal life. They will never be condemned for their sins, but they have already passed from death into life.

25 “And I assure you that the time is coming, indeed it’s here now, when the dead will hear my voice—the voice of the Son of God. And those who listen will live. 26 The Father has life in himself, and he has granted that same life-giving power to his Son. 27 And he has given him authority to judge everyone because he is the Son of Man.[d] 28 Don’t be so surprised! Indeed, the time is coming when all the dead in their graves will hear the voice of God’s Son, 29 and they will rise again. Those who have done good will rise to experience eternal life, and those who have continued in evil will rise to experience judgment. 30 I can do nothing on my own. I judge as God tells me. Therefore, my judgment is just, because I carry out the will of the one who sent me, not my own will.

Witnesses to Jesus

31 “If I were to testify on my own behalf, my testimony would not be valid. 32 But someone else is also testifying about me, and I assure you that everything he says about me is true. 33 In fact, you sent investigators to listen to John the Baptist, and his testimony about me was true. 34 Of course, I have no need of human witnesses, but I say these things so you might be saved. 35 John was like a burning and shining lamp, and you were excited for a while about his message. 36 But I have a greater witness than John—my teachings and my miracles. The Father gave me these works to accomplish, and they prove that he sent me. 37 And the Father who sent me has testified about me himself. You have never heard his voice or seen him face to face, 38 and you do not have his message in your hearts, because you do not believe me—the one he sent to you.

39 “You search the Scriptures because you think they give you eternal life. But the Scriptures point to me! 40 Yet you refuse to come to me to receive this life.

41 “Your approval means nothing to me, 42 because I know you don’t have God’s love within you. 43 For I have come to you in my Father’s name, and you have rejected me. Yet if others come in their own name, you gladly welcome them. 44 No wonder you can’t believe! For you gladly honor each other, but you don’t care about the honor that comes from the one who alone is God.[e]

45 “Yet it isn’t I who will accuse you before the Father. Moses will accuse you! Yes, Moses, in whom you put your hopes. 46 If you really believed Moses, you would believe me, because he wrote about me. 47 But since you don’t believe what he wrote, how will you believe what I say?”

Hope this helps!

P.S Just as a footnote, for anyone questioning whether Jesus is who he says he is, Click here to learn more