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Yesterday morning we found ourselves in yet another city and a different home, trying to find where the knives and forks are kept. Familiarizing ourselves with our new surroundings is awkward but it is nothing in comparison to the documentary program we later saw on the TV.

The PBS program was following the story of 2 Somalian families who had been driven by war to a refugee camp in Kenya and now through some charitable organizations were being offered asylum in the United States. They had classes whilst in Kenya about what to expect in their new homeland, they were shown how to cook food on a stove, how to call 911 if they needed the police and what the currency looked like. All pretty basic requirements to live in a new country but nothing could have prepared them for the reality.

They were leaving the desert conditions of Kenya and arriving in Newark New Jersey to snow and ice. The house they were taken to had a staircase this family had never walked down stairs before it was as if they were climbing down a cliff face. The food at the supermarket was unrecognizable to what they were used to eating but amazingly after about 15 months in the country the family (especially the children) had begun to adapt to most of the changes.

The most difficult aspect of the move for the family was not so much adapting to the practical differences but preserving their culture and values. When the majority of people are living a certain way it is easy to get assimilated into the culture without even trying. The parents particularly had concerns for their daughters relating to young men. Their culture required asking the parents for permission to see their daughters and to always have a chaperone when they were together. You can imagine something that was normal for girls in their homeland was seen as archaic in their new country here came a clash of cultures and unfortunately the most dominant culture usually wins.

This applies to our lives as Christians we are aliens and foreigners in this world. God’s kingdom culture is totally different to the world’s culture and values. It is a battle to hold on to and live out the Christian lifestyle, you can’t just go with the flow as the way the world is going is not the way of Christ. The godly path is narrow and few walk on it but the way of the world is broad and many follow it. The logic and commonsense of the world is totally different to the Spirit of God.

Are you an alien and foreigner or are you being assimilated into the dominant culture of the world?

We were reminiscing today about some awesome prayer meetings we have been involved in.

In our church in London we would pray every Friday night, one week we were praying for missionary friends in Poland so we had a map out and a group of us were laying hands on the map and praying, then Kevin went and got the telephone and he called the couple we were praying for and put them on speaker phone, they were just at a border crossing and were having a scary experience with some guards. We explained that we were praying for them and passed the phone to a couple of people who had words of encouragement from God for them. They were blown away that God had people in another country praying for them just at their time of need. Years later when Kevin went to visit them in their home in Canada they recalled that phone call and how God intervened to get them through that border crossing

God changes situations through our prayers!

Another time our church and two other churches got together and rented a sightseeing boat and about 200 people took a prayer cruise down the river Thames stopping opposite the Houses of Parliament and praying for the government and for spiritual breakthrough in London.

Prayer doesn’t have to be confined to a building!

Other times we took our prayer meeting to the streets of London and would pray in different locations especially outside other churches, praying for God’s blessing and increase on the ministries there.

It’s about the Kingdom of God not about building our kingdom!

Prayer is an exciting interaction with an awesome, powerful God.

Our last day in Los Angeles, it’s been a productive visit we committed ourselves to the will of God, no matter how difficult it may be, we chose to take up the cross and follow Jesus. It has been fun to revisit some places but primarily it has been a time for God to revisit us with things He has spoken to us about in the past.

Now we are ready for the journey back to St Louis although I believe that God doesn’t want the adventure to end. He wants to lead us by His Spirit and with His provision everyday of our lives until we meet Him face to face.

I am excited about the next phase of our lives but am learning to live in today not wanting to miss anything that God wants to do in this moment. I want to know like the Apostle Paul when the Holy Spirit is preventing us from going in a certain direction but be able to see the vision of the man from Macedonia saying come here to help us.

Isn’t that true fulfilment -knowing the will of God and doing it? What else can satisfy? Peter said to Jesus “where else can we go you have the words of eternal life” No other possession in the whole world can compare to knowing Jesus and making Him known.

Have you asked Him what He wants from your life without putting conditions on it?

Abraham dug wells in the wilderness and named them but after his death the Philistines blocked them up with earth. So when his son Isaac was travelling through the same desert he had his men unblock these old wells and also dig some new ones. Unfortunately there were arguments with some of the local herdsmen over the right to the water in the wells they had dug so instead of fight with them they just moved on and dug some more until there was no more quarrelling and they named that well Rehoboth literally meaning spaciousness for our God has made room for us.

There may be some old wells that we need to unstop, and some new wells we have to dig, for example the well of intimacy with God, the well of worship, the well of the gifts of the Spirit or the well of intercessory prayer.

Don’t expect it to be easy, digging earth out of a well is hard work and beginning a new well may cause you to come up against opposition from our spiritual enemy and also from people who don’t believe in the importance of some of the wells I’ve mentioned.

Jesus said  “Whoever believes in me, as the Scripture has said, streams of living water will flow from within him.” Let’s ask God to help us to remove anything that is stopping up the life giving flow of His Spirit in our lives so that we can be a channel of His blessings to the world.

Went to Santa Monica yesterday it is such a cool place to visit, the climate is so mild, it’s right on the ocean and the shopping area is pedestrianized but it is also a sad place to visit too. Why? Because of the warm climate it attracts alot of homeless people, so everywhere you walk there are people begging on the street or sleeping on the grass.

How do you pass signs that say “HUNGRY” but how can you help so many people? Money for one meal may help today but it doesn’t address the major issue. This person is someone’s mother, father, daughter or son. Many people living on the street require hospital treatment or just someone that cares and loves them.

I am always challenged by what Jesus said:

The Spirit of the Lord [is] upon Me, because He has anointed Me [the Anointed One, the Messiah] to preach the good news (the Gospel) to the poor; He has sent Me to announce release to the captives and recovery of sight to the blind, to send forth as delivered those who are oppressed [who are downtrodden, bruised, crushed, and broken down by calamity], To proclaim the accepted and acceptable year of the Lord [the day when salvation and the free favors of God profusely abound]      Luke 4:18-19 Amplified

Don’t those highlighted words describe the homeless, many are broken down by calamity. The Spirit of the Lord is on the church to do the things that Jesus did and even greater things. That is the challenge!

Every day is full of God opportunities. Opportunities to smile and be kind to people. Opportunities to engage someone in conversation. Opportunities to be patient with people who tick you off and give them the benefit of the doubt, they may have stuff going on in their lives. Opportunities to connect with people God may want in your life either to introduce them to Jesus or to encourage you in your walk with God.

Are we open to these God given opportunities or are we so busy going about our lives that we never take time to think ” is this someone God wants me to interact with or is this someone that God wants me to do something for?”

A friend of mine has little notes posted around her house as a reminder, what they say is ” Will this help someone?” It is a motto for her life, a question she asks herself daily. She knows almost everyone in her street ( this is an amazing thing in the age we live in, What happened to community? ), she helps them in various ways, with their computer problems or letting the dog out, (they trust her with their house keys) or bringing in their trash can. Seemingly mundane, insignificant tasks but she is more influential in expanding the Kingdom of God than most Christians I know or most leaders I know.(Who even knows what their neighbors look like?; so much time is spent in the church building.). She is showing her neighbors the love of God; she is a living epistle.

There is a lesson here, we don’t have to be a Pastor or in full time Christian ministry in a church to do the works of God. We just need to be obedient to the word of God which says “‘Love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your mind.’ This is the first and greatest commandment. And the second is like it: ‘Love your neighbor as yourself.’ Matt 22:37-39

Let’s ask ourselves this same question everyday ” Will this help someone?”

Be honest are you bored with your Christian experience?. Do you want to have a vibrant reltionship with God? The priority has to be God and His plan, what is He asking you to do, what are the deep desires He has put in your heart? What is His still small voice saying to you? What are the inclinations in your heart that you just have a knowing inside that this is what you are supposed to do?

Begin the adventure by saying yes to those promptings of the Holy Spirit act on what He is saying. Don’t ask how just step out the how will show up after. How do I know this? because I have proved it time after time.

Take the present time for example.

About four weeks ago we were in Gulf Shores Alabama and I was reminiscing in my mind some of the great times me and Kevin had every month for a year prayer walking in Los Angeles. I was thinking it would be great to go back and I mentioned it to Kev. The next day we went to the book shop in town and there were some shelves outside with a clearance sale of $1 and $2 books so not able to resist a bargain I took a look. I noticed a book that had the word Los Angeles on the spine so I picked it up and it was an Access street map and guide of all the different areas of Los Angeles for $1 I felt impressed to buy it thinking that perhaps one day God would take us back.

One week later we were in Dallas staying with some friends and I received a phone call from a friend saying that her friend in Los Angeles was looking for someone to house sit her house and wondered if we would like to do that for her.

Unfortunately it wasn’t going to be for another 2 weeks and we were planning to head home but I told her to give me a bit of time and I would get back to her. We were invited to stay in Dallas for another week and then were offered a cabin in the mountains of Colorado for a week too. This meant that we could go straight from Colorado to Los Angeles but we didn’t have the finances and we had our little old Saturn car, would it make it?

Kevin said one day if you had the money now would you go to Los Angeles and I said I would because I felt like God wanted us to go. Within an hour we had received the money to go so we decided to trust God and go for it.

After an amazing 2 day drive through wonderful scenery we arrived and talked to the lady of the house and told her our story about the Access book etc. then there was another amazing God incident she is a writer and years earlier she had written 3 Access books for different cities in America and she too was on a similar journey to us praying about the next phase of her life and what God wants her to do so we were both encouraged in our faith to believe that God is speaking to us and leading us.

So I write this blog from a coffee shop in Los Angeles expecting over the next 10 days to have a great time in relationship with God, reading His word and listening to His voice. He wants us to be like Jesus to do the things the Father is doing and to say the things the Father is saying. To do that we must get to know the Father more intimately. I encourage you to draw closer to Him and to abandon your life to Him.

This post was originally posted on October 18th 2010.

Now it is October 9th 2014 and I can tell you that following the voice of the Holy Spirit is not a one time experience.  God directed us in Los Angeles to return to St Charles MO and plant a church, so Saints Church was born.

Again I find myself on the verge of a new adventure, trusting God to reveal his plans and purposes.  How I love to be a disciple of Jesus Christ on God’s mission to restore the community I live in.

Vancouver was well worth the visit it has the best of both worlds, near the ocean and near the mountains. After wandering around for the day we took the bus to our next stop which was Crater Lake in a place call Klamath Falls Oregan.

At the Ranger’s office we were told we had to do wilderness camping which means you have to camp at least a mile away from the nearest path. We had to hike into the woods and find a place to pitch our two man tent. We were not experienced campers but we remembered on the Yogi Bear Show that it was wise to leave any food away from the tent and so we hung our food in a tree, just in case there were any bears around. We saw deer nearby in the woods, it was a little too close to nature for me.

At night time the temperature really dropped our Woolworth’s sleeping bags were not really up to it, so what with the cold and the unknown noises, we didn’t sleep much. We couldn’t wait for daylight so that we could make our way to the lodge where we got steamy hot oatmeal and were able to view the lake with it’s deep blue water. It is the deepest lake in the United States.

Lakes have been featuring in our present journey, particularly lakes caused by dams, we are presently near to Lake Mead next to the Hoover Dam. God is speaking to us about making more room for the water that He is going to pour into our lives. If we can dig out the border of the lake to make more room then when the dam is opened or bursts there will be room to contain everything that He has for us.

We are learning on this trip how to do that, part of it is to expand our faith to trust Him for everything, to be led by His Holy Spirit, and to communicate with Him on a more consistent basis. We are also connecting with people who we sense God wants to connect us to for a future purpose. It’s exciting and scary at the same time but so was the Wilderness camping 30 years ago and I am so glad I did it now or I would have never been able to tell my story.

 

Our next expedition to Canada was from Calgary to Vancouver through the Rocky Mountains. What an amazing landscape, winding roads hugging the sides of soaring, snow capped mountains, and crystal clear water in rivers below.

When you are on a journey there are so many places that you want to see but not enough time so we had to prioritize, we really wanted to spend time in Vancouver which meant that we only had about an hour in Bannf and never got to see Lake Louise which we had heard was extremely beautiful. We travelled through the night and arrived in Vancouver first thing in the morning.

On our journey with the Lord we find ourselves again in the Rocky Mountains this time in Colorado. Now we have different priorities, now we want to know where God wants us to go and what He wants us to do. We have taken our hands off the reigns of our lives and put them into His hands.

We are choosing to trust Him because His word is true which says ‘O LORD Almighty, blessed is the man who trusts in you.’ and  “But I’ll take the hand of those who don’t know the way, who can’t see where they’re going. I’ll be a personal guide to them, directing them through unknown country. I’ll be right there to show them what roads to take, make sure they don’t fall into the ditch.These are the things I’ll be doing for them— sticking with them, not leaving them for a minute.” 

How can we do anything other than trust Him when His promises are so amazing. He is more reliable than any GPS when you are on the journey of life.

As our travel fund wasn’t too substantial we were always on the look out for a bargain. We found breakfast to be the best deal of the day, most cafes offered a 99 cent breakfast with a short stack of pancakes and unlimited coffee. It became our staple diet for the weeks we were on the road, it filled us up at the beginning of the day then a jam (jelly) sandwich on the bus kept us going.

I remembered the words of the immigration officer at the airport when we arrived in the United States at the beginning of our journey she said “You do realize you will have to live very frugally with the money you have, if you intend to be here for 3 months.”

 Frugality was never a problem for me I was trained up in it by my mum, I have always lived within a budget and have often found myself picking up an extravagant cream cake or something like it only to retrace my steps at the supermarket and put it back before going through the check out. Unfortunately though this mind set restricted me in my relationship with God, I always believed that God would meet our needs but it took a God incident in 1993 to open my eyes to the generosity of God.

I never owned any jewelry except for my wedding ring then one Sunday in a church meeting the lady sitting in front of me turned and told me that she believed God wanted to give me a ring. She explained that she had admired it in the jewelers for weeks and that she had been paying money for it for months until finally that weekend she had been able to collect it. She had owned it for one day and God told her to give it to me. It was an exquisite ring with a single pearl in a white gold setting with diamonds unlike any ring I had ever seen before.

God spoke to me through this gift this is what He said ” I don’t just want to meet your needs I want to give you over and above that and I have ways to bless you that you have never dreamed of just expand your thinking and open up your heart to me and don’t restrict me by your small thinking.”

Every time I looked at that ring it reminded me of the amazing goodness of God and then about 6 years later He had me give it to another person and tell my story to her. Just to remind me that we are channels for God’s gifts not owners.