James Prescott

Have you ever been doing something which you have deemed routine, normal, which you do all the time, and then completely out of the blue, a feeling, thought, insight has suddenly come over you which changed everything? Maybe it's just that I'm a deep thinker, but I get these things often. But I got one on Saturday which was truly life-changing, and opened my eyes to just what God's been doing with me.

I was walking through Sutton town centre, in the midst of Christmas shopping, with people everywhere with shopping bags full of presents, going in and out of shops, with offers all over the place for presents and decorations up, all fueling the consumer version of Christmas.

I felt sick.

I wrote a few weeks ago a blog post called 'Is this it?' and it was that thought going through my mind again. What I was seeing was all the evidence I needed of how much we need God, and that there must be something, somewhere, that is bigger and better than this. There has to be a bigger purpose and meaning to life than the consumer dream and dog-eat-dog, atheist, scientific, consumerist view of the world. (Even writing that sentence and re-reading it, it just looks inadequate and shallow, to be honest)

Before I had felt a kind of righteous anger at this, but now I'd moved on from that. It was much deeper than anger.

I actually felt God's heart for the people around me. It wasn't some holier than though, self-righteous, 'I'm better than you' religious idea or feeling. I can hardly preach to anyone else, because at times I've been part of this whole thing too and I'm in no way perfect or wiser than anyone else - as I will come on to in a minute. But I just felt sorry for people whose whole life revolves around money, possessions, relationships and 'things'. I was thinking that there is something much bigger going on, a bigger story they could be part of, a hope that is real and delivers - and none of them know it. I was thinking, if they only knew the hope and the reality of the Jesus I know, the God who invites us to join His story and who loves us all just as we are, their lives could be so much different. It fired me up again to make sure that I make the best use of what God’s given me to serve Him and serve His kingdom.

However, God wasn’t done with me. That was just the warm up. As I reflected on this I began to realise just how much I myself had been a part of this, even though I’d said I wasn’t. I realised this sadness I felt for others, was how God had felt about me sometimes even though I know there is something better. In a way, that’s worse, because I shouldn’t be orientating myself around these consumer dreams and values, I know there's a real hope that delivers and at times I've not given myself fully to it. I think I began to realise how much I had gone away from God in this area at times, how self-involved I was under the guise of wanting to do the right thing. I thought of all the prayers I'd prayed and how often I'd prayed for myself, for things I'd wanted or moaning about things I didn't have, in comparison to the time I'd prayed for others, how much confession I'd done and how much praise I'd given to God without condition.

I realised just how much at times I had allowed myself to drift away from God's heart and plan for me. I understood just how much fear there was and is in me. After all, fear is how our culture operates. Think about it. Most adverts on some level, most people trying to sell you something do it in a form of fear, trying to make you feel your life isn’t complete without their product. It’s how marketing works to a large degree, and I’d allowed that fear to run my life at times, instead of the fear of the Lord. 

And there was other types of fear I’d allowed to get in the way. 

I'm trying to pursue my writing and develop myself and invest in myself, so that I can become more like the man God made me to be and use what I have to serve others - which is a good thing. I've made a commitment to try and make Jesus the first in my heart - which is a good thing.

But I have realised how afraid those two things make me. Because they have compelled me to face up to reality, to expose myself to God and to the world, to take responsibility for my life and risk failure, embarrassment, and also making some decisions without knowing about how they are going to turn out. And in one sense, that's a great adventure and very exciting, and brings me closer to God.

In other ways, however, it's very scary, and it would be easy to walk away and go back into my comfort zone, immerse myself in the old consumer way of life which is a lot easier, and put my faith and hope in those things. But I can't now. I've seen how pointless - and, frankly, boring - that existence is, and I don't want to go back. I don't want a life without Him. My prayers now are beginning more with how much I need God, how afraid, vulnerable and weak I really am, how I want God to be the first and thanking Him for being with me. There's less asking for stuff now. I think there's a lot more fear of the Lord in my prayers than there ever has been.

I mean is life really all about just getting stuff to make us happy? Or getting a good feeling when we buy something? About achieving a certain status? About making money? About getting the right relationships and family life? Those things aren't bad in themselves, and it's good to pursue these things in one context. But if these are our whole lives, then we're not going to be truly fulfilled and satisfied. There's going to be something missing. And when things don't go our way, when things go wrong, when we struggle - and we will at some point - we will have nothing to sustain us, nothing to keep us going because the thing we put our hope in will have proven to be fallible. Relationships can fail. We can lose our jobs. We lose people. Reputations can fall as quickly as they rise. None of those things delivers all the time, and personally I believe that none of them ever completely satisfies even at the best of times.

I know that there's no way I can go forward without God in my life, without God at the centre. Nothing else makes sense without Him. He's the only hope we have. Not money, not status, not position, not relationships, not politicians. Jesus is the only hope we have, the only thing that makes sense of life.

And until we acknowledge and recognise that, there's always going to be something missing from our life. There might be things that can fill that hole temporarily or partially, but I'm here to tell you that they never really deliver. They never last. They always need replacing or let you down - and it's only as you distance yourself from them that you will see how pointless these things really are.

Jesus lasts. Jesus delivers. Jesus is what we need, and our lives will not be complete or fulfilled unless they are ordered around Him and His kingdom, and that's not just a one-off decision, it's a lifestyle decision, it's a decision to re-begin our lives, to start with Jesus and fit everything and everyone else around Him, not fit Jesus into everything else.

Otherwise, life is always going to be missing something.

Ultimately, there is something bigger and deeper here. The key to this is that Jesus has to be the beginning of our lives, the first in our lives. We need to stop and then reorder, restart our lives around and from Jesus and the cross. It has to all begin with Him and come from Him, otherwise life is never going to make any sense. The rhythm of our lives has to start with Him.

I will try to develop this idea a bit further in future blog posts - and maybe even my book - but for now, ask yourself these questions.

Are you missing something in your life?
What things are you using to try and make sense or worth of your life?
Do you know Jesus but are trying to fit Him into your life, rather than fit your life around Him?
How are you going to respond to Jesus?

I don’t know about you, but I’ve often been in the habit a lot of the time that I have to live a certain way, that certain things are inevitable, that there’s a path before me that I can’t change and that no matter what we do, our lives our going down that path. For a long time I’d told myself the lie that my life is destined for failure & rejection. There was a time when I always thought that way, consciously, even when things were good. 

No more. 

Now I know different, I know the truth, I know that all of those things are lies. 

God has been doing some amazing things in my life and changing me in recent years, that has dissipated, almost gone completely from the surface. 

But of course, then something bad or unexpected happens, like the other day with me. Something sudden, unexpected and painful happened which disrupted the momentum I was on, which disrupted the way I’d organised and moved my life on and caused me much stress and frustration, and reminded me of my past which I’d moved on from so well.

It took a bit of time - a day or so - but eventually I succumbed to the old message my heart used to play. That all good things were just a lie and that God was just waiting to ruin my life, to cause me more pain and suffering, that there’s no good thing allowed in my life without me having to suffer at some point for it.

Sounds pathetic doesn’t it? Probably because it is. 

I mean looking back I feel a complete fool for even thinking that or saying that outloud. But the truth is that God knew this was somewhere in me all along and still chose to bless me in all these ways I’ve been blessed - I mean, what an amazing God.

I mean that whole argument I was telling myself makes absolutely no sense. God loves me, Jesus died me, God has blessed me in so many ways in my life, and brought so many good things out of my suffering and grief, and given me so many gifts, so many opportunities and blessings. I am more blessed than a lot of people and have so much to be thankful for. I feel more alive in Jesus than I ever have been, I’m on a journey with Him where I don’t quite know will end, but I am kind of loving it and truly believe that however it turns out, God will use it for good. All that I absolutely believe and know to be true, all the way through to my heart.

But at the very end of my tether, when I had no energy left, no fight left, no mask on, I was totally broken, I realised there was still a very small part of me that simply wouldn’t trust God, that still believed that He has it in for me.

I am really thankful in this situation that I had a very good friend, who sat and listened to me talk about this on Skype for the best part of two hours and get all this out. But I am even more grateful for the next thing they did.

They pointed me to the Bible, to the promises of God. They reminded me of truths I already knew and believed that somehow had got lost in the panic and disruption of the previous day.

That God has good things for me - for us.

That He uses all things for good, no matter what.

That I’m His adopted son, I’m part of His family, and chosen and blessed by Him before time began. Fact.

In my weakness I began to claim these promises again, like it was the first time. Even though at first it was a struggle to believe them, but my friend didn’t give up on me. They kept challenging me ‘Do you really believe them?’ ‘What do they mean for you?’

The more I claimed these promises and started to reflect on them in my life, and interpret these promises for me, the stronger I felt, the more confident I felt that no matter what happened I could overcome this attack of the enemy. I was reminded of things I already knew, I felt I was being renewed, strengthened by the Spirit of God yet again, that yet again God was not giving up on me when things were difficult, that no matter how much a part of me tried to push Him away, He was having none of it.

Ever since then those verses have stuck in my mind, I haven’t forgotten them and I know they are true, no matter what life throws at me. I will always remember those verses and those truths, and that evening. It was a significant moment in my relationship with God. The truths I remembered that night were true, are true and will always be true, for me and for everyone.

And that’s the point.

This applies to us all.

C.S.Lewis once wrote about the idea that once you look at the evidence about Jesus, that you have to conclude that He was either mad, a liar or telling the truth, and once you eliminate the first two then the only conclusion you have left is that He was telling the truth.

One thing that always struck me about that idea and which this situation reminded me of again is that sometimes in our walk with Jesus we aren’t required to necessarily like the fact that He’s true and that the message of the gospel and the cross is true.

But it doesn’t change that it is.

We don’t have to always like the fact Jesus is true, no one has to like it. I don’t like that David Cameron is Prime Minister, for example, but it’s true so I just have to deal with it.  It’s all part of relationship, which is what God really wants with us. There are times when the last thing we want to hear is a scripture quoted to us, and we’re disillusioned with God and doubting Him. 

And we feel guilty for it, like we’ve done something wrong. Or we want God to go away and leave us alone.

But the reality is that this is all part of relationship. God understands that and fortunately for us He’s bigger than that. 

He doesn’t give up on us. He knows this stuff is in our hearts even when we don’t, and He still chooses to bless us and love us. The honest truth is that God knew that I had these subconscious thoughts, that they were deep down there somewhere, even when I didn’t. But He allowed that difficult situation to expose them so that He could open my eyes to them and minister to them, and as I accepted again who He is, and looked again at some of His promises, some of those areas started to be healed and restored, and I developed new coping mechanisms, healthier ones, and was able to begin the process of replacing those old subconscious tapes of lies with new ones of truth - and now I can be more aware of those old tapes there and work with God to remove them.

This is all the process of relationship, it’s what we do in all relationships to a degree, you work through issues together and deal with them, and move forward. This is exactly what we can do with God, and yet again affirms the truth that God isn’t interested in a religious, legalistic faith all about rules, but about a relationship based on certain values.

The best thing of all, for me, is that God still loves us, forgives us, gives us opportunities and blessings, even when all along He sees those insecurities, fears and doubts that we don’t even think we have. He knows so much better than us, takes care of us and is always with us.

He has a rhythm for our lives, a plan that’s much bigger than we understand or know. He knows everything that’s going to happen, all the choices we will make and no matter what He is going to love us, bless us and be there for us.

I mean think of all the doubts, insecurities and fears you’ve had about things in your life, looking back at difficult times - or if you’re in difficult times now. The thing is you see that even in the so-called ‘good times’ those insecurities and doubts were still there, but we just couldn’t see them. God was blessing us, things were good, but He knew all those doubts and insecurities were there even then.

It’s easy in the merit-based culture we live in to think that when something bad happens we’re being punished for something, or that somehow we’re to blame for the bad thing that’s happened, or our doubts and insecurities which these difficult times expose are somehow the reason why the good times have stopped.

But that’s a lie. That’s the lie I think I believed for a long time. 

That’s why grace is so scandalous and hard to accept, because this merit-based view of the world is so deeply ingrained in our culture. That’s why I’ve struggled to accept grace at times, because somewhere inside believed in that merit-based view of God for too long, and combined with a lack of self-esteem in my younger years it’s proved a deadly combination. 

But a merit-based faith comes from a religious, legalistic view of God, and as I said, it’s a lie. 

God wants relationship. He wants our hearts. He has a way He wants us to life, and the invitation is to join our lives to that story, that rhythm and reorder our lives and values around that. He loves and accepts us just as we are - but He loves us way too much for us to stay that way. 

There is an invitation - to believe the scandal of grace, to join your life with God’s and let Him reshape you into the shape He originally had for you, and receive His unconditional love, grace and blessing. 

Are you ready to accept that blessing?

Have you believed that you somehow have to earn God’s blessing?

Have you believed that bad things that have happened to you are somehow punishment from God, or that something has been denied you because of something you did?

How did you respond the last time something painful and unexpected happened?

Is your relationship with God based on grace, or merit?

I know that in the times we live in - the so called 'age of austerity' - where things are difficult financially, people are losing their jobs and there are cuts everywhere you look, that it's a difficult time to be optimistic and feel alive. Or so it would seem anyway.

But I don't know about you, but I'm feeling alive right now. Really, truly alive

.

Some things have happened to me recently which have made me feel alive more than ever. Or more accurately, I've made some choices recently which have resulted in me feeling more alive. I’m an optimist my inclination, but I feel even more positive about myself and what God’s doing in me than normal right now, largely down to these choices I’ve made. 

I've invested in some personal coaching which is bearing fruit in ways I never expected with someone who has been a great encouragement, blessing and support to me, even friend (you know who you are, thank you so much!), I've got accountability with someone for decisions about my faith and life, I've started thinking practically about what God might be wanting me to do and taken the first tentative steps in following those things through.

You may already have noticed some changes here. My name at the top, the info bar at the side being about me and a more prominent picture of me. Now that's not because I'm vain (anyone who knows me knows that's the biggest joke ever) or I want glory or status for myself, but because I've realised to take the next step in my discipleship/development, and in particular in my writing,  my name needs to be out there a lot more. Eventually I'll be taking the 'Evolving Church' name off the blog completely - although that's still an idea and concept I'm passionate about and would like to explore further at some point. But one 'evolutionary' step I think I need to take is moving this blog and my internet presence to being more broadly focussed on what God is doing and saying in my life as a whole, rather than continually funneling it through the idea of Evolving Church. It gives me a lot greater freedom of expression in what I write, so that's what I'll be moving to in future.

I'm writing this post partially to keep you guys (and gals) in the loop as to what's happening, but also because this whole process is something I want you to be part of and want to share with you. The way I write has always been pretty open, and I've always tried to take experiences, reflections and lessons from my own life and share and relate them to us all, and that's what I'll continue to do.

What's happening now really feels like an adventure with God. A few weeks back God really challenged me about putting Him as the first in my heart - above career, above relationships, above everything - and I took the decision to pursue that. That doesn't mean I instantly had total faith in God and put Him first naturally in everything, and didn't make me some sort of 'super Christian' straightaway.

But I'd made a choice. A choice I have had to keep making every day since, despite considerable temptation. To be honest, sometimes I've failed, like when I bought a DVD the other day despite a part of me - the God part - telling me not to and that I didn't need it. I realised then how far I still have to go, and was reminded that I'll never stop growing and learning - and failing - but that actually the whole thing is a process which I'm constantly going through and part of.

That's one of the main reasons why the religious idea of God makes less and less sense to me. Religion is about following rules, about meeting a set standard and when you get there you get some kind of blessing and reward, it's about fitting within some set rules and regulations, it's not liberating, it actually holds you back. Certainly in my experience of more ‘religious’ versions of the Christian faith, that’s the impression that’s been given, and how I’ve been left feeling.

And it doesn't involve relationship at any level - nor does it necessarily require it. I didn’t even know you could have personal relationship with God one a one-to-one level until I went to university. I mean, I prayed a lot on my own before then, but it always felt like God spoke to people mainly in a corporate way rather than individually. I never really knew He could at that point.

I think sometimes the religious view of God is a lot easier for us though, because it fits more with the type of life we are used to - a set of rules the we adhere to, and then reward for doing the right thing. That’s the culture and mentality we’re brought up in and which is ingrained to us almost from birth. On top of this, this kind of faith is one that's very easy to tag on to a consumer lifestyle, to be our 'thing', something we do once or twice a week, almost like a hobby. Faith can be a lot easier to view that way, and is often communicated or perceived that way, amongst many 'organised religions'.

But this is the thing. Jesus wants relationship, and the key thing about relationship is that it's two way. It involves active participation and co-operation on our part.

God in Jesus has extended His hands out to us through the cross. He is ready to meet with us, to know us and be known more by us, to interact with us and show us who we really are, and our role in the restoration of all things, our role in bringing heaven and earth back together again. To see God's kingdom here, now - not somewhere else, someday. But here, now, alive and active and growing. He wants us to go on an adventure with Him

But to do that involves our participation. It involves us making choices to be intentional about our faith, to put Jesus first in our hearts above literally everything and everyone, and submitting to Him, and committing to choosing that every day. God doesn't expect us to get it right all the time, but if we are being intentional then we will be more aware of when and where we don't get it right, and be more able to deal with it, because we'll be more in tune with what God is doing and wants to do.

Life won't ever be boring, that's for sure. I know my life doesn't feel boring anymore. I'm not claiming to have it all together, to have nailed it, to have all the answers or that I always get it right. I don't claim this attitude will solve all your problems either. 

There will still be pain.

There will still be hard times.

Your life won’t always be simple. In fact, it may be even more difficult at times. It might even seem mundane sometimes - once the romance fades and we need to push on through (I still have that to come...) but we need to persevere in those times, because its through those times that we really grow. When we’ve gone through our Friday and come into Sunday (I will talk more about this in another blog...), then the joy, the good times, feel more precious, more joyful.

I know from experience life is not always going to be easy or ideal, no matter how good things are.

But I do know that since living this way, I've felt more alive than ever - and I don't want to go back to how things were, even though things were a lot safer before.

That's the adventure of God, the adventure of discipleship. That's the invitation God extends to all of us.

There’s a video below of a song by the band ‘Angels & Airwaves’ (if you’ve not heard of them, they rock) called ‘The Adventure’. It’s on a very epic scale, almost ‘Star Wars’-esque in it’s style, and for me it’s really powerful. It hints at there being a bigger story going on, an adventure for us all, one that we’re not meant to do alone. It inspires me certainly. I mean do you ever get a tingling down your spine when you see things like this, the fleeting thought that your life was meant for something bigger? I always do when I see things like this or any great film about destiny or identity - like The Matrix, Dead Poets Society and others.

I think that tingling feeling we get, that dream of something bigger, is from God. It’s God telling us somehow that our lives do have purpose, meaning, that’s bigger than just being part of the consumer life and tagging Jesus on to it.

God is looking for participants, co-conspirators in remaking creation and bringing heaven back to earth, He’s looking for partners, He’s looking for disciples. He wants relationship, He wants our hearts.

The song says ‘I cannot live, I cannot breathe unless you do this with me’. That could well be speaking about a dependence we need to have on God. But it speaks to me about God desiring desperately to have relationship with us, for us to engage with Him and be part of His plan, to join His adventure, to join ourselves to His story. He doesn’t want to do it without us.

Watch the video, and listen to the song. As you do, reflect on these questions.

Are you ready to embrace a bigger vision & dream for your life?

Are you ready to put Jesus first in your heart?

Do you want a life of adventure?

Above all, are you willing to join your story to God’s story, and go on the adventure of your life?

Today I bought a new album (which shall remain nameless, though as it came out today that narrows it down considerably, especially for those who know me) and as I purchased it in the shop I suddenly had this thought come over me, which has come over me a lot more often recently.

‘Do I need this?’

‘Why did I buy this?’

Now to be fair it’s a great album and one I’ve been planning to buy for a while by one of my favourite bands, it wasn’t that expensive and will get a lot of use. But that wasn’t the point.

Me being a deep thinker, these two thoughts very quickly went beyond the superficial and into why any of us buy anything, why we have possessions, why they are so important to us, and my eyes began to open.

It’s all about control.

When we buy something, we gain control over it. We gain the right of possession, we can do what we like, when we like, how we like with what we have bought without consequence (as long as its legal of course). But there is a feeling, an emotion, a sense of satisfaction we feel inside when we buy something we really want.

All of us feel it, no matter how much we deny it. It’s almost ingrained into us. This feeling of self-satisfaction and happiness. But it’s not just happiness we feel. It’s power.

Buying something and possessing us gives us power - and the more we possess, the more powerful we feel, the more control we feel like we have, the more independence we feel like we have.

But that feeling good about being independent is rooted in a lack of trust in anything and anyone else. It’s rooted in the consumer, dog-eat-dog mentality which says you can’t trust anyone else, that ultimately it’s all down to you to do what’s best for you and don’t dare trust anyone else, because all they will do is hurt you, take advantage of you and bring you down. In fact, it also can say that it’s better someone else gets hurt than you, try to avoid suffering and getting tied down as much as possible, and if you’re “foolish” enough to get tied down in a relationship there’s always the get out clause of divorce or selling the flat you bought together.

That’s the so called ‘consumer dream’ that we are sold from the minute we’re born. Apparently this is the key to happiness, this is what will give us most satisfaction and joy, it’s the only thing we can put our faith in - ultimately, ourselves. Of course, we love it, because it makes us gods. 

And that can feel good. When things are good and we’re doing well, anyway.

The problem is that this idea only works for a few. It never works for everyone. The majority end up suffering - in fact, the reality is we all suffer, and because the consumer dream is all about feeling good, which never really delivers long-term, when we don’t then we deal with it very badly, and because our whole rhythm of life is geared towards achieving that dream we hardly have any space, any rest, any peace, and we don’t have community to support and encourage us at the difficult times, unless we are lucky enough to have grown up in a stable, happy family which is still together.

I experienced again today just how hard it is to be a Christ-follower in a consumer world and just how ingrained this consumer culture is into our thinking, feeling and routine. 

I’m trying to be a disciple of Jesus, trying to have Jesus first in my heart, to worship Jesus not possessions and take joy from giving and serving, not taking and receiving. Jesus words about the road being narrow took on even more significance today, and there was something even more profound that I began to understand.

That being a disciple of Jesus is not something you can fit in to your ‘normal’ life. It’s not something to fit into your life. 

It has to be the rhythm, the heartbeat, the soundtrack to your life. It has to be before anything. You have to retrain yourself to think, live and act like Jesus right from your very core, deep in your heart, in your subconscious. 

We almost have to go back to the beginning, and start again. Retrain ourselves to think, act, live and breathe differently. So that we see everything - money, possessions, food, work, everything - in the light and context of Jesus, and those things, if we have them (and they aren’t evil in themselves), are merely a part of a life ordered around Jesus’ agenda and values. Enjoy these things in proper perspective, and be willing to let them go, for the sake of God. 

Ultimately, the Jesus way is the total opposite. It’s surrendering control. It’s letting God take control of your life - not absolving responsibility, but being willing to take responsibility and make decisions in obedience to the way and calling of Jesus. It’s essentially saying that your life, and your body, and your gifts - which are ultimately from God anyway - now are no longer yours but His, to be used as He chooses for His purposes and cause. Our pastor put it brilliantly once, to be ‘change in Jesus pocket’. To make ourselves totally available for His kingdom and glory.

This is easy to say - not so easy to live, and its something I (and all of us) need to think about and spend a lot of time reflecting and meditating on, before taking some action. There are several communities in the US and UK who are trying to live out these values as community, and although I’m not saying all of us should do that (ideally maybe, practically, very difficult), I think they deserve greater examination and consideration, both in this and in the context of looking at Sabbath and rhythms of life. 

Church is people you see. It’s a group of Christ-followers working together for the good of the kingdom, through serving their own community and the wider community, and through serving and loving each other, discipling each other, praying and worshipping together and being taught about how to be and bring Jesus into their everyday. At it’s best it provides a network of support in times of need and a place to celebrate in times of joy, and can be the centre of it’s local community. At it’s best, everyone in a church would be pursuing this Christ-like life, trying to be a real disciple. When you see that practiced in community, it is an incredible thing, a real blessing. That’s something we can all be aspiring to.

And it ultimately can only come if we’re willing to give up control and build God’s kingdom.

It’s amazing how far you can go from simply buying a CD isn’t it? Looks like I’m making some Progress...

Have you ever heard someone say something about you, and the instant you heard it, it made sense?

Like it ticked a box, you connected with it in some deep divine kind of way, almost like you always knew this thing about yourself, or had felt it on some level, but someone saying it had merely confirmed it or vocalised it for the first time? You may even have thought this thing about yourself, but had either been too afraid or unwilling to admit it.

That happened to me the other day.

As part of my discipleship and growth I have booked myself in for some Skype coaching sessions with a well-known worship leader, someone with experience in ‘full-time ministry’ (though I dislike that phrase, as we all are one way or another) and who has studied theology and reflection at length, someone who can sharpen me, challenge me, and push me and move me on in my walk with Jesus and indeed in my writing.

For a while I’ve been trying to figure out my own distinct voice, my own message, my own style. I’ve known that although I’m pretty clever I’m not an academic in the traditional sense, however at the same time I’m passionate about church, theology & discipleship as well creativity, especially writing/speaking and video/audio communication. I’ve modelled a lot of what I do on people like Rob Bell, Brian McClaren and my own pastor Jason Clark. 

I was talking about my style with this worship leader/coach and having read a lot of my blog and heard my story they suggested one other person - of whom I’m also a big fan - who my style closely matched and seemed to fit with. Donald Miller. 

Now Don Miller is my favourite author outside the Bible. Rob Bell is a great speaker/author/communicator, but as a pure author Don Miller is supreme (and he’d probably be the last person to say it). I recommend his books to pretty much everyone I meet, especially his most recent, ‘A Million Miles in a Thousand Years’, about the concept of story in our lives (a book I read at least twice a year now, if not more). So to have someone say my style was similar to his and that these were the kind of books I should be writing, was encouraging to say the least.

But unlike the others, I’d not tried at any point in the past to be like him. I’d not copied him. Although I’d learned from the others, I’d essentially been me, and when I let me come out, then something a lot better emerged. Something similar to someone else entirely but something that was different.

It was me.

That’s thing this whole process opened my eyes to, simply that despite how similiar in style what I create might be to someone else’s work, whoever it is, it’s going to be different.

It’s going to be mine. It’s going to be me.

I mean I’m passionate about things that Don Miller isn’t maybe as much, I have experiences he hasn’t had, I have a different story to tell. The same with Rob Bell, Jason Clark and any others you may mention. I have a different story to tell than any of them and my work is going to be different to all of theirs - although their styles might have had some influence on mine, the work that I produce is still essentially going to be mine, and I don’t have to pretend to be anyone else or subconciously mimic anyone else, I just have to be me.

It’s a scary thing actually, being you, baring your soul - as someone who writes, I know this and I’m sure it’s true with anyone who creates. It’s almost like baring your entire soul in public, when you give out something of yourself you’re exposing yourself a little.

Almost like being completely, stark 

naked.

We don’t like that word do we? Naked. It makes us feel uncomfortable even reading it on a page, yet alone saying it. In fact I wasn't allowed to use it in the title of this post, that's how faux paux it is nowadays. But it’s not a rude word as far as I can see though. It’s merely a statement of something, which can imply something else.

But this word has endless connotations, which go way beyond the physical. Being naked is exposing the deepest, darkest, most honest places of your soul to the outside world. Showing people the things you don’t want them to see, that you try to hide. Things that only you (and God) know.

But sometimes, it’s the only way we can be really ourselves isn’t it?

We get so conditioned by the world to act, live and think a certain way, that everything can become a show for someone and we don’t even realise it. Sometimes it’s only when we go to bed on our own - which of course some people often do physically naked - that this comes off, and we say our most honest prayers, think our most honest thoughts, and feel the most honest.

God sees this part of us all the time. He knows it better than we do. He sees this all the time, and nothing we do can hide it from Him. 

But there is a message hidden in Genesis. Before humans rejected God, they were ‘naked and felt no shame’. I think we often miss the meaning there. It wasn’t just that they were physically naked and felt no shame, but that they were completely themselves, in the way God originally planned them to be, living in total harmony with God. To me the story says that when we’re in that condition 

there is nothing to be afraid of 

nothing to hide

nothing to divide us or come between us

In many ways, God wants us to be naked with Him. Divinely naked. 

He can already see our naked souls - but He want us to expose ourselves to Him so that He can show us who we really are, and heal the scars and wounds that we might find, and heal the division between us.

God wants us to be divinely naked. Right now.

Many of you who've read this blog know my story, and it's not a pretty one. I say this not to gain pity or sympathy - I request nor require either - but merely to state the facts. My life hasn't been easy at times, especially my teenage years and early twenties, and for a long time I lived in the after-effects of that, and that suffering had a big role to play in shaping who I am now.

That's what suffering does.

It changes us.

It shapes us.

I realise now a lot of the anger that has driven me in recent years in making many changes in my life, and indeed in my writing, has come from anger I felt at this and other things I lacked in my life, and a sense of feeling second best to everyone. That God was able to use that and redeem it is indeed a miracle - especially as I thought that anger was merely a 'righteous anger'. It shows that with God, everything truly is redeemable.

Now my problem is slightly different. It's a common known fact that as soon as things start to go really well, on a very subconscious level we can start to drift from God. I mean when things are bad its very easy both to blame God and/or turn to Him for help - its very natural to do that, its how things were meant to be all along. The thing is, we’re meant to rely on God as much when things are good, when things are easy, as we do when they’re at their worst.

But of course, we don’t. If we’re successful, we can easily start to take credit for it ourselves, think its all down to us, or at best shove God to the side a little - and of course when you do that you're just asking for trouble. It happens in scripture all the time , and a big clue to the consequences (and a good way to find it) is that not long after it usually says 'Yet again they [usually the Israelites] did evil in the eyes of the Lord' (If I had a tenner for every time it said that in scripture, I'd have a lot of money….).

I never wanted to be the kind of person who 'yet again did evil in the eyes of the Lord'. I mean every time I read that phrase I was thinking how dumb they were, and I was saying in my prayers how I would never do that.

But then I stopped and thought something.

I do ‘do evil in the eyes of the Lord’. Often. We all do. If had a tenner for every time I'D done evil in the eyes of the Lord, I'd be even richer than I would for the times in the Bible, that's the truth of it. Again, we all would.

We are just lucky enough to have Jesus and the cross to pay the price for all our mistakes, so God doesn't have to talk about all the time we do evil in His eyes.

Which brings me back to my point. When things are going well, it's really easy to get complacent. It's harder to motivate yourself. The anger that drives me now needs to be divine anger, anger at things which really matter, and if I'm not angry about issues that matter, issues that God is concerned about, then I should be. I should be driven by a deep desire to serve God, please Him and build His kingdom.

In ‘The War of Art’ Steven Pressfield says that many writers are afraid, but not of failure, but of success. If they are success then they have to live up to what they’ve written, they have to live a certain way, they can’t hide anymore. Their character will be exposed and under public examination. He’s right too, the media do this all the time with public figures, we’ve all seen it. 

I don't want to get complacent. I don't want anything to divert me from my cause. God has put me here and kept me here for a reason, and I want to serve Him and build His kingdom in whatever way He's got planned for me. Whether things are good or bad in my own life, that's almost irrelevant.

God is what matters in the end. His kingdom, His glory. That all good things, anything good in my life, is from Him and belongs to Him.

I want to give Him glory and honour Him rightly when things are good, not just when things are difficult. Its must less natural to give God praise, honour and glory when things are good, especially in the culture we live in which is all about, well, us. 

How counter-cultural and how much of a witness would it be if the first thing we do in the time of our greatest success was give credit where its really due - not in a false kind of way, to attract attention to ourselves. But to do it in a way which says that this isn’t about us, a way which sees all our achievements for what they really are - a correct stewarding of God’s gift to us, channelling what God has given us into serving His people and building His kingdom.

It’s so hard to do - and that’s why it’s so important. 

What was your instinctive, first, gut reaction the last time you achieved something and were successful? 

When was the real happiest moment of your life, and do you remember how you felt when that happened?

Was God anywhere in your reaction? 

Why do you think you reacted like you did, and what can you change next time to make sure your reaction is honouring to God?

I don’t often comment on specific Bible passages, but this one has really stood out for me this week. Check this passage out: 

“Or which one of you, if his son asks him for bread, will give him a stone? Or if he asks for a fish, will give him a serpent? If you then, who are evil, know how to give good gifts to your children, how much more will your Father who is in heaven give good things to those who ask him!” (Matthew 7 v9-11)

I don’t know about you, but I have struggled a lot with this verse.

I mean, have you ever struggled with God giving you good things? Or have you ever felt guilty when God’s blessed you in an amazing way, when grace has been extended to you, whether directly from God or through someone else?

I know I do. 

This last year or so I have been so blessed. God has given me so many good things, I don’t have too much to complain about. But sometimes its hard to believe these things are really real, or to truly embrace them, because we think we’re not meant to.

I mean aren’t we meant to be serving, giving, making sacrifices for God? Denying ourselves and taking up our cross? Forgetting our own desires and pursuing His?

Well, yes, in one sense we are, and in the Bible it does mention this.

But that is often misinterpreted to mean that God doesn’t want us to enjoy the good things He gives us and the opportunities and blessings He puts in front of us.

God wants us to have fun.

God wants to bless us - and that blessing doesn’t come from anything we’ve earned, it comes because of the grace and love of God.

But by the same token, God doesn’t just want us to be happy. Happiness is an emotion which quickly comes and goes, and our culture encourages us to pursue this. But because its so hard to attain and it doesn’t last, we have to keep going, keep striving, to pursue it - and that’s exhausting & ultimately unfulfilling. 

I think God wants us to embrace the blessings we have - but that He wants us to see them as blessings, not as ends in themselves. He wants us to enjoy His blessings but He wants us to be willing to sacrifice them if He wants us to. 

He wants to be the first in our heart.

You see when we put God first in our heart its much easier to enjoy all the blessings God puts in front of us. Because we know these are not ends in themselves, they aren’t the things we’re putting our hope and faith in.

I know its been much easier for me to enjoy the good things God has given me when I know that they all come second to God. But even now, I struggle to accept when the most amazing blessings come my way, because I think that God can’t want me to have them.

I can instinctively think 

“What did I do to deserve this?” 

“Why are you giving me this?” 

“What’s the catch?”

When often there isn’t one. God just loves giving out, He loves blessing us, because He loves us. What I am learning is that I have to embrace these blessings, because if I don’t it’s almost akin to not trusting God. It’s like I’m taking something He’s given me and throwing it away, it’s kinda ungrateful.

But as I have said, I’ve only started to learn this once I started putting God first in my heart. When everything begins and ends with God, and everything is from Him and for Him, then when good things happen, and you know they are from God, then it becomes much easier to embrace them. Often we can over spiritualise things, and even use God as an excuse not to enjoy the blessings He gives us, because we think we shouldn’t enjoy blessing, because it means we’re not taking our faith seriously. But I think that as long as we put the blessings in their proper perspective - second to God - then enjoying the blessings that are put in our path is very much taking our faith seriously. 

I don’t know about you, but growing up in the church I somehow got indoctrinated into this idea that having fun is a sin. 

But that’s not true.

Making fun your entire life, and worshipping it, and putting it above God, that’s the sin. I mean, look at how many weddings and parties Jesus went to, I mean He liked to enjoy life.

But it was always second to God for Him. We need to take the opportunities put in front of us, recognise them and embrace them. 

Here’s a clip from ‘Dead Poets Society’ (great film, if you’ve not seen it, make sure you do soon), which makes my point well:

Now of course, this doesn’t talk about God, but it makes an important point.  

Seize the day. 

Make your lives extrodinary.

We need to embrace the oppotunities and blessings God puts into our lives, we need to step out and take risks for God and allow ourselves to experience things. Life isn’t all about theory. James said that faith without action is dead, and that doesn’t just mean that we have to live out our faith through service & lifestyle - though it does mean that - it means that we need to step out and embrace what God is doing in our lives, and in relation to the verse above, to enjoy the blessings God gives us.

Now of course, there are other meanings and interpretations of this verse, and many of them are equally as meaningful.

We need to know & trust that God isn’t going to give us blessings that take Him away from us, and sometimes He opens doors to blessing and He just wants us to walk through them, to seize the day. 

I think part of the journey of faith we are all on, part of the invitation of Christ, is exactly what Robin Williams says:

Seize the day.

Make your lives extraordinary.

Embrace what God has for you, take the opportunities He gives us, enjoy His blessing, and do it all in the light of Him - putting Him first above all things, seeing everything as a blessing from Him and in the light of who He is. Realise that God has extraordinary things in store for us, and part of that is embracing the blessings that He has for us.

I think these two quotes have much more to say to us as Jesus followers than we realise. It’s something maybe I will explore in the coming weeks.

But for now, know that God does give us good things, and He wants us to embrace them and enjoy them - in the proper context, in light of Him, as coming from Him, as blessings from Him, all second in importance to Him.

Then, we might really experience the blessing of God in a way we’ve not done before.

This weekend its Halloween, as I’m sure many of you know. Time for dressing up, trick or treating, having parties and watching scary films. To be honest, I’ve never really seen the point in Halloween. I guess, being a church-goer my whole life, its never really meant anything to me.

But then I found out the real meaning of this day.

It’s All Saints Day.

All Saints Day has been celebrated for centuries. Its a day when, essentially, Christians remember all of those who have gone before. Now it would be easy to say its all about those who we would traditionally call ‘saints’ – St Peter, St Paul, and modern ‘official’ saints like the last Pope and Mother Theresa.

We can understand those people being called saints can’t we?

After the lives they led, what they endured for their faith, the sacrifices they made and devotion to God, they somehow seem to ‘deserve’ that status don’t they?

Well at least, that’s the general understanding of it.

The problem with this understanding is that it implies that somehow God loves and blesses these people more than He does everyone else. That there’s this scale with God, this measure of how worthy you are of His blessing, and that only special people get this blessing. Its kind of like saying some people are specially qualified for God’s special blessing.

Now I’m not for one minute saying that the people I’ve mentioned aren’t outstanding examples of disciples of Jesus. They are all great role models for us, they have all shaped our faith in one way or another, they show us what is possible and their example challenges us to live a more Christ-like life – or it should. It’s important that we take time out to remember these kind of people, to remember the freedoms they fought for that allow us to express our faith openly and freely in this country without persecution, the people who gave their lives to bring the message of Jesus to the world, those who carried on this message despite enduring immense persecution and suffering.

Its absolutely right that we remember and give thanks for those people.

What I am saying though is that calling some people saints and saying others aren’t isn’t actually accurate. In fact, its an absolving of responsibility.

The truth is that anyone who calls themselves a follower of Jesus is in fact a saint.

That’s right, we are all saints. Or at least, we can all be saints.

Everyone who calls themselves a follower of Jesus is a saint.

God’s blessing, invitation and love aren’t just available for special people. It’s not just special people who are able to be used by God. God’s blessing, His love, His invitation and His call are for all of us, if we want it.

All of us are welcome,

no matter who we are,

what we’ve done,what we have or haven’t achieved,

no matter what our status or wealth.

We are all welcome.

The invitation to be saints is one for us all.

But there is a challenge here too.

Being a saint isn’t just about believing. Its about being a disciple, a true follower of Jesus, its about living the life that God calls us to, ordering our lives around the way of Jesus. Beginning everything with Jesus and ordering everything else around that, building our whole lifestyle around that.

It’s about being Jesus to those around us.

God isn’t calling all of us to be missionaries, and not everyone is going to be Pope or Mother Theresa.

But God isn’t asking that of us. Let me explain.

How many of you have had people in your life who have, at a moment where you’ve been confused, lost, struggling, had someone speak some truth, love or encouragement in your life? Or someone who when you were seeking, or when you were feeling lost and abandoned came alongside you and loved you? How many of you remember the person who talked to you about Jesus or invited you to church for the first time? Not a leader, not someone up front. But someone in the background, someone who maybe you haven’t really spoken to for a long time or you don’t really remember too much about, but you remember what they did?

There are many people like that. I’ve heard stories of people who have took time out to speak to people I know at the back of church sitting on their own, and they came back, became Christians and gone on to do amazing things for God in their lives since, which have impacted hundreds of people for Jesus.

But none of that would have happened without that person who spoke to them at the back one evening.

It wouldn’t have happened without that person accepting the call of Jesus to be like Him.

You see, that’s being a saint just as much as living a life like Mother Theresa’s. Doing something small for someone to help them when they need it, doing something good for someone without them, without anyone, even knowing it.

That’s being a saint too. That’s something we can all do. Furthermore, its something Jesus challenges us all to do, and wants us to do.

Being a saint is about being human in the way we were originally made to be, about living the way of Jesus in our everyday, with the people around us, both in the small things and the big things, both in our church context and out.

Now, let’s face it. In reality, we don’t get it right all the time. We all make mistakes, we all don’t do things we should do or do things we shouldn’t do, no matter how mature a faith we have.However, God isn’t expecting us to get it right all the time.It’s our hearts God wants. He wants us to be seeking, hungering and thirsting to be more like Him, to be true disciples, to follow Him and become more like Him. If we’re doing that, then even if we screw up, we are still headed in the right direction.

In reality, God loves us all the same, even if we’re not seeking Him. He loves the people who don’t know Him at all just the same as He does those who have been Christians their entire lives, and His grace and blessing is available to all of us equally.

So if we do screw up, God isn’t suddenly going to stop blessing us.

That idea is based on this conditional blessing, which comes from a view of the world where you have to earn everything, where everything has to be deserved.

That is totally contrary to grace.

Grace is getting something we don’t deserve. Its available to all of us.That’s why jealousy is so contrary to the way of Jesus, because it comes from a merit-based view of God, and God isn’t like that. God has grace, for all of us.

Which brings me back to my point. That although there is a challenge for us all to be saints, all to be disciples, all to live a Christ-centred life, that if we get it wrong on occasion God isn’t going to punish us, or condemn us, or stop loving or blessing us. We can trust that His love, forgiveness and grace is sufficient, no matter how much we screw up.

So on All Saints Day, don’t just remember the well-known saints, remember and be thankful for all those people who’ve been Jesus to you, in the subtle, little ways. The people who’ve made a big difference in your life through what they’ve said or done for you, how they’ve loved and served you.Recognise that if you know Jesus you are a saint, and if you don’t know Jesus, that you are invited to be saint.

But also remember that the call to the saints is to be saints to those around us. The challenge of All Saints Day is for us to try to be Jesus to all of those around us, both in the big things and the small things, in the choices we make, in how we treat people. To be true disciples of Jesus – knowing that even if we don’t get it right all the time, that we are still loved, accepted and welcomed by God just as we are.

All Saints Day is a day to celebrate the saints that have gone before, be encouraged that no matter who we are or what we’ve done or how many times we screw up, that the invitation to be a saint is open to us all, and to accept the challenge to be a disciple of Jesus.

In one sense, the entire Christian faith summed up in one Christian festival. Funny for a Christian festival that most people forget, and remember instead on that day other supernatural beings.

Tonight I’ve had a little time on my own with God, reflecting, listening, worshipping and thinking about what He wants for me and what’s next in my life. I think its always good to do these once in a while, to reassess what God wants in my life and what His priorities and plans for me are.

It’s been great just to get some down time with God and to really take stock of where I am, where I’m going and what I’m doing and map out - in pencil, because making too many plans of our own as a Christian isn’t really a good idea - what I’m going to be doing in the next few months, how I’m going to grow, what I want to achieve and how I’m going to do that.

Inevitably some of that involves this blog. This is a big part of how I express my faith, and I love the evolving church title and concept, because for me it represents so much of how I view my faith. Its always changing & adapting to new circumstances, maturing, growing and essentially evolving, though it never loses its heart, its essential DNA. 

But one thing I think I’m really passionate about is being authentic, being true and honest with myself, with others and in how I live out and express my faith. I think I’ve tried to do that with this blog but I think there’s an area in my writing where I really need to allow myself more freedom, allow myself to be more honest and at the same time go deeper theologically. I’m passionate about communicating in a way people can connect with and which isn’t bound up with religious or jargon-based language, a way that’s accessible to more people, which can explain complex ideas simply and faithfully. I also want to do this in as creative a way as possible, not for the sake of it, but really when I have a message communicating it in a way which suits the message, and not being afraid to try different things.

So hopefully over the next few months I’ll be able to explore some of these things, and hopefully develop and mature in my writing but also try to be more authentic and honest about what God has been doing in me and how that’s changing me

I always get excited when God starts to speak fresh words to me, and gives me more things to share and ideas to express, and I already have some ideas that I’m looking forward to sharing with you.

I think too that part of that may be changing the look of the site, so I’m now looking at templates with a view to changing the view of the site. I actually like the one I have, but it feels like it might be time to freshen things up a bit, and so I’m going to take some time and have a ponder on it - it may be God tells me simply to stick with this, but I really sense that it might be a good time to change it. 

Feel free to let me know your thoughts or suggestions on this, it would be great to hear them. 

One thing I would encourage you all in though is to make sure that you’re taking time out with God, and really evaluating where you are, what your gifts are and what God is leading you towards in the next stage of your life. Spend time listening to Him, and reflecting on what you hear, and make some decisions. It makes a world of difference and really helps focus your mind and your heart on where you going. It allows you to say no to certain things, and to make decisions to go for it in areas that you might not have done before.

It can be a scary thing to do, but God tells us not to be afraid. We can trust Him and He is faithful, and always has our best at heart. When you get that clarity from God on these things in your life, it refreshes your soul, it gives you new energy and focus, it really is life-changing. 

Don’t be afraid. Go for it with God, He’s waiting for you to engage with Him.

I watched the film ‘The Social Network’ last night, a film which tells the story of the early years of Facebook, how and why it came about and how as things developed it affected the relationship of the two guys who began it. Its a brilliant film and I’d recommend it to all of you. 

However, I came away from the film so fired up. I guess the sheer creativity and genius behind the idea of Facebook and how it almost started from nothing to a site with over 500 million members kind of blew me away.

I realised then something that I’d been feeling for a while. This was feeding my soul. This was like a Sabbath.

Watching other’s people’s creativity - both the film itself and the story told in the film - stirred my own creative juices and got me thinking in new directions, I felt alive coming out of that film.

I realised this is something that happens whenever I go see a show, go to a gallery, watch a good, innovative or thought-provoking film, or see anything which we traditionally call ‘creative’ which is fresh, inspiring and is of good quality. 

This is what feeds my soul.

Doing this is clearly part of what Sabbath needs to be for me.

But it also told me something about myself. Now I consider myself to be pretty intelligent, I enjoy academic books and blogs and understand them very well, I’ve always been an academic kind of guy.

However, I’ve always been more interested in the creative side of it. Rather than being interested in examining and discussing topics and using all the technical terms and language - all of which I understand - I’m more interested in exploring those concepts and then communicating them creatively, whether its through writing or some other means.

There are people who are ‘professional academics’, people who do Phd’s, who do doctorates, loads and loads of research and produce academic papers.

But that’s not me.

Now of course I do a lot of study, a lot of research and a lot of reading. I want to learn more and get a good grounding in my faith, and there’s always new things I want to learn. I might even do some kind of theology diploma training one day. 

However, my way of expressing that knowledge is not in academic circles, in academic ways.

I want to communicate that knowledge in fresh, innovative and creative ways which people who aren’t academics can engage with, understand and connect with.

I am passionate about helping people understand and explore the way of Jesus in a way that’s authentic, that sticks to the basic principles of our faith, but is fresh, innovative and creative and uses language and methods people can understand to do that. I can feel even as I’m writing this that the adrenaline is pumping, because this is what I’m so passionate about.

To me the way of Jesus doesn’t need to be separated off into a corner, it needs to be on the same table as all the other world views, part of the bigger conversation about life. Perceptions of what the way of Jesus and church is all about, and what it really is, in the eyes of the majority need to be changed and people need to have their eyes opened to what church really is, and the way of Jesus is really all about - that it’s not a religion, but its a way of life, its the best way to live, that its about bringing a new creation right in the midst of this one.

I know part of my role in that is writing and creating things which help people understand that, and that talking about it to people, and in my role in my own church I can do that to a degree as well, as a leader and someone in ministry who speaks occasionally leads the occasional meeting. I am sure my role in that will evolve and change over time, and grow.

But how does this relate to you, I hear you ask.

Well the point is that whatever you do on your sabbath, it needs to open your eyes to who you are.

As we try and figure out what is our Sabbath - what we need to do to feed our soul, to make us feel fresh and inspired, to give ourselves peace, rest and refreshment - we also have to figure out what it is that isn’t our Sabbath.

Sabbath needs to be a break from whatever we do for the rest of the week, a break from how we create, what we do for work, what we give our energies to for the rest of the week.

So in order to figure out what we do for a break, we need to be sure of what we’re doing the rest of the week.

Sabbath compels us to re-examine our lives and see what we’re doing with them, it compels us to look at what we’re giving our lives to and see if that is what we were made to do, if that’s the work that God wants for us.  When we are planning for Sabbath - and in Jewish culture they plan the whole week around it and spend all week preparing for it - then we need to know what are lives are really about, who we’re living for, what matters most to us.

Once we’ve done that, we need to make sure we’re doing it, so that we can then take a proper Sabbath which really refreshes us and makes us alive again.

So, ultimately, knowing our Sabbath helps us to know and find ourselves.

What are you giving your energies to?

Is it what you were made for?

Does it make you feel alive? 

Do you believe there’s something more you could be doing?

The Bible tells us to constantly examine ourselves, and in Genesis we’re given a pattern for living - 6 days work, a day’s rest - which is declared Holy. So we need to get our patterns right, and we need to examine ourselves to ensure the story we’re living, the rhythm of our lives, is the one God planned for us.

Its one of the most important things we can ever do.