Officers Residential Fellowship

Just a small break in the articles. At the end of June Perry & I attended our Divisional Residential Officers Fellowship. It was a great time of refreshment and catching up with other officers. We spent much time in the hot pools, eating good food and laughing with session mates and others.

The fellowship was held at Hanmer Springs and while we were there it snowed and in fact we had lots of snow on our way home on Thursday. This made the week even more special as it is the first time I have actually been snowed on in my life. Yes I have seen snow and made snow balls etc but I have never been there when it fell. Here are some photos of our week and the way home.

The first snow fall.... Tuesday or Wednesday

The morning before we left. What a beautiful day and look at the snow on them there hills

But the drive home proved to be beautiful for very different reasons. The roads had been closed up until 2 & 1/2 minutes before we left.

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The snow on the trees was amazing. There was waist high ploughed snow on the sides of the road. It was more than a little bit disconcerting when the snow got too heavy for the trees and plopped onto the roof of the car.

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Everywhere we looked was snow through out the Lewis Pass to just past Springs Junction. We were snowed on while driving.

The Empty Space Inside - Article Three

This was my third article for the Westport News - Published 20 June 2008

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The Empty Space Inside

Have you ever felt like there was something missing in your life, something you know you need and sometimes it seems like it is just about in your grasp but then in a brief moment it disappears again. You feel like there is something that you need to make life complete. Or as that intrepid little mouse Stuart Little put it in the movie of the same name when he was wondering about his real parents and where he had come from he told his adoptive parents the Littles “I have an empty space inside”. Here he was living in a house with a family who were able to give him everything that he needed he still felt that there was something in his life that was incomplete and he was searching for the thing that would fill that empty space.

As human beings I’m sure that we have all at some time or another felt that there has to be something more that we need in our lives to make it better and to make us feel complete. Many of us spend so much time searching for that perfect thing that will make us feel complete and whole. We think that if we could just be more confident, have more friends, be more popular or making more money, then everything will better. The problem is that so often the things that we try filling up our empty space with in reality are not really good for us and are things that will not make any difference to the empty space that we have.

There are plenty of things that people try to fill this empty space with. Some people try eating all the nicest food and end up overweight, they might think that alcohol might make them more likeable and confident but they end up just being drunk, using drugs might make people feel happy to begin with but that is just a false sense of wellbeing. When we look at being more popular or having more friends we end up being in destructive relationships that have the opposite effect and end up leaving us feeling less confident about our self worth than we did before. Working as many hours as we can to have money also is not the answer and neither is filling up every moment of every day with stuff to do. There are many other compulsive and addictive behaviours that can trap us into believing that we are filling up that empty space inside.

And so no matter how hard we try the emptiness still remains and we go on thinking that there has to be something to fill it.

I believe that all of us have within us something a friend of mine once called “A God shaped hole”. An empty space that only the love of God can fill. God is the answer to the empty space that we all have within us. He is the perfect person to fill the void that we all feel.
A relationship with our creator gives us everything we need to fill those areas in our lives where we think that there is something lacking. God is the friend to those who are lonely you do not need to be more confident, you do not need more money and you definitely do not need to prove your worth to him. As I have said previously he is pursuing your heart anyway because you are worth it.

All you need to do is to respond to His pursuit of your heart. Go to a church and find out how God through Jesus can fill the empty space that you have in your heart and you will find out that there is a “YOU” shaped hole in the heart of God because He is waiting ….. just for you.

God's Pursuit of Your Heart - Article Two

This is my second article in the Westport News June 13th
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In last week's comment I talked about God’s relentless pursuit of each of us and God’s intimate interest in you. I thought that this week I would talk to you about God’s pursuit of us, God’s pursuit of you.

Consider the courting couple who are doing everything that they can to declare their love for one another; the gifts, the words spoken, the written words, the snatching of every possible moment together and hurdles that they will jump over to prove their love for one another. They pursue the one they believe to be their true love and soul mate.

God’s pursuit of us can be looked at in much the same way only much much more profound. His pursuit began at the beginning of time andhe will continue it until the end of time. He will not let anything hold him back in His pursuit to win your heart. Everything that he has ever done has been in the hope of winning your heart and having you become one of His children.

The difference between the courting couple’s pursuit of each other and God’s pursuit of us is that the courting couples only see and show the very best to each other. They do not wear the comfy at home or in the garden clothing while out together, they do not show each other the things that are lurking in the closet.

But God already knows the worst about each of us, he has seen us in those comfy clothes that have holes in them and stains on them and He has seen all the warts that we possess. Yet He pursues us anyway because He loves us for who we are not what we are or what we look like.

Throughout the Old Testament we see stories of God rescuing His people from near disaster, disaster that they brought on themselves by making choices that were not in God’s will for them, but every time they called on God he came and rescued them. All these stories that we have did not happen just to fill the Bible with words but to win your heart. To show you the lengths that He is prepared to go to demonstrate that His is a relentless pursuit and that His love for you is beyond anything that you can conceive or imagine.

It is true that in all of the stories of the Bible God is teaching Christians about living a Godly and righteous life but He is also trying to show you what a life lived with him can be like. He is showing you what you can expect when you accept his pursuit of your heart.

In the story of David and Goliath (1 Samuel 17) he is telling you that with Him in your life you can know that he will help you to slay the giants in your life. In the story of David and Bathsheba (2 Samuel 11) he is showing you that no matter what you do in life that when you ask Him for forgiveness you are forgiven and blessed.

In the story of Joseph being sold into slavery by his brothers (Genesis 37:12) he is showing you that while trouble may come in your life that over time when you trust in Him even the worst things can be used for the good of you and many others besides.

In the New Testament’s story of the Prodigal Son (Luke 15:11-32) God is trying to tell you of the welcome you will receive from Him our Father, even after you have rejected him and thrown everything he has given you away, when you decide to return to Him with a sincere heart. In the story of the woman at the well God is showing you that it does not matter to Him who you are and what you have done your heart is worth pursuing and that He loves you.

In His pursuit of your heart God even let Jesus die a painful death on the cross to pay the penalty of sin, so that you and I can find forgiveness and know that the pursuit of our hearts continues. He is saying in this act that you and I are worth the effort and cost of His pursuit.You are special and God is pursuing your heart and will continue to pursue it. So will you accept His court-ship, His pursuit of your heart and His love?

He is waiting for you and He will not give up on you. God Bless.

Westport News Articles

Here in Westport the ministers of the different church take turns to write articles for the local paper called 'Church and Community' in June it was the turn of The Salvation Army. Perry decided that this was part of my job description.

During the year most of the ministers had not bothered to submit stuff so I had to do this a little bit blind I found out how many words they wanted and went from there. I am going to put each of the articles that I wrote onto my blog over the next couple of weeks. I wrote these articles expressly for no believers and perhaps to encourage the believer who has lost sight of who God is in the grand scheme of things.

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Week One - Printed in the Westport News 6th June 2008

You may have recently seen the ads that we (The Salvation Army) ran in this paper advertising our Sermon Series over the months of March and April which used the popular “YEAH RIGHT” in response to a question.

I have been doing some thinking about this “YEAH RIGHT” thing over the past couple of days and how it relates to a much bigger train of thought when we look at Christianity and the idea of God. Many people will hear the Gospel being talked about and hear the words that God loves them and their first thoughts will be “YEAH RIGHT”. It might even be something that you reading this comment would say to me if I was talking to you right now. And you might follow it up with something like “How could God love me after ……” and you insert the worse thing you have done in your life. Or the other side of this could be is you say “if there is a God how could he let …….. happen to me” and in this space you would put the worst thing that has happened to you.

No matter what your comments are after you have uttered those now famous “YEAH RIGHT” words the fact still remains that God does love each of us individually. One of the most read scriptures confirms this to us “For God so loved the world that he gave his one and only son that whoever believes in him shall not perish but have eternal life”. (John 3:16 New International Version).

We live in a world where things are not perfect and we do things and things happen to us that we would prefer did not happen but they do happen because of the choices that we and or others make that go against what God wants for each one of us. But be assured that God is relentlessly pursuing each of us to show us that a life lived with Him at its centre is to live life to its full. No matter what we have done we are forgiven through the sacrifice of Jesus, (the only person who is perfect) he paid the ultimate price for our wrongdoings so that we can concentrate on receiving the forgiveness that is on offer from God through Jesus.

Yes God does love you and he will do anything for you. Sometimes the pain in our lives can serve as a reminder to look for or turn to God. C.S Lewis says that “God whispers to us in our pleasures, speaks in our conscience, but shouts in our pains: pain is His megaphone to rouse a deaf world.” It no doubt causes God pain when he has to use this megaphone but if it turns you to him then mission accomplished.

But he does so much more in our lives to get our attention, in so many much nicer ways. Every Sunrise and Sunset he paints a picture in the sky for you to see or if it is raining there is the rainbow to remind us. You know that didn’t have to happen God could have made everything black and white right from the beginning and we would not have known the difference.

Here in Westport we are so close to some beautiful reminders in nature of his love for us, places for us to rest, relax and enjoy ourselves. We also see here his provision for us through natural resources that feed us, warm us and employ many us. God didn’t have to provide these things either but he has done it out of love for us and he can’t wait to see the smile on our faces when we are up close and personal with some of the most beautiful scenery in the world.

God is intimately interested in you and wants for you to know and understand him and his will for your life and before you say “YEAH RIGHT” read this message from Jesus in Matthew 10:30 “What is the price of two sparrows—one copper coin? But not a single sparrow can fall to the ground without your Father knowing it. And the very hairs on your head are all numbered. So don’t be afraid; you are more valuable to God than a whole flock of sparrows.” (New Living Translation).

You are valuable to God and he wants you to know that.