The Incongruent Believer

 I returned to church recently after a 8-year hiatus due to what I discovered were acute mental health issues. We won't go into that here, well not this time at least, but something that struck me was that I was able to see and hear things very clearly, unfettered by some of the habits that one picks up when one has been part of that club for some time. A person leading prayers during the service asked people to shout out characteristics (I'm sure they didn't use that word but its the best I can come up with) of God. The response, I guess, should have been expected, words like, 'wonderful counsellor', 'merciful', 'beautiful' streamed forth from many of the lips of those present and when it petered out I couldn't help speaking that they had only covered part of what God is, they had forgotten words like "jealous God" (Exodus), 'vengeful' (numerous references), "angry" (Leviticus 10:6 et al), 'destructive' (Genes...

Its been a long, long time since I last posted on my own personal blog, I do a few for work but have failed miserably to write here for a while. Not that it's a task, I love to write and it feels really cathartic, its just that life caught up with me, overtook me, and left me reeling in its wake. I can't say that the "prodigal" that I wrote about previously has taken its course, in many ways it has returned to its work with the pigs, but recent events particularly a chance meeting may - and I use that word deliberately - may have put me back on the path, to some sort of righteousness I hope.  Over the past 12 months I have lost my Mum, my stepdad, had yet another (5th) major operation on my shoulder implant, and seen my diabetes get worse not least because of medication I was prescribed by my GP. All of this created in me a sense of "I am done, I cannot give any more, I have no more to give, I surrender" with the smallest thing, the proverbial straw that bro...

I’m stuck, I have to admit it, but I am stuck!!   Sitting here typing this I am reminded of the Stealers Wheelers song, ‘ Stuck in the Middle’ with You,  and looking at the lyrics of that song I am drawn to the lyric, particularly the first and last line: Losing control, yeah, I'm all over the place, Clowns to the left of me, jokers to the right, Here I am, stuck in the middle with you.   I am all over the place, and at times I lose control. It’s a real struggle! One of the things I struggle with is church, something that has been pivotal to my struggle because of my experience of it and that could make the second line relevant: church as I have experienced it is full of the loveliest, most genuine people. But it is also full of others not so lovely and much less genuine. I might not go so far as to call them “clowns” or “jokers”, but they are the kind of people that when things get tough, ‘you know who your friends are’. I have mostly come to terms w...

I wrote in the first part of this blog that, “Believers often speak of their “wilderness  experience” but this rarely equates to experience as a Prodigal.” However, I do believe that the journey of a prodigal back to the father can mean that one inhabits the “wilderness” for a time. We can either get stuck there – by choice or circumstance - or are just journeying through, and neither context makes that sojourn any easier. Whatever, my situation, I believe that I am here in the wilderness at the moment, and that is a significant challenge. I was struck by the clarity with which a sermon spoke to me recently; it was about the Israelites and their troubled journey out of Egypt focusing on Exodus 14 (parting the Red Sea and Pharaoh’s comeuppance). What I got from that was a better sense of where I am in my journey as a “Prodigal”: I have chosen to leave the slavery of this world behind to begin a journey to the promised land and a new life, yet I dwell in the wilderness, pursued...

There have been hundreds of commentaries and books written, and countless numbers of sermons preached, on the story of the Prodigal Son (Luke 15:11–32). What is common across a majority of the work done to unpack this parable is that it is nearly always told from the perspective of an observer, from behind the veil, or looking out of the kingdom into a broken world at the “Prodigal”. Believers often speak of their “wilderness experience” but this rarely equates to experience as a Prodigal. One other significant point that I believe is often overlooked is that the Prodigal was  in  his father’s house, to interpret this; he was part of God’s kingdom, saved and sure of his inheritance! Further, he didn’t drift away, didn’t lose interest, didn’t get distracted by something else, but forcefully (some say) and deliberately chose to leave God’s kingdom to pursue a time of indulgence and revelry. Other points in the story are no less shocking; the Prodigal was the younger son, and...

I'm not an English scholar, but I do take an interest in how we use our amazingly rich language in both the vernacular and in a more refined sense. I remember back in my youth when an very intelligent and very wise pipe-smoking manager of mine you to expound that one needed to be "pacific" when dealing with manufacturing planning. Of course he meant "specific", back then it used to distract me and make me snigger, now it gets on my nerves. Another idiomatic linguistic errors that I come across too frequently, especially in my ancestral area of the South East is, "She won't do nothing!" meaning that the person in question is lazy and won't do anything! Ah, the curse of the double-negative in both Cockney and Kentish dialect! I wrote some time ago about thoughts on the heinous use of "black" when referring to someone with African or Afro-Caribbean ancestry which was a hangover from less honourable days in the history of the West. ...

" and a great star fell from heaven, blazing like a t orch, and it fell on a third of the rivers and on the springs of water. The name of the star is Wormwood. A third of the waters became wormwood, and many people died from the water, because it had b een made bitter." Revelation 8:10-11 It may seem quite strange desiring this kind of apocalyptic scene that the Holy Bible tells us proceeds the return of Christ but frankly, I have had enough of the insanity that is gripping this world with it's icy hand. If you believe in the devil (and your a fool if you don't) then you can easily see him at work! How much he must revel in humanity driving itself into oblivion as it tries to control and define everything. It started within its own species; travelling the world and conquering and enslaving other peoples on an industrial scale. Then it moved onto the world itself; pillaging its natural resources to fuel its growth, fill its coffers, and to build more powerful ...