What a couple of days.....

So here I am in a hotel in Coventry at 6:40 in the morning adding to the blog. I am doing so because there have been some things troubling me in the last couple of days or so.

Firstly Sunday there was an interesting service at the church. We were given a sermon about the holy spirit which was extremely interesting. I have real trouble understanding the relationship between God, Jesus and the Holy Spirit. It was explained in a way that was new for me but it still didn’t make complete sense. I guess the bit I wanted to know is if there are the three of them who does what. How do you know if the Holy Spirit has been and the other question which is important to me. What if the Holy Spirit comes into my life and I am not paying attention and I miss it or I don’t understand what the holy spirit is doing. I don’t want to miss out. Anyway we were given the opportunity to see the Holy Spirit in action on Sunday night and unfortunately due to the fact that I have gone away for the entire week I did not take up the offer. In a way I’d love to have seen the holy spirit working and I have seen it a couple of times I think but there is no rush. Everything will happen within its own time and I just have to be patient.

The second thing that bothered me was on Sunday night. I have over the past 20 years heard about all sorts of things that have happened in the world, such as famines, Tsunamis and many other events where people have been killed in large numbers and they have never bothered me before. I have always turned the tele over and switched over to something else or avoided it. Anyway on the drive up to Coventry I was listening to the Steven Nolan show on Radio 5 Live at just after 10pm where they were talking to a doctor in a hospital in Libya where the latest set of uprisings are going on. He was talking about the things he was seeing and had seen 25 dead people that day. This became 26 when another person came in and he said “The head is apart from the body” meaning completely separate. The whole thing completely touched me and the whole event with Libya was now in my life. I can’t explain why or how, but it is. Anyway I felt this overwhelming sorrow for the people of Libya. I know no-one out there, have never been there and have no natural affinity with the country.

I also knew that Libya was different to Tunisia and Egypt who had been through this process in the previous few days, Again I can’t say why but I started to pray there and then whilst driving up to Coventry. I didn’t plan on it. I just did it. I remember what I prayed for this morning as it is still with me. I prayed for peace to come to Libya and for the people living there to survive and for the leaders and the military to stop killing their own people. I said to God I will pledge my life to you if you stop the killing. I couldn’t believe what I was doing. I have told God if he stops the fighting in Libya I will pledge my life. But what about all my questions is what I have been thinking since. I was given some more wisdom on Sunday which was about my questions. During the service I was given a message from someone which said, keep fighting and keep asking questions. When you stop fighting for you keep fighting because someone else will need you to fight for them.

One thing that has been dramatic during the whole of the Alpha course and my journey is the number of words of wisdom that I have received from people. It is amazing the number of things that people have said to me that have left me with wisdom. On Sunday someone again took time to explain to me the Holy Spirit and I thought, why am I so special that you would take time to explain these things to me. What I do isn’t that clever or that important. I am not that impressive but people continue to take time to help me.

Currently as far as I am aware there may be a transition in Libya going on right now. I don’t really know as I don’t have a reliable internet connection. In fact I am writing this in Word because I am not convinced I can get it to the blog at the moment, but I need to make a record of it for my benefit.

But 2 paragraphs up I still cannot believe three things. One that I was touched by the situation in Libya the way I was, two that I prayed there and then and three that I said I would give my life to God if he sorted out Libya. I just don’t believe I did it. However I do know that it is the right thing to do. However God, sorry no adoration or confession in this prayer. Just a shopping list… of one thing but it isn’t for me so hope you’ll let me off. I prayed for what was in my heart and I just hope that was good enough. I guess that I will find out in the coming days and weeks.

Anyway I also wanted to write about Sunday because Sunday was fascinating about the Holy Spirit. It is the first chance I have had to really get to understand the Holy Spirit and to start to get an idea of what it is and how it works. The speaker at the sermon on Sunday gave a good account of what the holy spirit is doing within peoples lives and how it is doing it. Also what it is but not how you know it is there. I do have this huge fear that if the Holy Spirit does come into my life I will be looking the other way and I won’t spot the work that it is doing.

We also had a time of prayer if people wanted to be filled with the holy spirit and this made me laugh, not in a bad way. Firstly I was drawn to it like I was last week and wanted to go for prayer, but I look at it and go, if I go up what happens next. Am I supposed to come up with something for them to pray for me, because I know that I can’t because I’ve no idea half the time. This is one of the biggest things that stop me. Oddly I want to be prayed for and I haven’t been for a while that I know about and the people who were there any of them could have done it and I know so many of them well but I was too scared and nervous to do it. It is daft I know. I really felt I should have done it but I didn’t.

Then came the “pushing”. Two people looked at me from across the room and I just felt it was like I was being encouraged to go down to the front and be prayed for. Now I don’t think either of them were trying to pressure me, in fact would it sound strange if I thought they weren’t doing it themselves. I feel it was God putting the people I trust in a place to call me and tell me it was safe to go and do it. Still I did not move, I was still frozen to the spot. Anyway suddenly I feel these hands on my shoulders, and although I was a little surprised I wasn’t scared or worried or nervous. I was thinking come to me and pray for me. Don’t make me come to the front please. I turned round to see another person I trust behind me and he is giving me the message about keeping fighting. I remember him being there really clearly. He is an inspirational person, who has only recently given his life to God but he is a wonderful person. Anyway I remember during the conversation I am thinking, please offer to pray for me and it doesn’t happen. So why don’t I open my big mouth. I usually have plenty to say but apparently not on Sunday. I am so frustrated with myself again. I am not taking the opportunities that are in front of me. This is the second week in a row I have refused good opportunities. Oh yes and at the same time one of my favourite Christian Music songs was being sung. “Our God is Greater”

Just to frustrate me further I turned down a third opportunity in the same day. We had friends come back to the flat later in the afternoon for a cup of coffee which they did including one of the people who had looked over in church

I have been thinking about this for a couple of days now and I think I might have worked it out. God is wanting me to step out and say I am here and I have given my life to him because then I will be able to access all the joys of his kingdom. But I still haven’t done it. I have done it conditionally and I don’t know the outcome of that and will keep an eye on it during the weeks and months. I don’t know why I did it conditionally. It was just what was in my heart at the time. I really want to make the jump, come out of my cage that is surrounding my life and see the light but I just have this monumental amount of fear which in my life is ruling everything I do. I have never been scared of anything like this before. I wander sometimes if I am on my own with this. I would imagine I probably am not but you see if you don’t come across people in the same place then you don’t know do you.

One more thing I wanted to write about was something I have done which I am really sad about. I left my bible at home at the weekend and I am missing it like crazy. I want to pick it up and read it and look at the scripture and see what it says and learn more about God and Jesus and especially look up and learn more about the holy spirit. I am in a hotel in Coventry and there is no bible in my room. It is rubbish. I am going to tear the room apart later to see if I can find one but I do not hold out much hope. I feel I need to find one. So here I am in Coventry cut off from the Internet, cut off from the bible. All I have here is my guitar and my phone. Maybe I am just meant to be having time to think and ponder.

Wow this has certainly gone on. I can’t believe the length of this blog entry. I am looking at this going, I was only going to make a quick entry but I have got so much to say and there is so much more I could say. I am going to write some more tonight because I feel there is so much. It might not make sense but I am trying and fighting my way on this journey and I won’t stop fighting. The thing that makes sense though is that once I stop fighting it is all going to hurt a lot less and the conflict that it causes will be gone. For today I am in the rabbit cage with my paws on the bars trying my hardest to touch the floor with my nose without falling out. I think I’m going to fall out soon. I just hope that he is going to be there to catch me when I fall.