Tag: God

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Not settling for OK.

No More!

I’ve had enough. Seriously. It’s completely unacceptable and I’m not going to accept it any more – and it’s right that I shouldn’t.

Pain, and other issues, are a part of my life and they have been for far too long. I’ve always seen it as a triumph when I am prayed for and the pain lessens, becomes more manageable, and I can manage to get a decent nights sleep.

But No Longer!

I am not going to settle for pain relief or pain reduction. I’m not going to accept one good night of sleep. I’m not going to let go until I see FULL healing. Until a good nights rest is a normal thing.

I’ve never doubted that God CAN heal me and I’ve never doubted that I will be restored. It’s just that I’ve taken the Christian cop-out route of saying that “I’ll get a new body when I die” – and I’m not going to leave it there any more.

I’m going to be tenacious, persistent and never let go until I know healing. And that’s OK – because it’s biblical. I don’t know why God hasn’t healed me fully yet, but I know that His heart is for me and that He loves me as a Father loves His child. I know that we can Ask, Seek and Knock and that our God is Jehovah Rophi – the God Who Heals. Maybe He’s been waiting for me to realise that I need to be resolute, that I need to stand firm and keep banging on the door.

When we look at scripture we can see Jacob in Genesis 32:26 saying “I will not let you go unless you bless me”. We see Moses holding his arms up to deliver vistory over the Amelekites in Exodus 17:11-12. We can see persistence in the healing of Naaman when he had to bathe 7 times in the Jordan river. We see the blind man crying out “Jesus, Son of David, have mercy on me” – and not stopping until Jesus heard him – and there’s many more examples beside.

The interesting thing about the Moses one in particular, is that Moses got tired and weak. He felt his arms weakening and so they fell down turning the tide of battle in favour of the Amelekites. He need Aaron and Hur to sit him on a stone and lift his arms for him in order to see complete victory.

So, I am saying that today I am going to keep my arms in the air with the staff raised – until the battle is won. I’m going to shout and shout until Jesus stops by me and heals me. I’m going to wrestle and not let go until God blesses me. I’m going to keep on pushing on until I know the fullness of Gods promise for me.

But like Moses – I will get weak. There will be days when I tire and cannot stand. There will be days when my shout becomes a croak and a whisper. And so I need people with me. I need people to be standing firm in prayer with me and pushing forward on my behalf. Will you be one of those people? Will you be willing to pray for me and stand firm on the promises with me? Please.

I am blessed by having so many people around me whose faith leaves me humbled and in awe – will you please stand with me in prayer?

Thank you.

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Three words that shook the universe

 The End

There are three words that are amongst the most powerful ever spoken. Whilst there are other candidates for the top spot, these three words shook the universe to the heart. 12 letters that broke the grasp of hell and rewrote our future and destiny.

It is finished.

So simple, but with them being uttered as Christ hung on the cross they would signal a complete change to mans relationship to God.

No longer would satan have a claim to our souls.
No longer would we need to live in fear or regret.
No longer would our past dictate our future.

The book was rewritten and those three words, which contain within them the heart of Gods plan, brought an end to our seperation from our Father.

Do you grasp the earth-shaking power of those words? I think the answer to that, if we’re honest with ourselves, would be “sometimes”

It’s easy for us to grasp the eternal outcomes, maybe because we can’t fully envision what that enternity is, but the immediate outcome is so easy for us to lose.

“It is finished” means that the sins I committed yesterday are dealt with. It means that the stain of my past is removed. It means that, through grace, I don’t need to be afraid of letting God down by sinning in the future.

Now I’m not saying that it’s a carte blanche to descend into hedonism and debauchery, it’s not, but what it does mean is that those oh-so-human slip ups are dealt with. They are done. The slate has been wiped clean of all that we have done, and all that we will do because IT IS FINISHED.

[youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Tc27eMTZjMU[/youtube]

See His love nailed onto a cross
Perfect and blameless life given as sacrifice
See Him there all in the name of love
Broken yet glorious, all for the sake of us

This is Jesus in His glory
King of Heaven dying for me
It is finished, He has done it
Death is beaten, Heaven beckons me

Greater love no one could ever show
Mercy so undeserved, freedom I should not know
All my sin, all of my hidden shame
Died with Him on the cross, eternity won for us

Such love, such love
Such love is this for me

(c) Tom Lockley

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Everything?

Everything?

At Church this week we sang a song by Jules Burt, Paul Oakley and Sam Cox. We were in the middle of a time of worship where I really felt connected to God and then we sang these lyrics:

You’re all I want, You’re all I need
Jesus my love, my everything

All of a sudden I couldn’t actually sing any more. I started praying and my stomach churned as my heart felt ten times heavier. I realised that I couldn’t just sing those lyrics – I had to mean them. The question that was making me feel the way I was was did I really mean them?

Can I honestly stand there and say that Jesus is my everything? Can I really say that He is all I need?

It’s not a simple question when you get to the root of it. Can I really say that I need nothing, and no one, more than Jesus. Above my wife, and above my children. Above the roof over my head and the food on my table.

Each morning I listen to a podcast called “The Daily Audio Bible” which takes you through the Bible in a year – a great way to spend the morning commute and the perfect way for me to start my day. The Old Testament readings this last couple of weeks have been coming from the book of Job and I found myself wondering if I would respond in the same way if, like him, everything was stripped away completely. He lost his wife, his children, his home and his business. Yet still he wouldn’t turn away from God, and he never let go of his trust in God’s judgements and righteousness.

Would I do the same? Surely that’s the ultimate test of those lyrics?

I started typing this immediately as the words were weighing on me, and the worship had moved into a more meditative and prayerful time. When Andrew, one of the leaders of the Church, stood up to speak I stopped to listen and found myself laughing at the way God works. Andrew was saying exactly what I was typing. His words echoed mine as he said “Can we stand there and say that Jesus is our everything? Can we say that He is all we need?”

I ended up singing the lyrics as a prayer and a hearty cry – that I would get to the point where Jesus is all I want and all I need… and where He is my EVERYTHING.

Because, in all honesty, I can’t say that’s where I am right now.

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Boxes and Brushes

boxes & brushes

It’s finally happened! On the 12th of July we actually moved from Stamford to Rugby – and the process that was kicked off 5 years ago reached its culmination. With delays occurring even up to the day of the move it proved to be a stressful and nerve-wracking time and not an experience I plan on tackling again anytime soon.

Before I go any further I have got to give a huge shout out of THANKS to everyone who helped us in getting the house in Stamford sorted, packing done, vans loaded, moving in, unloading, unpacking, cleaning, tidying, sorting out DIY etc and anything and everything else. We have managed to achieve a huge amount in the last month and a bit and it couldn’t have been done without the help of family and friends.

Since we moved in we’ve done a lot of work in getting things done – particularly focussing on the kids bedrooms which are now both decorated, unpacked and looking remarkably good. Of course, we did all the sorting out and now the rooms are looking very typical of a boys room and a teenagers room (no visible floor space and you wouldn’t believe that we’d done any tidying up or sorting out!)

Being a techie I have, of course, got some priorities right in sorting out the networking, tv’s, sky, internet and general connectivity 😀 A key focus of all my latest tech setups has been working to try and improve overall functionality whilst reducing the overall impact on our electricity bills – not always the easiest thing to balance out but I’ve at least now started a process that will hopefully allow me to meet the demands of a modern household without fattening the wallets of the power companies too much (boy do I wish there were more eco grants available for solar and wind generation as I’d willingly pop some panels on our roof and a couple of micro turbines)

I had a chat with Mrs H just before we moved and explained that it wasn’t the house I was going to miss in Stamford as it was, put bluntly, an ex-council mid-terrace house with 4 walls and an a-frame roof – what I was going to miss was the people and the places. That’s proven to be true – I really miss some of the people there even though it’s only been a month and a bit. Thankfully we’ve managed to catch up with some folks and even had the weather for a barbeque.

The new house, in contrast to our old one, is one I can see me falling in love with. The house is quirky and full of character, we’ve never seen another house like it. There’s room galore in it so that we can each have our own space and don’t get under each others feet. Everyone who’s seen it has been shocked when they see just how much room it does have as, from the front, it doesn’t look like it’s a big house at all. Quite the opposite in fact as it looks really small from the front aspect. I find myself regularly looking at different areas of the house, garden or workshop (yes, there’s a man cave at the bottom of the garden) and smiling when I realise just how good the house is – and always sending another “thank you” upstairs as there’s no way we’d have got this house without some divine nudging along the way.

The other big thing about the move has been the whole process of trying to get settled in to the area and making new friends. Thankfully God has been ahead of us all the way and there’s a family in the church who live just at the bottom of the hill and we’ve clicked quite well with them. Everyone has been really welcoming and friendly and things will get a bit easier once the kids start at school/college and make more friends and get settled in to a routine a bit more. It’s not the easiest of things for me as I’m not particularly comfortable in new groups and can easily shy away from people – once I get to know folks and get settled it, well that’s a different story… but getting to that stage is a major challenge for me and is something I’m having to try and face head on.

So now it’s time to put down some roots, get settled in, and get ready for whatever we’re called to do. Rugby – you’ve been warned, the Hartleys have arrived! 🙂

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On the move…

On The Move

Back in July 2008 I posted on these very pages that we were being called to leave Stamford and move. It’s been nearly 5 years in the making (crazy I know) but it looks like we are now definitely on our way – we’ve sold our house and had an offer accepted on a house in Rugby. So, barring any unforeseen bumps in the road, we’re now getting set for a major step in the life of our family.

When I first announced the move we believed it was to Peterborough, but that proved to be part of a process where God was gently lifting our roots up and shaking away the excess before preparing to plant us where He wants us. There has been a lot of heart-work done over the intervening years – getting us used to the idea of moving, of leaving the area (Mrs H and the Kids have always lived in/around Stamford), of moving away from friends and family, and coming to a point where we could genuinely say “Here I am Lord, send me” (Isaiah 6:8)

There’s also been the odd false start, where we felt God was saying “GO” and then it didn’t happen. I’d be lying if I said that I knew why and that it wasn’t frustrating – we don’t fully understand the delays (maybe we never will) and it was frustrating, especially as we’d been telling the kids we were going to move and I really don’t like messing them around.

But that is hopefully all in the past now. We’ve got a buyer for our house, and they are good buyers so there shouldn’t be any problems there (hopefully). We’ve found a great house in Rugby and there’s no chain involved there so hopefully that shouldn’t be complicated. We just need to pray for all the final pieces to fall into place; mortgages, solicitors, surveys and timescales. We also need to pray for schooling and the right provision for the kids. A winning lottery ticket wouldn’t go amiss either 😉

The house we’ve found is a big surprise to us as it’s not something we would ever have normally considered. It needs some work to freshen it up a bit and modernise some of the decor, but it’s a house with character galore and with so much space you could almost lose yourself in it. The garden is a great size and there’s a huge (and I mean *huge*) workshop/shed/man-cave at the bottom of the garden with workbenches and all sorts (even a dust-extraction system that I thought was a hamster run!) so all those DIY projects and ideas will have a home to be started and then gather dust (only joking dear – I *will* try to get projects finished!)

It was a tense day yesterday, waiting to see if our offer was going to be accepted and then finding out that we were up against another family and having to go to a “sealed bid” situation. In the end though we won out and things seem to be clicking into place.

I keep joking with Mrs H about “Does it feel real yet” as there’s been so many hiccups and delays it’s almost a case of “I’ll believe it when I see it”. It also feels really surreal in a strange way, at points it has felt as though we’re just passengers and at other points it’s just been so much work and craziness that I almost gave up on the whole idea.

We’re not there yet. Until those contracts are exchanged, and the money wings its way through the ether to the relvant parties, there’s still scope for challenges – but this has the real sense of Gods timing to it. Our house sold in an amazingly quick time and our “new house” has come at the right time and offers so much more space than we had expected. There is a compromise in the number of bedrooms (3 rather than 4) but as the smallest bedroom is larger than our current largest bedroom we aren’t going to be short of space or storage room!

At the end of the day, all we can do now is provide the info that the solicitors etc request and pray that God smooths the rest of this journey so that we can move without any headaches (but probably with a few tears) and with a sense of excitement about the road that lies ahead. So please pray for us – as I said above we need prayer that solicitors, surveys, mortgages, deadlines, schools etc all fall into place nicely and that’s something that definitely needs a divine touch (as anyone who has ever moved house will no doubt agree!)

By the way – when we get a date we’ll probably come grovelling for help in moving… you’ve been duly warned 😀