A battle

Well what a tumultuous 2 weeks its been!

I'm sure you have noticed that our Google advert is no longer on the site. Why you might be asking. Well DJ, one of the team members, brought to our attention a decidedly dodgy ad - the ad read -"Is Jesus God? No. Obviously not something we believe or want others to believe. So down came the ad. It's a shame really - we were starting tick over the hits and we had made about $1.00 a day for the past week. But nothing is worth defaming the name of Jesus.

It's funny how things like that happen when you plan to spread the good news of the bible. Personally, I have been suffering deep and desperate bouts of doubt this past week. A deep sense of distance from God came over me around Monday. While I write this post (on Thursday) I am feeling a lot better but the reality is that I continue to hang on to the edge, forever hopeful that God will remain faithful to his word and not let me go.

I gave a sermon recently on doubt - how I wish I could give it again now - with a depth of insight you perhaps forget when life is good - times of doubting make you desperate - seesawing between the emotions as one minute you are sure and the next you aren't.

But in the midst of what seems to be the pitch black midnight of uncertainty God comes through, not with the shining beam from heaven, or booming voice but perhaps with something as simple as the insightful words of a Christian author. I went to my bookshelf at 3am on Tuesday looking for an Alpha booklet talking about the historicity of the bible and found instead a Phillip Yancey book I bought years ago and never really read - it was titled "Reaching for an Invisible God". An open and fearful discussion of the reality of doubt, faith and the call to perseverance. Praise God!

The reality is that others in our team are also suffering from doubt at the moment. There is a battle in progress people. It's real, it hurts and we are powerless in the struggle. All we can do is rely on the faithfulness of God and the call to prayer.

So accordingly the prayer points for this week are:

• Please pray for myself and the other team members as we deal with reality of an Invisible God who chooses, in His wisdom, to reveal Himself through the Cross and Scriptures and His Holy Spirit.


• Pray that God would not let go, that His grip would strong, sure and eternal and that each of us would not forget that.


• Pray that our love for the Lord Jesus would not be fickle and be crushed when the worries of the world grow up around us.
  

May I implore you to pray for us. The encouragement for us as a team is that the devil is scared - he doesn't like what's happening with mission - and we are looking forward to our Lord working victoriously!

I tell you, whoever acknowledges me before men, the Son of Man will also
acknowledge him before the angels of God. (Luke 12:8)

Food for thought...

Remember this event:

As evening approached, the disciples came to him and said, "This is a remote place, and it's already getting late. Send the crowds away, so they can go to the villages and buy themselves some food."

Jesus replied, "They do not need to go away. You give them something to eat."

"We have here only five loaves of bread and two fish," they answered.

"Bring them here to me," he said. And he directed the people to sit down on the grass. Taking the five loaves and the two fish and looking up to heaven, he gave hanks and broke the loaves. Then he gave them to the disciples, and the disciples ave them to the people. They all ate and were satisfied, and the disciples picked up twelve basketfuls of broken pieces that were left over. The number of those who ate was about five thousand men, besides women and children.

Pretty amazing event isn't it. Can you imagine what the disciples must have been thinking? There's five loaves of bread and two fishes for five thousand. Imagine trying to cut the fish into bits small enough to feed 50 let alone 5,000. And Jesus says no don't send them away! But the most astounding thing is what happens next.

I only wish I could have been there to see that happen. What happened to the fish? Did they just suddenly multiply like some single cell organism continually dividing in half. Perhaps the baskets were like the Tim Tam packet that never runs out - it gets to a critically low level of two fish and the next thing its full again.

Just imagine what the disciples must have thought - running excitedly through the crowd spreading the food, looking at each other and back at their master in awe.

God provides so much, so easily, so often. And yet we doubt he will provide the simple things in life.

This year at mission we are cutting our budget - trying to reduce our spending and keep mission affordable. It means cutting some "luxury items" from the list - a sacrifice we are happy to make. But despite the cuts it seems hopeless at times, petrol is going up and we want to do so much at mission but know that somethings are out of the price range. The challenge for us is to trust our Lord that he can feed, inspire and guide not only the disciples and the five thousand but also the 16 of us. And he will.

Please pray for us this week:

• For Tammie as she plans our food for the week. Help her not to be stressed but give her insight and peace as she deals with what could be a stressful job.


• Pray for Laura as she begins writing the drama and for the others in the team who will help her over the next few weeks.


• For Marika as she takes over the follow up role from one of our previous team members (thanks Jill for all your great work!)


• For Stephen and Andrew as they continue to grapple with how best to teach the concept of choice while ensuring that the doctrine of God's unending grace is maintained.

The Pleasures of God

I've been reading a book by John Piper this week The Pleasures of God. I love Piper, his well known literary work Desiring God inspired me a few years ago and I bought The Pleasures of God soon after only to start reading it this week.


The crux of Piper's Pleasures of God is the phrase "The worth and excellency of a soul is to be measured by the object of its love" taken from Henry Scougals' The Life of God in the Soul of Man.


Piper insists that the worth and excellency of God's should should also be measured by the object of his love. He reminds us that God's highest pleasure is found in himself, within the Trinity, so that God is not reliant on anything or anyone. So that his worth is in fact supreme because it finds its pleasure in himself - the Supreme Being. But far from being a selfish being, God in a display of his grace chooses to direct his love toward us - who so desperately need it! Piper's application (or so it seems to me so far) is that "If the excellency of God would be admired in his pleasures, and if we tend to conform to what we admire, then focusing on the pleasures of God would help me be conformed to God."


This year at mission we have set a goal for ourselves as a team: to be conformed to the likeness of God. Sp what better place to start than to look at the pleasures of God. First foremost amongst these is of course our Lord and Savior Jesus.


We want our week at Tambar to be a week where not only the kids hear about Jesus but we as a team are also confronted by the witness of Jesus and challenged by how clearly the Father loves his Son and who through offering Him up to death He actually lifts Jesus up to the place of Lord of this world and the next.

We are planning well and good things are being done. Please give thanks for and pray for the following things:

• Give thanks for George and Andrew's work in getting advertising done! Leaflets and flyer's have been done and sent.
• Pray that the advertising material will reach all the relevant families and that many families will come this year. We especially want to see new families coming.
• Please pray for the team as we prepare ourselves for a week of mission. Pray that we would be reading the bible and praying regularly.
• Please pray that God will provide enough money to cover the various costs.
• Please pray for Tammy as she organises the food for the week. Please pray that enough people will be able to provide food for us and that we will be able to keep within our budget.
• Please pray for Prash as he writes the team devotions and the sermon for our Sunday service.
  
• Please pray for Laura as she starts on the drama.

We appreciate your support and prayers. We would love feedback so please leave comments. This week we will be introducing interactive blog entries so stay tuned.