Prayer for England Day 153

A Call To Prayer

‘If my people, who are called by My name, will humble themselves and pray and seek My face and turn from their wicked ways, then will I forgive their sin and will heal their land’

                                                                                                                     2 Chronicles 7:14

Below is a suggested prayer of thanksgiving, confession and supplication copied by kind permission of Hatikvah Film Trust, Charity No. 1104887

Thank You, O Lord our Father, for calling Britain to be a ‘shepherd nation’ to stand beside and help your ancient people in the restoration of their nation in fulfilment of the promises of God. Thank you for every way in which we have been blessed in the past through reaching out to bless your people, according to your promise. (Genesis 12:3)

O Lord, we confess that our government and nation sinned and forsook that calling in the days of the British Mandate in Palestine. Our fathers were guilty of breaking their commitment as expressed in the Balfour Declaration, through official government policy and through anti-Semitic bias, in the military and elsewhere. As a result of this, many thousands of Jewish lives were lost and foundations laid for many continuing problems in Israel today. We also recognize the evil harvest our own nation has reaped as we see the dreadful spiritual, moral and social decline in our land since that time.

Father, you are the mighty and sovereign God who rules over nations, and still has a heart of love for us and our nation, and a desire to use us to be a blessing. Please forgive us this sin against the Jewish people. Forgive us for disregarding your word. Forgive us for the on-going sins of anti-Semitism and anti-Israel bias we see in our church and nation today. For your Name’s sake, bring cleansing, healing and renewed strength, that we may again honour your word, be a godly example to others, and bring glory to your Name and comfort to your people Israel.

In the name of Jesus, our Messiah and Lord. Amen

‘O LORD God of our fathers, are You not God in heaven, and do You not rule over all the kingdoms of the nations, and in Your hand is there not power and might, so that no one is able to withstand you?’

                                                                                                              2 Chronicles 20:6

Prayer for England Day 152

Anger is a strange emotion isn’t it? When you feel angry you inevitably feel guilty that as a Christian you shouldn’t feel this way then after you rationalise it you then come to the conclusion that your anger is justified and there is of course such a term as righteous anger. Particularly over the past 10 years I have come to welcome these feelings instead of of being afraid of them, there was such a time when my anger was the emotion that I felt closest to. It had been my role model because my father’s anger was also the emotion he was closest to. I tried and eventually understood where my father’s anger came from and by taking the time to understand I learned how to use my anger in a more creative way. My father was one of 13 children and he had one brother. I’m not saying that he became angry because he was surrounded by women but his mother treated him appallingly.

My father served his national service in the British Army and was away from home for 2 years. When he arrived home his mother had either sold or pawned everything he owned. He arrived back home on his birthday just before Christmas and as a birthday present his mother gave him the pawn ticket to redeem his suit which he had to pay for himself. You see my dad had never raised a hand in anger towards his mother or any other woman for that matter and so he just pressed down and buried all the rampaging vileness that he held in tact towards his mother. Freud talks about emotional leakage and my father’s anger would often leak out into other aspects of his life. I remember as a kid sometimes his anger was out of context to the subject he appeared to be angry with.  

I’m not going to continue discussing my own reasons for feeling angry because right now I’m feeling really creative and I’m dealing with it in an appropriate manner that pleases me. When I look at the way this country cheated and lied about the Jewish nation I can fully understand how some of the older Jewish people still despise the British. I continue to pray and lift their hearts to God so that he may soften their spirit in order to accept repentance from us. I do believe this country will fall to the spirit of repentance, it has to at some point; the only thing is how low will we have to fall before we realise that repentance is the only way forward and that to repent will lift up our nation once more to fulfil our eternal purpose for His glory.

Prayer for England Day 151

To love at all is to be vulnerable. Love anything and your heart will be wrung and possibly broken. If you want to make sure of keeping it intact you must give it to no one, not even an animal. Wrap it carefully round with hobbies and little luxuries; avoid all entanglements. Lock it up safe in the casket or coffin of your selfishness. But in that casket, safe, dark, motionless, airless, it will change. It will not be broken; it will become unbreakable, impenetrable, irredeemable. To love is to be vulnerable.

                                                                                                 C.S. Lewis, The Four Loves

I’ve noticed a theme for this blog in the last few weeks and the pain of being and becoming more vulnerable. Becoming vulnerable means that you give up the right to ever being hurt or misunderstood. Sometimes that doesn’t seem fair particularly when you’ve been unfairly judged. The one thing that vulnerability does give you though is resilience and strength to continue loving and giving of yourself.

It is endemic of the British to keep the stiff upper lip and for boys to be brought up not to cry. One of my objectives in life is not to be like my earthly father, for my heart to shine and say break me if you can. My heart is strong enough simply because I endure the pain and suffering which says my love for others is rightly placed. Vulnerability increases the capacity for love simply because that’s what the heart is for, the more it’s used the stronger it gets.

My uncle died just over a year ago and his heart was so locked up in a casket just like C.S. Lewis’ description above and his home was a sad reflection of a man who was afraid of his own love for people. My uncle was surrounded by books on just about every subject imaginable but his own knowledge of affection and love was unable to transcend his ideas of vulnerability. To him vulnerability was a weakness to be shunned and mocked and to become fearful. After he passed I had to go and empty his flat of all his belongings, it was a lesson in how not to live a life. It broke my heart to see how one person can be so afraid of loving. I vowed never to repeat it. ;

Prayer for England Day 150

I’m sure I’ve spoken about this before but I am someone who doesn’t deal with change particularly well even though I advocate for change almost on a daily basis. Change is scary and unsettling but when I’ve finally embraced it I often wonder what all the fuss was about. Then, something else will need to change or things happen that I have no control over and I go through the whole familiar routine of fear and trepidation. I forget about the past things that God was so faithful in completing in me through the last lot of change, I guess that shows just how fickle us human beings can be at times.

When I sit down in the peace and tranquillity of my own home and reflect on how things have changed for me over the last 20 years I am in awe at God’s faithfulness and desire to see me change for the better. I have unfulfilled dreams that I know are achievable because God has placed them in my heart.

Delight yourself in the LORD, and he will give you the desires of your heart.

                                                                                                                               Psalm 37:4

The thing is to delight yourself in the things of God, everything he has asked you to do just get on with it. I know that’s easy to say and I feel as though I’m ministering to myself as I write but the only thing that holds us back from fulfilling God’s work in us is our own insecurities. The prize of eternal life is so precious and easily squandered I guess there is an eternal thief that wants to take it all away simply because he  can and for no other reason than he couldn’t have it for himself.

I’ve met many people over the years who spend their whole life praying and waiting on God. I believe that God gave me a very clear example of how we expect God to move and all the time we have the answers ourselves. Just before I got married I went away to a retreat, way out in the country. I wanted to hear God about the biggest change in my life to date. If I was making a mistake I needed to hear. The retreat was a huge mansion house with sash windows and built of stone. The first night I stayed a huge storm occurred and during the night the sash windows kept me awake as they banged loudly with every gust of wind. I was also cold and just wrapped my self up as tightly as I could as I moaned the whole night away. The storm subsided and while I was tired and cold I made my way down to reception and just volleyed my discontent towards the first person I saw. I feel he took delight in saying “did you turn the heating on?” before he said another word I returned to my room embarrassed. Indeed on the other side of the room was a radiator with a big sign saying ON and OFF. I drew the curtains back and there were 2 big wedges on a piece of string with a diagram telling you where to place them in order to stop the windows banging. When I saw this I just laughed at the ridiculousness of my attitude and felt God say to me very clearly. People pray and ask me to intervene when they have gifts and talents they never consider using. I have given you a brain and abilities and yet you still come to me asking to change things that you are more than capable of doing yourself.

It is certainly a lesson I have held in my heart and have held it as a reminder of how we can spend many years wasting our time praying when God has already spoken.

Prayer for England Day 149

I have been out with friends over the years to see a movie or a stage play and a term that is all too poorly considered is “wasn’t that prophetic?” This comment or those of similar affect irritate me to the core, I generally challenge this comment by asking the person saying such things as “why? Please explain” this has never appeared to have gone down well. I have been accused of being difficult or argumentative for asking such a thing but I am always genuinely keen to know how the art form was thought to be prophetic. I am a creative person and I am not against art being prophetic but the lack of understanding about such comments lead me to believe there is need for more education around this idea.

I have seen films, read books and seen stage plays over the years that have touched me emotionally and some times quite profoundly. The movie “Its a Wonderful Life” is a film I’ve seen probably 15 times, has me weeping buckets every time, it touches something deep in me about fear, failure and acceptance.  The film “Serpico” about an honest New York cop who refuses to be drawn into Police corruption stirs my soul into a place of integrity that to be honest scares me. My soul is often touched and profoundly affected by art. If this is understood as prophecy in art then prophecy is not what this is.

I think being emotionally stirred or affected by art is a beautiful thing, it allows you to be touched and your emotions freed so that your emotional capacity is deepened and strengthened. Sometimes our emotional literacy is stretched which allows us to integrate and love in a more substantial and effective manner. I remember when I was a teenager I went to see the movie “The Champ” at the end of the movie the boxer dies with his small son shaking the dead body screaming “wake up champ, wake up.” When everyone left the cinema virtually ever man had clearly been in tears while in order to save face they all berated the film as rubbish.

I pray that men in particular can gain a sense of emotional literacy within the church and to acknowledge that they are emotional beings. I pray they can accept that it is absolutely part of being a person that to weep and be affected by emotions is not a place of weakness but one of strength.  I pray too that women can raise boys that have feelings for themselves and therefore towards a God they cannot see but experience him in such a unique way that this nation will change and turn towards an emotional loving God. 

Prayer for England Day 148

I feel minded to continue with some of the thinking I was writing about yesterday. History will indeed repeat itself until we start learning the lessons it is keen for us to know and experience. How many people do you know that have always been drawn to the same type of partner and the partner always appears to behave in the same manner as the last? How many mistakes do we continue to make in our jobs after failing to heed the warnings of the previous problems that are all too familiar with the current ones?

I can relate to some of these scenarios myself but thankfully I have always listened to what history is trying to tell me. We also see these problems in the church where there is one church split after another and when these issues are analysed history has repeated itself very successfully without anyone having the courage to say “I see it now, please forgive me and help me to change.” I’m not saying for one minute that to accept change is an easy thing, it isn’t and why should it be? Change is essential in order for us to grow because our eternal Father loves us so much he would not have us stay as we are. Change is incredibly painful because we are essentially changing shape when we are stretched; there is room for more whether that be emotionally, physically or mentally. 

God requires us to be in the words of Chuck Swindoll “the bible for those never likely to read one.” I have become very interested in contemporary history and particularly local history and how to draw lessons from the land that cries out in pain yearning us to take note. I have a theory which I won’t share just yet but I believe that the riots last summer were a reflection of a deeper discontent than that reported. The attention that the riots got were placing a tear in the land that needs to be healed, if this is not heeded there will be more. I believe now is such a time this nation of ours needs to listen and take time to know God’s desire for this country. I continue to pray and seek the heart of God, for the land seeks peace within heartbeat of the Father to such a degree that if it isn’t heard the cry will only get louder.

Prayer for England Day 147

I have to confess I have felt more like Ebenezer Scrooge for the past few days with my bah humbug approach to the Olympic Games. I am not a sportsman and I have the physique to prove it, I have scant interest in anything to do with sport, even watching it. The whole of the country is beginning to hype up for the big event with the Olympic torch being journeyed around the nation. I have concerns that we as a nation are about to fumble across one of the biggest errors in our country’s history. The mistake that every single Olympic nation before us has appeared to have had difficulties with and that is “legacy”. Have we never wanted to learn from the mistakes of others? Are we really so arrogant that we think we know best? I have longed for this nation to succeed and I continue to pray that we do, but history does count for something and it pays good dividend to listen to it. As I highlighted someone else’s quote the other day “history repeats itself, it has to because, nobody listens.”

Unless God moves abundantly we are in danger of having no legacy for those young people following us in years to come. The last 2 Olympic venues in Beijing and Athens are both completely overgrown with no investors in sight. The way forward for our own has proved to be a debacle from very early on with promises of a football stadium while almost every expert opinion stating, as it stands, it is not suited to host soccer games.

The attitude that the British authorities have been displaying over this issue, in my view, is very reminiscent of the attitude that was so prevalent during the 2 World Wars. The attitude says “we are British and we know best” has long since proved to be our failing in international affairs. This, I believe, is part of the curse we are currently subject to and one that can only be broken with prayer and petition before God.

I continue to cry out for Christian men and women in this country to be brought to the forefront of politics and to be unafraid of the fallout when making statements that affirm the one true living God. I pray for boldness strength and courage to maintain our nation for His glory to be fulfilled.