Monthly Archives: September 2013

Safe and well, landed 25 minutes early in Melbourne, after a really great journey…. this ‘sleep’ thing that I’ve suddenly discovered 60 years into my life even seems to have carried over to planes! Slept most of the way from Singapore to Melbourne, sitting up (so no upgrade… 🙁  – perhaps they’re saving it for the journey home… 😉 ). Thank you, if you prayed for a safe journey: the Airbus 380, wonderful plane, didn’t even really feel it touch the ground when it landed in Singapore at 7.30 Sunday morning – great plane, and I guess, great pilot!

So good to see Robert’s happy smiling face outside the arrivals door – and his comment on my mass of luggage! One of the blessings/benefits of flying a lot with the same ‘network’ is that, among other things like possible upgrades, I can have two 25kg bags – why travel light?! I’ve never learned yet how to do that, I doubt very much that I will in the last 30 years or so of my travelling life! The problem is that I just keep thinking ‘I’ll stick that in’ and ‘I’ll take this book…oh, and that one…’! – and my book of 501 Spanish Verbs weighs a ton: it’s all those tenses….

Delighted, too, at the way my knees have responded to this journey: once upon a time, I’d have been pretty immobile for a couple of days are 36 hours travelling, so I’m grateful to God and injections…

And looking forward to what God’s going to do here. With the week I’ve just had, it’s going to be good…. 🙂

Well, not wizard perhaps(!), but to go and engage with the miracle-working God once again in that amazing country, so far away, Australia. I’ve got a feeling it’s going to be a great trip, as the last three days have been absolutely awful in many respects, which often suggests that the enemy’s a little worried/concerned (dare I say, pissed off??!) at what’s about to happen. There’s not a huge number of ‘church’ meetings pre-booked, but what tends to happen in Australia is that what I can only describe as the miracle/healing equivalent of ‘doctor’s surgeries’ happens – whole evenings, often afternoons and mornings, too, in one room in someone’s home, and the living room packed with ‘patients’.

I love going to be with Robert & Shey Hall, and their 4 great boys, Wesley, Damon, Lucas, and Caleb, because they’re so ‘normal’ as a family I don’t have to … perform(?) – put on airs and graces, and God’s in the process of doing such a wonderful series of miracles for those lads, three of whom (I’m going to say ‘were’) autistic – they’re well on their way to being healed….

And just being with Robert – Rob has caught what can’t be taught: faith for healing. He’s a radical, blunt, straight-talking bloke who has caught the power of God so firmly in his spirit, that the enemy really doesn’t stand a chance, and I know when we’re together, stuff happens….so that’s why I’ve been put through the ‘mixer’ the last few days, and rather than discourage me, it inspires me.

So, I’m over to England tonight, then early Saturday to Singapore (a mere 13 1/2 hours…. 🙁 ) and then Melbourne (a positively quick 8 hours!), so not there til Sunday night, 7.15 pm Melbourne time. So knees, do your stuff for a few days – I’m going to get Alan here to pray for them before I get out of his car at the airport this evening, and Robert to pray for them when I arrive, so hopefully they’ll stay well covered!

Dear Graham Cooke, the wonderful English prophet who lives in the USA, wrote this, which I re-posted yesterday:

“God’s love, His joy, His peace, His patience, His goodness, His kindness – all of those things can become a given to us. We shouldn’t focus on them as things to achieve. We just need to know that as we host the presence of God all those things become part of our reality.”

….’as WE host the presence of God, they become our reality’ – I’ve been preaching recently about the current ‘trend’ for holding meetings ‘inviting the Presence of God’ to come…. how absurd! WE CARRY THE PRESENCE OF GOD… if He’s in a meeting, surely it’s partly because WE’RE there…..He lives in me, I don’t know about you…..:)

In the context of the lovely lady, Alejandrina, being healed in Mexico, a testimony I received today might not seem ‘that much’ – unless it is you that it happened to! My mate, Roy Beaumont, in Plymouth, is a Financial Services Consultant: and, up to the end of June, had had a frequent coughing/choking/spluttering episode, for 5-10 minutes a time, 2 or 3 times a day, at least. It was exhausting, embarrassing, and downright annoying, as much as anything else. This was Roy’s email to me today:

“By the way, my throat is still brilliant thanks, no more coughing and spluttering for 5-10 minutes 2 or 3 times a day! PTL!”. 2 months without it, which is a real blessing. I’m thrilled to bits for him, and told him so. God’s JUST as interested in our coughs and colds as he is our cancers and parkinsons diseases….and he just delights to bless us.

Size doesn’t matter….

So speaks a man with the world at his feet, suddenly and permanently paralysed – the best Superman of the bunch of them….. it’s strange, but, as I so often pray for people who are so, so sick, desperate, in chronic pain, or looking death imminently in the eyes, I have some ‘christians’ having a go at me (much more so than the ‘Christians in waiting/not-yet-Christians’ – they tell me it’s unfair to give people who are ill, or their relatives HOPE….

How totally absurd and unbiblical is THAT? Jesus is HOPE, hope for the hopeless. I don’t know about you, but if I’m in a desperate situation, I’d much rather live with hope than live with hopelessness. That’s the only other alternative. Many of you know that early this year, one of my dearest, closest, best mates, Martin Collins, died with bowel cancer, only 59 years old. Not long after, I was hit with the same ‘guessed diagnosis’ a couple of months later. I ‘lived’ with that threat hanging over me for 3 months, and it was especially real because of Martin’s early arrival in heaven. I ‘lived’ in hope with the Collins family for some months, and had to choose to live in hope again for myself.

I know that ‘what you say is what you get’ isn’t true in the Kingdom of God: but many people lose hope, faith, perception, and perspective when faced with a crisis. Hope is a God-given gift, and for me, I just tell people who criticise praying ‘hope’ into people’s lives, where to go….

Jesus came to give life, hope, and healing. No, it doesn’t ALWAYS work – at least, not in the western world – YET…. but it will, if we choose it. I’ll close this little diatribe (!!) by re-quoting a wonderful Reinhard Bonkke quote I re-posted on Facebook earlier:

‘The Gospel introduces Jesus and abolishes religion. Jesus didn’t come to save religion. He came to save people! Also, He didn’t just deliver sermons; He delivered people! “I have come to set the captives free”, was His agenda. Rejoice.’

It’s been great to be able to take a breather the past 10 days, following Mexico, and especially to allow the treatment that my lovely doctor friend, Jois, did on my knees there. Jois is also the doctor for the lady I mentioned last Sunday, the beneficiary of such an astonishing deluge of God’s grace, Alejandrina. I asked him if he minded using his name in connection with her story, as sometimes doctor’s might prefer to ‘distance’ themselves from a miracle. Jois, bless him, is very happy for me to do just that. He is her doctor, and, I think I said, was the one who asked me to go and pray for her, with her having just been sent home from hospital die, with un-treatable cancer pretty much everywhere. It’s always good to have doctor’s confirm things: so often, they won’t, as they don’t want to give ‘headspace’ to the possibility of miracles.

I’ve certainly noticed the benefit of what Jois did, and have been a good boy, doing what he told me, and to rest them as much as possible :). Cricket and football, and films, have helped! I’ve also slept like a log, since I’ve been home – unusual for me, as sleep and I have not been the closest of associated since before my teens. It’s something I’ve prayed into, and had countless others pray into: but, last time I was in Australia, I recall my mate Robert talking about magnesium being good for sleep….

I ‘just happened’ to be standing in the queue at a pharmacy, and, on display, was a new product – two, in fact – magnesium spray, and another magnesium spray but with stuff added to help sleep…. if you don’t sleep well, you’ll know you’d try anything to assist – so I bought one of the latter, you spray about 8 shots anywhere onto your skin, and – apparently, bob’s yer uncle. Well, bob most certainly IS my uncle, as this stuff works a treat…. yeah, I know, some people will say it’s psychological. It ain’t. I’ve tried just about everything over the last 45-50 years, and since magnesium-ising myself each night, I’ve slept…. so I’m feeling great for Australia, coming up fast next weekend, though I’m over to England on Thursday, flying out to Melbourne, via Singapore, on Saturday. A few more days for my knees to recover a bit more: I must feel better, as I’ve blitzed my study the last couple of days, and it’s now unrecognisable!

Those of you who know my stories will know that in Oz, my friends Robert & Shey, have four sons, three (formerly) pretty high on the autism spectrum, the other with similar, though not specifically diagnosed, signs…. It’s father’s day in Oz today, and yesterday, Robert posted this picture on Facebook: what a great father’s day gift for a dad who’s brilliant with his boys, and has had the joy, with Shey, of seeing God begin the process of transformation a couple of years ago, and now, starting to see far more obvious evidence that God’s continuing what he began, and that it’ll soon be complete – in all of the boys.

I love being with them: I especially love being with Robert, as he’s so direct with what he says, prays…. some might say his ‘comments filter’ doesn’t work the same as everyone else’s(!!), but he’s a bloke who three years ago, would have said that God didn’t heal, ‘cos he’d never seen it, and now, prays for just about everything that moves, and sees healings all the time, especially at work, and as he said in a Facebook message to me the other day – ‘if they don’t get healed, I’ll just have to get ’em saved!’. Oh for more people like him, who don’t/won’t conform to the ‘accepted patterns of behaviour expected of church-goers’!!!!!

So, 16 days of so in Oz with Robert & Shey will be a blast, and loads of other people that I’ve built up good friendships with over recent visits. I hear I’m going to have cupcakes made especially in my honour by some of them! I’ll struggle for the sake of the kingdom….. 😉

Probably a good tie to go to Oz, too, as of course, we thrashed them in the Ashes (cricket, for the ignorant!), and I’ll be back before we thrash them again when England go to Oz in the new year….

And there have always been miracles there…. so, I’ll keep you posted! I’d appreciate your prayers for the (very, very) long flights – 13.5 hours to Singapore alone: I’ve put in a request (bad knees, you know!) for consideration for an upgrade on the way home, and the Star Alliance Gold Card with Singapore Airlines, always helps a bit….