April 2016 - Paul Bennison

The past few months….(well, 21 in reality!!) – part 1

Posted on April 26, 2016 by Paul Bennison Posted in Journal, Personal, Random Thoughts, Testimony, Uncategorized Leave a comment

There are thousands of Scriptures that I love, and try and base my life on: I guess we all have our ‘favourite’ verses or passages, that have particular significance in our lives. Some that may have been spoken over us as prophetic words, that have really proved to right theologically AND accurate prophetically. I love the promises: I mentioned in another post that I’d heard that there are 6,300 of them in the Bible – and ALL of them are ‘yes and amen in Christ Jesus’. That ‘s good news when things aren’t going according to plan, aren’t going well, or when you seem to be in a particular season of ‘enemy attack’….

There are a few Scriptures that, on a ‘human’ and spiritual level, scare me, if I’m honest! Matthew 7:1-2 would be in that selection –

1“Do not judge, or you too will be judged. 2For in the same way you judge others, you will be judged, and with the measure you use, it will be measured to you.

Years ago, that verse took root in my spirit, and has, I hope and pray, changed how I think when I hear others judging people, or when I read something about another person, Christian or not…. the thought of God judging me the way I judge others is really quite horrific!

Among the Scriptures I love, I suppose because I’ve had to live it for 37½ years, is Philippians 4:19:

19 And my God will supply all your needs according to His riches in glory in Christ Jesus.

along with Matthew 10:7-8:

⁷As you go, proclaim this message: ‘The kingdom of heaven has come near.’ ⁸Heal the sick, raise the dead, cleanse those who have leprosy,^[a]drive out demons. Freely you have received; freely give.

It hasn’t always SEEMED that God supplies ALL – according to my time-frame, at least! – in fact, it’s sometimes the opposite. At the ‘end of the day’, though, it HAS to happen, because ‘ For no matter how many promises God has made, they are “Yes” in Christ. And so through him the “Amen” is spoken by us to the glory of God.’ (2 Cor 1:20). And, because dear Pastor Samuel Lamb, (and a posse of 4 other incredible pastors), in Guanzhou, China, drove into me in 1987, on my first visit it to him, that ‘It’s NOT POSSIBLE FOR GOD NOT TO ANSWER PRAYER!’

The last 21 months – since the bizarre and totally unexpected hospitalisation with massive pulmonary embolisms in August 2014, through which I KNOW that God saved my life (‘You’re a very lucky man to be alive, Mr Bennison’ said TWO consultants): I’m as sure as I can be that, having just returned from a fantastic trip to Cali, Colombia, with the youngest team I’ve ever taken – Peter McAvoy, Grace Uitterdijk, Carly Brown, and Caroline Maridor – and with Latvia and Romania coming up, it was an assault of the enemy….. as I was advised not to do any long-haul flights due to the DVT causing the pulmonary embolism, I spent almost 4 months in Romania: at which point, money I was expecting from regular supporters, began to ‘dry up’….

One of the ‘problems’ with living this way (which, then for 35½+ years, had worked relatively well!), trusting God (I hate the term ‘living by faith’ – surely we all live by faith, don’t we?), mostly through through the kindness and sacrifice of friends and supporters, is that you don’t always know when the support stops, for whatever reason. I budget based on what I know is regularly committed to me through Stewardship, the great organisation that process gifts for ‘little’ people like me, who don’t have their own ministry organisation (I’ve never wanted one – I think often the organisation takes over the ministry), and through them I’m able to get the gift aid back. Unless I check the list of people every few days, I don’t know who’s cancelled and who hasn’t….

In the bank I worked for, pay day was the 18th of the month: I don’t miss banking at all – I hated it, to be honest, but I was on a reasonable salary (no big bonuses for the pleb staff in those days!!) – which was hugely boosted by a subsidised mortgage of 2½% (in an era of 14% mortgages – people who’ve taken out mortgages in the past few years, you probably can’t even conceive of such an interest rate!), discounted loans – and as you’d expect, my salary was always in my account on the 18th. I don’t miss the bank at all: I don’t regret having ‘given in’ to God’s ‘requests’ for me to quit and go into ministry – though I fought him for 4-5 years before I did, as I’d got used to being paid, and liked the money! – and there is absolutely no way I’d ever go back on these past 37½ years, of moving into a zero-salary, and 15% mortgage (loaded 1% as it was a re-mortgage)… BUT – when the going gets tough, every now and again (probably less than a dozen times in those years) on the 18th, I think… ‘If I was still in the bank, I’d be getting my pension today!’ – having retired probably 10 years ago or more, with a nice house, good pension – and probably being as bored – and boring (you perhaps think I am anyway!) as anything! I’d NEVER swap the last 37+ years for those 9 years for all the money in the world. And my 9 years does give me a pension in 1½ years’ time – I think it’s £37 (about US$50, AUD $60) a year!!! I can’t wait to get it, it’ll half fill the petrol tank in the car – once!

Soon after the hospitalisation, I headed off to Latvia, which went well, but was more expensive than I expected: and then to Romania. I’d been told that accommodation was all sorted out: a place of my own, small, but ok. Then….I discovered that I had to rent it, when I wasn’t expecting that at all! With Stewardship, it’s not like earning a salary, which of course is generally monthly: I get varying amounts each week: with a salary, you’d notice if it one month it was 25% down the next month. Weekly, with the amounts different every week, it’s not so easy to pick up on changes. And this is where the squeeze began…. it was ‘interesting’ having rent and bills in two places, and, if you don’t know Romania, it’s a pretty expensive place to live, despite the (still) massive poverty in many parts of the country, high unempolyment, and low salaries. And – I was aware that money didn’t seem to be going far, and by November /December I’d realised that three significant monthly gifts, all long standing (over 10 years), some £300, had gone…. one, sadly, was because a good friend had died and I hadn’t heard, one lost his job, and the other the circumstances had changed significantly….. it’s quite a shock to not know your ‘salary’ has shrunk considerably!

It was the beginning of something that I’m now fairly sure that God initiated – it’s been likened to me as a ‘Job’ thing by other people: but, as often with something ‘positive’ (that doesn’t necessarily seem positive!) that also doesn’t seem like ‘God supply all of your needs’, the enemy jumps on it, and exacerbates the situation, making things at times, almost impossible… some of you might now want to tell me that he can’t go outside of the boundaries God fixes for him. I agree. But he’ll have a good try, as if he didn’t, we wouldn’t be warned to look out for the ‘prowling lion’ who wants to destroy people whose lives are – maybe – just a little more ‘radical’ (I think that word is ‘NORMAL’!) than many others.

So many friends in ministry are under immense attack at the moment: for some, it seems constant. A few years ago, a lovely friend who hadn’t long been a Christian, and was reading his Bible like it was going out of fashion, said to me one evening, ‘What’s the difference between your story and Job’s?’ I knew what was coming next but I wanted him to tell me why he’d asked.

‘Well, Job was a good man, Satan hated him and wanted to destroy him, so GOD initiated Job’s trials… ‘have you considered…?’ (Job 1:8). God gave him limits, but Job lost his money, his possessions (you’ve lost yours 4 times pretty much, my friend added), his home (4 times, too), his children, his wife, friends, his health…. What haven’t you lost out of those things? (Health = knees, I guess!). In it all, Job still declared ‘I know that my redeemer lives….’ (Job 19:25) – you say different words, but still declare the power, and the blessing of God’ – and then….he got it all back, double…

I feel I’m in another of those ‘Job’ times – or, perhaps more, in Jesus’ parable of the talents….or a bit of both!!

Much more in Northern Ireland! – An answer to prayer: the past few months: a summary

Posted on April 12, 2016 by Paul Bennison Posted in Journal, Personal, Testimony, Travel Leave a comment

Amazing as it seems to me, I’ve lived in Northern Ireland for 6½ years now – since returning from the United States in 2009. Many of you might remember that the first five years we ‘blighted’ by the scandalous fight (and immense waste of a lot money) with United States Customs and Immigration: only to discover that my ‘return’ from the States was due to the corruption of others, and nothing at all to do with me! BUT….’All things work together for good’ is one of God’s amazing promises (I heard that there are 6,300 promises in the Bible, all of them ‘yes and amen in Christ Jesus’ (2 Corinthians 1:20). Oh, if only we believed them all! We might give lip service to many of them, but if the reality of needing to believe a whole stack of them confronts us, we’re not quite so convinced that they’re true!

…like ‘I can do ALL things through Christ who strengthens me’: or ‘I tell you the truth, anyone who believes in me WILL do what I have been doing, and greater things you will do because I’m going to the Father’. My testimony of coming to Northern Ireland is that God keeps his promises – though not always in the way I expect, or want!! But I have felt very at home in Northern Ireland, despite the fact that in those 6½ years I haven’t even begun to inherit the accent, though some words have invaded my vocabulary!

I’d always enjoyed preaching here prior to my coming to live here, though bizarrely, the churches I preached in pre-October 2009, I haven’t preached in since I’ve lived here! What has happened is that God has answered my prayer, and brought other churches into my ‘circle’: as well as doing something very ‘unlikely’ in my lifestyle – encouraging and teaching me how to rest…. very much a Biblical principle that I was distinctly unused to. It’s been a blessing: as rest has transformed so much including my sleep pattern. Sleep and I hadn’t been particular friends since I was 12, the day my dad died: 2-4 hours a night maximum, and that was with the help of an increasing number of things from bottles (like valerian, melatonin, and real pills from the doctor!!). Learning to rest has been hard, if I’m honest: but what I have noticed is that there’s been a noticeable increase in what God does now I’ve ‘eased back’ on my diary bookings.

Rather than do a blog about each month that there hasn’t been one, I thought I’d just mention places I’ve been – some more than once – in those months. There’s been a marked increase in invitations here in Northern Ireland, which is lovely, and I’m grateful to God for that. I’ve also had countless – literally – opportunities to visit people in their homes to pray for them, mostly for healing. There’s been some great ‘networking’ relationships formed, too, and some that were already existing, which have become, and are becoming important. As a non-Irish Northern Irelander, it ‘feels’ that there’s something happening here in Kingdom terms, and that there’s an air of ‘frustration’ that precedes a real move of God.

I wrote a blog a few days ago about my involvement with a brand new ‘church’, in Londonderry – Still Waters BT47, a ‘plant’ from Still Waters Elim Church, Coleraine. I won’t go over what happened there a few weekends back, as it’s in a blog: suffice to say, it was a great weekend, praying for most people in both meetings on Saturday and Sunday evenings, and in the evening meeting, it was the first time – in the United Kingdom – that 100% of people prayed for, who had presenting pain or disease they could feel identify at the time. That, for me – and maybe most of us – was a wonderful ‘first’: there was a time when I’d have been grateful for 10%…. and the next couple of days brought testimonies, either from the weekend, or from home visits to people, produced more stories of healings. It seems likely that I’ll be involved with this new church quite regularly, which I’m very happy with.

I’ve been involved with an amazing church near Lisburn, called ‘The Lighthouse’: they meet in a bungalow, and the people who go to the Lighthouse get key, so they can use the house as a place to drop in, cook, relax…. what’s fascinating is that the mix of people is very unlike traditional church. They include former and current paramilitaries, alcoholics, and drug addicts, who want to find the Jesus who changes lives, and at the Lighthouse, they do. I love being involved there: and Billy Moore, who leads it (it’s actually a ‘plant’ from Lisburn Cathedral (Church of Ireland), who have a lovely Canon, Sam Wright, who, after just a brief meeting with him, invited me to do a healing meeting in the Cathedral one Sunday afternoon. People are healed there trough the amazing ministry of Billy, and the Cathedral ministers, and it’s been an incredible privilege to be asked to speak, and then pray for people, on three occasions. People have been healed – miracled ,even – including dreadfully arthritic bodies (the hands ‘classic’ arthritic, bent distorted fingers, huge swollen knuckles – straightened in seconds) and so much more. Billy often asks me if I know who I’ve just prayed for: of course, I do by name, because I ask them, but he means what they are….. it’s probably a good job I’m English, as I have no real idea what a lot of the paramilitary groups ‘letters’ of their name mean (some, yes: but then I don’t know what they did, although words like Unionist and Republican give quite a good hint!

I’ve been involved for some time with a wonderful couple, Ronnie & Janéce Macreanor – two years in fact: and it as great to be asked to speak at one of their church’s regular healing meetings, in Carrickfergus. The church is about to change its name, but is still (I think!) Jordanstown Christian Fellowship, the meeting was in the Loughshore Hotel, Carrickfergus. There was a good number of people there, as always I have a good look round to see if I can identify any of the possible contenders for the ministry time afterwards! I’d asked a friend, David Yates, to come and share his story, feeling that an Irishman telling Irish people about a stunning miracle that God did for him would be good – it’s hard to argue with someone’s own personal story, and David’s is pretty special. Two years ago (almost to the day), I’d spoken at a men’s breakfast (you don’t turn down a free Ulster Fry!!) at Holywood Christian Fellowship Church.

A number of people wanted prayer for healing afterwards, they DIDN’T include David, who, by his own admission, was ‘sceptical’ – maybe worse! – about healing, but was ultimately persuaded to be prayed for by a friend. It turned out that David had a huge brain tumour, and was under a relatively short ‘death sentence’ from the doctors. His pain levels were immense, at the breakfast, too: he was on a substantial amount of morphine pills a day, including a couple first thing in the morning to bring the pain level down to about 15 out of 10 so that he could get up and begin his day. While praying for him, I had one of those disconcerting moments where I heard words coming out of my mouth that a) I hadn’t thought, and b) most certainly not processed or censored! ‘You’ll wake up tomorrow morning, David, with the pain levels massively reduced: you’ll know when you can stop taking the medication’. Well, that’s what happened, David testifies: little or no pain, and decided not to take his morphine. I’m told you don’t just stop morphine: you reduce it very slowly. David stopped. Thursday, with the oncologist, who told him that in the last months of his life (very few), the pain would increase, so an increase in the medication would be necessary. The oncologist almost blew a gasket when David told him he wasn’t taking it, as he’d been prayed for, the pain had gone, and the pressure in his head had gone (which suggested that the tumour had gone).

The doc arranged an MRI: no tumour. Completely healed, and his testimony in Carrickfergus was very powerful. Many people were prayed for: I was glad I’d got my great young mate, Peter McAvoy with me, to assist with praying. As usual, two sets of osteoarthritic knees were healed instantly: a lady with fibromyalgia healed: a pair of arthritic hands; a lady with a lot of pain from an ovarian cyst; and lots more, for Peter and for me.

A lovely weekend at Still Waters Elim Church, Coleraine, had a healing meeting on Saturday night, church Sunday morning… many prayed for, many healed….the Saturday meeting started at 7.30, and I think I left the church at 11.25pm! All the usual suspects got prayed for – yep, osteoarthritis in the knees, I’m so grateful to God that, since I’ve had that horrible affliction, he’s healed just about every (if not every) person who has come for prayer, instantly – I think I said in another blog that I stopped counting at 500 pairs of knees, and never did count the single knees…. many different illnesses went. The same story at the Sunday morning church service: it began at 10’30 am, and I left the church at around 3.30 pm – to be asked if I’d go and encourage and pray for the Polish church, who meet in the church in the afternoon: they were in the hall, probably because I’d commandeered the church! Another hour with them: sharing some words of encouragement, praying for a few of them – really, really lovely people. Finally left the church at 5 pm, so that made the morning meeting 6 1/2 hours long!

A really lovely evening in Lambeg, Lisburn, with the Christians Against Poverty Lisburn team: who wanted to hear some amazing testimonies, and how to apply healing to the many people that they counsel through debt problems. It really was a great evening, lots of stories, lots of questions, and a lovely opportunity to encourage the counsellors to step out in healing, as poverty – like addictions – can be an inescapable illness, too. I just love God’s sense of humour, in giving me this opportunity in a period of my life when, for the past 21 months, it’s been the toughest financial period of the 37 years that I’ve been in ministry, so to speak to poverty counsellors was a blessing in a time of my life when there have been days and days without food, and a frantic praying in of money to pay bills!

I’m a great believer in speaking the truth in the face of hardship, like Job, who, when everything had gone – money, possessions, home, family, friends, health, even his wife turned on him – yet he still stood, when his personal world couldn’t have been much darker, and declared –

“As for me, I know that my Redeemer lives, And at the last He will take His stand on the earth. “Even after my skin is destroyed, Yet from my flesh I shall see God;… (Job 19:25-26

There’s not a BETTER time, or more important time, to declare the glory of God, to speak truth in the face of adversity, than when you’re standing / living in the middle of adversity…. Six years ago, a good friend of mine sat in my living room, and asked me ‘what’s the difference between your story and Job’s?’. I was pretty sure I knew what he was going to come out with, but I wanted him to say it, which he did: and then he said ‘and I’ve been with you when you’ve preached that God is our provider, healer, salvation, strength, in the middle of what seems to be just the opposite situation for you’…. that was a blessing to hear….and I still declare the same in this current ‘place of constriction’, because whatever my – our – circumstances the truth never changes. And, of course, look what happened for Job at the end of the story…..

The story of ‘The Lighthouse’

Haunted by his past, Billy Moore feared that despite being a Christian he was not good enough to carry out a ministry.

But knowing God accepted him, Billy gave in and accepted himself. The result is a vibrant ministry to a community in one of Lisburn’s most deprived estates.

Billy is now a Commissioned Lay Minister. The 59-year-old left school without any qualifications, and worked as a cabinet maker. But he was also involved in more sinister activities. “I was in the paramilitaries in the early 70s during the Ulster Workers’ Strike. Most people were involved in the paramilitaries as they were protecting their communities,” he recalled.

Billy did not want to talk openly about his activities during this period of his life. “God knows everything that Billy Moore has done and I have to accept that,” he said. “When I became a Christian and people asked me to do prayer groups, I would be thinking ‘if these people really knew me how can I sit here and lead them in prayer?’ It was on one of these occasions I was hit by the sudden realisation ‘who’s telling you you are not good enough to be a Christian?’

“Lots of people carry guilt because of things they have done in this life, and that stops them from becoming a Christian because they think they have to stand up in front of a church and say ‘that’s how bad I was. This is how good I am now.’

“I remember lying in bed during a power strike looking out at the stars, knowing I was going on a job the next day, and thinking that I might not come back from this one. I was not thinking about God or theology. I was not a bad person but the circumstances enveloped me as they did thousands of people and still do to this day.”

Billy continued: “I still carry a lot of guilt. But that does not make me any less a Christian because God knows me 100 per cent and if he asks me to follow him that’s good enough for me.”

Billy now prays for others involved in paramilitary or criminal activity. “I pray that they come to know what I know. I pray that they will know what peace is, what contentment is and what wanting to serve God means.”

He left the paramilitaries after the workers’ strike. “We had really put ourselves on the line. What a witness Billy moore in the prayer room at the Lighthouse in Hillhall.

We were trying to keep Ulster British but we were facing down British soldiers which was a contradiction,” he said.

Disillusioned, he joined the Labour Party and was chairman of the Lisburn branch in the mid 1970s. He maintains an association with the Labour Party today.

Billy married Lynda in 1977 and they have one daughter. In 1982 he got a job as a woodwork instructor at a new social care centre in Belfast. “I took it because of the job security. I had no inkling of what mental health was. I just thought it was mad people, people with no control,” Billy admits.

The irony of this is that Billy himself had suffered anxiety and depression, a condition he now recognises as a mental health illness. “It came to the stage where I lost interest in everything and I had made up my mind to kill myself. There was no great thought put into it. I just wanted to escape this life,” Billy recalls.

But before acting on this impulse Billy started to feel better. Gradually he returned to ‘normal’ activities. “One thing that happens with a mental health illness is you lose your confidence and self esteem. It’s a black hole of depression, but having come out of it after 18 months, I would say it has made me a better, stronger person, and it gave me a lot more compassion and empathy with other people. It is strange how the Lord builds you up,” said Billy.

He remains at the social care centre as a deputy manager today.

It was through Canon John McCammon at Lisburn Cathedral that Billy was drawn to faith. He began to go to church. “One night I knelt by the bed and said ‘Lord, I don’t know what you are going to do with me but I am going to give you my life, I need a brother to walk with me.”

Billy was later asked to come to the Lighthouse Church on Lisburn’s Hillhall Estate to help out. On his drive to work he passed the local Co Down Arms pub, a place he frequented in his younger days. “I had a real feeling that I should be in there doing my Christian work,” Billy said. “I ran from that for two years.” Twice he called in but on both occasions he failed to speak to the owner.

Then tragedy struck when the owner died. Billy was asked to visit the family to offer comfort and when he spoke to the widowed landlady, Jennifer McNeice, he told his story. Jennifer invited him to come into the pub as a Christian. “Jennifer has become the backbone of this Church. What a witness that is,” said Billy.

Billy called into the pub a couple of times a week. Once every three weeks he held a formal service in the bar. He put up a banner, and people were invited to hang a prayer ribbon on it. The praise band from Lisburn Cathedral supported the services.

Services are now held only in the Lighthouse, where there are also fellowship meetings, teaching, meditation, prayer and quiet times. It is hoped that a CAP (Christians Against Poverty) project will also be housed in the Lighthouse in the near future, and two Church Army workers are helping families in the area.

“The people who come here, the alcoholics and the drug addicts, are all looking for ways to give their lives to the Lord,” Billy said.

Four years ago Billy was made a Commissioned Lay Minister. “I feel I have a whole new family and the acceptance of the church means so much to me,” he said.

Looking back on his past, Billy added: “The Lord accepts everybody who accepts him.”

(Some of) What I was taught, or learned WRONG in the past….

Posted on April 6, 2016 by Paul Bennison Posted in Journal, Personal, Random Thoughts Leave a comment

After a long period of ‘silence’ with no blog posts for some months, the post a couple of days ago must have come as a surprise to a few people! There were practical reasons – perhaps technical would be a better word – in that various issues occurred with not being able to type here, not being able to post to one or more of Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn…. and there were other more personal and spiritual reasons….

I guess many of us can look back over our Christian lives, and realise that things we would have once believed, having been taught or learned ourselves, we no longer believe, as we’ve moved on with God, and our perspectives and understanding have changed. For me, there are lots of those things to do with my own Christian life – practical, theological, and spiritual. To give an example, for me, having now been in this particular phase of my life for nigh on 30 years – praying for the sick and preaching the gospel, encouraging believers to move out of spiritual and practical comfort zones and take ‘risks’ (in our understanding, not God’s!) – the way I pray has changed. For quite a few years, when I began to pray for sickness to go from people, I’d pray long prayers – often ‘beseeching’ God to heal whoever I was praying for, sometimes the prayers would go on for maybe 30 minutes. That means praying for people at the end of a meeting went on a very long time!

In the middle of one prayer, many years ago now, I heard God speak to me very clearly (I wish I heard him THAT clearly and often all the time!!): ‘For goodness’ sake, get on with it!’ . My reply of ‘What?’ drew another response from God: ‘Healing this person!’. ‘I am!!’ ‘No you’re not, you’re begging me to do something I’ve promised I’ll do!’. Now, from me, there was silence….! ‘Command it, in Jesus’ Name, like Jesus did! And, by the way, delete from your praying ‘If it’s your will, Lord’……Hmm. I guess I was taught, or inherited, the need to include that in praying. ‘You know my will: my will is that I heal all of your sickness and disease, that you’ll lay your hands on those who are sick and they WILL recover’.

PLEASE, PLEASE, PLEASE!! – eradicate that phrase from your praying!! We know God’s will. To pray it, IF it’s your will, and the person doesn’t appear to be healed, means we can effectively ‘blame God’ for them NOT being healed.

I’m very, very grateful that in the ‘early’ days of beginning this current walk with God, in 1987, I was blessed to be regularly in touch with a man who really was the pioneer of bringing healing back into the church: Ian Andrews. Over the years, from the late 60’s, Ian has blessed hundreds of thousands of people – maybe more – with healing, through the gift of the Spirit that had been hidden and maligned by centuries of believers. He’s also taken a lot of flak for it – I know he has, and even if I didn’t, I’d know he must have done, because I have. Another man at the forefront of putting healing back into its rightful place in Christian life, Francis MacNutt, a former Catholic Priest: Francis wrote a great book about how Satan tried – and failed – to take healing away from the church, called ‘The nearly perfect crime’ (available on Amazon).

It’s surprising how hard it is a) to move away from you were taught, or inherited, and b) how much harder it is to command, a Jesus did, sickness or evil spirits, to go. To me, it seemed presumptuous. But I consciously made that shift – it took time! – and prayers – and ministry times – became much shorter! Those of you who know me, and the way I pray now, will know that I’m not terribly conventional (by the standards of my evangelical heritage!) in the way I pray. I CAN’T, simply CAN’T, have a line of people, and walk along it tapping (or pushing?? Oh God, save us from the pushers and the showmen!) each person on the head or shoulder, saying ‘Be healed!’. I like to sit with each person, even if just for a few minutes, find out their name, their problem (or problems – some people have shopping lists of illnesses!), and then pray – commanding, in the name of – and with the authority of – Jesus. I DO believe it is the will of God to heal: and I can say that as someone who has been healed in the past (an unknown disease when I was very, very young, un-diagnoseble by Whipps Cross Hospital, in London – it went when my parents moved from the east end of London, to Sussex: at 20, ‘miracled’ from life-long chronic back pain – a hole in my spine, diagnosed as a ‘small spina bifida of the neural arch, I think, discovering that I was like a millimetre away from being a full spina bifida victim – the hole ‘disappeared when, in about 1972, my mentor, Clive Calver, through whom I got saved, got a guy named George Tarleton (remember him? Wonderful guy) to pray for me: in 1979, healed of a dislocated shoulder in the middle of the night, in agony, when a lovely friend, Roger Stoakley, prayed for me….

I also believe it’s God’s will to heal, seemingly having NOT been healed – YET (a vital word to keep at the forefront of your mind once you’ve been prayed for) of this osteoarthritis in my knees (it’s not MY osteoarthritis: it’s vital in being healed that we don’t take ‘ownership’ of the disease afflicting us) – for 15 years in my right knee, and 8 years+ in my left knee. Excruciating pain, frequently: especially after standing, preaching for a while. Consultant orthopaedic doctors told me 6 years ago I shouldn’t even be able to stand on my knees, that I must have them replaced… having no desire to become ‘titanium man’- or take 2 years ‘out’ of ministry to have both done – I politely declined… Why? Because I’m an idiot? (That’s a ‘given’ anyway!). No. Because I know it is the will of God to heal them. In the time I’ve been ‘afflicted’ (I was tempted to say ‘crippled’ but I refuse to speak curses over myself!), I KNOW that God has totally changed the way I pray for people with arthritis – I once almost dismissed it as a ‘come on, you’re getting old, and a bit of pain, or an ache, goes with the turf’ – I know different now!. In the time of both knees being afflicted, I stopped counting at 500 pairs of knees, and countless single knees, that God instantly healed when I commanded the disease and pain to GO….and countless arthritics with pain in shoulders, backs, hips, arms, necks… you name it….

In years gone by, I was also taught another lie… and one that can cause immense confusion and misunderstanding of circumstances and events in our lives. I’m sure many of you have also heard the same thing:

The safest place to be is in the centre of God’s will

That’s utter tosh! The BEST place to be is in the centre of God’s will: it sure ain’t the safest! The wrong statement brings to us what many Christians want: to be protected from the enemy, comfortable, safe, secure, inside comfort zones, not rocking the boat…. Try telling my dear friend, Simon Allaby, Pastor of Bolney Chapel, West Sussex, who, as I write, is in the very part of Karachi, Pakistan, where the tragedy of the murder, by a suicide bomber targetting Christians, of dozens of Christians took place, including many women and children, just a week or so ago…..or preach in a church, but on the street outside it, in a ‘barrio’ (district) of Cali, with a nice amplified English voice, to see, moments later, a man shot dead no more than 400 metres up the road….or…well, I could go on about the far east, the middle east, north Africa, ISIS… being a Christian who wants to make a difference, or is prepared to stand for your faith in a secular/communist/muslim culture, is NOT the safest place to be….!

Pastor Sunday Adelaja, who leads one of the biggest churches in the world – the Embassy of God, Kiev, Ukraine, said this:

‘If you don’t have any problems, it means you have stopped being of interest to the enemy: you are not dangerous to him.’

28/29 years ago, on my first visit to Youth with a Mission, Ghana, West Africa, I quoted A W Tozer in the teaching I was giving, saying something similar:

‘If you haven’t met the devil today, then the chances are that you and he are walking in the same direction’

It wouldn’t surprise me to discover that YWAM there still have that as one of their ‘mottos’ – they certainly adopted it for the 11 years I went there until the late 1990’s. In case you’re thinking ‘this is un-Scriptural’, I don’t think there is anywhere in the Gospels – or the New Testament – where we’re told that it’s going to be an easy life. In fact, in John 16:33, I’m sure you don’t need reminding that Jesus said ‘In this world you WILL have trouble….’ – and five times in the four gospels, Jesus said ‘If you want to save your life, you’ll lose it: but if you’re willing to lose your life for my sake, you will surely find it’. That MUST be important, because I’ve asked theologians, and it seems it’s the only thing that Jesus said that’s recorded by each of the gospel writers, and Matthew thought it was a good idea to put it in twice… (Matt 10;39: 16;25 Mark 8;35 Luke 9;24 John 12;25)

I meet so many Christians who sail through life, trouble free, making statements like ‘the devil doesn’t trouble me’: nope, they don’t trouble him, so he leaves them alone. To be honest, I’m GLAD that the enemy thinks I’m worth assaulting. The day he knows he can leave me alone, I pray that will be the day I’m sealed in a box, and taken to the crematorium!

Safe place….centre of God’s will? Perhaps not….

Right now, in many ways, I find myself in ‘not a safe place’ – another reason for the absence of blogs, as I don’t want my struggles and battles to detract from the amazing things that God is doing, and has been doing, during the period of silence. Human nature probably ‘chooses’ to remember the battles rather than the triumphant testimonies. There’ll be another blog about SOME of what’s been going on these past months, some of the very intense battles that the enemy has ‘picked’ on me with: and the protection of the Lord during some of those times….

A BIT OF A CATCH UP – to say the least! (Don’t faint!)

Posted on April 4, 2016 by Paul Bennison Posted in Evangelism, Journal, Testimony, Travel Leave a comment

It’s been a LONG time…. since the last blog post. For those of you who faithfully checked to see, thank you.

There are many reasons why this gap has been so long: I’ll explain them in a separate blog, as there have been many wonderful things that God has done in these recent months, and to 1) to write the testimonies: 2) the reasons, would make this a mighty long blog post: and 3) some of the reasons are the result(s) of what a great friend from Australia, a very prophetic man, described in an email to me this week (and he knows virtually nothing of the events of the past 4-5 months, as I’ve not ‘publicised’ a lot of what’s been happening) what the Lord had shown him, as a constant ‘crushing attack’ from the enemy. Being human, human nature dictates that if there are a clutch of miracle and healing stories here, they’ll be forgotten in the main by the time the onslaught has been detailed!

SO – despite the silence, I have been doing ‘stuff’ – an God’s been doing ‘the stuff’ (I still love John Wimber’s wonderfully simply description of God’s wonderful works). What has pleased me – no, it’s excited me – is that I’m getting more opportunities to be involved in ministry in Ireland, and in the past 2-3 weeks, have got the opportunity to be involved in Wales. In all my 37¼ years in ministry, I’ve never done anything in Wales: the reason for my delight (and my desire to be involved there) is that I’m half Welsh – my dad was born in Penarth, just outside of Cardiff, so it has always been in my heart to go, especially as I’ve done loads of stuff in England, Northern Ireland, and Scotland (though I’d love to do more in all of them!).

I’ll start with recent first! I’ve really loved getting involved in new (to me) churches in Northern Ireland, and, in one case, a new church, at which it was my privilege to be the speaker at their first weekend of meetings the weekend before Easter. That church is Still Waters, in Drumahoe, Londonderry: for meetings organised at relatively short notice, the two meetings, Saturday and Sunday evenings, were well attended, and I had the joy of praying with many of the people. There were also lots of visits to people’s homes, and the Royal Victoria Hospital, in Belfast, to pray for people.

Some lovely things happened in the hospital on my way up to Derry/Londonderry (for people outside of the UK, it’s the city where, at the height of the Troubles in Northern Ireland, in 1972, 14 men were shot dead by the British Army in what became known as ‘Sunday Bloody Sunday’, so in case foreigners ever wondered what U2’s song of the same name was about, that’s it). The Pastor of Still Waters Elim church, in Coleraine (I preached there over a weekend in January), Colin Wylie, Arron, had been a back seat passenger in a terrible car crash 3 weeks previously: the rear seat belt caused a broken back, ruptured lungs, broken collar bone (I think), and a ruptured bowel. He should have been dead. Instead, he was due to be moved to another hospital for rehab and physio, for a few weeks. Prayed for him, and within an hour, he was told he could go home, and left hospital with his dad… Prayed for a couple of others in the hospital, one young man, Dean, paralysed from the waist down (broken back and 4 totally crushed vertebra), had feeling come back to his feet, and a lot of tingling…

For first-ever meetings of a new outreach ministry/church, the meetings in Londonderry were well attended, with some ‘Christians in waiting’ (not yet Christians!!) there. Needless to say, as the Saturday evening meeting had been advertised as a Healing Meeting, I ended up praying for pretty much everyone in the meeting – the same on Sunday, too. I can’t remember who was prayed for on which night, but here are some of the things that the Lord did:

Kendra, a young lady, about 24 I’d guess, with chronic fibro-myalgia: a Christian in waiting, she was in so much pain that, halfway through the meeting, she asked her mum to take her home. But she knew she had to come back, despite the pain, as she wanted prayer. It was amazing watching the transformation in her appearance as God healed her instantly, ALL of her pain going immediately. That opened the door to Kendra giving her life to Jesus straight away! Thank you, Jesus!
Fiona, won’t try and guess her age(!), more fibro-myalgia, osteoarthritis, AND osteoporosis: in a lot of pain in her lower back from the osteoporosis, and in many parts of her body from the arthritis, and sheer exhaustion and muscle pain from the fibro-myalgia. Again, it was wonderful to see the transformation: and again, all of the pain went, including the osteoarthritis in her knees – thank you God, for that one! – raises my faith another notch for the healing of the same excruciating pain in my knees. (It was funny – though excruciating! – that while I was preaching, the bones in my knee, which crunch against each other with every step, did an especially loud crack, head by everyone!!).
Hilary – friend – or maybe sister? of Fiona – fibro-myalgia, osteoarthritis in her back and neck, and right knee – all the pain went, and I sent her off walking across the hall, which she did without pain, having got up easily and moved away promptly – it’s often after sitting, even for a few minutes, that the knee stiffens up, and the pain takes some moments to subside when standing up, as well as balance taking a similar time to ‘arrive’….
William – unknown undiagnosable white lumps across the top of his chest, and a trapped sciatic nerve on the right hand side of his back, that gave him more problems at night (if my memory serves me well), and pain in both legs. Anything that doctors can’t diagnose, or give a reason for, are often far more worrying than knowing what it is that’s wrong. I felt that God prompted me to tell him that he’d sleep well, without the sciatic nerve giving him pain: and that the white lumps would have disappeared Monday morning. It’s times like that when something comes out of my mouth that I haven’t thought, or processed, but it’s out, loud, and I have to trust that it is God! The next day, Davy, who leads this new ministry, told me that the lumps had gone, and William had no pain…
One lovely man, I won’t mention his name, 40 years old, had suffered years and years of depression: he’d battled to live as ‘normally’ as it would allow him, but those who know depression, will know it controls your life. It was wonderful to see the transformation in his face! It was like watching the steel shutters shops use to secure the premises, rise up: his face and eyes were totally different….
A lovely lady, Sissy, mid 80’s I think, with two sons – one born with cerebral palsy, the other a recovering alcoholic and with acute depression – had suffered many years of severe kidney infections, which the medics had been unable to cure. She’d was on constant, but changing antibiotics, always in pain as one infection immediately followed the last. Worse, she never slept for more than about 40 minutes at a time in the night, up between 8-10 times for toilet visits. As I prayed, another one of those ‘did I say that out loud?’ statements came out of my mouth – you’ll sleep 9 hours tonight, with one bathroom visit: and you’ll wake up and the pain will be gone. She actually slept 8½ hours, one visit to the bathroom, and woke with no pain…. I can’t imagine how she must have felt! Other pain in her body – that ‘friend’ (or should it be ‘fiend’?) arthritis, also went. Her son felt totally different the next day, and again, Davy and I had watched his face change as years of depression lifted off of him, and his eyes went from dull – dead? – to sparkling….
Stanley, an older gentleman, had all of his pain disappear: I’m trying to remember from where, but I know he had pain in his hands, and I think – he had a heart condition, with pain.

Something happened on the Sunday – and I think the ‘Monday’ people in their homes – that has never happened for me in the UK before. It’s happened abroad quite a number of times – but everyone who had some disease or pain in their body that they could feel (as opposed to people who, for instance, who suffered migraines / asthma etc., but weren’t suffering there and then) – were healed. 100%. That’s been a goal of mine for our countries for a long time: I’m asking God for it to happen every time from now on. If I – and you – can do what Jesus did, and greater things than he did, then that’s what we should EXPECT. Jesus healed 100% of people who came to him, and that he went to. I’m up for that…..

Here’s the Facebook post from Still Waters about the weekend:

21 March at 23:05 ·

We would like to thank all who came to the Launch of the BT47 Weekend in Drumahoe YMCA. Special thanks goes to our visitor Paul Bennision who visited many homes in the District and prayed for healing with over 50 people . Praise God our father for the healing that has been taking place and is taking Place as we progress with the Lords Calling. We also thank Pastor Colin and the team from BT51 Still Waters who travelled to be with us and for all their support .