'Nuff said

Father, protect the brave men and women of the 'Coalition of the willing' that serve in Iraq and Afghanistan. Give them wisdom and give them hearts that know you and love the ones they serve. Amen.

BBC NEWS Programmes From Our Own Correspondent Why it's different in Basra

Heroes

Every now and then, come back here and click on this link. I hope like me that it will take you to your knees in prayer, not in rage but in quiet abjection and plead salvation for those whose hearts can carry such hatred as few of us previously might have imagined.

Remember the Blood of Heroes...

Darryl 'Sarge' Sargent, motorcyle paint-job guru, has some of his amazing art work on display at the chopper-works website. Take the link, click 'play' and spot Darryl in the paint mask!

Newest Builds

My apologies for not having blogged for such a long time. It started off as a busy patch that morphed into a dry time that eroded into a kind of funk. I suppose that trying to view the world and be erudite about it just gets hard after a while. Lets review mankinds track record while I've been 'away'
- genocide resumed in Africa between Tutsi and Hutu
- Sudan learns how to stmp on it self destruct button with genocide
- The 'war against terrorism' has degraded into 1,000 US soldier dead in Iraq - not to mention the other nationals lost there.
- Our President and the John Kerry are throwing mud at each others military records via third parties while the big issues goes undebated
- Chechen rebels consider murdering children a valid form of expression
- shall I go on? No I'm not depressed - just unimpressed.

The world needs to hear the real authentic voice of biblical Christianity now more than ever. Nowhere else is sanity tobe found than in the message of God humbling himself to win our affections back, then submitting himself to our brutality as a scapegoat- for us! And then demonstrating Himsefl as God through a historical acts of resurrection that transformed the lives of all those who witnessed it first hand. For those of us who weren't there He gives us the free gift of salvation and the Holy Spirit living and transforming us as our proof and guarantee.

My prayer this night is that the church - starting with me - will humble ourselves - as He did, and will pour out our lives as an offering of reconciliation and selfless love to the world that will only despise until it falls in love with Him. Father, may Your will be done on Earth, as it is in Heaven - and start inside my heart, my family, my church. my state, my country, my world.

April 14th 2004

I haven't blogged for over a month now - not because life hasn't been interesting - but because it's been SO interesting. I'm thrilled to report that God is good, and continues to answer prayer. I so wish that I could share the experienced truth of that with non-believers. I wish I could share with them that Christ is alive and active and changing lives all around. How easy it is to be a Christian when you see God working. How odd Christians seem to non-believers when they just don't see it.

Back in January Dad underwent surgery to have a high-tech pacemaker fitted to alleviate the arrhythmias he was experiencing. This was due to a change of cardiologist, who just so happened to be a European expert in this field. The relief it brought Dad, and the freedom from fear, we understood as a gracious act of a merciful God. It's not God's fault that Dad had a heart attack 15 years ago, but it is merciful that Dad has survived those 15 years - grace.

Dad was diagnosed with Colon cancer just 7 weeks ago. The oncologist said unless surgery was performed Dad would about a year to live - and an undignified death. This is not God's fault - the world is a sick place because of corruption, sin and pollution. Death was not in God's plan or in his creation. If this diagnosis had happened in December, the British National Health Service would probably not have fitted Dad with the pacemaker - more grace.

Dad's heart attack meant he has been on warfarin - a medicine which thins the blood. Because of this his colon tumor bled, which alerted Dad that something was wrong. As a direct result, the cancer was caught early - while still a Stage 1/Dukes B cancer. A single tumor that had not spread beyond the colon - yet more grace.

Dad's oncologist just so happened to be an Army Colonel, at attachment with the National Health Service. Dad is an old soldier so they could talk on the same wavelength, as it were. Grace again. Colonel Keith Galbraith is a gift from God, let me add.

The anesthetist gave Dad a 60% chance of making through the cancer surgery because of his week heart, and then added that the post-operative recovery period was more dangerous than the surgery - the first 3 days would be critical - especially the first 12 hours. Indeed the anesthetist had not decided to allow Dad's life-saving surgery to go ahead - until 12 hours before the surgery. Finally the all-clear was given for Dad's surgery to go ahead - the anesthetist would take the risk to his statistics and reputation if Dad was prepared to take the risk (as if he had any sensible alternative!) - grace upon grace.

Dad survived the surgery, the first 12 hours, the first 3 days and it's been 2 weeks now. Mercy.

Lesson's I've learned?
1) I asked everyone I knew who was saved to pray. 5 or 6 churches were praying for Dad. Pray works. Don't ask me why God responds when we pray in His will - but He does.
2) God was working. Dad is a changed man because of this episode. My Dad was always a rascal - and although a spiritual man, not always exclusively a man of Christ. That's changed now. He asked me to pray with him every night as I was finishing my daily visits with him - a first in my life and his. He openly recognizes that Jesus Christ has caused his healing. Dad called upon the name of the Lord, and acknowledges the Lord answered him.

Dad is well. God is good, and I am thankful and full of praise for Him.

Mind and Body work together

BBC NEWS | Health | Trauma linked to coronary disease

An interesting study which re-enforces that there really is no boundary between what the ind experiences and what the body experiences. In Jewish thought a person was simply a person - there was no notion of dividing us up into pieces. It was a result of Greek thought that people were considered to be body, mind, soul, spirit. While the Bible does take on some of these notions in poetic writing, there is no basis for us to separate ourselves into these components. Only at death does the spirit separate from the body, and then only to be clothed in a glorious new resurrection body on Resurrection Day!

We begin to get insight into God's jewels

BBC NEWS | Science/Nature | Diamond star thrills astronomers

So now we have more scientific evidence that God is a Person of massive, fantastic abundance. How like God it is to design stars to blaze as cosmic fireworks and then fade into staggering jewels thousands of miles across.

I do believe that when the end of the ages comes and the new heaven and the new earth is created, it will be a vast playground of awesome experiences for us who are saved to enjoy in our resurrection bodies. We can barely grasp what it will be like, but God gives us some 'downpayments' in the here and now to assure us. Planet-sized diamonds do not surprise me. That's power.

Almost as staggering is that the God of the cosmos cares about the relative trivia of my life, and yours. That's love.