Feltham Young Offender Institute...

On Thursday and Friday this week I had the pleasure of working at Feltham YOI reffing at two football tournaments. It's the first time that they've had 60 offenders on their field at the same time playing in a 5-a-side football tournament. It went really well with only one incident on Friday after the matches had finished, which is really amazing considering some of these guys are in different gangs on the outside.

It impacted me a lot just to go into the prison and see the huge effort, through fences, barbed wire, guards and locked doors, to keep these young men from getting out. Feltham has got a bad press, and I understand why, but there is still a lot of good stuff going on there. Some of the guys in there are very dangerous but imagine if there was complete revial in the prison of people turning to Christ! It would be amazing. Imagine if the hours spent in cells were used for reading the bible, praying and worshiping God?! I think there is huge potential there. But it did feel dark in there knowing what some of the guys had done.

As a thank you for us coming in (there was three of us from Kick London reffing) we've been invited back to watch 'Ian Wright's Football Behind Bars' being filmed at Feltham in September. They even said they'll get all the Ex-England players involved to sign a top for us! :-D

Approaching Jesus

Bartimaues was a blind man who came to Jesus for healing. He'd probably been blind for many years and may have received a lot of abuse from the community because of his condition. When he approached Jesus, Jesus asked him "What do you want me to do for you?" (Mark 10:51). Bartimaues said "I want to see!". And in response to this Jesus healed him.

Bartimaues knew what he wanted Jesus to do for him.

Romans 8:26 is a great passage to help us in our prayer struggles

"In the same way, the Spirit helps us in our weakness. We do not know what we ought to pray for, but the Spirit himself intercedes for us with groans that words cannot express."

This verse is talking about those deep cries out to God through the Spirit when there is so much going on, that we just don't know where to start in our prayers. But I think there's a difference between that crying out to God, and general non-specific prayers out of laziness. It's not for anyone else to judge where you're at in your prayer life; only God knows where your heart stands.

I was fascinated by the passage of Bartimaues because I wondered how often i'd have an answer for Jesus if he asked me that same question! Do we really know what we want Jesus to do for us?

I don't think it's a bad thing to have general prayers, because at times there is an overwhelming amount to pray for and it's hard to know who or what to start with. It's probably even good to have times of general crying out to God.

But if our prayers are continually general because of laziness (not pain) I think it could come across to God like this: Imagine going round to a friend's house who you don't really want to see, but haven't spoeken to in a long time. You knock on the door and they answer seeming very pleased to see you. They next invite you in but you say you'd rather stay in the doorway. Then he or she asks if you came over to talk about anything in particular to which you reply "errrr i'm not sure to be honest. But do you mind if I just hang around here for a minute? Then I'll leave if that's okay".

That seems really strange to me but sometimes I think that my relationship with God and prayers are like that.

So i'm convinced that Jesus wants us to be specific with our prayers for both ourselves and others. Time and time again in the Gospels we read of people who approach Jesus knowing they need him to heal something specific. Or where people bring others to Christ knowing that they need him in some way. And the Holy Spirit will guide us.

The bible is clear in showing that there's no one way to approach Jesus. So for me, at the moment, the challenge is this.

If Jesus sat down next to me, told me to be quiet and looked me in the eyes right now and asked, "Don, what do you want me to do for you?"...would I be able to respond?

And it's only by the Cross of Christ that we are able to even think about a relationship with our heavenly Father.

Moldova- a lesson in humility and grace

I recently got back from an amazing 12 day mission trip in Moldova, Eastern Europe. It was so fantastic to be there serving alongside the Moldovans in their work. Whilst out there I learnt so much about grace and humility- how much I appreciated others showing me grace, and also how much grace I needed to show others. Especially when everyone is tired and stressed!

Most nights I found myself reading Philippians 2:1-11 which talks about Jesus' humility in being fully human and fully God yet not using this to push others down.

V.3 was a big challenge to me "Do nothing out of selfish ambition or vain conceit, but in humility consider others better than yourselves". This really helped me to keep things in perspective during the trip. It's a great verse to have in the back of your mind when you know you should go and do something but really don't want to!

I never blog about my struggles

Why I don't like blogging: because my blogs aren't a journey of my life but a place to bust out some information.

But I want to give a small glimpse of where i'm at in my brokenness.

Recent struggle: Realising how much I am a slave to what others think of me.

Why it's a struggle: Because this sin spreads to all areas of my life. It's ironic and frustrating to realise that I now find myself deep in what I try to turn against.

I know that I can't work my way out of this. And I know i need to rely on God. But it's hard to get out of the mind-set that if I read my bible lots and learn lots i'll get sorted.

Music makes the people come together

Reading 'The Guardian' [first time in ages-thanks to Clare for keeping me humble!] at work today I came across a great story of restoration. For 40 years there have been restrictions which basically stop Cuba having any involvement with the United States. But both Britain's Royal Ballet and the New York Philharmonic Orchestra have been invited by Cuba to play two concerts over four days in the glorious Cuba itself! And team Obama has agreed to a special exemption from this 40-year nonsense!

According to 'The Guardian'...

"The visits will be among the most high-profile cultural exchanges with the West since...Fidel Castro seized power in 1959"

They've done this with the New York Philharmonic before in other places...http://www.nytimes.com/2009/07/10/arts/music/10phil.html.

God is always restoring and transforming. Maybe this landmark event will lead to a time of further restoration between Cubans and Americans? As Madonna would say...Music makes the people come together!

Left in the boat

In Matthew 14: 22-36 we read about Jesus (and Peter) walking on the water.

The thing I noticed most reading it this time was that there were 11 other disciples left in the boat when Peter decided to step out and meet Jesus.

12 disciples. Eleven left in the boat. One out with Jesus.

Who wants to be one of those left in the boat?

Turning on my community

So I haven't blogged about what's been going on since I've got back from Canada so I thought I'd do a bit of a double post; a quick update then move onto some other stuff.

Very soon after I got back from Canada I started working for 'Youth For Christ' with a project called 'Kick London'. 'Kick London' is looking to transform the lives of young people through sports. My role is to support the coaches with the sessions they run and also support them through prayer, bible studies and devotional times. The work is challenging but great.

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Now onto what I really wanted to blog about!

I was reading Daniel and was struck by his prayer in chapter 9.

" I prayed to the LORD my God and confessed: "O Lord, the great and awesome God, who keeps his covenant of love with all who love him and obey his commands, we have sinned and done wrong..."

This man has given up the royal food, been used by God to interpret others dreams, been willing to break the law by praying to God, and then got thrown into a lions den for refusing to bow down to anyone but God, yet he says "we have sinned and done wrong".

Daniel just isn't willing to turn his back on his community.

I am so quick to separate myself by saying to God "they have sinned, forgive them" rather than "we have sinned, forgive us".

I can learn a lot from Daniel!