EMOTIONAL CONFLICT

GENERAL WILLIAM BOOTH was a man raised up for a special purpose with a special Vision for the Day.    He also was a man of clear perception as to where the world was headed, and the words remembered and quoted here seem indeed very apt in relation to the 20th Century, and perhaps increasingly so in our current 21st Century.

It will soon be EASTER, the most important Religious Festival in the World, if you really consider what it commemorates, and how much its abiding Truth can change a human being and even the entire world!.      BUT it is remembered less and less as Christianity loses its LIFE.   The very Truth it proclaims is being obliterated by the WORLD, so that its Blessings, as well as its alternatives are more and more hidden from our understanding.    

Esther Mbith & Fiancee

TODAY  I was looking on the web for symbols and images of EASTER.     I was confronted with page after page of pictures of Easter Eggs, bunny-rabbits, and holidaying.....Where was the Cross on which JESUS died for us all?      Where the Empty Tomb?       Easter these days is purely pleasurable - a time to be 'Off Work',  At Rest, With the Family!    A time to eat and make merry, and maybe have a romp or too - and this even within the fraternity of the Christian Church.
WHAT IS EASTER to US?

NEXT Saturday Esther and I will be attending a Wedding.    Not just any Wedding but the Marriage of our grand-daughter in the Lord, Esther Mbithi,  Joshua and Miriam's daughter.   On the face of it rather surprising to think of having a Wedding at Easter - at least on Easter Saturday the day AFTER the Crucifixion of our Lord and BEFORE He has risen from the Tomb.     It seems almost unthinkable to enter into revelry on such a day of memorable sorrow and heartache.
There is some mitigation for it on this particular occassion since the DATE for Easter had been wrongly publiscised, and arrangements went ahead on the basis of Easter being a week later than it actually is this year.      Too late to change?   Yes indeed it is.     THUS we shall be scooped up from meditation of His Dying for us, and of his buriel and decent into Hell, and thrown into the expected atmosphere of a Wedding with a throng of excited, merry, and joyous people, gathered to witness two beloved youngsters joined in matrimony - a Day to Remember, in the midst of GLOOM and ANGUISH.             Well, yes it will seem a bit like that I suppose.     But, on the other hand, life does go on, and it undoubtedly went on the day after the Crucifixion as well.   After all no one knew it was to happen, and no one could have realised or previously been prepared for all that it was to mean.      On THAT day social events had been planned and had to go on, no matter how heavy the heart, or how inappropriate it might seem.       Such would have been forgiven them and will no doubt be forgiven now.         It WILL be a happy occassion entered into on an UNHAPPY day, and it WILL be Blessed of a Merciful, Gracious and Understanding God who is Father to us all.    

Because we shall be attending this Wedding, I may have no time to sit down and write much next Saturday - though I hope to at least send Easter Greetings to all.   It will be a busy time.     Esther and I will be having a married nephew and his wife and children staying with us, and also Joshua and Miriam will be having a full house of relatives, and even friends from Gurnsey.

HERE IN TFH we shall begin our Easter Remembrance on Thursday evening.    In 2009 we ALL, staff and children, came together on Maunday Thursday evening to eat a common meal together in the School Hall; a meal of roasted lamb, bitter herbs and unleavened bread - after which we all broke bread together.      It was such a very real blessing to remember the Last Supper in this way, that each year since we have continued it, though not all together in one place.    Since 2010 each of our four Family Homes have provided for their own family supper together.      Esther and I will also celebrate in Green Cottage with family and friends.       After supper we sing hymns, and talk about the Lord and spend a little time praying together.      A blessed prelude to the Good Friday morning Service.        Saturday some will gather to see the Video JESUS whilst we are at the Wedding.     THEN on Sunday the JOYFUL Resurrection Day Morning Service and happy fellowship.        BUT the most important day for us will be Good Friday when we remember Jesus Crucified on Calvary for our sins.     A hymn by F.A. Graves says it all -

What a wonderful, wonderful Saviour,

Who would die on the cross for me!

Freely shedding His precious lifeblood,

That the sinner might be made free

He was nailed to the cross for me,

He was nailed to the cross for me.

On the cross crucified

for me He died!

He was nailed to the cross for me.

Thus He left His heavenly glory

to accomplish His Father's Plan;

He was born of the Virgin Mary,

took upon Him the form of man

He was wounded for our transgressions

and He carried our sorrows too;

He's the Healer of every sickness

This He came to the world to do.

SO He gave His life for others

In redeeming this world from sin,

And He's gone to prepare a mansion,

That at last we may enter in.

Charles Wesley also captures my own personal wonder and amazement in his hymn -

'And can it be that I should gain an interest in the Saviour's Blood?

Died He for me, who caused His pain?   For ME, who Him to death pursued?

Amazing Love!     How can it be that Thou, my God, shouldst die for ME?'

ME at 1+

YES, HOW CAN IT BE?   The more so that I should come to understand and KNOW that it DID happen, and that it happened FOR me!   How is that I should KNOW this, deep in my spirit?    How is that such as I was, deep into a selfish and self centred life, could ever come to know myself to BE a sinner, astray from God...?    It is a mystery to me even today.  Wesley continues in this same hymn to testify and say -

'Long my imprisoned spirit lay, fast bound in sin and natures's night;

Then eye diffused a quickening ray - I woke, the dungeon flamed with light;

My chains fell off, my heart was freed, I rose went forth, and followed Thee!'

As I have grown older I have been the more amazed, as the implication of this has dawned increasingly upon me.   He died for ME!     Perhaps age and experience teaches us the depth of degradation that is within us all, but I do understand that I am a far worse person, left to myself, than I ever knew myself to be when I was a youth.

It is likely that I was born out of wedlock, the fruit of immorality.  Yet I was born, and immediately given up and adopted.  I grew up for the most part unchurched and untutored in any faith.  My adopted father an habitual drunkard, and my adopted mother, flighty and unfaithful.   YET, in the midst of beery brawls and illicit romances somehow I grew up conscious of GOD.   I intuitively KNEW there was a God, and that He was there for me.    That is in itself a mystery to me!

But I grew up, nonetheless, selfish and liberal in my manners.  I learned to drink inordinately, was pre-occupied with sexual imaginations, not always convenient.  Unlearned, often dishonest, emotionally unbalanced, and introspective, a life imprisoned.      Would I have done for myself, what Jesus did for me?   I think not.   Why, I was not even calling out for help; was continuing on my downward, heedless plunge to self destruction - without a care, and without happiness.   When eleven years old I could still not read - even a three letter word!    It was as if my mind was blocked and unable to recognise letters.    But, one evening when I was ten a half, I picked up reader called 'A Dog called Spot' and found myself reading it easily all the way to the end!   It was as if someone had turned a key in my mind and unlocked a door; light dawned, and where I had been blind and unable, suddenly I could see and understand.    So it also was when I was seventeen that I also one day opened my spiritual eyes and found Jesus.   My life was then turned inside out.  And the words of John Newton became true for me also -

I once was lost, but now am found;

was blind, but now I see!'

Every day since then has been a day of discovery - not always to my credit, but always towards my improvement.      And I have striven to apprehend and know more and more of His Love.

Oh Lord!  Help me to know you more and more for Who and What you are in my life.

Help me not to spoil or tarnish Your Life given up for me, to make a mockery of it in any way.

Help me to live Your Life.

Help me to be truly dead, YOU to be seen alive in me!

As YOU stood in for ME in front of my Accusers, and took my punishment upon Yourself,

so now stand in for me again, making YOU life to be MY life.

MORE than a role model I would have you be;

YOU must be my LIFE, in thought, and word, and deed.

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TOMORROW, I am the one presenting the Word of God once more.    This time I shall be sharing about the Grace of God in our hearts - how to take care that it does not fail us, that it might ever be there for others, as sit is for us.      How this is part of LIVING a holy life, and will prevent us from judging and hurting others, and from degenerating back into a flesh pleasing mind as we were BEFORE we received His New Life, and new HEART and MIND.     Pray for me to be honest and truthful in all I may be led to say - and that His Spirit will guide me.

On Tuesday we (all administrative staff) will meet to discuss finance generally relative to the running of the Homes and the School.    Esther, Daryl and I will be part with those others attending inclusive of other heads of department and the Finance Office      We usually meet once a fortnight on a regular basis.

On Wednesday morning Daryl and I will attend the Children's Forum once more during he morning, and later in the day, about 5.30p.m. we shall have a quarterly meeting of our Board of Management.

In between all this, of course, the daily chores and events of routine matters.    Visits to the Homes,  daily inspection of the different parts of the work - the Dairy, the Bakery, the Poultry and Gardens, and the progress of the swimming pool.     Meeting staff with problems, visitors, and visits to town on business.     Never a dull moment - though often under fire of that old enemy who never tires of launching his fiery darts at us all.         Thank God we stand and run not alone but with the Lord of Hosts.

THREE more children will be Admitted to Testimony House on Monday.    Will hope to send a photo and share more about them later on.     Till then our Love as always flows to you all in Jesus Name, as we pray for your own anticipation of His Blessing over Easter

John and Esther & Daryl and Carol.