Eyes to See

Well yet another month has begun. Where the flip is time going..I want to be 25 forever!!

Have just bought myself a wee present.. needed a lap top... bought a mac book...love it!!

 It shamefully lives in a pink case which makes me love it even more!!

So now that I have my wee mac hopefully I will be better at keeping my thoughts flowing. Have thought about writing a book at some point but would need to employ someone to edit my poor grammar. English was in fact my worst subject at school. Am more of a science and maths nerd really.

Anyways lets not get ahead of ourselves I need to give this whole doctor thing a good whirl and see where it takes me. Am enjoying psychiatry so who knows... maybe I will be a shrink!!

Its been a while now since I have really felt connected to God in the way that I did last year.I have been doing all the right things but its like I was stuck in a rut with it all. I guess I have struggled to find the passion that I need to cry out to God for others and for my own desires. I have struggled to want to really properly worship God.

Slowly though my eyes have been opening bit by bit and while I have God to thank for that I also have amazing people around me who inspire me to be more, to ask for more and to expect more.

Last Wednesday some of us went up to Ballysillan  in North Belfast ,where a friend of mine, Miriam runs a drop in centre for YFC. We basically went up to see around the centre, to find out more about what they do and to pray for mims and the other leaders there.

I was struck with  a deep sense God as I listened to the stories of the young people from one of the roughest estates in Belfast. These young people have been given opportunities to be loved and to learn and grow. They have a wee prayer room and we were hearing how they never question the need to pray. If something is wrong they pray about it. Mirium told us of some of the powerful moments they have had with  these kids. God is moving. Prayers from the deepest parts of this little broken community are being written down and pinned up on a wall...the honest cries from ordinary broken lives are powerful and covered in Jesus.

I sensed that presence of God that permeates your skin right into your soul. Wholesome and peaceful.

I could see what God could do.

I could look out of the window and see a day when there would be no more paramilitary activity.

I could see a day when these people become a people of prayer.

I always knew God would start something in the least of this land.

It was clear that God had given people the eyes to see hope for this community even years ago.

We heard about how a local man from one of the wee gospel halls near by, in the middle of the troubles, saw three empty council estate houses and heard the voice of God speak into his soul that this would be a place for peace and a place for God to move. He bought it and it has now become this homely centre that is full of God.

Think about it.

At the time this must have seemed impossible. 

The building next door was where paramilitary beatings happened. Soldiers manned the gardens around the area.

How would anyone agree to do outreach in this place... and even if they did how could it bring about change?

People did come.

People have stayed for 15 years in a job that they are alive in and have been given the eyes to see a hope and a future.

It seems that after a long hard toil there is a harvest that is ready.

How amazing when god gives us the eye of faith to see a hope.

For that drunk lying in the street, for the down and out, for the criminal, for the addicted..

I have always thought that God gives us according to what we can see. Not with our natural eyes, but what we can see in our hearts. If we can look out into a community and see how one by one these broken lives can be made new and we are willing to get stuck in to the muck then we can be sure that God will meet our vision with a supernatural reality.With change of some description...a supernatural thing in this country I am sure you will agree.

 We will find him in the oddest places. 

If we have the eyes to see we will see the things we dream of for the least of our world. If we don't see it we need to try...God's word is a good lens to look at people through.

Of course grace covers our feeble inability to believe. There is so much power though if we see something, it seems impossible and then even if it takes years...God comes through...its good for the faith muscle and it kind of makes life worth living.