Has the Church forgotten how to pray?

Something that has been on my heart for a good few months now is the heartbreaking truth that so many people don't know God... and I'm not just talking about those who aren't Christian. There are far too many people in our churches, house groups and christian friendship circles, who don't know God. 

They might know a lot about God, they might know the Bible well, they might be able to quote scripture and discuss theology. They might even be preaching, leading Sunday School and writing books, but there is a big difference between knowing about God, and knowing God.

This genuinely breaks my heart. Its not a judgement; its a cry from my heart that we need to do something about this, because intimacy with my creator is the most beautiful experience that I have the inexpressible joy of knowing daily, and I want that for everyone. 

To be able to chat with God about what you're watching on TV, to be able to laugh with him as you try to put the milk in the cupboard and the cereal in the fridge, to shout at him when you're angry and cry to him when you're heart is hurting, to share your yearnings and fears, your successes and failures, your random thoughts and your meaningless ramblings - this is genuine friendship and real intimacy. This is what God wants us to have with him.

It blows my mind that this kind of relationship is possible with the creator of our world, the most Holy God whose glory fills the earth. And yet it is exactly what he wants for us.

I wonder whether we need to re-learn how to pray? We model prayer from the front of church as something that you read off of a piece of paper in a voice that you never use in normal conversation, and too many people never get to see that prayer can be an informal and intimate conversation. They never learn to recognise the countless ways that God communicates to us because we so rarely talk about it... they're missing out big time and it's heartbreaking. 

Have you ever tried chatting with God in the same way that you would with a friend? Chat to him about what you see around you, tell him the best and worst bit of your day... tell him a joke! (hmm this is where omniscience kinda ruins the punch-line!)
Have you ever asked him a random question? ... "God, If I was a type of breakfast cereal, what would I be?" 
"God, what is your favourite thing about me?" 
"God, when was the last time you wept over me?"

Chase after God and lose yourself in the depths of intimacy with him that will never run out.

... and then go tell someone about it so they can know God too!

When we come running

A couple of weekends ago I had the privilege of giving one of the talks at a youth weekend away that we ran. I love talking, and I love sharing truth with people, so it was something I was excited about doing, but I wasn't expecting to be impacted quite as much as I was. In the time that I spent preparing for this talk, God taught me so much and I wanted to share it...

Ephesians 1:5 says "God decided in advance to adopt us into his own family by bringing us to himself through Jesus Christ. This is what he wanted to do, and it gave him great pleasure." 

The very idea of that just blows my mind! The God of the universe, who made the stars and the oceans, the all powerful God of the Bible who could choose anything of his desire to make him happy... chose us to bring him 'great pleasure'.

I've spent the past couple of weeks just soaking in the fresh realization of how much God loves me and wants me. Its something we all get told so much and whilst I've known it for years, I've understood it in a new and powerful way recently, and I pray that you can too!

I told a story in my talk about a little girl - the daughter of one of my good friends. The story was from a moment when I arrived to pick her up and before I even had time to walk to the door, she came running out to me with her arms outstretched and she barreled into my arms. This was such a precious moment to me. I could tell stories about her doing wise and intelligent and funny things, but my favorite moments are those when she comes running... she's not even my child, so how much more does God love it when we come running to him?!

I've learnt recently that we don't always have to talk when we spend time with God... and he doesn't necessarily have to talk either if he chooses not to, but we can just enjoy sitting at his feet - enjoying just resting in his presence, knowing that he is here and he loves us and we love him. I can't explain the love of God in words... but I'm sure he'll have no trouble revealing it to you if you'll give him the chance.

Paper Beads

This week and last I've been teaching some of the girls that I work with how to make beads - the same way that I was taught in a little wooden church in a slum community called Nabulagala in Kampala. Its been great fun and the girls are enjoying it and are excited about the jewelry that we're going to make together. Its made me so happy to see them embracing this and to know that this is something that I learnt from Uganda that I've been able to pass on as a skill in the UK - I believe that we all can learn from each other, and to see a small part of this actually happening in what I'm doing is exciting!

There is a tension in my heart between my heart for Uganda and my heart for the young people that God has called me to work with at the moment. I'm honestly so blessed by the young people that I work with. They're all beautiful and creative and unique. They never fail to make me laugh, some of them make me cry (for them, not because of them!), they inspire me, they teach me (without even realizing they're doing it) and I'm incredibly grateful to get to work with them. 

Some of our paper beads next to a necklace from Uganda

One of my young people asked me to help her to pray recently. When I asked what she wanted to pray about, she said 'that God will help the people in Uganda.' I smiled and prayed with her. I've always said to the girls that I'll be honest with them - they know that they can ask me anything and I'll be open. That means that they know all kinds of random facts about me, but it also means that they know how I feel about Uganda and this sweet little girl echoed my heart in her prayer. My prayer, is that all of these girls will also know that they are equally as precious to me... I hope that they know that they are the reason I am still here.

There's not a lot I can do about the things, people and places I hold in my heart. Some are relatively easy, like keeping up with friends and family in the UK, some are not so simple and somehow, I have to make them work together... my prayer is that rather than my girls feeling like my heart is elsewhere, this will actually have the opposite effect, and that in knowing what I'm sacrificing to stay here, these girls will understand how precious they are to me and that this might just reveal to them a small shadow of how precious they are to God.

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If you'd like to buy some jewelry from Uganda, I still have a few bits for sale and all the money will go towards a youth ministry that a friend of mine runs in Kampala.

If you'd like to read a bit more about my youth work, I keep a youth work blog here.

Joy

I am so lucky to have what I have. Through the generosity of others and the grace of God I live in a heated house with my own bedroom, I sleep in a comfortable bed and eat three meals a day, I have my own phone and laptop and even a car.

And yet, sometimes all I want is to sleep on a thin foam mattress on a concrete floor under a net. I want to walk to the bore hole to fetch some water so that I can bathe outside and wash my clothes in a bucket. I want to spend hours picking stones and dirt out of beans and rice and then cook them over charcoal. I want to sit on the floor in the evenings reading the bible by candlelight with friends and singing worship to our incredible God.

Evening devotions in Kuffu 2013

I’m so grateful for the incredible generosity that people have shown to me, but I believe that joy has very little to do with the things that we have. The reason that I love life in the village so much is not because I enjoy carrying jerry cans full of water and sweating over a charcoal stove, but because these things remind me of a truly joyful time; a time when I discovered that joy is so much deeper and so much simpler than the things that we think we need. I was living and working with people I loved, doing what we all knew that God had called us to. We had no flushing toilets or running water, let alone electricity or internet, so we spent our free time talking, singing, reading and praying. We invested our time in our relationships with each other and with God rather than in our Facebook profiles and the shows we might watch on TV.

Kuffu bore hole 2013

When we strip away all the "stuff" we have, we might think that life would be difficult. For some people; those who really do have less than they need, life actually is difficult and that is a total injustice. But that's a whole different issue (and don't get me started!)... When we know that the necessities are taken care of, we give ourselves a chance to come back to a much a simpler way of a life and to realize that all the luxuries have very little effect on how happy we really are.

In the UK, society is constantly telling us that we need more things and more comfort… but perhaps sometimes we need to stop listening to that, and to realise where our joy really comes from. My most joyful moments are not those when I watch a film or check Facebook; they're times when I'm with friends and family and doing the things I know that God has called me to. I feel the most blessed not when I eat a good meal or curl up in a warm bed, but when I get to see God at work and to know that he's let me play a small part in that. 

Whether I'm in a rural village in the middle of Uganda, or a little town in the middle of the Isle of Wight, I believe that the things I have or don't have will have very little effect on my true joy. That is something that comes through relationships - with those people that God places in our lives and above all; with God himself. In these, I know that I'm truly blessed wherever I am in the world!

If you want to find out about my life as a student youth worker on the Isle of Wight, have a read of my other blog at http://gunvillemethodistyouthwork.blogspot.co.uk/

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Stuart

Just over a year ago, I met a child called Stuart. Stuart was once a healthy little boy, but on the day that I met him, Stuart's mother had been asked to pay double the usual fare to bring her son on public transport because the driver had thought that he was a corpse. Stuart was suffering terribly from Cerebral Palsy that he had developed after contracting malaria, which spread to his brain when his family couldn't afford to treat it.
Children with cerebral palsy need regular physiotherapy to stretch out their tight muscles, but nobody had known that this was what Stuart needed, and so his condition had worsened until his body was so tense that people actually thought that he was dead.

I'll never forget the day that I met Stuart. He was indeed alive that day, but there was no life in his eyes. It was one of the most haunting and devastating things I'd ever seen. This was what I wrote in my diary that day:

"Stuart was really, really thin. It reminded me of photos I've seen from the holocaust. He looked at me with wide eyes but there was just nothing there. Moses started his physiotherapy and he cried with such a horrific look in his eyes, but there was just no life behind them; it was horrible."

Last week I was told the sad news that Stuart passed away this summer. I never knew Stuart when he was healthy, but I hope that someday I'll meet him in a place where he is more alive than ever.

The truth is that Stuart died because he lived in poverty. If he had had access to proper malaria prevention and treatment, Stuart would still be a healthy little boy running and playing in his village in Uganda today.

Stuart and his Mum

The truth is also that many people will read this blog, and feel sad for a moment, but then close the window and continue with their day. I often do the same because its easier and less painful to distance ourselves from the injustice in the world and its much more comfortable to make no effort to do anything about it.
So while we enjoy coffees out with friends, nice new smartphones, an endless supply of clean water and all the other things that we take for granted, somebody's child is dying. 

If a member of your family was in the same situation, few of us would even have to think at all before we did something to help them. But for those of us who are Christians, these people really are our brothers and sisters. If we actually acted that way, the world might be a very different place.

I can't tell you specifically what to do about this... God calls each of us to act differently and who am I to know how to combat poverty anyway!? But what I do know is that if we don't do anything, then nothing is going to change, So please... before you click on the little 'X' in the corner of your screen... take a moment to decide what you are going to do about the injustice in this world, and then actually do it.

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Kisaakye Rehabilitation Centre is a locally run charity that works with disabled children in villages in the Kayunga District of Uganda where I met Stuart. They gave me permission to share Stuart's story, and they continue to work with many other children in similar situations. Tragically, this week another child that they work with died. Her name was Amazing Grace. Kisaakye desperately need support to continue the work that they do and to prevent this story from repeating for more children. They have a Facebook page at https://www.facebook.com/kisaakye.rehabilitation