How I want to live

OK so this is what happens when a lecture is cancelled and I take the scenic route home.

The start of my Photo Essay

A glimpse of how I wouldn't mind spending my life

Africa and Her Cry...

There is always a ray of hope...

Listen and think

Just tell them even if they don't believe you
Just tell them even if they don't receive you
Tell them for me,
Please tell them for me,
That I love them and I came to let them know
Tell the lonely man who walks the cold streets all alone
Tell the hungry child who has no home
Tell the dying people who are lost and in despair
'cos they don't even know that I care
Oh won't you tell them on the streets and on the highways
Tell them for me please tell them for me that I love them and I came to let them know

Wrapped in Words

Language fascinates me. Even the contradictions and tweaks.

I spent a good 20 minutes today wasting my life on: Facebook Lexicon which is quite fun if you get bored.

I get a lil edgy when people start using Thee and Thou, especially when talking about God. To my mind, He's the closest Father ever and so for me, a cry to Daddy will suffice. I think I need to be careful with my words, (James talks a lot about my tongue...) people who grow up calling their Dad 'Sir' have a strange distanced relationship, then again, who am I to pass judgement? I just know I must go back to the beginning... 'In the beginning was the word' and get that intimacy back, that 'Abba Father'.

words and phrases are vehicles of meaning, and meaning is what we all crave.

Seven-year-old Mathew was watching his father David, a pastor, write his sermon for Sunday. "How do you know what to say, Dad?" Matthew asked. David replied, "Well, God tells me what to say and I just write it down." Matthew nodded and then asked, "Then how come you're crossing things out?"

Yearn to Learn

So I bought a new book today.
Don't ask me why.
I haven't finished the one I'm reading.
I actually have a funny habbit of overlapping books and 'stuff' in general.
I'll often be working on something and then leave it in complete;
thinking about something but leave it behind to settle in the ether,
or my personal favourite,
writing a song,
only to abandon it unfininished with the high hopes of it blossoming into some great masterpiece overnight.
Maybe I should dig out the past more and re-sow what didn't reap, or maybe there was a reason for this?
Either way I think we should turn around and look back more, it's the only way I'll truly learn.

Photography of Life

I marvel at how up and down my enthusiasm for blogging is.

Probably in-line with my spiritual growth, minus the rants although I'd like to argue that they're all part of it!

But you know I think there really is a time for everything

Ecclesiastes 3:7 A time to be silent and a time to speak

So oft, do I find myself lost for words or, strangely, exhausted by them.

I find it a challenge to keep that sharp contrast, to maintain my focus...

It's at these times when I'm often forced to refocus. Not routinely, neither with intention, but just because the blur becomes too much to handle.

Ben loves how he can get so lost in the Big Picture and it seems He's always trying to tone down that vast imagination of his. Maybe that's who he is though? A Big Dreamer.

You see, I'm learning to relish the chance of getting things wrong though, and I think a lot of that is down to my poor focus or maybe just forgetting to remove the lens cap altogether(come one we've all done that atleast once right?).

Only when I start being open-minded to what's through the lens can I really start to capture light of any beauty.

Ben needs to start seeing with and not through the eye.

You know, it's amazing how God can speak to us. Today it was thanks to my aggravation. (Yes I know I lose Mr Perfect points again..!)

Yes friends, this whole post is about how, on my way to Uni, my vision was obscured, and it annoyed me. I was driving minding my own business when I came stuck behind a giant lorry- whose rear end was emitting so much dust, dirt and smoke that I could barely see where I was going. This annoyed me, pained me, got me flustered but.. wow did I learn something!

It got me thinking, so much so that as soon as I got into Uni, I drew this in the humming silence of the library:

'twas what I was imagining... me following my Shepherd (although here He's more like a Rabbi in the desert and as for me, well let's not go into that haha)

But you see? how I'm so far behind, I'm obscured by all the dust billowing up from behind him. Can I see Him? Oh I can see him but my goodness how it hurts when I get bits in my eye's.
Today taught me how I need to be closer, so close that I can see his feet and even though I'm unworthy to tie his sandals (Luke 3:16), I want to be looking at them, not mine but His. The word is intimacy.

His feet, His path, His way.

As for the photos, I'm starting to take more snapshots of life, and trying to keep my eye's free from dust.

The Truth... is it hard?

Truth:

So i am really, really bad at losing at stuff. I am the sorest loser on this planet, now I know that this news might come as a huge shock. Go ahead. Pick your jaw up off the floor. Just don't race me to it ;)



Why do I own up to this? well I think I've come to that time of year/month/day where I need to re-asses.

I would hate to lose out on the Kingdom of Heaven, particularly if I claim to be the biggest loser and so I want to look at Truth.

We search the world for truth, we cull,

The good, the pure, the beautiful,

From graven stone and written scroll

From all old flower-fields of the soul

And, weary speakers of the best

We come back laden from the quest

To find that all the sages said

Is in the Book our Mothers read.

I was having some morning devotions and was reading the last bit of Peter's 2nd letter.

2 Peter 3:16

He writes about this in all his letters. Some things in Paul's letters are hard
to understand....

Wait, you're telling me the Bible was difficult to understand for the first people who wrote it.
No wonder I get so confused!

I think I need to stay fresh and keep looking, though I may not fully understand, I have to believe every word is the Truth!

If I stop for one moment and think I've got a grip on it that's when I start to rot.

You know I love King James, mainly because He's a legendary Englishman but partly because he translates the Bible with new eyes. In fact I don't really know Him but I just want to steal His dictionary because in the King James Bible I read:

John 11:39 '....Jesus said, Take ye away the stone. Martha, the sister of him that was dead, saith unto him, Lord, by this time he stinketh: for he hath been dead four days

I want to stop searching for the truth before I begin to smell. I have to simply accept the truth!

When do you stinketh? How long have you and I been dead?

I think, actually since we are being honest, Ben stinketh daily.

If there's one thing I know that will at least deodorise my stench, It's that God is the answer, not was, but is!

People have those WWJD bracelets and try and challenge them to live by the What WILL Jesus Do rather than the What Would Jesus Do.

He's here and He Lives!

Hallelujah?

Jesus confirm my heart's desire
To work and speak and think for
Thee;
Still let me guard the holy fire,
And still stir up Thy gift in
me.

Ready for all Thy perfect will,
My acts of faith and love
repeat,
'Til death Thy endless mercies seal,
And make my sacrifice
complete.

Charles Wesley

Trust me, I know these streets

Happy Sunday

So we are driving in my brand new car and I let my best friend take it for spin in an attempt to tame his excitement. As we turn off the motorway to test (as he put it) its handling we entered some narrow streets and windy roads, it was then that I realised I seemed quite lost...

Me: You do know where we're going right?

Him: Yeah, 'course mate! I know these streets like the back of m'hand!

...

What a saying.... (as I look down and realise that I don't know the back of my hands thaaaaat well, in fact a scar which I had never noticed was on my left hand!)

Will I stop peering at the computer screen and get to know my hands?

Will I keep my eyes from the Roads and get to know my feet?

Can I spend a moment to look, learn and use.

For I am His and He is mine, Show me Calvary's Street.

(Apologies for my poor poetic skills)

If I don't know my hands, I can never be His fingers

I suggest you smile and spend a moment looking at those ten digits!

conform---isumm

for once just once i want to live without boundrees i want to write wat im thinking withowt the conshush effort of checing my speling and punctuashun i want life to flowe and not hold me back let my wings spread and never tuch the ground i want to make my own world my own langwedge-and i want to live

love without all that comes with it

run without someone telling me to walk

laugh so much that i cry

stop without someone telling me im lazi

taste

touch

sing

dance withhout anywun watching

And as most dreamers do, we all wake up.

Then I realise, I am in a world of conformity,

There are people watching me and I so I have to live on the hope of 'one day'.




Thomas Watson said,

“This life is like an inn, you spend a couple of nights
there, but you never forget where your home is.”

Lord keep my spiritual cell phone battery charged so I never lose touch with home,
Keep my 'Daddy Contact' on speedial #1.

Abba Father, Help me accept my enclosure and confinement.

Gracious God,


In Your Inn, send me anywhere, only go with me;

Lay any burden on me, only keep the door ajar and sustain me;

Sever any tie, only save the tie that binds me to Your heart.

Amen

Rom 12: 2 ‘Do not conform any longer to the pattern of this world, but be transformed by the renewing of your mind. Then you will be able to test and approve what God’s will is – his good, pleasing and perfect will.’

Brothers, Sisters,



Just keep the Inn door slightly open will you, for the King may knock on the door disguised on a donkey and this time there is room

.... Just open enough to take a peak!

Caffeine and Toast do not a balanced diet make!

Why all the energy drinks?

I realise that it has been sometime since I last wrote on here, in some ways I want to apologise but in others, it is an apt example of what today's rant is about.

Too busy

How often I seem to be using that word, BUSY (in Greek this is echô ), funny because no matter how many times I seem to confabulate those words, its remedy and longing for stillness, rapidly becomes distant, akin to its a Greek equivalent (my motive disappears like an echo).

"Yes of course I have Time time time time time ..." Yeah Right!

But I think one of the reasons why the world and I seem to lust for busyness is that it seems 'normal'.

Normal in the sense of this is how we were meant to live. I hate the pace of my life, I don't live, I get things done. And this 'getting by-ness' disturbs me. There was a time, yesteryear, when I would enjoy asking a random layman "How are you?", now I avoid the question in fear of launching myself into a conversation I don't have time for if the reply is "Not so good".
Funny, still, that this even happens in the cyberworld ...


Bob says:
Hi how are you

Sally says:
Not to bad thx and u?

Bob says:
um not that great..

Sally says:
Oh what's up (knowing that she can escape if it gets too intense, but secretly regretting asking, and look, our friend Sally didn't even put a question mark at the end, she assumes a positive response!)

Bob says:
never mind, i'm ok (deep down knows that Sally has no interest in His life and thus seems to appear ok)

Why can we be so free and unoccupied to ask and yet too busy to take a vested interest, like a facade of friendliness?
What is with all the energy drinks, like a plague, they are becoming more numerous and intense by the day and as for our reliance on caffeine, a trip to America soon introduces you to the Starbucks (c) religion.

Anything and everything says we must operate at the speed of our computers... (I mean let's be honest, haven't we all got frustrated when an Internet page takes more than 10 seconds to load, I for one confess that my mouse clicking becomes more than erratic, not to mention the steam coming from my ears)

We are running around like ants do when you kick their hill.
But I've decided, I want to make a stand, be that one ant that stops moving, I don't care if I get separated from my pack (or whatever an ant tribe is called)

I want to live differently.

Before I sound like a cynical old man (too late you may argue), I do want to bring some positivity out of this as it does seem, that nowadays, no news is good news.
The shear fact that you are reading these conjoined words should release some of your well-deserved 'feel-good' endorphins as you are taking time to read, and maybe you should be proud that you DO have time.

As for me, if I really want to live differently, I'd show some sign of that in my choices, which is why I am going to turn off this computer and enjoy what is left of this beautiful day!

Blessings, if we have time

Thank you Harry

I wanted to pick up another monument, instead I took a photo, for reasons I will explain. Gazing out into the back garden gave my eyes a chance to stare, the kind of stares where you don't focus on anything and a million pounds can wave past your face and you wouldn't so much as flinch.

But my vision was soon attracted to what I could tell was a hazel coloured Hawk chilling out on one of our trees. Now, forgive me if I am wrong, but I don't profess to be any sort of Avian expert, it just looked like one OK? Not to mention it was early... (too early for a student to rationalise any sort of thinking power).

As I watched, I started to think, what has to happen for this beautiful bird to do what it was meant to do, you know, how does it get to FLY?


I began to watch, it was almost like the thing which I have since named 'Harry the Hawk', knew
I was waiting for it to launch itself up in the air. Now, this was a test of patience, I had three options:

1. Sit and wait for it to fly, when it decides


2. Open my window and force it to fly by shouting at it in a rather uncanny manner


3. Realise I am wasting precious moments of my life looking at a few feathers.
   
   

I chose what I thought was best, and in hindsight, unblurred that gaze I was talking about.
In an instant, it's ting legs bent and woooosh. It jumped! So much that the branches beneath where it had left were swaying like none other!

That's it! Simple!

BEN (or fill you name in the gap_____) If I don't jump, I will never soar! I will just stand and stare! Not being what I was meant to be! ... To think I've been sitting all these years waiting for a gust of wind!

Thank God for pouring out so much to me, even if I can't keep the Hawk on my desk.

(The reason I say pour is because I spilt my milk this morning, making me stop and pour slowly, just at the right speed and angle. Should have kept the kitchen roll as a monument coming to think of it)

Monuments to Amnesia

One third of the way through this chilling season, and one of two things has happened to me:

1. I'm either turning old quick...and very quick or



2. I am going mentally crazy [Hey! I know what you were thinking for a second...]

(I daren't suggest both) but I forgot what I wanted to write about, that is, until I finally realised it was ironically about forgetfulness.

My cure? Well... I've decided to start with the whole sentimental route, that is, grab anything that will remind me of things... Although I'm not sure how that will help me write on my blog...

Mental Monuments

The other day, as I was walking through the University campus, just admiring the red-leaved Autumn tree's, I happened to look down to see a rock in the perfect shape of a heart. So, making sure not too many strangers were near... (hey why do we call them strangers, they aren't all as strange as me are they??) I knelt down, brushed the dirt off of it and treasured it in my right pocket..... until it irritated me by bruising my thigh as I power walked to my lecture.

• Little things seem to catch my attention like that, the fact that I had to bend down to get to what I shall now call 'my heart' had great significance, reminding me that I need to sink down to my knee's before I can clutch the whole of my heart. How often I forget my prayer and wonder why my heart seems so distant.
  


• Secondly, brushing off the bits of dried mud off this small rock reminded me that there are still imperfections, splodges & splices, and no matter how hard I tried I couldn't get it to shimmer pristinely amoungst the deep cuts and scars. Oh how I always fall for the trap of daily polishing, trying somehow, to hide the imperfections with whatever it takes.

Isn't that just what we try and do with our own? Live with the pretense that someday, with enough rubbing and brushing, amalgamated with a squint of the eye, we hope to see the perfection. This little rock brought me back on my feet and jerked my thinking to a humbler, more realistic, imperfect Ben.

• Then finally, when I had come to accept my heart wasn't perfect, I began to race with it, thinking I can just pocket those imperfections, only to feel a nagging pain as I pace franticly. Ben, why don't you keep it where you can feel it, every sharp edge, every speck of dirt. Man, why don't I let it on show. (P.S read 1 Samuel 16 it's awesome!)
  
  My final lesson, in these brief moments of reflection, made me realise that I must always clutch onto my heart, stop myself from racing ahead and keep it within view if I am going to truley remember...
  
  And so know I keep it in a place on my desk- just to remind me, not always to convict me, but just to stop the forgetting.
  
  Deut 4:9"Only be careful and watch yourselves closely so that you do not forget the things your eyes have seen or let them slip from your heart as long as you live"

When words don't suffice

Something compelled me to want to share this with you....

Lifehouse, Everything

gong-goos-mos'

Hebrew, what a beautiful language...

Phillipians 2:14

Do all things without grumbling or disputing

The Hebrew word for grumbling is GONG-goos-mos' which just brings up images of those giant gongs, loud crashing cymbals which give people headaches and eventually start to annoy people!

How fitting!

Next time we do something with reluctancy or start complaining, just remember that people don't like loud intrusive gongs

Simple

Be

What (and or who) was I supposed to Be?

Do? Look at? Work at? Think? Love?

So many questions constantly stir my being and it worries me that if I sit and live the way many do, I will just be another Human-being rather than a Human-doing?

But then I realise how wrong I am...

What does it mean to Be?

I think since we are His image, and he is the I AM, I cannot help but wonder whether everything that He is, is what I should be?

But then an image can be made to reflect in various ways, right?? different emphasis on certain areas perhaps...

I don't fully know the answer to my question, and I'm not afraid to admit that while I'm on this earth I never fully will [Revelations 21:1-7] , but I long to be what I was made to be, in His image.

It is interesting that in Genesis 2:16, the first recorded conversation between God and Adam...
He talks about loneliness (before the fall, before sin) it's amazing that in v.18 "it is not good for man to be (there's my word again) alone".

Yet, although this problem was solved with Eve, we live today with the most people around us ever and despite all this...

The paradox is....
There are more people around us than ever before in history...but people live in utter loneliness in the midst of a crowd,

• We see more and more and people each day, but know fewer and fewer personally
• We often move faster but not closer
• We often have more contact but less touch
• We often have more and more relationships but less and less depth

Stop, isn't the loneliest person who ever walked this Earth, my Lord Jesus Christ - John 16!

"even the closest of His friends on Earth abandoned him! v.32"

Remember what I said about simplicity...?

Take this:

BE STILL AND KNOW THAT I AM GOD (keep chipping away to the bare bones...)

BE STILL AND KNOW THAT I AM (and again)

BE STILL AND KNOW

BE STILL

simply.....

Be

For me, each step gets a little harder and at the same time so deep and so fulfilling.

I may or may not have found my Eve, I may not even know yet what I'm supposed to be but I'm plodding on this journey holding my head high with the knowledge that one day I will find her, it, everything I am supposed to Be.

Simplicity

Hello Friend(s)!

It's a beautiful day in September and I thought to write to you!

The weather is getting cooler outside and has inspired me to pull out my scarves, jumpers (sweaters for my Western followers) and strangely open some windows more! Yes I want to feel the chilling Autumn breeze before it turns to ice (P.S You Americans call this time of year Fall? which to me, is a particularly depressing noun so I will stick to my English routes... here ;) )

I love this time of year, it's my favourite! … the only downfall is that it makes it harder to be inside. I'd rather just be out enjoying God's creation. Well, maybe I still do that a little… but not as much as I'd like to!

Which is what I decided on today, I simply had a inner craving to be outside amoungst the crisp Autumn leaves that had begun to fall and collect outside. There is something magical about waking up to a misty morning and not quite seeing the horizon with clarity.

So... I ran, I'm not one for keeping still and a run always does me good. I had been going 10 minutes before I realised that I was not being simple enough! I had prepared myself into 'running clothes', put some nice devotional music on to listen to, drank a little water to keep me hydrated and it was all this that made me stop in my tracks. Just noticing the beautiful creation around me made me want to strip bare, stop my music and pause. Lo and behold, this run had turned into a stillness as I watched my breath in the cold air begin to slow.

I think sometimes we can over-equip, we can prepare so much that we forget the very essence of who we are. It was today that I discovered that sometimes the best music is silence. Then and only then did I appreciate the chords of creation and what beautiful a melody it was! I'm always needing music, always needing this and that, but today I learnt that it is about simplicity.

Often, like the Autumn mist, we may not be able to see very far, but do we really need to? If we are outside and making the effort to move into it, that is enough...and it may even surprise you what you find behind the sheet of the unknown. 2 Cor 5:7

Simplicity,

The name of my new mobile phone contract that I have opted for this year, they were offering me all sorts of bundles, a million texts, a millions minutes, blah-de-blah and then right at the bottom, in small letters was this option. 'Simplicity'.. all I really wanted but more importantly all I really needed.

Just be careful friends, don't overcomplicate things, open the windows even if it starts getting cold, and don't forget the beauty of silence, because I am so often overlooking the simple wonder of what life offers.

A question:

The longest period of silence and simplicity in our lives is where/when?

(I'll give what I think my answer is next time...)

So... Here we are, the two of us for now...

This is the start of something betwixt my nagging conscience and the procrastanistic Benjamite that I am. OK, so let's just say I have long been trying (since yesteryear) to get into the habit of starting what I can only envisage as a new world, a new and pristine bin to unload some stale thoughts, a hiding place yet veritably inconspicuous (as it is open to everyone), or I could cut to the chase and declare this as a log of my life.
My aim, however, is just to lay down a new beginning, a step into a realm of thought (be-it deep or shallow). I guess what I am trying to eloquently say is that I have a mission, the details of which I do not, myself, fully comprehend but it is my belief that this blog will help unravel what my true mission is.

Who am I?
Well, I am a Sinner and I am a Saint, that is my lifelong story and yet amidst it all I am child of God. Ben Thompson, a 20 year old male living a blesséd life in the United Kingdom.

The words I write here are what attempt to be an honest reflection of who I am, and will try and depict some of the highs, lows and in-betweens on this great walk. This will not be an easy adventure, so before you decide to join me on this hike to the unknown. You may want to get that image of an easy stroll along the beach out of your head.

I can however assure you that this journey will end in victory for it is the Lord who is my Shepherd (don't worry I'm not leading the way..) and I am attached to the light and easy yoke of Jesus my Saviour!

So come with me, expect nothing but brutal and rocky roads but enjoy this walk (would much rather have run this race but I think a walk gives more time to stop, ponder.. feed your soul, then move on, right?)

Lace up those walking boots and don't bring too much unnecessary 'stuff' because it is a long haul and the path is going to be long and windy, plus I know that the gate at the end is very narrow (Matt 7:14) and we won't be needing much in the way of food! All I ask for is an open mind and maybe a little love (patience, forgiveness, understanding etc). Sweet!

Ok I'm done with waiting... Let's Go!!!!

P.S
That Horizon looks a long way off don't you think....?

Oh but then I walk by faith and not by sight (2 Cor 5:7) ... The Enemy has started already ha!