I am a slow learner. It takes time for me to grow in understanding God, His will and His ways, although my slowness doesn’t stop me wrestling to try to understand Him. Nor does it diminish my desire to push Him to make everything plain and clear. But God does not comply. He leaves me with ambiguities, as I struggle with sadness and loss. Oh, that He would make things clear and write our next steps in the sky. But He refrains, and so much still appears unknown.

Mark and I talk. There is plenty of chatter, plenty of noise. We talk about God, about His word. We witness and seek to live for Him, but answers to the tangled questions that fill my mind are few and far between. The moment I think I have an answer clear, God comes, scattering my so-called organised thoughts like a gust of wind scattering neatly ordered papers.

God’s way is different to mine. He moves at a different pace to me. Unhurried, He takes His time to form His character in my heart and life. He knows that I do not fully understand Him, yet He has no frustrations with me. Rather He speaks, placing His word in my heart, allowing it to settle then sometimes, at His appointed moment, He brings clarity and understanding to what was hidden to me.

He understands that it takes time to grow up in Him, to learn to live a life characterised by His love, a life that desires to obey Him alone. He also knows that it is away from the noisiness of life and my own confused thoughts that I am more likely to receive Him when He comes. In those moments, when I respond to Him in spontaneous worship, then He can reveal more of His character and truth.

My ‘who?’, ‘where?’, ‘when?’ questions seldom get answered immediately, probably because I have yet to discover that I am not ready for His answer. God is gracious, allowing me to prattle on uninterrupted until, out of breath, I realise He wants me to stop and listen to Him. Even then there are no answers, but my questions take me forward. In asking Him to show me the way, I realise that He is revealing that He is The Way.

I draw closer to God. Our circumstances are unchanged but something in me has changed. I seek to rest in His presence, comfortable not to recognise or understand the next steps because God has given me what I did not, or could not, articulate. He understands my heart far more than I do. He knows what I need above all else. In learning to walk out of my way into His, I experience a growing intimacy with Him more precious than the answer to all my questions.

© copyright Gillian Newham 2024

Your kingdom come…. It’s a line I’ve prayed a thousand times but it’s a line I’ve got stuck on recently. Finding my bearings again, getting a handle on living in a new place, I ask, ‘What does it mean to see God’s kingdom come and His will be done on earth?’ The words of the Lord’s prayer are simple, the sentences short, yet they are radical and incendiary.

Every kingdom has a ruler, a sovereign, God’s kingdom is no different. Although the world’s kingdoms are more visible and prominent, ruled by those who seemingly display, presence, power and influence. To the naked eye, God’s kingdom can appear obscure and opaque, hard to define and even harder to grasp. Sometimes I wish people could see His kingdom, that it was obvious and clear, that they could plainly see when good triumphs and wicked powers are defeated.

But God rarely parades His victories in that way. Here I must be vigilant, for in longing for a demonstration of His power, danger loiters. I can try and manipulate God or falsely manifest His kingdom. Thankfully, God will neither be coerced or manipulated by anyone. Neither will He impose His kingdom on another. He is no despotic sovereign, but a king whose throne was established before the beginning of everything. He reigns with His Son Jesus in a unity which is other, beautiful in a perfection that cannot be broken or separated.

‘Your kingdom come…’  The phrase articulates a willingness to offer myself as a participant in seeing Him bring His kingdom to the earth; a willingness, I believe, planted in us by God who invites each of us to work alongside Him. We listen, watch and enter in, allowing Him to form our identity and imaginations in this world where Jesus demonstrates another kingdom ruled by His father’s love and salvation.

This kingdom is not of this world but one sent into the world; one which quietly subverts world kingdoms. Armed with citizens who steep themselves in His stories and pray according to His word, we grow. Devotion to God deepens, clarity sharpens our intent and life’s purpose as we play our small part in living out His kingdom rule. The part we play together, as the body of Christ, forms a base of God’s love through which He brings salvation to the world. Changing shame and guilt for newness of life, hopelessness for faith and trust in One whose kingdom creates a new reality under His care.

May we let God be God…. May His kingdom come, and His will be done.

© copyright Gillian Newham 2024

Honeybees waggle while birds’ lyrical squawks and chirps mingle across the summer airwaves. Rabbits pop out of their holes as buds swell and burst with flower, leaf and fruit. Layer upon layer, one intricacy after another of this landscape unfolds. I am overwhelmed by this world that brims with extravagant abundance. Meticulously created by God, who seems to have set no limits to the wonder and originality of this living world, I marvel at His magnitude.

Although it’s just a glimpse, like the lifting of the corner of a veil, it is a declaration of earth’s wonders, the miracles of the heavens, a luminous acclamation of God’s glory. Elephant and mouse, milky way and the deep blue sea, are all a public, visible ovation to the presence of God. He has no rivals; no man can attain to His splendour.

Yet sometimes, my head full of life and its woes, observes nature’s beauty without seeing God’s greatness. Not because He isn’t there; He is, but, distracted, I seize on nature as a way to renew and restore my heart’s equilibrium rather than allow it to refocus my attention on Him. It is a subtle shift, a sidestep where I’m in danger of letting something good and wholesome come before Him.

In His grace, God stirs and challenges me, reminding me of the many things which can claim my attention, appreciation and care. Of course, it is right and wise to admire and treasure our world, but there must be balance. I must not let the world itself shape me or conform my mind to its image. Only one, the Creator of heaven and earth, can truly shape us aright.

How essential that I retain a posture that centres my heart and mind on Him and not my perceived needs. With Him as my focus, He can draw me closer until, flooded with His mercy, I realise that I am always and entirely reliant on Jesus. Only He can truly renew and restore me. Only He can meet the real needs of my heart.

The realities of needs truly met shifts my thinking away from self and protects me against idol attachment. Dwelling in the depths of my being, God’s Spirit reshapes and continues to reframe the way I live.

Salvation belongs to the Lord. He is amongst us, leading us heavenward, enabling us to grow. Every day His presence is manifest on the earth and in our small place on this planet, we have a measure of influence. We cannot add to His divine glory or increase the inherent glory of His being, but in our daily witness we can live and speak what we have experienced, what we have seen and tasted.

The stars illuminate the darkness. River and oceans show forth His power and every creature that covers this earth declares the omnipotence of the Creator. And we too, small and insignificant as we are, can also spread something of His glory and greatness as we let His Word have dominion in our lives.

© copyright Gillian Newham 2024

They had given up. The realisation dawned slowly and sadly. Our friends had not seen God answer their prayers in the way they expected, in fact, he hadn’t answered their requests at all. All they’d experienced was silence and, discouraged, they lost hope in Him.

              Our friends’ experience isn’t unusual. I’ve lost count of the number of times when, overwhelmed with helplessness, I’ve started shouting, ‘How long oh God?’ and asked the unanswerable why questions. Silences with God, seem to be a common and repeated feature of the Christian life.

Despite those moments when God appears not to answer, something in me keeps on praying. I may have little to show for my prayers, but giving up is not an option because, essential as breathing is to life, so prayer is a fundamental necessity that permeates every area of my life. The only danger which confronts me is my own inchoate thoughts which can wrongly interpret God’s silences. Is He uninterested in my request? Or do my shortcomings disqualify my prayers? Neither of these nor any other reasons which question God’s lack of interest in us or our inadequacies count when we try to reason why God hasn’t answered.

Set in our everyday lives of locale and circumstance, peace and trauma, ordinary or unusual, prayer is always personal, taking place as we reach out and connect with God. In our personal relationship with Him, He seems eager to teach us to wait and listen to Him. Although, I admit that I am less eager to wait. Yet He desires that we know Him better, understand His character more deeply, and, hopefully, surrender more of ourselves to Him.

              Through the muddle and mire of life when I feel like I have reached the end of my endurance, God does come. And faith, that tenacious, persistent belief in Him which will not let go, rises. Faith enables me to acknowledge and embrace the truth of His presence. He is with me right now and that changes my perspective.

              Walking forward, I take the next step, encouraged by His word, by friends and by His grace. He is faithful, steadfast in love, forgiving and kind. Inextricably linked, the practice of faith and prayer root us in God and enable us to entrust our petitions to Him knowing that He will arrange their answers and give us more than we requested.

              But there is a mystery here too. His silences are a part of our lives, intertwined into our stories in ways that we can neither easily explain nor understand. Confused and weak, I ask God to empower me to continue with bold perseverance. The choice to rehearse what I believe and know of Him declutters my thoughts and once more exposes the foundation of my hope. Despite ongoing challenges and a lack of clarity, I will hope in Him.

He helps me to think differently. I start to understand that, rather than diminishing my faith, His silences extend the margins of what I can grasp of Him. They deepen my appreciation of His character and His ways. I pray that those friends who find themselves discouraged by His seeming lack of answers, may, as I continue to do, encounter fresh new depths of His love.

© copyright Gillian Newham 2024

Standing cheek by jowl in the small Cotswold town of old millworkers’ cottages, our house is what you might call cosy and compact. We are thankful for a place to live, glad that we can unpack our twenty or so boxes that we sent from Mongolia, although we’ve yet to find space for everything.

We are also thankful for this next stage in ministry opening before us, but we are also eager to recover a sense of equilibrium. Foolishly, we thought that once we found a place to live, peace would return. But it hasn’t. Instead, there has been more turbulence as we navigate the quotidian tasks required to settle into a new location. All of which simply serve to remind me that organising a daily routine doesn’t necessarily bring peace and stability to my heart.

Perhaps I focused my eye on the wrong things. Impatient to attain what I considered some semblance of normality, my trust moved to functional and created things. It was a subtle shift caused by my longing for peace and security. But it didn’t work and revealed the ongoing sorrow that clouds my view of Jesus.

I’ve looked to things that are neither my heart’s desire, nor my life. What we really want is know God more deeply, to serve Him and please Him. Yet, instead I’ve tried to hold on to what’s already gone, trying to recreate those times when I felt His peace and presence close by. But the days of walking the ridges close to our home in Ulaanbaatar have passed; I cannot hold onto them.

I am slow to learn that finding contentment in God doesn’t depend on whether life’s circumstances are stable or not. God’s peace is above and beyond all of that, although I can’t just ask Him to ‘send it now’ and expect it to arrive. No, I have an active role to play in this relationship. I need to share my struggles with Him, seek His help and then recommit myself to what He has and is doing in my life, even when the grief that continues is far from tame.

By faith, I choose to look up and into His presence and, relying on the Holy Spirit’s power, ask Him to reign in me. My prayer draws me back, reorients my fitful gaze onto Him until I know that He is with me, bringing rest to my heart. His rest gives me peace which pronounces, from the inside out, that all may still feel strange and stability may not come in a moment, but His will and way are right and, in His good time, life will recover its equilibrium. And for now, that is more than enough.

© copyright Gillian Newham 2024

Driving down a narrow Cornish lane, we passed a small disused building. Its grey frame stood stoic and sober, a mass of ivy clinging to its walls. In places the vines had withered, leaving evidence of their pathways, like faded scars. Windows, gloomy and dark, no longer let in light. The tired roof sagged. Blocked guttering flowed with verdant waves of moss and the door, once cherry red, was sunbaked and peeling in shades of pink. The gate creaked on its hinges with the weariness of old age and on the side was a small sign that read ‘Bible Christian Chapel’.

We didn’t know who the Bible Christians were and asked some Cornish friends, who explained a little of their history. Back in October 1815, William O’Bryan, a local Methodist preacher in North Devon, had a growing desire to call sinners to repentance and see them live holy lives. Frustrated with the indifference in the church, O’Bryan began preaching in farm kitchens, on village greens and along roadsides. People became Christians and God transformed many people’s lives. However, many also encountered hardships and persecution, although it did nothing to diminish their zeal for God. Overriding joy remained the characteristic that defined them.

The work spread from Devon and into Cornwall, where one Billy Bray, a miner and drunkard, wonderfully came to know God. Small in stature, Bray was a dynamo of joy who indefatigably shared all that the Lord had done for him and the realities of what God could do for his listeners. Unorthodox in his preaching, Bray was known to spontaneously break into song or dance during a sermon. He famously said, ‘If they were to put me in a barrel, I would shout glory through the bunghole!’

Bible Christians were a small denomination that grew quickly. Missionaries spread across England and even travelled as far as North America and Australia. By the beginning of the twentieth century growth had slowed, and in 1907, Bible Christians merged with Methodist making their history harder to trace, although some still hold to the tenets of O’Bryan’s teaching.

Learning a little about the zeal of the Bible Christians reminded me of God’s pattern in establishing the early church. The Holy Spirit came and God’s Word went forth. People came to know Him; disciples grew and the gospel spread. Yet many of those New Testament churches had periods of decline and periods when God scattered their members.

We drove past the old chapel yesterday, sad that the building is no longer a place of worship for locals. So many chapels across Cornwall have closed. Passing the side door, we noticed a new broom and spade standing on the step. Is someone caring for that place? Will its ancient stones once again resound with joyous praises to God?

In the nearby town two old chapels have been recommissioned. Purchased by those who love God and desire to follow Him wholeheartedly, Christians enter to worship and pray, to proclaim God’s Word and invite others in. Was, or is, God still at work even in the decline and scattering of His church? I’m not sure, but I know that He is sovereign and continues to draw people to Himself, filling them with His Spirit, empowering them to shout glory through their bunghole, because the movement He started continues beyond Treveighan and Newlyn, even beyond our Land’s End.

© copyright Gillian Newham 2024

Returning to Britain with the plan of living in this country again is a huge adjustment. After thirty years in Asia, everything here feels unfamiliar and strange. Not that we haven’t visited many times before, but finding our own place in this land presents quite a different perspective to a visit.

Life has moved forward and changed. Things do not and should not remain static, although some changes we observe leave us uneasy. Maybe they were in society before we left and we simply weren’t conscious of them. Now, they appear before us in sharp relief; signs and words that indicate people hold to fewer absolutes. Knowledge, morality and even truth in general seem to exist in relation to a changing culture, redefined historical contexts and fluid values.

There are plenty of interesting things going on in society and plenty knocking at the church’s door, seeking to undermine and dislodge it from its foundation. But the attacks that come from within the church seem the most insidious. Sometimes the attack is a slow, subtle erosion and dilution of the truth in our lives. Sometimes, in our efforts to connect with and embrace non-believers, we can compromise. Kind and lovely people, not standing fully on the word of God, can open their hearts and lives to imbibe different views, which sometimes can cause them to lose a sense of God’s truth and the authority of His word.

But these temptations never come linearly. They come to each of us from many and varied directions. Reorienting my own life to God in a different landscape, I recognise the importance of keeping my eye fixed on Him. Times do come when I long for what was, or I want to do something that runs contrary to His will. In those moments I have a choice: to bring my life into line with the teaching of God’s word. or let my ego reign as I seek to justify an unwise choice by manipulating the Bible to fit my behaviour.

I am sure God understands my predicament. After all, He is full of grace and is merciful. He does accept me as I am, but this self-willed hankering that presumes on His kindness brings me perilously close to denying His grace and mercy. God’s call to come to Him is a call to allow Him to change and transform me, not an excuse to remain as I am and let His word weaken in me.

It is a tussle; I cannot sit back and take my ease. Challenges and threats that compromise my faith come from without and within. In recognising them, God exhorts each of us to hold fast to His word, to contend for the truth. This contention is not passive. Like wrestlers sparring against their opponents, it requires focused strength and commitment to oppose the shoving and pulling that life brings; courage to hold on when deep, internal hardships hint at derailment.

These are no blithe skirmishes, but battles that crave determination and strenuous action to grapple, resist and stand. Thankfully, we do not fight alone. God is with us, and as we remain true to Him, this grappling strengthens and grows the muscle of our faith. We get to know God better too, understanding more deeply that He is the way, truth and the life. He is Anchor that holds us firm in all of life’s challenges.

© copyright Gillian Newham 2024