Suffering in the early hours of the morning.

I'd like to make it clear with this one: I feel terrible.

My nose is running like a roadrunner from a coyote - fast, long and with absolutely no sign of letting up anytime soon. My throat is raw, my head hurts from all the guck piled up inside it, breathing's a bit of a chore due to the blocked nose and sore throat, and I'm exhausted and can't seem to sleep due to all of the above.

I'm not saying all of this as part of a pity party, I'm just explaining that I'm not writing this particular article from a place of strength. Quite the opposite, in fact. And I think that was the point.

As I was making my way downstairs to collect about half a metre's worth of tissue for my nose, in my half-asleep state, I thought (for some strange reason) that I was an animated character, like from the old Bruce Timm and Paul Dini DC animated universe. Of course, I realised that was a silly thing to think. Aside from anything else, if I was animated, why was I sick?

For a start, animated characters don't get sick. Usually. Why would they? Being imaginary, they don't have to deal with any problems except the ones the writers can come up for them - and these problems are usually a little more entertaining than an unpleasant cold in the middle of May.

Usually, but not always. I was sure that at some point, there must have been a point when I watched one of these old animated shows and someone was sick in them. Why would that be? Why would a writer choose to let their creation suffer from something as simple and unpleasant as an illness?

And a very odd, but I think very real thought entered my mind. They are only as vulnerable as their creator allows them to be. More importantly, we are only as vulnerable as our creator allows us to be.

It's something that we were discussing some weeks ago, myself and some of the guys from my church (it's called a Life Group, since our church is called Life Church and all). We were going over the idea of suffering being a natural part of life, and that just because we have put our Faith and hope in the Father and the sacrifice of Jesus, we are not automatically exempt from this aspect of life.

It's an issue many people struggle to get their heads around. If God truly is a God of justice, why do bad things happen to good people, and good things happen to bad people? Why doesn't He punish bad people when they do bad things, and reward good people when they do good?

I can't pretend I have all the answers at the moment. But I do know that, aside from anything else, none of us are in a position to be demanding that God punish some people and reward others. Both Jesus and Paul made it quite clear that none of us are anywhere near close to perfect. 'Let he who is without sin cast the first stone'. 'All have failed and fall short'. In other words, the minute we start asking why God doesn't give some people what we think they deserve is the minute He can turn around and point out that we have screwed up a number of times ourselves.

This isn't done in an attempt to emotionally blackmail us into going along with everything God says. Accepting Christ as our Lord and Saviour means we are saved, and our sin is washed away by his blood. We are guiltless in His sight, and all that. But it's not our place to be calling down judgement on others. It's His, and if He chooses not to then chances are, there is a pretty good reason for it. He loves us all equally, after all. As such, all go through suffering in life - to varying degrees, I will admit, but we still all suffer.

So why does God allow suffering for His children, the ones who put their hope and trust in Him? It can be very easy to view it as a betrayal; assuming that by aligning ourselves with God, He will protect us from harm, and when He seemingly doesn't it can make Him seem either cruel and uncaring, or powerless to stop it. Neither one is the truth.

Many times the Bible makes it clear that our strength is found in our weakness. We are made vulnerable by our suffering, and in that vulnerability we see God in a way that we don't when we feel we can do anything in our own strength. In a weird way, it's a bit like a father-child bonding session when God allows suffering in our lives. If nothing else, it shows us where we hold our strength - and that reveals a lot about us in itself.

So if God wants to continue to allow me to be ill, I'm not going to sit around and complain about it. I'm going to ask what He's trying to tell me, and if all He wants is for me to hold myself in Him while I ride out this metaphorical storm - well, I'm going to do just that.

Oh, it is currently 03:13 am. This is the first time I've been up at such an hour writing something that wasn't due in the next morning. I wish I could say that I think it will be the last.

For the first time...

Following on from my previous post about becoming a Winter Soldier for God being a calling for this season of my life, it seems I should give an overview of what has happened so far. It didn't begin when I wrote this blog, shockingly enough.

I mentioned last week that I had a prophetic word spoken over me about getting my roots planted in God a little over a month ago. It was actually on my dad's birthday that I received that word, but really it started properly the day before. For a long time, I struggled with self-esteem issues. I knew I was loved - by God, my family, friends (some of them, I doubt they'd all use the word 'love' with reference to me). For all that, I did not like myself. In fact, I'd even go so far as to say I hated myself.

The way I saw it, every stupid decision I had made was my fault, something I could and should have done differently. And all those decisions were a personal insult to me. I made some mistakes with my ex - the first girlfriend I had ever had - and while I don't feel good about them now, for a while I despised myself for it. I'd lost the one girl I thought I would ever love. Being fifteen at the time, that was a kind of stupid assumption. But it was a feeling that stuck with me for a long time. And then, when I started doing badly at school, I blamed myself for not being smarter, not working harder when I had the chance. When I felt like some of my friends were ignoring me, I blamed myself for not being interesting or fun enough to be around. That's only naming a few self-image problems I had.

I never found any solutions to these problems by thinking like this. But I kept feeding myself this lie - that, as long as I kept my self esteem low enough, I would always try to improve myself. I would become better by always pushing myself to get out of this low point.

My parents had noticed, I think. Whenever I made disparaging comments about myself, they - my mum in particular - would deny it quite seriously, despite my protestations that it was a joke. I hadn't been joking.  And they knew that, even though I pretended I didn't.

But I pretended I was fine with the whole arrangement, thinking less of myself to try and make myself better in some twisted way. Maybe that was what prompted me to audition for an upcoming production of Much Ado About Nothing taking place to raise money for our new church building. More likely, it was the director asking me to audition, and me agreeing to it because I didn't feel I could say 'no'.

It was there I met a girl about a year older than me - well, she's twenty-one now, I guess 'woman' would be a better word - who went to the church that was also using the building at a different time of day to us. Long story short, we had to spend a fair amount of time practicing scenes together, and I thought it was only polite to try to get to know her a little better.

The fact that she was quite pretty had absolutely nothing to do with it. Or... next to nothing to do with it.

 I don't even know how it came up, I just remember somehow explaining to her how I kept a negative opinion of myself as a way of continually pushing myself forward. And then she told me - quite simply - that I was living a lie. She explained that I had been made perfect by the blood of Jesus, and as such God saw me as perfect - and if I was saying I was less than that, I was saying I thought God was wrong. At this point, I'd known her about two or three weeks, and she was speaking pretty much straight into my soul. If I'd been paying attention, I'd have heard God speaking to me throughout the conversation.

All I could think was, 'Holy crap, this girl's just full on beaten me in a debate!' That doesn't tend to happen to me. I just had nothing to respond to her argument with. That totally threw me off what God was trying to get across - at least, it did at the time.

But, a few weeks after that I found myself really thinking over what she had said. I'd actually gone to her church as a favour to her to listen to a guy she felt would be good for me to listen to (he basically summed up her own argument in more detail), and it was all starting to make sense. The problem lay in the fact that I was putting all my self-worth into what I did. And during a different church service some weeks later, I heard someone - I can't remember who - say that we need to put our self-worth in the Cross.

Initially, I thought 'I know that.' I'd been hearing it all my life, that we can't earn salvation and that we can't expect to earn God's love. I knew it, I understood it - to an extent, I believed it. But I didn't live like it, and there lay the problem. I found my identity in what I did, who I thought I was - and I didn't like that identity in the least. And at that church service, I said something along these lines to God: 'If I've been doing this wrong for the past twenty years, I'm going to feel like an idiot. But, I don't want to keep doing it wrong if I am wrong. I'm placing everything I am on you, if you'll take it.'

As soon as I did that, I felt a weight lift off my shoulders - off my heart, actually. That weight hasn't come back in over a month. I wasn't viewing myself as the imperfect failure I was sure I must be - I was a son of the King of Kings. And I realised - that's a label that takes priority over any other. That's who I am.

The next day, I told the woman from the play (for copyright reasons, I'll refrain from using her name) what happened. Once she'd gotten over how happy she was for me (part of me wonders if she didn't feel just a little smug that she'd been instrumental in changing my viewpoint on the matter) she gave me a prophetic word. That word was the one about being planted I mentioned in my last post.

Or at least, that was a part of it. She sent me a recording of the whole thing. Over four minutes long altogether. I actually transcribed the thing onto nearly a full side of A4 paper that's now stuck to my wall, and even that's the abridged version.

But since then, while life hasn't gotten a whole lot easier - I daresay it's gotten tougher at points - I'm completely secure in who I am in Him. And that's something I've never really experienced for any extended length of time in... I can't even remember how long. He's that good.

During a meeting of Lifegroups, small groups of people in our church, someone said they felt God saying that everyone who could speak in tongues should do so at that point. I never had, so I assumed that it wasn't for me. But as the swelling sound of possibly a couple dozen voices rose in the air, I felt a tugging in my heart that told me to speak. At first I thought that couldn't be right, as I'd never felt any inclination to speak in tongues my whole life, despite my parents and many of my friends having spoken it many times. But the tugging feeling didn't go away (honestly, you'd think by this point I'd have learned to recognise God immediately).

Now, I've often struggled with being stubborn. My parents reckon I can dig my heels into the sand like no one's business. I even did it as a child, by numerous accounts. While it's not necessarily a bad thing - peer pressure is definitely not something I struggle with for that very reason - it has been known to limit my relationship with others and has very negatively affected my relationship with God.

After all that has happened over the past month and a half, though, I've become increasingly aware that it can be a serious problem, so when I felt my natural reaction trying to push down that tugging sensation, I said: 'God, I definitely don't want to be stubborn and ignore You for the sake of it. If this is something You want for me, then go ahead.' The instant I finished that silent prayer my tongue began to form sounds and words it had never done before, entirely of its own accord. And that was the first time I spoke in tongues.

 If I was to recount everything that God has done over the past month alone, though, I'd probably be here a few days. I'm only now beginning to understand the strain various scribes were under from writing down everything they could about God and his message for the Bible. And I definitely get why John was not feeling it was possible to get across how much great stuff Jesus did in his life. It's not a job I'd be lining up for.

That's a lie, actually. Writing down the amazing stories of the wonders and love of God would be a great way to earn a living.

In any case, I've been learning a lot over the past few months alone about the God I serve and the man He wants me to become. I'm seriously looking forward to what He has to show me in the future, but for now, I really need sleep.

In conclusion, He is awesome. And by extension, so am I.






*the dad I have on Earth; I don't think God's ever publicly announced his Birthday. Probably for the best, I wouldn't know what to get Him anyway - I've already given my life to Him. Can't imagine there's anything else I could give that He'd want. Not counting monthly tithes, of course.

Becoming a Winter Soldier for God

I guess it's only fair that I let you know from the beginning: This blog has next to nothing to do with the second Captain America film. Or the character from the comics, animated shows or whatever other media it appears in.

I fully believe that what I intend to write about has been put on my heart for a reason, and hopefully by getting them down in writing I'll be able to understand it better. And who knows? It might even speak to whoever reads them as well.

The title of this particular post is one that I feel is the baseline for all the other posts I intend to write: Becoming a 'Winter Soldier'. The phrase was used in a court case in America shortly after the Vietnam war investigating war crimes committed by soldiers in the conflict. It was a play on a phrase by Thomas Paine, which described 'summertime' soldiers who joined the revolutionary war in America and quit because the going got rough. The idea of a Winter Soldier is a soldier who does the opposite - one who fights the good fight, and sticks with their cause even in the worst of circumstances.

And that's what I want to be. I've grown up with so many people of strong faith and firm belief in the Gospel, and have been practically raised on stories of people who went through suffering for the glory of God's name. And the whole time I've thought: 'Whoa. I really don't know if I could do that.'

But then I heard the phrase 'Winter Soldier', and learned what it meant (and yes, I learned it from a podcast about Captain America: The Winter Soldier. You happy?). And something about the idea just resonated within me, a sensation that I'd felt when I had prophetic words for others.

Eventually, it clicked that it wasn't a description or word of encouragement for someone I knew, but a bar that had been set for me. I was to become a Winter Soldier.

I suppose that's ultimately what this blog is for. I'm relaying my journey to becoming the Winter Soldier that God's called me to be. That starts with me explaining what began this process I intend to go through - which I hope I have done.

I can't yet claim that I've reached that goal yet. I don't even know if I ever will - this is just another step in my relationship with God, and that's something I hope to keep moving and developing until the day I die. I doubt that at any point I'll be able to look at myself and say: "Yep. I'm there. I can stop now.' I never actually want to look at myself and say that.

I'm not saying that I have a low opinion of myself. God has made me perfect through the blood of His Son, and I'm under no illusions that I can in any way earn my way to perfection. But I know that God always has more in store for me until the day He calls me to His side, and there's always going to be room in my life for more of Him. That's what I want to keep up, a desire to hear more from Him and to be more like Him.

Soldiers tend to have a mission statement.There's something Paul, arguably the ultimate Winter Soldier for the Gospel of Christ, said to Timothy in one of his letters. I feel it sums up what I believe God has made my own mission statement: 'I have fought the good fight, I have finished the race, I have kept the faith.' (2 Timothy 4:7)

As a Winter Soldier for my Father and Lord, that's what I intend to do: I will fight the good fight, I will finish the race, I will keep the faith.

This blog is here to remind me of that, and to provide a point of reference if I ever forget what led me to where I need to go.