Category: prophetic

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others prophetic

Preach Good News To The Poor

My local park Christmas day 2024 Photographed by myself

I’m always amazed at God’s timing [and do need to learn to trust it more in my daily life] and also God’s subtlety.

I’ve just been reading the reflections my mum sends me from her church and of course, as all good Anglicans know, this is the week where Jesus reads the piece from Isaiah in the synagogue.

The Spirit of the Lord is upon me,
    because the Lord has anointed me.
He has sent me to preach good news to the poor,
    to proclaim release to the prisoners
    and recovery of sight to the blind,
    to liberate the oppressed,
    and to proclaim the year of the Lord’s favor.

Luke 4:18-19

I’ve often heard it preached that the reason the people got upset was because Jesus was being a bit of a smart-arse and saying “look this is me and what I’m all about”. But this reflection says to look at the verses around it and the verses around when this was first said in Isaiah. In Isaiah it talks about the congregations looking after the poor, the prisoner, the blind, the oppressed.

It is very much what Right Rev. Mariann Budde was saying at President Trump’s inauguration ceremony. We’d all like it to be to Trump and also to those billionaires on his front row. But what if it isn’t just the President Trump, those billionaires, or to include the cabinet people on the second row? We’d like that. We’d like to say “they need to do that” – and oh yes so they should as they are in power.

But what is she is actually saying it to each and everyone of us? To all of human kind?

We need to do whatever we can to give the poor dignity [which is more than leaving food in the box for the Foodbank] by not letting those who have not feel like charity cases. We all need to be helping those who are blind, and who we don’t seem to be able to miraculously heal, to be able to see and understand the life out there, and I think, this includes those who might have physical sight but miss out on really seeing the world in all its glory. We all need to be helping those imprisoned by circumstances and life choices to be freed from their mistakes, their addictions, their limiting ways of thinking. All of us not just those in leadership – though I do also think they should be leading the way, hence why they are called “leaders”!!

What I love though is the timing of this as well as the challenge. It is so easy for us all to point the finger but it is much harder too look inside out hearts. But that amazing timing where these are the verses in the lexicon for this season and there is the opportunity for us, for our leaders, for the rich and famous, to all live out what Jesus calls us to do in all the mystical, diverse amazingness.

The Spirit of the Lord is upon me,
    because the Lord has anointed me.
He has sent me to preach good news to the poor,
    to proclaim release to the prisoners
    and recovery of sight to the blind,
    to liberate the oppressed,
19     and to proclaim the year of the Lord’s favor.

Don’t point the finger at others but look at yourself!

Photo by Juliano Astc on Pexels.com
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Euros involved prophetic

The Euros – England’s victory in defeat

Gareth Southgate clapping the Italians and the fans at end of the Euros on Sunday 11th July https://www.skysports.com/football/news/19693/12353740/euro-2020-final-where-did-it-go-wrong-for-england?utm_source=pocket-newtab-global-en-GB
Gareth Southgate and the England team at the end of Sunday’s game from https://www.skysports.com/football/news/19693/12353740/euro-2020-final-where-did-it-go-wrong-for-england?utm_source=pocket-newtab-global-en-GB

I have loved reading the headlines this morning of how the UK has responded to England’s defeat to Italy in the Euros last night. Every paper I have seen talks with pride about their team and how they did so well and were in the end beaten by a better team. It isn’t often I can say it but I would say England claimed a victory in its defeat but the way the media in this country have stood beside them. There is so much negativity and running down of people who are doing their best that this reporting of a defeat has been done so so well.

I did stay up till gone 11pm to watch it. I’m not a regular football watcher but I do love finals. I remember when my son was young we used to get the charts from the paper for either Euros or World Cup and use it as a bit of a maths lesson, and also to add to the involvement in the event. I might just get a chart for the World cup next year to be involved.

My involvement this year came about because I went to spend two days with a friend in Brighton – which included the excitement of going on the train for the first time in years and using my senior railcard, which was also a big bonus. And by the way I found the trains very calm, not overly busy and I felt Covid safe the whole time.

England lost because of not being able to score enough goals in the penalty shoot out at the end. A very long well played game!

As I led in bed wondering what, if any, prophetic signs could be taken from the game. I got to wondering about what was being said in the “heavenlies” about why it was that it was the two young men who had been substituted in at the end of extra time that were the ones who missed the goals. [This is no inditement on Rashford and Sancho who are great players] What came to me was how often we bring in young people into a project or a team who have not been involved with the sweat and graft of the main event and expect them to perform to the same standard as those who have been in for the long haul.

I can think of many church projects where older people have slogged through and worked hard at but then get told to stand down to let younger people take over. These older people then have to support the younger people who have usurped them. I have heard of many businesses where things have slogged on for a long time then a younger manager is brought in to take over to finish it. Now one can become a business manager straight from university. There is no need to do the sweat and graft of making one’s way up through the ranks of the company, of learning how other parts work. Do we need to be careful not to expect too much from our young people, not to expect them to finish for us? I am proud to be part of a project with Youthshedz Cymru in which we are encouraging the young people to run with a project exploring their own issues, but as older people we are standing with them not pushing them in front of us. We are not expecting them to do what we would not stand with them to do. So let us be wise and not expect young people to finish the job, not expect them to join something they haven’t been invested in from the beginning.

I reiterate I am not saying Southgate made the wrong decision or that the two young footballers weren’t invested. This is just what I felt was being said in the prophetic. I think, like the newspapers today, that England did an awesome job, that it was a match worth watching. And I will definitely be there expectantly to see how they perform in the World Cup – along with Wales too!

England’s football team, all the players and Gareth Southgate were definitely something to be proud of and very much can claim a victory even in their defeat – and perhaps that is for another blog??

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angels greta thunberg joan of arc passionate prophetic

Joan of Arc

Stained glass window of Joan of Arc

First posted on https://godspacelight.com/2021/05/29/joan-of-arc-2/ on 29th May 2021

I wonder what we would have thought of Joan of Arc today even in some of the more crazy charismatic churches. She doesn’t fit the stereotype of prophetic leader. She didn’t have visions of Jesus but of Michael, the archangel, Catherine of the “death by flaming spinning wheel from which the firework known as the Catherine-wheel comes from”, and Margaret who was tortured and murdered because she would not renounce the vow to remain a virginal bride of Christ when a pagan king wanted to marry her. Would we have been more like one source and just say “she claimed to have heard voices in her head”?

I wonder if she had come forward today, a young girl of 16 or so, and said she heard voices of an angel and two martyred women and that she wanted to lead her country to victory, she would be taken to a psychiatric ward? Or, if one of our children said they heard voices, would we tell them to hush and maybe get them checked out for autism? Or, what about ourselves? What would you do, what would I do, if we were sure we could hear voices telling us to do something bold and brave? I wonder if we would just keep quiet and wait for our voices to be “confirmed”. 

As I pondered Joan of Arc, Greta Thunberg came in to my head, the teenager who has stepped up to the mark to try to lead the world to another place. I wonder if there were other young people who felt the same but whose parents, teachers, or churches, told them not to be so silly and the whole thing was too big for them. Greta, I believe, has only got as far as she has because her parents didn’t stop her. There is nothing to say what Joan of Arc’s parents thought but it was her relative who was bold enough to take her to a local garrison and from there she made it to the French court. 

Joan experienced lots of opposition but preserved because of her total belief that this was what God was telling her through his messengers; Michael, Catherine and Margaret. How often do we hear something, and hear it very clear, and yet when we hit opposition, or lack of support from others, we give up? This doesn’t mean that we should power on through because we think this is what we should do but sometimes, like both Joan and Greta, we need to listen to what we are hearing, listen with our hearts, and keep on keeping on even if it means we lose our reputation, our livelihoods, and in Joan’s case, our lives. 

I don’t think Joan cared what other people thought. I don’t think Greta cares much either. This isn’t to say I think either of these young women lack emotion at all. I think they both believe/believed that what they were doing is/was so right that they just can’t/could stop. 

From pondering Joan of Arc, and as a result of that Greta Thunberg, my hope is that when I hear a voice or voices telling me to go and do something I won’t hold back whatever opposition I face, or however much it might damage my reputation. But also when I hear of some young person talking about a dream, a vision, voices speaking to them, that will change the world I will be willing to encourage them rather than hinder them. 

Our world needs to change to stop it going back to the same pre-covid patterns where those who have stuff and status, fear of losing out to those who do not, and where those who do not have status are treated with disgrace and live in fear of having the little they have taken from them. We need to change and I believe we need younger people to help us with that – with more energy, more determination, more of an innocent belief that things can change. 

I would like to be like Joan of Arc’s relative, helping to get someone young person to where they believe they should be, helping and encouraging them to see the change they believe in.