Home is where the heart is.

Hello friends, just wanted to say "thank you" for all your prayers and kind messages over the last few days. I rolled my head onto the pillow at about 2:30am this morning. How good is it to be back home ? Well going from blue sky (24 degrees) to rain at Gatwick (13 degrees) and midnight M25 road works and diversions may have normally got me a bit grumpy... but over the last few days we have spent many hours with many I. D. P's (internally displaced persons), and I have to admit that much of my heart remains there with my new friends. Delivering them basic aid and food, (when they have no water, electric or gas) has put a few things into perspective. Many people in our world are the forgotten bystanders of political wrangling, rhetoric and war, unattended victims of those who live in palaces and ivory towers. They are not even on the radar of the global media and news, never mind a focus of it. After all why would we think about them when there is a new photo of "Meghan" or "Jennifer has Instagram"? 

When I was asked to share the good news of Jesus Christ with people who lived with the daily challenge of finding water and food, it was both a hugely humbling experience (how would you do that ?) and yet it was one of the greatest privileges of my life. Standing next to a bombed out building people call "home", I was reminded that there is an enemy of this world - he comes to "steal and destroy" (John 10:10) , but Christ came to give us life and life to the full. Do we find life in stuff ? (phones, Netflix subscriptions, coffee machines, home decor)  or do we find it in relationship ? - our primary relationship with the God who made us to know him. The precious and lovely folks I met did not want to give up their homes even without water, windows,  or with bullet holes through their front door (even though the winter will soon be here). For them there are things that are too precious to give up. Yet we read that the Lord of the universe left the glory of heaven and came to a world that would reject him, make him an outcast and with nowhere of his own to call his home. Even more staggering... "for God so loved" this broken, sin trashed and tragic world HE GAVE his one and only Son... HE GAVE knowing that he would be rejected, HE GAVE WITH LOVE, the perfect unspoilt one to be our rescuer from our own self destruction, and allowed him to despised and rejected so we could have new life, life to the full...free from guilt, free from alienation and separation with the God who loves us and gave himself for us. In Christ we have a welcome home we could never earn or deserve. 

This is LOVE, this is life when we discover it. 

• The God we have rejected came to make his home amongst us and to share in our sufferings. (1 John 4:10), (Isaiah 53).

He was despised and rejected by mankind,
    a man of suffering, and familiar with pain.
Like one from whom people hide their faces
    he was despised, and we held him in low esteem.

Surely he took up our pain...  and bore our suffering,

• yet we considered him punished by God,
      stricken by him, and afflicted.
  5 But he was pierced for our transgressions,
      he was crushed for our iniquities;
  the punishment that brought us peace was on him,
      and by his wounds we are healed.

It's so good to be home. If you have loved ones and friends (another human being alive in your village), if you live in safety, if you have water, food, gas, electric and maybe even a mode of transport ... you have so many reasons to be thankful today. If you drive on any road which has a pothole but it isn't a crater ... made by a bomb or incendiary ... you don't need to complain.  If your garden doesn't look like that of the National Trust ... but it doesn't have landmines or graves of relatives from the last onslaught...  it is not a big issue. If you know that Christ loves you and gave himself for you ... know that you are rich beyond understanding. Maybe it is time today for you and me to not be selfish with all God has given us. As we share him, let's share our homes and hearts  today with some of the many in our world who need to encounter God in his invitation, welcome and love. 

I'll do a full blog about these things when the time is right, as well as our plans for the future and a proper thanks to such an amazing team... but today I'm just going to stay thankful I'm home. 
Much love,
Blogski