A new week...

Back at Ashfield today. Temperatures are still below zero, but the boiler there is fixed - and the place needs sorting. We called in one night to check on it and to our dismay found water gushing out all over the floor through the whole building. So Ian's job today will be moving desks and taking up carpets. I'm so glad that didn't happen at home.

My jobs today are drawing plans for a neighbours barn conversion, putting up posters for the oil painting course, and cleaning the church (i'm on the rota). Our church is great - it's a little Assemblies of God in Llandrindod called New Life. They are so warm and friendly and have made a very big difference to how we feel about being here. They are also great worshippers and reach out to the community including those struggling with things like drugs and alcohol. It's a very comfortable place to be, and we are grateful to God for leading us here through contacts in Taunton and Llandod.

Enough procrastinating. It's time to stop distracting myself with other activities and sit down with those plans....

Feast for mind and spirit

This weekend has been a feast for mind and spirit. A two-day course at Streams in Cheltenham (the Art of Hearing God) was like water to a thirsty soul. It felt so good to be studying, learning, and opening my mind to understanding more of God - wow - how amazing that he is always speaking to us and through us. Here are a few sound-bites I noted in the margins of my manual, though 2 solid days of teaching can't really be condensed into a few lines:

"PEACE is the potting soil of revelation"

"You can focus on faith or fear - faith is from the spirit, fear is from the soul (mind, will, emotions) - whatever you focus on you empower and will grow bigger"

"We are faced with constant choices and decisions. Every choice you make either brings you closer to God or further away from him."

"Live before an audience of One"

"EGO = Edging God Out"

"Godly character is of greater value than spiritual giftedness"

"What you see and hear (in the spiritual realm) depends a good deal upon where you are standing - and a great deal upon what kind of person you are"

"You cannot understand spiritual things with the soul (mind) - it speaks a different language"

We also spent time listening to God - for ourselves, and the other students. I found it a little bit nerve-wracking trying to tap into Gods heart for another person when they're stood right in front of you but it's all about learning and becoming more confident and sharpening up your discernment. The teaching we received was so good and completely based in the Bible - I would highly recommend this course to anyone with a desire to explore their gifting in more depth.

Here's the link:- http://www.streamstrainingcentre.co.uk/

Hearing God? yes please

Wow I've just booked myself into a weekend course called "The Art of Hearing God". But what a struggle it was to do it. I KNEW I wanted to go on the course but everything in me was saying, "don't bother, it'll be a waste of time" and "it'll be too nerve-wracking doing it on your own", and "you can book it but you can always back out". What rubbish! I want to know God better, to learn to hear his voice more clearly, to grow in the 'prophetic', and I even have a sense of desperation about it - is anything/anyone else in life really worth pursuing? We can feel so pressurized to conform to our materialistic all-inclusive world and I for one find it hard to keep on standing up as a Christian ie. to have no compromise, no fear of speaking the truth about Jesus Christ - even though I am sometimes absolutely overwhelmed by his love for us and for our hurting world. I have even found it hard to write this on my blog - knowing God is the single most important thing in my life, yet I think twice about writing it and what people will think!! Crazy old me.

Anyway, I've done it and paid the fee. October 7th - 9th is in the diary. For those interested it's with something called Streams Ministries and is held in Cheltenham. They also do courses on interpretation of dreams, and using your prophetic gifting. Oh, and for anyone who's thinking "that's only for you religious people" I want you to know that there is no divide. God is speaking to all of us - we just need to hear him. Religion just gets in the way.