A Heart-Felt Life

Easter Sunday did not finish as I expected as I ended up in A & E following six hours of heart fibrillation. Three times my heart stopped while in A & E. They called it 'resting' but all I know from my understandably concerned wife was that my heart monitor flat lined! Three days later, and now with a heart pacemaker fitted I was returned home to begin my recovery back to a full working life.

While between flat-line episodes I said to God, “Surely not in here”. Now don’t get me wrong, the staff were brilliant, and the facilities were all they needed to be. However a windowless resuscitation room just did not strike me as the end that God had planned for this self-confessed action man. More importantly I felt a deep sense of disappointment – I had unfinished business – messages to preach, thousands to speak to, conferences to run.... was all this not to be?

As I recovered for the third time I began to think that maybe this was it; I was just seconds away from facing my maker! I became gripped with an overwhelming fear.

It was not a fear of dying; I really was not that bothered. Nor was it a fear concerning my eternal destiny. I had been a follower of Jesus for many years and I knew my eternal future was already secured for me through Jesus Christ my Saviour.

So what was the root of my deep and profound fear? It was indeed that I was potentially seconds away from meeting my maker. We all have things in our life that we are planning to get round to; to addressing and changing at some time. We are called to give up all for our Saviour, but in all of us there is hidden in our personal agendas actions, thinking and attitudes that we have hung on to for a host of varied reasons. The thought of looking into the face of the Living God; the Ancient of Days and him challenging me with my life literally put the fear of God in to me!

Well all turned out ok, for now at least. God alone knows how long he has given me. The cardiac staff have not given me a new heart, simply propped up the one I have. But when I bowed my knee to Christ many years ago he did give me a new life and a new heart. It was a new heart that transformed and changed me. We truly do become a “new creation.” My life needs to honour that gift of life that God has given me. I want to stand before Christ one day having served him fully and faithfully and hear his words, “well done good and faithful servant.”

Minority (miss)rules ok!

Recent information from the Barnabas Fund

http://barnabasfund.org/UK-retailer-halal-guide.html

suggests that a number of supermarkets may be selling Halal meat to us without our consent and with no option to purchase more humanely killed meat. While I would wish to disagree with the claims of Islam that is not the issue here – it is the lack of choice; the imposition of someone else’s belief system on me. Yet so often if the majority object to actions that go against our belief system or social norms then we are vilified as cranks.

Why it that if I wish state my own thought-through position on an issue and offer it for discussion I am simply railed upon as a bigot, a fundamentalist or a ‘****phobe’ (add whichever prefix you like depending upon the issue).

Recently a woman was discussing with some of her colleagues issues concerning the effects of abortion. In an effort to logically and rationally help explain her position she gave them a leaflet she had in her possession which laid out quite clinically research on the emotional effects of abortion on many women. Their response to this reasoned offered piece of information? To try and get her sacked. She was eventually reinstated but the issue is still there. It seems if you are short on reasoned argument then scream ‘bigot’ or reach in desperation for the bill of human rights!

It strikes me that that such ‘phobic’ accusations are made by those who are short on reason and long on passion. Screaming ‘phobic’ accusations at me or choose to rage against me as a “fundamentalist” or a “bigot” seems simply rather a confession of shallow argument which would not stand up to scrutiny.

The Daily Telegraph reports in its on-line newspaper for 1st March 2011 that:

“... judges underlined that, in the case of fostering arrangements at least, the right of homosexuals to equality “should take precedence” over the right of Christians to manifest their beliefs and moral values. In a ruling with potentially wide-ranging implications, the judges said Britain was a “largely secular”, multi-cultural country in which the laws of the realm “do not include Christianity”.

“…In their ruling yesterday, the judges complained that it was not yet “well understood” that British society was largely secular and that the law has no place for Christianity”

Rt Rev Michael Nazir-Ali, the former bishop of Rochester said “….what really worries me about this spate of judgments is that they leave no room for the conscience of believers of whatever kind. This will exclude Christians, Muslims and Orthodox Jews from whole swaths of public life, including adoption and fostering.” http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/newstopics/religion/8353496/Foster-parent-ban-no-place-in-the-law-for-Christianity-High-Court-rules.html

Daily Telegraph Editorial went on to say that, “Neither Mr nor Mrs Johns has anything against gay people but they are not in favour of sex before marriage, whatever an individual's orientation. Their views were denounced by Ben Summerskill, of the homosexual pressure group Stonewall, as "old-fashioned".
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/comment/telegraph-view/8353180/Foster-parents-defeated-by-the-new-Inquisition.html

The word old-fashioned sounds to me to be a way on indicating that certain held views do not comply with a vocal minority who want things to be different. Many recent surveys in recent months and indeed years show that the majority of our society in the UK want and desire the social order of monogamous heterosexual marriages. It seems that the majority in this so-called democracy of Great Britain are not to have their wishes listened to because they are considered “old-fashioned” by a small minority of the population.

The country has gone barking mad!