There are plently of jokes around today but, sadly, the mechanic was being serious when he said my brakes on the car would cost £180 rather than the anticipated £60 – what a truly spiffing start to the weekend …. not!!

While feeling sorry for myself and grumbling away about the unfairness of God and the greed of car mechanics I fell upon Dave’s post for today which had be laughing hysterically in some places. He has posted a series of real life funnies, my favourite being:

Have you ever asked your child a question too many times? My three-year-old son had a lot of problems with potty training and I was on him constantly. One day we stopped at Taco Bell for a quick lunch in between errands. It was very busy, with a full dining room. While enjoying my taco I smelled something funny, so of course I checked my seven-month-old daughter, and she was clean. Then I realized that 3 year old Danny hadn’t asked to go potty in a while, so I asked him if he needed to go, and he said: No.” I kept thinking, “Oh Lord, that child has had an accident, and I don’t have any clothes with me.” Then I said, “Danny, are you SURE you didn’t have an accident?” “No,” he replied. I just KNEW that he must have had an accident, because the smell was getting worse. Soooooo, I asked one more time, “Danny, did you have an accident?” This time he jumped up, yanked down his pants, bent over and spread his cheeks and yelled. “SEE MOM, ITS JUST FARTS!!” While 30 people nearly choked to death on their tacos laughing, he calmly pulled up his pants and sat down. An old couple made me feel better by thanking me for the best laugh they’d ever had!

If you know Joseph, my youngest, you will understand why I relate to this so well!

Have a good evening – and give all your money to Comic Relief, they need it more than you do!

Today poverty will be on the agenda of many.

The chidren have gone to school today with funny noses, gelled hair and wearing various shades of red. So has Sarah as she is teaching today. I am the odd one out – not much point if you are sitting in the study alone all day! I guess I could go to the mirror and laugh at myself; but I do that regularly anyway.

I love and hate Comic Relief. Love it because it raises loads of money to make a difference. Hate it because it always makes me wish I could, and believe I should, be doing so much more, and quite often reduces me to tears. Both Joe and myself seem to have this ‘thing’ that if we see people crying on telly then we start to cry too.

I have found myself struggling a little recently with who and what I am ultimately called to. Maybe this started with Nouwens take on The Prodigal. I am a YFC worker and I do passionatly want to see young people become Christians. I have wanted to see them come in their hundreds for years, and still do, and the passion for this still drives me.

But I am noticing another passion that has always been there but maybe oppressed by my evangelical upbringing. I am noticing a new passion for the lost, a new passion for the poor and a new pasion to see poverty eradicated. I have a desire to make a concrete and practical difference in the lives of others.

This is hard to explain, it has always been there but it has always been accompanied in my mind with the beoming a Christian ‘thing’. The difference is that now I want to show God’s love without expecting any response back.

I wonder if that is very poor and un-evangelical of me? Wanting to help others and seeing their commitment to God as secondary to the relief of their situation. I do ind myself wondering, though, if this is not how Jesus acted?

On Monday evening we chatted about the Make Poverty History campaign with Landmark. I have not seen much shock this group of great young people into silence but the whole injustice of this situation did.

Well, no actually it didn’t – they were angry and what was happening, they were emotional, and many left in tears as we showed one of the video clips from the make Poverty History website. I believe some of them were crying the tears of God. It was incredibly moving to see these young people filled with compassion and a desire to change things. Could it be we have some emerging heroes here?

This group of young people want to do something and are meeting again next week to decide what to do in the Global Week of Action.

We decided on Monday night at Landmark that we wanted to show the government that we wanted this to end, so we are going in force to the overnight vigil in Westminster on the 15/16th April. The 15th April is also my 40th birthday and I really cannot think if a better thing to do, or anything else I would want to do instead with this opportunity to encourage the government to act. It will certainly be memorable! Anyone else out there intending to come and join the thousands?

This looks fantastic on Jonny’s blog – it looks like it will be well worth the visit.

Today I was in Halesowen for the team meeting where Roy challenged us with a verse to dwell on over the next month:

‘Above all else, guard your heart, for it effects everything you do‘ Proverbs 4:23

I don’t think it needs any explanation.

Andy Flannagan led us in worship for the start of the morning. I particularly like what he got us to do this morning, and I think he was so right in what he said.

Andy drew our attention to the fact that a lot of the words we use to describe God come from an almost exclusively agricultural terminology – shepherds and so on. He suggested that maybe we find it difficult to connect with God as we do not relate to these agricultural terms anymore – they are simply not part of our everyday culture.

Andy got us thinking through silently our personal images of God using modern items from our lifetsyles and then turning these into prayer after about 10 minutes all together.

This was a great experience and some of the prayers/language that I heard and have thought of since include:

God, your judgement is like a speed camera – creed, race, background, affluence, poverty are unimportant – if we go above 30 mph judgement falls

Lord, your voice is like the sound of a car horn – when you speak you naturally command my attention.

God, I think of annoying ansaphone messages and I’m thankful that you are never engaged.

Lord, you are the super drug of my soul, causing me to rise above the hassles around me and follow you.

Father, like the M25 you are continual and never-ending.

I felt I connected on a different level again today.

I have done over 400 miles in my car over the last 24 hours which included an overnight stay in Halesowen so that I could attend various YFC meetings.

There are a number of particular highlights have of the past few days.

One was the meeting of Tabitha and Leo who were my hosts for last night. It’s always odd staying with people you do not know, but they a=were great and really welcoming, and the bed was fantastically comfortable.

I mat for a little while on Tuesday evening with YFC’s Academy placements at the Pioneer Centre. These are about 15 volunteers who are in their second or third year of volunteering with YFC. My role was to get them to think about applying for jobs that there are in YFC. Each of these young people is oozing with talent, energy and ability and I really do believe we need to harness some of that if we are to effectively reach the young people of this nation. I really hope some of them go for the jobs that are there. If not, then I guess I failed!

This is for you – be good to see your thoughts.

I see both the older and younger son within me and within others (there you are – the evidence of older son coming out in me!). I have been struck by the though, however, that I am to aspire to be like the father. I have been challenged that my calling, and the calling of all Christians, is to be like the father.

Jesus said we are to be like him. We know that. We also know that Jesus said that he and the father are one. Sometimes it is easy to forget that. Jesus asks us to be like him, to copy him, to be like God.

That’s a fairly tall order! Has anyone ever written a greater under-statement than that?!

The calling to be like the father is one of great risk and great pain. It is a calling to love until we drop. The exhaustion and relief of the father hit me by far the most in this painting. To love like the father, to keep quiet, to hope, to watch, to dream, will all take great energy and heartache.

Of course, the calling is an impossible one. I think now I understand a little more why Jesus says I to allow him to live through me rather than strive to do things myself. With God nothing is impossible – not even being like him.

My next post will be the painting itself – I post it as I would be interested in your ‘last comments’ on the prodigal and painting.

Have you ever considered that you are called to be the father? I think that is the main message of Nouwens book; we may have attributes of both the younger and older sons, but our ultimate calling, the character we should aspire to be, is that of the father.

The father in this parable, and so obviously in my mind from the painting (the body language and face say it all) is just so desperate for his children to be free, especially free to love. To allow this, however, the father needs to take a risk and realise that there is a possibility of rejection and leaving; as we see with the younger brother. The father knows that the freedom to leave will cause pain; but he also knows without the freedom then eternal destiny, rather than short term pain, is the cost.

For the first time, as I look at this parable I find myself questioning something I have always, as an evangelical, firmly believed. The notion of an all powerful father God. The father in this parable is powerless to prevent his son leaving despite the pain he knows the son will endure. The actual power of God’s love, here, seems to make him powerless to act to prevent something happening which he knows will cause pain and hurt.

Can the notion of a God that loves us so much that sometimes he is powerless to act really be a truth? Can this be accurate? I do not know. It would certainly explain some of the stuff that happens to ‘good people’ in the world.

I have heard this explained away – God is all powerful and so chooses not to act. In the pain we learn stuff. If that is the case then surely he is not all loving. How can a loving father sit back and allow pain and suffering to innocent people just so they will learn some lesson. Certainly I am happier to have a God that is not all powerful and is all loving rather than one who is not all loving yet all powerful.

Indeed, I find myself thinking that all powerfulness and all lovingness are incompatible. In love we are vulnerable. To love fully requires full vulnerability. Surely complete vulnerability and complete power cannot exist together in my Father God.

I don’t know the answer, and yet it is sparking an interesting thought process within me.

There is so much here about the father.

Rembrandt and Nouwen clearly allude to the father AND mother side of God. I never have wondered why so many in church react to this statement. Genesis clearly states ‘He made them in the image of himself, male and female he made them. The painting has a clearly masculine and feminine hand. This father, my God, is very much mother and father. The perfect accepting all loving parent.

Wheras the older son is screwing himself up by comparing himself, the father does not even dream of comparing. He loves both his sons completely and individually. He makes no comparisons and responds with spontaneous love to both of his boys. This ‘non-comparing’ love is associated with the character of a mother.

My son-mother relationship is poor so maybe that is why I have great difficulty, if I am honest, with the non-comparison love of God. In Nouwens own words, ‘I am convinced that many of my emotional problems would melt as snow in the sun if I could let the truth of God’s motherly non-comparing love permeate my heart’

Taking this in, and dwelling on Nouwens thoughts on God challenge me strongly on wrongly ideals. Often, in my life, I have wondered how can I know God more and how can I love God more. I am starting to see this for the self centred rubbish that it is. I need to be asking how can I let myself be known by God and hhow can I let myself be loved by God. Surely this is what I mean when I say ‘God, its not about me, its all about you.’

It all boils down to a simple statement. Can I accept that God would look out and run towards me just to spend some time with me? The sad truth is – ‘not always, no!’But the exciting news is I can say yes more often today than I could last year.

Yesterday Sarah went to Soul Sista in Watford with some of her young people and so I got a day to be with the children on my own – something I always dread at the start and wish I did more half way through the day.

We wanted to do something, but what with football training, dancing and a birthday party for Joe to go to we had very little time, so spent 90 minutes or so in Rochester. While there we got the Gills score and were amazed to see our first way victory since August – fantastic!

The children decided they wanted to look around the second hand bookshops and antique shops of Rochester to find any ‘bargains’. We had a very amusing hour and a half looking at things for sale and guessing what there use would be. Beth wanted to buy a 5 foot figure of Jesus which had been reclaimed from a church. Her face was a great picture when I told her it cost £2500!

In the end they all settled on buying children’s books. This was a good reminder that children do not always want the latest, newest, most advanced object or toy. In fact, old things, used by others, with a history intrigue and attract them too.

Of course – today is Mothers Day in England where we all make our mums feel special. The children will not argue today, nor will they do anything wrong. They will do all the cooking and ironing and washing up after they have cleaned the house. Yeah right!