On a journey...

I was thinking about walking down an alleyway of houses in Brazil. The ground is a dusty sand and the houses are small and made of concrete and the simplest of houses. As I walk along in the heat I see a flowerpot on one of the porches and a sleeping cat on the other. Everything is relaxed and everything is at peace. No-one is rushing and everyone has time. Time to rest. Time for each other. I went on to ponder what our houses will look like when Jesus comes back and establishes His Kingdom here on earth. Will we have simple houses like these houses? Because fullness of life and true joy isn’t usually found in the expensive mansions rich people live in. Life is found in the little granny’s house in the alleyway. The city may be filled with violence, but that little house brings light. That little house is so full of love that the lack is of lesser importance. Maybe we will live in houses like that. Simple homes that are rich in the things that really have value and that really matter.

Taking things into my own hands. Figuring out solutions and the possible based on my limited mental capacity. Basing hope on what the past communicated to me. Why is it so hard to give it all to God? Why is it so hard to truly surrender without a get-out clause, without a “plan b” if His plan doesn’t work? And why do I feel like I need to fend for myself when He says He’s my defender, and protect myself when His clear again and again that He will protect me? Doing it myself is such hard work. Striving is exhausting, yet how can I truly walk and not strive? How do I let go? What does letting go of everything and laying it in His hands look like, or even feel like? What do a heart and a soul truly at rest feel like? Maybe like Jesus asleep with His head on a cushion in the boat while the storm is raging? Maybe like Peter after Jesus had taken away the shame of denial and entrusted him with the ones He loved so much He died for them? I wonder if Peter struggled after that day? Did he ever

I’m sat here with my heart messed up. Nothing out of the ordinary has happened, but I was just sat here, in a rare moment of time before rushing off to the next thing, thinking about this week and talking to God about two guys I met at Hope City these last few weeks. My heart is moved with the compassion of Jesus for these men. One I talked with at the table while he was eating his dinner one Monday. Time was so short, but he shared that he’d just got out of prison having served a long sentence, and his hope and desire was to restore contact with his children. I didn’t ask what he’d done time for. I don’t really care, but I could tell that the time in prison hadn’t hardened him as it does to some people. His eyes were full of gentleness and maybe a quiet sadness. Sadness over years lost and moments with his children he would never experience. Yet a gentle determination that maybe, just maybe, there was still some hope of building some kind of relationship with them. The other one I enc