Notes from an Anglo-American Man

I got on a bus just now after a hard days filming when loads of things went wrong and sat down. Immediatly my nose was assaulted with the foul odour of too much alcohol. I looked over and there was a man who had obviously not only had too much today but looked and smelt like he could have been that way for a while. Instead of looking away in revultion as would have been so easy to do I started praying for the man. God told me that could have been you.

I’ve had a full life, that’s the easy way of saying it, and I know that if i had not had a preexsisting relationship with God I would be dead now, after having spent weeks or months as that man was.

I want to challenge each and everyone right now, think about where you could have been had it not been for God had His exsistence never been revealed to you, had you never heard of Him. Now when ytou’ve done that I want you to ask yourself the question that I find myself asking now.

What can I do to stop other people from ending up like I could have and others have?

ok so the title of this post is slightly misleading.

what i mean is, only when you are in love can you feel the heartache and the pain more then anything else. I’ve been workign over the last few weeks on an article about love, and to be perfectly honest. I’m not sure if i’m up to the task.

My understanding of love (while greater then most people) is still very small compared to what love is. I can merely stipulate things from my experiences and what I have learned in my life.

Here is a short extract from what I’m working on, I’m not sure if i will ever finish it, but these are the biggest parts that I’ve come up with so far.

”

Love is a beautiful terrible thing, it is capable of bringing us the highest highs and in the same way to drag us to the most painful moments of our lives.

…

The beauty that love can bring is firmly tempered by the heartache that it can bring.

But does that make love not worth the trouble, the pain? No I say and no again, life without love is meaningless”

those two things are the biggest factors of love that i have experienced.

but there are many kinds of love

there is the love of a brother, a friend

the love of a parent to a child, or the love within a family.

there is the intimate love between two people who reach out to each other and become one person, one flesh.

the love for someone you haven’t met, but whom you empathize with.

so many more kinds of love i could go on for pages.

But we in english just give it one word, when one word is not nearly enough. we need a thousand ways of expressing how we feel, and even then it would not be adequate.

My sister came up to me the other day and gave me a cuddle (at 5 this is a big thing as they tend to be getting out of the cuddling phase) and I gave her one and told her that i loved her. she said but not as a wife you see at five she ahs already grasped that there is a difference between the different meanings of the word love.

do you understand? are you willing to love someone? everyone?

God loved us so much that he gave his only son, his heir, to die on the cross, in agony hung. He did this because he loves us, he wants to have a relationship with us. and the best thing about this is this, when you accept Christ as your lord and saviour speaking with your mouth and believing in your heart that Jesus died for you on the cross, as the son of God, a sinless sacrifice for you and me and everyone, not only do you gain a father in heaven, but a family on earth.

So if you are a Christian remember your brothers and sisters in Christ, remember that they are a part of your family, even if they don’t go to the same church or even same denomination. we are all connected to God, and to each other, through Christ.

And if you are not a Christian, but you want this relationship, please feel free to contact me either through this site, or through my email address bengulick @imaginationstudio. org (no spaces). To learn more, and to have me point you in the right direction for your own personal growth. Nothing gives me greater joy then to see someone come into the fullness of life that god has for them

Peace and love to each and everyone of you out there.

Ben

Tuesday went well i think, most of the people ahve thanked me to talking about what i did, so that’s always good .

I wasn’t sure what i was actually going to say untill i said it, its weird. I knew what i was going to be talking about but no amount of thinking it over prepared me for what i would say, its just not the way i work.

that being said, I spent hours preparing for the talk reading the bible, praying and asking God what he wanted to say on the day.

I’ve been going through the pics on my phone and will be either posting them on here, or making a photo album on one of my other sites, and posting the link here (whichever takes the least amount of effort )

Peace and love

Ben

always wanted to write a thread with that title so thought i would indulge myself toady, you don’t mind do you? and if you do tough, its my blog :p

I love that saying the pursuit of happiness; its like we know that the pursuit of it and actually having it are two very different things. some peopel are happy with just the pursuit of it, but I for one am not.

It’s not just enough to pursue it, we must accept it, for it is a gift that is given to us by God. now i know some of you who read this don’t beleive in God, or beleive in a different God then I. but I personally beleive that happiness is a choice, either we accept it or we don’t. God wants us to be happy, in fact the Bible tells us that the joy of the Lord is our strength.

it got something right, have you noticed that how you feel effects how you are, how strong you are. if you are feeling crappy, rubbish your strength is sapped. but if we have Joy then we feel on top of the world like nothing can stop us. it can almost be a bit manic at times, when we feel invunerable.

as for love, well i know alot about love. many kinds of love. The love that a man(/woman) has for his brothers(/sisters) his friends. the Love that a man has from his parents, his family. The love a man has for his partner, each one different. A man can love many people in his life, but we sometimes get it wrong we mistake one love for another, and we get hurt, or someone does. But the good news is that the thing that heals a broken heart is love itself. though it may hurt though it may be painful, the only cure for a heart that is in pieces is to risk loving again. I speak from personal experience here, its so easy to guard our hearts in this cruel world that we lose something of who we are.

and as for life, well life what is it? does it have a purpose? I think that it is a gift and it has a purpose, each and everyone of us does, whether we are 3 of 93 there is a specific purpose for each of us. somethign that will make us happy, and in the long run well.

anyway i leave you today with love in my heat for each and eveyone of you reading this.

Ben

Now recently it came to my attention that what some Bibles have as the first verse of Romans 8 and what othrs have is considerably different, I will Quote the NKJV here and note what doesn’t appear in a surprising amount of Bibles.

Rom 8:1 There is therefore now no condemnation to those who are in Christ Jesus, who do not walk among the flesh, bu according to the spirit.

who do not walk among the flesh, bu according to the spirit. does not appear in some translations. Now this strkes me as a big difference, this sentence fragment can change the entire meaning of the sentence.

it either means

that there is no condemnation to those who are in Christ (Christians)

or it means

there is no condemnation to those who are in Christ who do not walk in the flesh but are guided by the Spirit

it is a huge difference. I have always been taught that there is no condemnation in Christ, but what about the second part of the sentence, if in fact it is supposed to be in there.

at the end of the day, i feel that we should err on the side of caution. we should not put condemnation on Christians who don’t walk in the light of the spirit (as the KJV puts it) but are backsliden or are asleep among the dead as Ephesians 5 says. for if we are not supposed to and we cause someone to stumble asa result we will be held account able for it.

God will work in the heart of those who allow him and I can attest to the fact that even a backslider can wake up and realise that he is not where God wants him to be.

So Victory Churches International (the church group that I attend) has called for a 40 day worldwide fast from the 2nd of Jan to the 10th of February. After seeking God on this, I have come to the following conclusion about what I am going to fast.

I will be fasting all pork products, all sweets, chocolates, biscuits, cakes, all carbonated drinks (this one will be hard) TV, Movies, computer games, and the internet for non-work stuff, this means that I will not be browsing any of the forums I normally do, I will not be checking my facebook. The only way to contact me is to phone me, or to email me, or to comment on this blog.

it seems extreme what I am fasting, and in many ways it is, but it is time for Christians to stop being wimps about it, its time (at least for me) to come to a place where we are willing to put everything away and focus on God completely if only for a short period of time. This will be a time of spiritual growth, of emotional growth, it will be a time when I will overcome things in my life that I am not happy about and that I know God is not happy about either.

If you want to know more about why I’m fasting or have any questions please either email me at wibblefactor 2000 @ gmail . com (without any spaces) or call me on my mobile (if you don’t have the number and want it email me and I’ll give it to you.)

Peace

Ben