Praying friends- thank you!

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A year ago this week I suffered a terrible headache which was to set the ball rolling towards seizure, brain-tumour diagnosis and subsequent treatment plan.

It would be fair to say it hasn’t been an easy year for myself or my loved ones, but there are many blessings we’ve been privileged to enjoy. 'His providences proclaim Him to be a God who hears prayer' said John Flavel, we’ll we’ve seen a lot of prayer and been amazed at God’s providential care over the last 12 months. We’ve seen progress and known peace that we wouldn’t have expected on the day of diagnosis and its beyond doubt that this is in no small part a fruit of so many people's labour in prayer on our behalf.

Almost without exception if I meet another Christian for the first time, within a few minutes I’ll hear the phrase ‘Oh you’re that guy we’ve been praying for!’ My photograph has been on staffroom and study walls to remind people to pray. I’ve been on countless email lists, tweets, prayer-chains and Facebook status updates. I’ve been prayed for in conferences I’ve never attended and churches I’ve never known.

Tomorrow many people, both from my own church family and others will be having a day of prayer and fasting to ask for continued healing, guidance and peace.

It’s truly humbling to be so well prayed for, we have seen the power of those prayers, and are deeply thankful for them.

So to those who have been praying -and will be praying- a huge thank you.

Ezra 8:21,23

Then I proclaimed a fast there at the river of Ahava, that we might humble ourselves before our God to seek from Him a safe journey for us, our little ones, and all our possessions… So we fasted and implored our God for this, and he listened to our entreaty.

James 5:16

Therefore confess your sins to each other and pray for each other so that you may be healed. The prayer of a righteous person is powerful and effective.

This is the God for me

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'I could never myself believe in God, if it were not for the cross. The only God I believe in is the One Nietzsche ridiculed as "God on the cross." In the real world of pain, how could one worship a God who was immune to it? 


I have entered many Buddhist temples in different Asian countries and stood respectfully before the statue of the Buddha, his legs crossed, arms folded, eyes closed, the ghost of a smile playing round his mouth, a remote look on his face, detached from the agonies of the world. But each time after a while I have had to turn away. And in imagination I have turned instead to that lonely, twisted, tortured figure on the cross, nails through hands and feet, back lacerated, limbs wrenched, brow bleeding from thorn-pricks, mouth dry and intolerably thirsty, plunged in God-forsaken darkness. That is the God for me! 


He laid aside his immunity to pain. He entered our world of flesh and blood, tears and death. He suffered for us. Our sufferings become more manageable in the light of his.'


John Stott
The Cross of Christ

MRI Update 6 March 2012

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I'm a little tired for typing, so here's a wee video update. Thanks so much for your emails, texts, thoughts and prayers.

Should have said in the video that we still believe in miracles- could be protection from effects of radiotherapy or not needing it at all! 

Also, more importantly, we are resting in the fact that our God is completely in control.

I know that the LORD is great,

    that our Lord is greater than all gods.

The LORD does whatever pleases him,

    in the heavens and on the earth,

    in the seas and all their depths.

Psalm 135:6-7