There is nothing in life for free!

This afternoon I am sat in one of my favourite places, a little quay a  few minutes walk from my parents house. (See the picture) I love it down here, its one of the few places I can relax; I love to just come down here and chill, read, pray and today write my blog!

Im not as young as I used to be, and I thought it was about time I got my eyes tested, as I have not had an eye test since before I joined the Navy 14 years ago. So today I went down into town to book a test. 

On the way back I thought to myself I might treat myself to a coffee from my favourite coffee shop. I am trying to save money, so I have  been resisting my daily trip to the coffee shop at work; but as I have been good all week I decided I could afford one cup! 

So I ordered my coffee and the girl behind the counter asked if I would like it for free? Being quite tired and slow today I said "Well yeah, but how on earth can I have it for free?" The look on her face was priceless as she replied "Well you have enough  points on your loyalty card for a free coffee." Needless to say I jumped at the chance of a free brew.

I left the shop well happy, not only did I have my coffee I didn't have to pay for it! But as I walked up the hill to my car I started to think. Really that coffee was not free. I get 1p on that card for each $1 (That should be a pound sign! But it turns out my I pad keyboard only has a dollar symbol!) So to get a two pound cup of coffee free, I had had to spend............Well too much money!

The saying "You don't get anything for free in this life came to mind" And I started to try and think of things in life I had got for free. In reality there is very little in life you can get for free which comes without a catch. Often things advertised as free have some for of requirement or payment which will be required to get your goods. Some times to get things for free you need to meet a certain criteria. I get my eye test for free because the forces pay. But if i was not in the Armed Forces I would not meet that criteria and I would have to pay.

But there is one thing in life which is guaranteed free. Gods forgiveness. Although we are naturally sinful beings and many of us (In reality all of us if we admit it) have areas of our lives where sin is present. Yet Gods forgiveness for that is free. There is no catch! you don't need to meet any criteria.

Don't get me wrong, your forgiveness and mine did have a cost, but it has already been paid on the cross by Jesus. 

As The Bible tells us In Matthew:

This is my blood of the covenant, which is poured out for many for the forgiveness of sins. (Matthew 26:28 NIV)

If you want God's forgiveness all you have to do is pray and ask for it! Because it has already been paid for! Now that really is something amazing for free!

The Sailing Salvationist

Going Underground!

Hello again, it seems I never write this blog when I am sat at home! I am writing it today on the train on the way back home after a very busy Christmas and NewYear.

I spent Christmas up near Chester, where I was part of a team serving Christmas lunches on Christmas Day. This was really rewarding, although it was also really sad for a few reasons.

We served lunches to a wide range of people, from the old to young families and well off people who just did not want to be alone to homeless people.

There were two main things that saddened me when doing this. Firstly was an old man I had met before at food bank. We sat down and chatted for ages, but what was really sad was the fact he was so lonely.  All he wanted was to be around people. He also has memory problems which means he kept on repeating himself. I told him all about the Corps CAMEO (Come And Meet Each Other) group and he was keen to attend, but I am sure he will not remember and I'm really annoyed at myself now that I didn't have the sense at the time to write details on a piece of paper for him as a reminder.

Secondly we had a fair few homeless people come in for lunch. Which was great, but what saddened me was the fact three of them came in and registered for their free lunch. But then after about an hour got up and left. They went outside and took a few swigs from a dubious looking coke bottle and then were not seen again. It really saddened me that some people are so strongly addicted to drink or drugs that they would rather go out and spend a day in the cold and wet to get their fix rather than have a nice free meal in the warm and dry. 

Then I went to Kent with my Fiancee for New Year. I was planning on writing a post about New Years and fresh starts, but I think thats done a fair bit! All I will say is that the New Year is a great time to revive or renew Bible study or prayer. If you have a tablet or smart phone there is an app called you version Bible app. Its free and has loads of great reading plans, from ones that last a week to ones which help you read the whole Bible in a year. So why not check it out.

When we were in Kent we popped up to see friends in London. Now I am a Country boy, and I don't really like Cities that much; I'm not a fan of large groups of people; I am also not a fan of the Tube. I say I am not a fan of the Tube, I have always totally refused to ever get on it! There is no way on earth I ever wanted to get into a metal tube in a concrete tube deep under the ground! Do you get a sense of how strong my claustrophobia is here? 

But anyway back to the story in hand. We were in London and getting the overground trains from our friends house to the South bank to walk along the river. But it turned out a journey on the normal trains would not be as easy as we thought. It would be far more simple to go on the Underground. If you were there at the time you would have seen me in a moment of panic doing my best Mr T impression "I ain't getting on no tube train fool!" 

Then it dawned on me, I am sure God has plans for me this year which involve London, so there way no getting away from the fact; I needed to bite the bullet and get on the Tube. 

Which I did, not because I wanted too, but because I felt God wanted me to. I cant say it was the most enjoyable experience ever. But I survived and it was not as bad as I thought, (Although my fiancée might say the look on my face said something different!) So now I know I don't really have anything to worry about.

But what am I going on about? I am sure no one reads this blog to listen to me go on about how much I hate being enclosed! I would say the whole point of this post is to say if you feel God telling you to do something then do it! Don't hold back or make excuses. If God calls you to do something, he will give you the strength to do it. No matter how big or small it might seem to others.

As the writer of Psalms says:

In God, whose word I praise— in God I trust and am not afraid. 

(Psalm 56:4 NIV)

So trust in God, you have nothing to fear! If he is calling you then he will give you the strength you need to do his will. 

Christmas deployed

Hello and Happy Christmas! Its been a very busy run up to Christmas and I don't expect things to slow down until after it has finished!

I am writing this post a day earlier than usual as I am off on my Christmas holiday to be with my Girlfriend tomorrow. 

I thought I would share a little Christmas story with you. In my 14 years in the Navy I have been away from home for Christmas twice. Last year I spent Christmas at sea bobbing about in the Indian Ocean.

The other Christmas I spent deployed was a totally different story. I got loaned to the Army for a year and went out to Iraq doing an operational tour for seven and a half months. Part of this tour was over Christmas.

I worked for the Royal Artillery and my job was to operate a massive gun which was used to shoot down rockets and mortars which were fired into our camp. 

I used to work a shift pattern of 12 hours on and 12 hours off the gun. Christmas Day found me on a night shift and I finished my shift at 8am, went back to my tent, crawled into my sleeping bag and went to sleep. 

About an hour later I got a shake "Steve, get up, you need to come and get your christmas present." I cannot repeat my reply on this blog! But long story short I ended up getting up after only a tiny bit of sleep.

So I fell into squad with the rest of the battery outside our tents as we paraded. Our Commanding Officer came out and gave us a 25 minute speech and then we had to line up in rank order to collect our Christmas box. Being a sailor in an Army regiment I was right at the back. So after queuing for ages I finally got my Christmas box and I returned to my tent and got straight back into my bed. (I say bed, but for the whole tour my bed actually consisted of a few wooden pallets under a sheet of steel for protection.)

I quickly drifted off to sleep, but then was woken up less than 30 minutes later. "Steve. get up, you need to go  get your Christmas Dinner." Again I cant tell you my reply! Needless to say, no matter how much I said I just wanted sleep and didn't want to go to dinner, I found myself fell back in with the battery for the second time in the day.

We were marched down to a massive car park where we had a church service. I was not a Christian back then, and I certainly did not appreciate being made to stand in the mid day heat for an hour having a church service  when I should have been asleep!

With that over we were marched to the dining tent where we all had to line up for our Christmas dinner. Only now it was just not my battery waiting it was half the camp! 

Finally I got my Christmas dinner  and took it to a table and sat down with my mates, I was just tucking into my first spud when we heard the unmistakable Crump! Crump! Crump! Noise that mortars make when they explode close by.

So we all dived onto the floor, which is what you do when there are mortars landing close by. Food  went every where! Great there goes my Christmas dinner! 

We all lay there on the floor with mortars going off every few minutes at various distances away from us for about an hour. By the time the all clear was sounded my dinner was ruined and so went straight into the bin.

I walked back to my tent totally fed up. Not only had I spent an hour laid on the floor with someone trying to drop an explosive shell on my head, I had been made to spend my time off the gun awake rather than being asleep. I get very grumpy when I am tired and I really was not very happy.

I got back to my tent but could not  get to sleep, I shared the tent with 40 other people, and no matter how tired I was everyone else was making the most of Christmas and being noisy. 

So now after only having had a tiny bit of sleep in 24 hours, I walked back up to my gun for another 12 hour shift.

When I was up at the gun I climbed up onto the 8ft sandbag wall which protected it to sit and watch the sun go down. It had been a bad day and the worst, most depressing Christmas I had ever had! I was not very happy at all.

As I was sat there watching the sun going down, turning the sky an amazing red colour I could picture Mary and Joseph slowly making their way to Bethlehem. I know Iraq is not the same as Israel, but it was close enough. I could picture it in my head. I could see the wise men on route to see the baby Jesus. I could see the shepherds sat on the hill overlooking Bethlehem and I could almost imagine the sound of the angels singing.

I sat there for ages just soaking up being in that landscape and reliving in my mind the Christmas story I had learned as a child. As I have said before I was not a Christian then. But that experience changed my life and has brought me closer to the Christmas story every year since. 

I felt a lot better after that, and that short period of time turned what had been the worst Christmas Day ever into one of the best ones ever. 

So this Christmas Day try to take the time, even if just ten minutes to forget about what society tells us Christmas is all about. Spend just a few minutes thinking about the real meaning of Christmas and the real Christmas story, the fact that over 2000 years ago a child was born who would change the entire world. A baby who people traveled vast distances to see. 

Why not have a think, how far today are you willing to go for Jesus?

 

Future Army

Hello everyone, this is probably one of the strangest places I have written a blog post, sat in my car at work in the pouring rain waiting to go into the dentist! 

This week there has been lots and lots of talk on Facebook about uniforms and what the real Salvation Army is and what real Soldiers are like. I have also been reading "Founding Vision For A Future Army" By Alan Burns.

I really do think the Army needs to change, these changes do not mean that the people making them or Corps where change is taking place are any less "Army" than those Soldiers or Corps which remain more traditional. If anything I would say that in those areas Salvationists and Corps are being more in line with what early Salvationist did, they were not afraid to adapt and change and do what ever was necessary to save souls.

In the First World War Generals thought they could fight a war in the same way as they did 50 years earlier, with cavalry charges and set infantry attacks. But with the advances in technology they found out these tactics no longer worked and the Western Front  ended up in the blood bath where so many people died. 

I feel this is the position the Salvation Army is in today. We need to adapt and change our tactics to suit these modern times, whilst still trying to maintain the original aim and spirit of the Army. We seem in so many ways to be stuck behind the times. In areas where that works then that is fine; but in areas where these tactics  no longer work we need to change, or quite simply the Army will continue its decline until we die.

I must also add that as far as I am concerned, although I do like our uniform and I enjoy playing in the band I feel these two things do not make the Army. They are both weapons to be used in spiritual warfare. But like all weapons they need to be deployed where they are suited best and where they  are effective. For example In many areas where a traditional open air style meeting would not be effective why can't we try a more busking style of ministry? 

I hope people understand what I mean by that, I am not saying scrap bands and uniform, what I am saying is that they are not the only options to ministry and we need to adapt and use all the weapons available in our armoury for warfare; be that Bands, guitars, uniforms or army branded clothing. 

I really do feel we need to come together as one as an Army and try to understand this. There is so much talk of if people or Corps are traditional or not and this almost always usually judged upon their rules on uniform and style of worship. I really do feel this is wrong.  

The tradition of the Salvation Army is the will and passion of its Soldiers to go out and save souls by any means necessary. Thats what a traditional corps looks like, it should be a place  where outward things are not as important as the Corps mission of saving souls. This will differer from Corps to Corps and each one will look  vastly different. However this does not mean any of them will be any less "Army" than the next. Provided their aim fits the founders aim. To go out and spread the Gospel and save souls.

The Sailing Salvationist 

Is your life hectic?

Hello everyone, I am really sorry I did not write a post last week, as you know I was on holiday. I planned to write a post on the train on the way home, however it seems the train company had other ideas. I ended up standing half way across the country even though I had a seat booked. By the the time I finally managed to get my seat I was shatterd.

Then for the rest of this week I kept on planning to write a post, but things just kept on coming up. I also guess that is the whole point of this post really. Its all about life being hectic.

People who reguarly read this blog will probably have noticed that the tone of these posts have changed a lot between when I was on the ship and now I am at home. When I was on the ship my posts were often more Biblical and theological. Where as since I have been back my posts have been more social work based. 

There is a reason for this, when I am on the ship I have lots of time to sit around and think and read and just be a more thinking person really. But when I am at home it is totally different. Most of the time I do not know if I am coming or going. I always seem to be rushing here or there doing this and that. 

Dont get me wrong when I am at home a lot of my time is spent doing Army work,in fact I spend more time doing Army work than Navy work (Dont tell my boss!). But this can mean The partys of my life which are so important to me when I am at sea such as prayer and Bible study can get left behind.

Thats reaslly not good. Life can be hectic and we can spend our time running and rushing everywhere, often doing work for the Church, but if that means we forget why we are doing it then it can be harmful to our spiritual lives.

This week I am going to really try to take a little bit of time each day to try and get as disiplined as I was about reading my Bible when I was at sea. If you have let things go a bit slack recently and you know you have not been spending as much time as you probably should have reading the Bible then why not join me.

The Sailing Salvationist.

P.S. My fitness training has gone out the window as well, but I can wait until the new year to get back on track with that!  

Others

Hello, well this is a first, I am actually writing this blog post on my I Pad sat on a train on the way to my Girlfriends for a weeks holiday. It seemed like a perfect opportunity to use the bluetooth keyboard I bought months and months ago, but have yet to really use! So if this blog comes out in a funny format you now know why!

This week I have been reading a book called "The Common Peoples Gospel" By a Salvationist man called Gunpei Yamamuro. He was a Salvation Army Officer who wanted to spread the gospel to his native Japanese people. So who wrote this book which aims to introduce people to the Gospel. Its a very good book and has sold millions of copies since it was released in 1899. 

Its still a great book over 100 years later and is well worth a read. One thing I read in it this week has really stuck in my mind and made me think. So here is a quote from the book:

"If we stop dealing with other people's sins and start examining ourselves we will know how sinful we really are. The purest person is the one who fully and sorrowfully acknowledges the sin in his heart"

 Now I find that quite hard to take in, not because its wrong, I think it is 100% true. Its because it means quite often the way I act and my outlook on life is often totally wrong!

This quote is also extremely Biblical, as we read in Matthew 7:3-5 that Jesus said;

And why beholdest thou the mote that is in thy brother's eye, but considerest not the beam that is in thine own eye? Or how wilt thou say to thy brother, Let me pull out the mote out of thine eye; and, behold, a beam is in thine own eye? Thou hypocrite, first cast out the beam out of thine own eye; and then shalt thou see clearly to cast out the mote out of thy brother's eye. 

I had to go for the King James Version there as it is the only version I have available offline. But the verse basically says how can you comment on the sin of others, when your vision is blurred by your own sin! 

Now again I find that really hard teaching. Its so much easier to comment on others and anything we may perceive as sin in their lives or actions. However perhaps we should instead be looking at the sin in our lives.

Imagine how much of a difference we could make if we concentrated more on banishing sin from our own lives rather than trying to comment and have digs at others about the sin in their life.

I think that is something we should all aim to do, and certainly something I aim to try and do this week.

The Sailing Salvationist 

Alone?

Hello again. This morning I stood at the side of a grave in my Naval uniform as an 89 year old ex sailor was buried. I only found out about this man because my Corps Officer messaged me last night and asked if I would be able to attend.

At this mans funeral there were very few people; in fact there was only my Corps Officers leading the service, a handful of carers who had looked after him and myself. No friends, No family.

The same kind of thing happened a few days a go to a man up country. After an internet appeal lots and lots of people turned up for his funeral: it even made the national news. Now I think its great that so many people turned up to his funeral to pay their respects to a veteran, however what did it actually achieve?

When I was at the funeral today I just could not help feeling how sad it was that he had no friends and family there. But worse than that I could not stand the thought that this poor man had no friends and family to visit him when he was alive. However it also made me wonder how many people there were in my local area who are shut in and lonely.

Imagine if all of the people who attended the mans funeral on the news chose to spend that hour visiting someone who was shut in their house and alone. Surely that would have been a more productive way to spend that hour than at the funeral of someone who has already died.

It made me wonder what does the Bible say about loneliness and what does it call us to do?

Well firstly right at the start of the Bible we are told that man is not meant to live alone, we are called to live with others in community. God did not make us to be on our own:

Genesis 2:18 NIV

The LORD God said, "It is not good for the man to be alone. I will make a helper suitable for him."

But the Bible also tells us who we should care for:

1 Timothy 5:8 ESV         

But if anyone does not provide for his relatives, and especially for members of his household, he has denied the faith and is worse than an unbeliever.

It is quite clear we should care for those related to us. However there are many of us who live far from their family, or those who have no lonely relatives alive. But that's not an excuse, because the Bible further defines who our relatives are:

1 Timothy 5:1-2 ESV  
       
Do not rebuke an older man but encourage him as you would a father, younger men as brothers, older women as mothers, younger women as sisters, in all purity.

So the Bible tells us that we should treat all people as if they were our family. Surely then, this means we have a responsibility to care for those around us who are alone.

So perhaps this week, everyone who reads this blog could take the time out of their busy lives, even just 30 minutes, to go and visit someone. It could be a family member, a neighbour, someone who used to go to church but now is not well enough to get there, the list of possibilities is endless as there are lonely people everywhere.

30 minutes is not long really, but it could break the boredom and loneliness suffered by someone and might just make some ones week.

The Sailing Salvationist