His Love Frees

Write therefore the things that you have seen, those that are and those that are to take place after this. (Revelation 1:19)

I moved house recently and I was sitting in our new lounge the other day and simply thanking God for what he has done in my life. When I look back, it’s just amazing! I think about how the Lord brought my lovely wife into my life and then our lively children, and how they are growing so well (meaning our children of course, my wife is already grown!). I thanked him for providing our new home too and all the household items with it, such as a fridge, cooker, table, beds, even warm clothes, food and drink. 

It’s easy to get distracted in an anxious world but as Christians, we are called to be thankful and to remember God’s love. I was reading recently a devotional by Welsh Christian Minister, the late Selwyn Hughes, whom I consider a hero of the faith. He was saying the secret of self control is Christ in us, not the other way around. I met him in person once, at the Worthing Tabernacle in West Sussex, England, about 20 years ago and asked him to pray for me. He laid his hands on me and prayed silently, his mouth moving and I have no idea what he prayed but I felt blessed. Hughes’ life was a testimony of thankfulness to God’s love, despite the various personal challenges he went through, with the deaths of his wife and sons, and his own cancer battle.  

Jesus says we are simply to bring ourselves to him again and again (“Come to me….”) and he also said, “Love the LORD your God with all your heart, and with all your soul and with all your mind.” This is the first command of every day and throughout all days, relying on his gift of self control to be empowered to do that, as Hughes wrote. And thankfulness is at the heart of those times with the Holy Spirit.  

Thanking Him for what he has done in our lives brings freedom because it recognises the reality of what he did for us two thousand years ago and what he is doing in our lives now; freeing us to enjoy him for himself, as a proper human father spending time with his own children. And that is what our Creator is, something of an unseen mystery but also our dearest dad who paid our debts and heals us. 

I can recall many things to be thankful for in my own life and here are some examples, which I know I’ve mentioned in various devotionals on this blog and also on Crosswalk. A year ago, Jesus rescued me from a life threatening situation when I suffered a brain stroke and went unconscious for 36 hours. The nurse told my wife to get the family together to say goodbye to me. I ended up in a high dependency brain injuries hospital unit for two weeks – but God rescued me from that. 

The doctors also thought I had a different type of stroke while in that hospital and wanted me to start blood thinning medication, which in itself carries a risk of a second brain bleed. But the night before I was to start that medicine, the stroke doctor contacted me to say all the experts had met and decided it wasn’t another stroke but a reaction to a test dye they had seen in a scan. So God rescued me from that. I remember that as a miracle. 

Yet there remained an issue with a neck artery, showing signs of narrowing, which they detected incidentally in hospital. That got me very concerned because it carried tremendous risks for the future. However, last summer I went to a Christian camping festival in Cornwall (South West of England) and received prayer in a prayer tent. Then I had another scan at hospital and, to my surprise (and that’s an understatement), I received a letter from the stroke doctor saying there was no issue detected and – direct quote – “no further action is needed.” God rescued me from it too. It’s something to always remember. It’s just amazing!

I have battled type one diabetes for 45 years now and given myself approx 60,000 – 70,000 injections by my own calculation and the Lord has helped me every single day with it. All those times when I’ve needed courage to push the needle through the skin, again, he has guided me. Those times too when I am alone at night, feeling so weak and stumbling in the darkness of a kitchen, trying to find sugar, biscuits, anything that will help push my sugar levels up – I know he’s there. Those times as well when my sugar level is too high and I am walking the streets by myself, swigging water with a raging thirst, trying to get it down – I know he has his hand upon me. 

I remember the time he woke my mum up in the night, when I was a little boy, telling her, “Chrissy’s hypo.” She found me in a diabetic coma in my bed, and managed to revive me, getting me to sip a glucose drink. 

I remember the time he told an old lady from my church to go to a shop at night. I was in my late twenties, and I had been packing aid for victims of the 2003 Tsunami, and being unemployed, had no money to deal with my low blood sugar level. The lady obeyed the voice of God despite never usually venturing out at night, found me in the shop, and drove me home. 

I remember losing my eyesight in my right eye from diabetic retinopathy: completely blind. How God helped me through the gruelling hospital surgery to get the sight restored. And how He has gently touched my left eye too, when there has been bleeding inside, clearing the ugly red away over so many weeks, so that I can see again. 

He’s rescued me from death a number of times when I suffered an Addisonian Crisis, meaning a life threatening situation with Addison’s Disease, a rare disease I’ve had since my student days, whereby my adrenal glands don’t work. Once I was in a resuscitation unit with a doctor shouting at me, “Don’t close your eyes,” and I told the Lord, “I can’t breathe” and the quiet voice of God replied, “Breathe.” I did so, inhaling air and I survived. When I look back and see his hand, it’s amazing!

I remember sitting by a beach and the cloud of God’s presence fiercely raining down on me. I remember another time in a church hall, saying to the Lord: “Show you are real” and being knocked to the ground and a sense of fire spreading across the top of my body, deep in my throat and warming my arms for many hours afterwards.

I remember the multitude of little things, the many ways that God’s love has shown. The sense of his loving presence. I remember!

The Bible is really a collection of books of remembrances about people who have been blessed by God’s love. We need to record the ways he has helped us here and now, meaning not to replace the Bible per se but to support its noted truths and declare that there is indeed a God in heaven and he loves us. It’s just amazing! 

These are random thoughts but sometimes it’s important to stop, to remember and to be thankful.

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