Tight situations mean different things to different people. For the businessman, it’s when all the bills are due (plus taxes) and your total cash plus lines of credit only match up to a fifth of it all. Oh, and they are due today! For the parent with a sick child it could be the operation that has to be done really really soon and the specialist needed can’t be found for another month. For others, it’s looking down the barrel of a gun as a thug stuffs you into the trunk of your own car.

Have you ever been in a tight situation?

Have you ever noticed how frustrated you get when telling your story about the tight situation you are in? The frustration usually comes from the feeling that people just don’t get it. This bank manager just doesn’t get how badly you need the overdraft and how capable you are of settling it in a week. Your friends don’t seem to get how dire the situation with your child really is. You’re in a tight situation and you’re in no company.

Now have you ever been in a tight situation?

Two basic options present themselves in the midst of a tight situation.  Fight or flight. Same two options that faced our hunter-gatherer forefathers when faced by a lion in the wild. I can stay and deal with the situation no matter how it turns out, or I can run, changing my number and moving house in the process so my creditors won’t know where to find me. Stories abound in Kenyan hospitals of terminally ill children whose parents ran. The situation was too tight for them. They felt they can’t fight. They chose flight.

If there ever was a tight situation, King Jehoshaphat’s was definitely it. He chose to fight. The odds were stacked up against him but he disregarded the statistics and the mountain of evidence and obeyed his God.

Are you in a tight situation? What do you really believe deep down? Is there hope? Is there honor in staying the course, fighting the fight? So, will you run or stay on and fight?

Small miracles, big miracles, amazing miracles, mundane miracles.  How do we size a miracle? If I was to ask God to open doors for me so that my business would grow exponentially in two weeks, would that be a big miracle or a small one?

What is a miracle anyway? We use the word to describe an event that we could not possibly have influenced, brought to pass on our own and that could not be replicated (if we tried).  A small miracle therefore is a more ordinary event that we couldn’t have brought about, didn’t think could come about but which did come about anyway.  A big miracle would be an extraordinary event that fits the same bill.

If we could not replicate, bring about, design or influence a miracle should the ’size’ matter?  Because if it does, then that would mean I should have degrees of gratitude (which I have anyway) for miracles.  If I got healed from a persistent headache and someone else got healed of a malignant tumor should we be equally grateful for our miracles?

I find myself recently re-evaluating my attitude towards God and His provision in my life because I have become very aware of the many things I take for granted.  Just because one miracle seemed commonplace and another not so common, I choose to react differently, with different levels of gratitude.  The truth is, if He didn’t come through with that little cash miraculously I couldn’t possibly have found a way to put food on the table that day.  If he hadn’t come through and healed her miraculously…..

I choose to be excited about the smallest things today.  It’s the least I expect from me.

The Harvest School of Prayer is now running at the Kileleshwa Covenant Community Church on Saturday morning from 8am for the next 9 weeks.  It promises to be an awesome experience for all of us who signed up but I am convinced the effect of the journey will be felt by the entire church too.

The Bible does say that the church is a ‘house of prayer‘ so it should be disturbing that prayer meetings are usually the least attended.

I would love to hear about exceptions in your area.

There are so many things I tend to take for granted.  Learning to have a thankful heart about the most mundane things in life is turning out to be an adventure.

It never occurred to me that Uhuru park is a beautiful place.  It has always been filed away in mind under ‘Crusade venue’ and ‘Political rally venue’ and ‘TEAR GAS – DO NOT APPROACH’.

Here’s a glimpse of what I have begun to see.

Uhuru Park, A hidden treasure.

It rained really hard today.  Most of the afternoon.  There was bad traffic in many places and I was wearing my light colored khaki pants that scream ‘Splash me with dirty drain water!’  It wasn’t hard to understand why I felt so low.  No money, problems with vendors and the real possibility that I wasn’t going to keep a promise I made to the teens in my class this Sunday.  And rain.  And my car got its rear bashed in by a matatu the previous morning so I have to go to the Police station twice (at least) today.  And my son is home from school due to billing irregularities on his fees (I didn’t pay that’s what).  And the party that might not happen on Sunday because I failed to plan in time.  And we got lousy house help this week (she is unbelievable).  And I have a cold.

I feel that my day was lousy and that nothing went right.  I believe it could have gone a whole lot better than it did.  But it doesn’t change the fact that God is still enthroned on high.  Even when things aren’t going my way and when I am having the living daylights kicked out of me by life, He still loves me, died for me and watches my back.  Nothing has really changed.

If God never sorts out a single mess I dig myself into, if He never heals a single disease, if He never intervenes in a single situation till the day I die, I will still worship Him.

All that and I still made new business today!  And still felt I had a lousy day.

The concept of total surrender to God is not foreign to me. There are even books about it.  The practice is another thing.  I am constantly struggling with surrender.  Ceding complete control to Jesus would be exciting and radical for me, despite the fact that I live a more surrendered life today than ever.  Radical because there exist those scenarios where a little embellishment (translated lie) would do no apparent harm and save face.  I would have to say to people, ‘I am sorry, forgive me.  I did not do what you asked because I forgot the moment I left the room.’

Easy to say to your friend.  Easy to say to your boss?

I sense following Jesus radically would be a true adventure.  I have caught glimpses of this in some areas of my life and a life completely devoted to following Christ would surely be nothing less.  It would certainly be expensive for me as an individual.  My peers may label me and probably shun me from their networks (networks which are invaluable in business).

It is true.  God is not so concerned about my reputation as He is concerned about my character. If my desire is to be real deal I have to be willing to surrender my reputation and gain great character instead.

She’s holding a syringe with what appears to be an unusually long needle attached to it.  She is approaching me the whole time saying, ‘This won’t hurt a bit, its for your own good’.

I could never see how.  I got the jab but I made sure in my own juvenile way that they knew I didn’t like it one bit.  Nearly thirty years later and I still react the same way.   To God.  I had always imagined that if God means something to be good for me then I will obviously enjoy it.  Once I found out it isn’t always so, I struggled to understand His reasoning and consequently His motives.

Lately, a casual observer would probably be baffled by my choices and non-chalant demeanor in the face of the mountains I am facing.  I am sure they would spot somewhere a determination to believe in and totally trust in God’s ability to get me out of a fix.

I keep Him busy.

‘I have made you too small in my eyes, oh Lord, forgive me.
And I have believed in a lie, that you were unable to save me…’

The first lines of a song that speaks to my heart everytime I hear it.

I got a call today from someone I own money.  I gave them a cheque which should have been banked today but they were gracious enough to heed my request and not bank it before consulting.  A good thing too because there is no money in that account today.  I needed to make good on that cheque so it felt really bad not being able to, the circumstances notwithstanding.  I felt alone and helpless.

If I really believed God can do anything for me and that He is in control I probably would have handled that differently.  As it is, I still feel down.

Doesn’t change the fact that He is in control though.

I’d probably have walked with my head held a little higher rather than with my eyes to the ground and a look of utter dejection.

Lord, be made big in my eyes.  Oh that I may see you more than I see my successes or my failures.

“Teacher, what good thing must I do to get eternal life?” The young man who approached Jesus with this question has always made sense to me. Why can’t I be a Christian and still have my own way? Or do I mean, why can’t I be a Christian and follow…me?

I have always been afraid that following God would mean losing the things that are important to me. Even after making the decision to follow Him I still find myself struggling with that question where the details of life are concerned. ‘God, can’t I make it up to you by DOING something instead?’ Maybe I also see God sometimes as the Mean Teacher, just waiting to confiscate my ‘goodies’ and toss them in His cupboard.

I do so need to spend less time following me.

My view of God has for many years been one of this ‘person’ seated up high, out of reach and touch, and so big that He cannot be seen. In my minds eye all I can see are His legs and torso as the rest of His body disappears into the clouds on high. In thinking today about what faulty view of God I have had, I realize this is one view that is still very strong in my psyche today. God is big, awesome, all-powerful and all-knowing. He is also up there out of reach and out of touch. That maybe why I feel tempted to explain to him what happened during my day in detail, or summarize a conversation I have just heard with someone over which prayer is required. I know He is right here, right now all the time but KNOWING hasn’t made much of a difference.

This view has made it more difficult for me to seek God in my times of difficulty, probably because I figure that by the time I expend all the energy needed to get to Him I could have sorted my self out some other way. I suppose Abram and Sarai thought so too. This is one area I need to move from information to transformation.