Graham Aitchison's Blog, page 2

The Jeremiah Calling

We live in an increasingly fake and non-genuine world these days. It is too easy to invoke our own sense of rights and blame other people for things than it is to take responsibility ourselves - and it is easy to reject truth when we hear it spoken but it doesn't fit with what we want or clashes with our loyalties to one another. So how does the truth come to a world that doesn't want to hear it?

My favorite Old Testament prophet is Jeremiah. Jeremiah was bold, courageous and spoke truths that other people didn't want to hear. He told the nation of Israel that they had turned against God and that God's judgment was coming upon them as a result - but Jeremiah's word clashed with the words of the other "prophets" at the time who were continually telling Israel how great they were and how pleased God was with them despite their unrepentant, sinful nature. Needless to say Jeremiah's words did not go down well. He was publicly shamed, imprisoned, labelled as a "traitor" and even thrown into a well and left to die. However, Jeremiah stood true to his word and refused to back down - and ultimately what he prophesied came to pass.

One of the most important things to note about Jeremiah are revealed in Jeremiah 1 vs 6 where he tells God that "he is not a good speaker and that he is too young". From this passage we can grasp the truth that Jeremiah does not believe in himself and does not believe he has the ability to speak the truth to a wayward nation. But God comforts him by telling him that "I have put My words in your mouth" (Jeremiah 1 vs 9) and God confirms that He is supposed to oppose the people and that they will "fight against him but will not overcome him, for I am with you and will rescue you" (Jeremiah 1 vs 19). This is the beginning of Jeremiah's boldness. He knows that despite his flaws, self doubts and weaknesses, God is with him and that he must do as God wishes and that God will empower him and carry him through despite any opposition.

I have seen a strong parallel with my own life over the last few years. After falling very ill back in 2011, part of the process of my recovery has been learning to speak the truth to other people - mainly into the lives of other Christians. This has been incredibly challenging for me especially because due to many factors in my background I have struggled to speak my mind - I have felt it was easier and better to just keep silent as that is how you keep the peace. This was how I learned to live my life. I can relate completely to Jeremiah when he says that he was not a good speaker - I was not either. In fact, talking to people - especially bringing a tough truth to someone - was something I dreaded.

In 2012 this journey of carrying the Jeremiah mantle over my life began. I began to receive words of knowledge that I knew had to be spoken to other Christians around me. These were tough words and it pained me to think about what would happen when I brought them. These were not words borne out of a desire to "get even" or to fulfill my own agendas, or satisfy my own loyalties. Jeremiah spoke of how the word of the Lord was "in my heart like a fire - a fire in my bones. I am weary of holding it in - indeed, I cannot." These words were exactly like this in my life - they would just burn and burn and eat away at me until I finally said something. Of course, very often these words were not received well but I knew that I had done the right thing. Often, the fallout from speaking these words was so minor compared to the relief I had of not having them burning inside of me like a furnace any longer. Eventually I realized that I had been called to preach the truth as Jeremiah had - not from stadiums to mass audiences, but quietly to people that God had brought into my life for various reasons.

I began to realize why God picked me for this assignment. God takes the weakest people imaginable and uses them to bemuse the powerful and the wise - as a testament to His own power. But He also does it to help heal the weak and broken people as I was. My journey of carrying the Jeremiah calling has forced me to face so many of my fears - most of which were directly connected to the fear of speaking out and saying something, and what could happen to me as a result. Being put in a position of having to face my fears has brought me incredible relief and freedom. If I had been called to something other than the Jeremiah mantle it would have been more difficult for me to face my own darkest fears and therefore find the healing I needed.

One of the main things that I learned throughout this journey were to have confidence in both God and myself that I was hearing and doing the right thing. There were many times when I would speak something out to someone and face a retaliation of some sort. These often made me doubt myself and question whether or not I had heard right in the first place and if I had done the right thing in saying something to that person. But I learned to trust myself and my own heart. Once I lashed out at someone and spoke out of term towards them - the guilt ate away at me for days on end until I went to them and apologized. Once I did this the heaviness was removed and I began feeling at peace again. So I have learned to gauge my own actions against this - if after I have said something I feel a peace and a release from doing it, then I can be confident that I have done what I was meant to do. This was challenging for me as confidence was not something I was overly familiar with but it has grown stronger over time.

Jeremiah did not see or feel much blessing in what he did. He went through a great deal and was called a traitor by his own nation who didn't understand his true heart. He loved Israel and wanted the best for them and wanted to see them repent in order to escape the destruction that was coming against them. But he was hated for his message because the so-called "prophets" of the time would speak in favor of Israel's sinful actions and Israel automatically sided with the other prophets of the time as their message was easier to digest and did not require something from them. So they turned against Jeremiah and sought to silence him rather than pay attention to his message. Jeremiah ultimately was imprisoned and would remain in prison until Israel fell the army of the Babylonians, just as he had foretold. Throughout his ministry Jeremiah doubted himself and doubted God - even despairing the day of his birth (Jeremiah 20:17-18). But despite his doubts, God sustained him and though the messages of destruction he preached took a long time to come to pass, they did eventually happen and he was proved as one who carried the truth in the end.

Throughout my journey so far I have often felt the same way. I have not suffered to the degree Jeremiah has of course but carrying the Jeremiah mantle has been costly. I have lost many, many friendships over the years due to speaking the truth to popular, well liked people and having my message rejected by them which means the inevitable falling out - not just with the people I spoke to but with the others they were connected to as well. I've had my fair share of dirty looks and stares and received a few nasty messages over the years - plus a few messages from people trying to bring "correction" to me by telling me that "I've been forgiven for what I've done" i.e. accusing me of sinning. I've seen many people put loyalty to themselves, friends and family over truth which needed to be spoken and I've had to remove myself from them as a result. Of course the self doubt has started to creep in at times - "Did I really hear right? Was I supposed to say that? Was I too harsh? Have I done something wrong here? Is this really any of my business?" Just to name a few. But every time I have had that still, small voice of reassurance come and tell me that I had done what I was supposed to do all along - and at the end of the day I go to bed with a clear conscience every night.

What fruit did Jeremiah see from his own ministry? Very little. He prophesied death and destruction, was hated for it and the only real fruit he saw was his own prophecies fulfilled - which of course meant death, destruction and exile for his own people. But he was proved right in the end and is now upheld as a hero of the faith in the scriptures. In the same way I have seen very little fruit from my own calling. But I believe that once God inspired truth is spoken out to people and situations, those words have power and the truth will begin to have its day. I have seen situations where people going against God's will for their lives have had things working out incredibly well for them until the word of truth was spoken - then all of a sudden the truth begins to take effect and the favor they were under switches off. This can take years to happen - but it does happen.

To you who are reading this, maybe the Lord is calling you to also walk the path of Jeremiah. In an increasingly dishonest world, God needs people who are willing to be lead by His Holy Spirit and speak words of truth into the lives of those around them despite the cost. I can't promise it will be pretty. I can't promise you will be listened to and that you will not suffer loss. But I can promise that if this is truly what God requires from you - then it is surely the right thing to do.

Take care.

Overcoming fear

Fear is a huge issue in our world today. Everywhere we turn there is something we either see or hear that has the potential to scare us if we let it. So how do we stop fear ruling our lives and move forwards?

For regular readers of this blog, most of you will know that I have one approach towards combating fear that I use regularly - which is the process of examination, dissecting the emotions and learning to understand the root cause of where they came from. Though this mentality has served me exceptionally well over the years (and has doubtless caused me from getting myself involved in some very unpleasant circumstances) - I have recently come to realize that there is sometimes another way to go about beating fear.

There's an age old saying I've heard many times throughout my life which states that in order to overcome fear we must "feel the fear and do it anyway". Over the years I have been skeptical and often critical of this statement as when used incorrectly I believe it can be at best noneffective and at worst, deeply damaging and traumatizing. To put it simply there is nothing worse than putting a person in a situation and trying to force them to face something they are simply not ready to face. However over the last two years I have been placed in a few different circumstances where I have been forced to "feel the fear and do it anyway" and I have found the results incredibly freeing and liberating.

The first situation happened to me about 2 years ago. I was working as an intern at a church at another city. This church was poorly run and took on a building project that it was woefully short staffed to adequately manage - so a huge amount of pressure and responsibility fell upon me as an intern. The pressure of the long days and hours (I often found myself working 16 hour days just to try and get the building ready on time) plus other negative factors in the environment such as the constant back stabbing and belittling of fellow church members and leadership from the head pastor began to take their toll on me. The church began an outreach to the homeless people in the city and after one especially chaotic Sunday morning service I was instructed that the senior pastor would be away the following week and that I was to call the police if any shenanigans unfolded.

The following Sunday can only be described as the worst church experience I have ever had in my life. The service was literally taken over by homeless people who were abusive and rude to fellow attendees (I was told to "burn in hell" by someone simply because I was trying to police the food rationing as I was instructed to do) and finally all hell broke loose when one of these people began physically fighting with several others at the venue - including females. I called the police as instructed who very promptly arrived - only to be sent away by the assistant pastor who was managing the church on that day on the basis that "we are working with these guys and have seen amazing change in them" (which was blatantly not true as far as I was concerned - because if there had been amazing change in them we wouldn't be seeing this happen).

I was then taken aside and told that I had been in the wrong for trying to police the food rationing which was "hurting" people and that I was "acting in fear by calling the police" which was once again what I was told to do. At this point I had simply had enough and absolutely exploded at the second in charge pastor. After storming out of the venue I received a phone call from the senior pastor saying that he was "not impressed with my actions" and that a meeting would be held about my actions. I went into this meeting a few days later and was once again told how wrong I was - but something had changed in me after losing my temper at the church. I stuck to my guns and told these people that they were in the wrong and that what was happening was dangerous and that someone had to say or do something otherwise people were going to get seriously hurt. I was ignored and shortly afterwards I decided to leave the church for good - and two years later after more chaotic services, the church closed its doors for good.

I need to explain something of my past and my default nature at this point. I had always been a deeply timid, shy and fearful person with a powerful dread for authority figures and discipline. There was nothing I feared more than standing up to someone in authority and power as I dreaded what they could do to me. God put me in a situation where there was constant pressure around me from all sides such as financial pressure due to being a student, physical and emotional pressure due to the fatigue from the long hours and finally pressure from foolish and baffling leadership decisions that literally left me with no other choice than to "feel the fear and do it anyway" and let fly at the leadership by drastically losing my temper as this was the step I had to take to banish that fear out of my life once and for all.

This proved to be a turning point in my life. From that moment on my whole personality changed. Previously I often used to sit there and say nothing even when there were things on my mind I should have said. But after this all of a sudden the words started to flow more freely. It was like I had "found my voice" so to speak and the only way I was truly able to find my voice was to be put in a situation where I was literally forced to use it. I believe it was God's plan for me to experience this and that He put all of these things in place so that I would finally be able to overcome the fear that had kept me so restrained.

Another huge issue in my life has been fear of physical violence. Due to numerous factors from my childhood and mainly due to the spiritual inheritance I received when I was conceived, I have dreaded physical violence more than just about anything in the world. I never had much experience getting into fist fights as a child or anything like that so I didn't have any real experience of what physical violence was like to go back to which could have helped ease my fears - all I knew was that it was something I didn't know much about, and that it was something I feared and dreaded more than anything. However - God had a plan for me to face this fear too - and the event that He put in my path to get me to face it came to pass only recently.

I was on my lunch break at work and I was walking down the street and saw two young people walking towards me with masks on and hoodies with the hoods drawn up. I immediately got a sense that something was very wrong and I turned and followed them as they walked into a dairy and threatened the owner with a weapon. One was standing at the door threatening all passers by with a weapon if they tried to do anything. I stood at the door screaming at them and a combination of my screaming and the screaming of the owner caused the thieves to take fright and run out of the shop. Pumped full of adrenaline and anger at what had just happened I high tailed it after them without thinking.

Eventually I was able to corner them both against a fence and other members of the public noticed and also joined in the chase. I grabbed one of them and he struck me on the side of the head with his weapon and stabbed me in the right forearm, but I stood my ground and held on to him with the help of another man until the police arrived. Both of the thieves were arrested and were later charged for their crimes. Only afterwards did I realize I was bleeding as there wasn't any pain due to the adrenaline rush - I only found out when the other man holding the criminal told me there was blood coming out of the side of my head.

Amidst the whirlwind of emotions during this period I realized that another important, life-changing event had taken place - in the midst of this situation I had faced and overcome my fear of physical violence. Before when I thought about physical violence there was continual, overwhelming dread - but now that I had experienced an extreme case of physical violence that I had survived without any serious injury (thankfully) and had managed to stand my ground until justice was done in the situation despite my injuries - my "unknown" fear had now become "known" and therefore had lost its power over me. Of course I was very lucky to escape serious injury as the strikes on the side of my head were very close to my left eye, and I was lucky that the other members of the public showed up when they did. I believe that God's protection was with me during this time as He knew that this was something I needed to go through in order to banish my fears of physical violence once and for all so He was watching over me the entire time.

Since this incident I am seeing more and more just how much has changed in me and just how much fear has been banished out of my life as a result. I walk more confidently and I no longer shy away in fear when I see other people on the street. I feel bolder and more powerful within myself than ever before and more confident when it comes to dealing with people at my work. In short, though this was a terrible thing to go through - tremendous good has come out of it for me and I believe that as time goes on there will be more and more evidence as to how much stronger and healthier in myself I have become as a result of this incident.

In conclusion - simply talking through and "writing through" fear is not always enough. Sometimes you need to go out and really face head on that which you are afraid of as that can sometimes be the only way to truly break free and overcome. Would I suggest screaming at your pastor, or chasing down armed robbers on foot with nothing to defend yourself with in order to free yourself of fear? Absolutely not. In fact I would more than likely advise against both of them! But for me personally those two situations were ordained and put in place by the Holy Spirit as these were exactly what I needed to face my fears. The timing was right for me to face these fears and the Holy Spirit was with me right the way through. Your situations may look totally different from mine (and probably will). But when you know in your gut that you just have to do something - don't sit back and do nothing and then try to justify it to yourself or others. You are holding yourself back from much needed personal growth and as long as you stick with the Holy Spirit and are obedient to His leading and prompting, you have nothing to fear and you will experience breakthrough and freedom on the other side of it.

Take care.

Truth vs loyalty

The subject matter I am discussing today is something I have had a lot of experience with over the years.

Loyalty is a funny thing. In one sense it is immensely powerful and brings incredible bonds and unity between people - which of course is not a bad thing. However there are times when loyalty is actually a hindrance towards things which need to be said and growth which needs to happen - because there are times when loyalty can actually blind someone from seeing the truth about themselves or about another person that is close to them.

Several years ago I was called to speak a strong word of knowledge into the lives of two people I was once friends with who had entered into a relationship that was not based in truth and was not God's plan for them. I was called to tell them to end their relationship or there would be serious trouble in their future. I didn't want to have to bring this word to them as I knew what the consequences would be - but I knew I simply had to do it as the word just burned within me until I found the courage to speak it out. They ignored the word that was given and proceeded with their relationship anyway.

One of these people was friends with others that I was also very close with and had developed a strong bond with over the years to the point where I basically called these guys family. The hardest part for me about bringing this word was the repercussions I knew it was going to have among the other people I was still friends with. These guys had all grown up together and although they considered me a good friend I had entered into their lives much later in the picture - so their bonds of loyalty with one another were very strong. I had a strong suspicion that giving this word of knowledge to one person would result in friendships with the others disintegrating as well but I knew I simply had to do it.

One by one these friendships evaporated just as I suspected they would have. One of these guys even admitted I was doing what God had asked me to do when I stood against these people and their relationship yet he still chose to stand by them even though he knew it was against God's will - so he basically chose to stand against God because of his loyalty to his friend. Over time there was only one person left that I was still "friends" with after this episode and I knew in my heart of hearts that this friendship had to end and that I would not be able to walk free until it did. However I kept putting it off because I didn't want to believe it as I wanted to believe that somehow the good friendship we once had could be saved - but deep down I knew the truth. Once I ended that friendship the truth came out - I was accused of all kinds of different things - none of which struck me as being true - and I was told that everyone had "forgiven" me when all I had done was what I knew I was supposed to do. I had not sinned in standing against them and I had not used abusive language or anything - all I did was say what God told me to say and how He told me to say it yet I was the one accused of being in the wrong. However I was relieved when all of this came out as I had suspected it all from the beginning anyway and it gave me a chance to say to this last person that his loyalty to his friends blinds him to the truth about who they really are. We parted ways and haven't spoken since - and I was finally free.

I remember literally shouting at God because of all of this - "God, why did you call me to be so closely intertwined with the lives of these people only to force me to leave them all behind?" God responded quickly, and was straight to the point - "Because I needed you to speak the truth to them." It broke my heart to walk away from these people but it was what God had wanted me to do all along.

What I realized had happened was that loyalty had taken over truth in this situation. I believe that deep down these people knew that I was doing what I was supposed to do seeing as one of them even admitted it to me. But they just couldn't bring themselves to accept it as it meant having to stand against their friend and their own wants and desires. The loyalty they had built up between each other over the years had blinded them to the truth. In the end their blind loyalty cost them a friendship with me and unfortunately for the couple I was called to warn, their loyalty to each other and their own wants and desires which has proven to be more important than the word of God will cost them a life lived in blessing and favor - because if someone walks outside of God's will for their lives, they will remain outside of it until they choose to walk back into it, and they will remain there without God's favor and protection. Over time this will become clearer and clearer to these people and those whom they surround themselves with.

Ultimately I was at fault here too as I knew from the first moment I was called to speak into the lives of the couple who later ended up marrying that my friendships with the others were going to end. I kept putting off saying something to them in the hope that things would improve so my loyalty to them actually prolonged the suffering I went through of desperately wanting this issue to finally be resolved. If I had been focused on what I knew was true in my heart and soul from the beginning I would have saved myself a lot of hurt and needless agony and frustration. This trial dragged on for four years and by the end of it I was almost losing my mind as I just so desperately wanted it to be over. If I had just been loyal to the truth sooner I would have saved myself some time and frustration.

I was most guilty of putting loyalty before truth when I worked for an organization in 2014. This organization worked people to death, continually demanded time and money from them whilst giving almost nothing in return and the environment was incredibly vile and toxic - people would be absolutely ripped to shreds by the so-called "leader" of this organization behind their backs. Though in my heart of hearts I knew that all of this was bad and unsustainable I continually and deliberately turned a blind eye to the truth because of my loyalty to the leader who had been of help to me in the past. As time went on others began to gather around me and tell me that this place was bad news and that the management was "amateur" - but I didn't want to hear it because I was also blinded by loyalty. I was told that I was being used and that I was being worked far too hard and that I needed to be more careful due to my health history over the years but I refused to listen to this and kept on pushing forwards. Eventually, all hell broke loose when the leadership began implementing policies and procedures that actually put people in physical danger. I realized at this point that I had to leave or I was going to get seriously hurt.

A few months after leaving I spoke with the leader of this organization wanting to get a receipt so that I could claim back for some of the money I invested into this place. I asked 5 or 6 times and each time I got excuses and "yeah it's in the post" but it never showed up, or I was told "I'll email it to you soon" but it never came. Finally it was given to me via Facebook without even a word of apology for taking so long to get it to me - in fact it came without any words at all. Considering all that I invested into that place I was pretty disgusted but once again I became aware that I had known this was going to be the case all along - I had been told before about the leader of this place that he was a taker and just continually took from other people without giving much back in return, yet I had refused to listen to my gut. I had also seen and heard just how many people this so-called leader had fallen out with over the years which made me really think just how long his organization was going to last - not to mention how long it would be until he fell out with me. I had my doubts the place would continue much longer and a couple of months ago I received word that it had closed its doors permanently. When I spoke with some of my good friends about this who had walked with me throughout this time and stood by me with all I was going through when I was involved there, they all said the exact same thing - "I'm not surprised."

These two significant life events made me realize one thing - truth is sovereign and it will always have its day. Loyalty can block it out for a time but truth will always shine through as it simply cannot stay hidden forever. Truth doesn't have to be defended. All it needs is to be spoken and it will do the rest on its own. I am hoping that I have learned my own lesson and that I will learn to side with the truth much sooner than what I have done in the past going forwards. I am hoping that loyalty to anyone - including myself - will no longer prevent me from saying what I know needs to be said and doing what I know needs to be done.

I want you to ask yourself this - is there any truths out there that you are not living by, or not speaking out, because loyalty is holding you back and is blinding you from what is really going on? If so I encourage you to learn to find the courage to do something about it. The truth will have its day eventually as it always does. But if you are being called to say or do something to help bring it to the light, you won't find any peace until you do what you have to do. You will save yourself time and a lot of frustration if you do what you know is right and stop putting it off.

Stand your ground

I wanted to share something with you all I've been challenged on very deeply recently.

I first became a Christian at the age of 18. Not long afterwards, I was thrown head first into the spiritual wilderness. The wilderness has been a long, drawn out and often exasperating period of my life which I am only now just starting to come out of at 32 years old. There have been some very long and very demanding trials I have faced throughout this period - one of which lasted exactly 4 years. In fact, my experience in the wilderness has been so profound that it will be the subject matter of my next book.

If there is one thing that is consistently true about the wilderness - it's that everything is temporary and that nothing lasts. When the Israelites left Egypt on their journey to the Promised Land, they walked in the desert for 40 years - yet they were constantly moving. They would follow the Spirit of God through the wilderness which took form in either a pillar of cloud during the day or a pillar of fire during the night. They would be led by the Spirit of God to a campsite in the wilderness and would remain there until the Spirit departed - and they knew that the right thing for them to do was to follow the cloud wherever it went and not to lag behind or get ahead of it otherwise they would be in the wilderness without the presence of God, and therefore without the protection of God.

This has been my experience. Since I left home at age 20 I have moved house approximately 30 times. I have moved all over my home country of New Zealand to different cities and even out of the country altogether for a 3 month stint in California in 2007. There was no real reason for this other than I was moving where the Spirit lead me to move. Whenever things began to get really ugly where I was (this happened regularly and in a variety of different forms) it was an inevitable sign that it was time to move on. It wasn't always really ugly when it was time to go however - sometimes you would just get a sense that the favor was moving from where you were to somewhere else and though nothing particularly bad was happening you just knew in your spirit that it was time to go.

I am now planted in a full time job that I have been in for over a year now - working in a call centre. A job like this is very people-orientated as I am often talking to over 100 people every day. I am an introvert by nature- someone who does not gain their energy from people but someone who needs a lot of space and time to recharge, and my prime strength is in task-based administration. Needless to say - I find this job challenging. Over the last few months due to various reasons I have been extremely busy at work to the point where I am answering far more calls than usual and coming home each day utterly drained and exhausted to the point where I've barely had any energy to speak to anyone in my own household.

My experience in the wilderness has taught me that something like this means that it is inevitably time to resign and move on. The job not working to my strengths and being so overwhelmed with the constant busyness has had me questioning my future almost daily. I've spent time in prayer - going to God and almost begging Him to reveal the next step for me so that I can move forwards.

Finally, God did respond - but not in the way that I expected.

He responded with 3 simple words -

"Stand your ground."

These words caught me off guard as I'd never really heard anything like that before - but I knew that they were from God. From that point on, I've had days at work where I was so stressed and overwhelmed I wanted to walk out - yet those words resonated in my mind and gave me a strong, tangible peace within the chaos.

This was totally new to me - but I began to realize why they were significant. My whole life has been about the wilderness and with the complex trauma I have carried in my heart that has given me the constant desire to get away from where I am and be somewhere else, I've been perfectly designed for the restless, vagabond lifestyle that comes from walking in the depths of the spiritual wilderness for so many years. I know how to survive. But I don't really know how to live. And this is what is starting to change for me.

I am beginning to see just how much confidence in myself and in my circumstances has been lost due to the wilderness mentality of constantly abandoning ship and moving on. Confidence will start to grow again as I learn that I will actually learn more by staying somewhere than I ever would by leaving. I've had to learn to face my fears of what could happen to me if I stand my ground - confrontation, having to fight for something and the risk of loss that comes with that, and having to develop the necessary grit to dig my toes in and just say "I'm not quitting - I'm staying put." It's easy to run. It's familiar to run. It's releasing to run. And for so long, that's been what's necessary for me as it's been part of my journey. But that time is over now.

Standing your ground means that instead of bowing to circumstances as you do in the wilderness, you stand firm and wait to see positive change. Instead of being constantly focused on changing yourself as the wilderness requires - it's ok to now start wanting and expecting to see circumstances change. Instead of dwelling in a place of self to bring about internal change to end trials as the wilderness requires - it's ok to now start thinking more about others and about circumstances rather than just saying "this is just happening because I've got something I need to learn about myself and something is being pinpointed in my heart to deal with." This can still be the case at times and I'm sure will remain as a relevant thinking process over the years - but the over-excessive focus on self that comes from wilderness-based thinking must now come to an end.

Standing my ground is a new and very scary thing. But it's the next step in my journey to become a whole, strong and healed human being. I have no doubt standing my ground will require vulnerability and exposure of some sort at times. I have no doubt it will cost me different things and I will be forced to challenge others and at the same time, challenge myself. But I am slowly learning that the overwhelming desire to run and move on is not the right thing anymore and that I will see better results if I just stand my ground as God has said.

Someone out there may be experiencing something in their lives that they just want to quit. Sometimes quitting is the right thing, as I well know. But sometimes it's not. If that's you - ask yourself today - am I being challenged to stand my ground and endure as well? Will I really learn more by leaving or will I learn more by digging my toes in and staying put?

Food for thought.

Take care.

Walk by faith

These days, in Christian circles, you hear so much about doing things "by faith". Living by faith, walking by faith, and the list goes on. But what does it really look like when you put these things into practice, and how does living by faith truly impact and change your life?

One of the most powerful examples over the last few years for me in regards to faith-based living came from a job I was doing at the beginning of 2014. I was making good money but I was not at all happy. I began to sense a stirring in my spirit telling me that 2014 was to be spent living by faith, and that it would begin by me taking a leap of faith into unknown territory. The Rhema word of God came to me and told me that I could leave my job whenever I wanted and that I could also stay there and keep working at it if I chose to do that, but I was going to be miserable if I did. The interesting part to note here was that God told me I could leave whenever I wanted yet He didn't tell me what I would be doing afterwards.

I attempted to stick it out at my job but it just became harder and harder until I got to the point where I simply said "I've had enough of this. Staying here is just not working. I need to follow God and take a leap of faith." So I handed in my resignation at work, still with no idea what I was going to do next or where the money was going to come from. Let me make something very clear at this point - Romans 10:17 states that "Faith comes by hearing, and hearing by the word of God." I had already heard the word of God for my situation - telling me that I was free to leave my job whenever I wanted - therefore I was able to have faith that what I was doing was the right thing. Taking a blind leap and doing this sort of thing without first hearing the word of God would not be taking a leap of faith - that would simply be stupid. But I knew God had spoken so even though I couldn't see the outcome, I was doing the right thing.

I need to explain a bit more of my background here. I am Scottish by nature so I am naturally rather thrifty - plus I had been in major financial poverty over the last few years before I got the job that I had at the time, so it was very hard for me to just give this up. I had always feared not having enough money and all of a sudden I was being forced to come face to face with that fear by throwing away my one source of income at the time with nothing else in the pipeline to financially sustain me. Those first few weeks were quite terrifying at times and I constantly switched between feelings of "Oh no what have I done" and feelings of "I've done the right thing, something will work out". This was really faith in action - leaving something and going to nothing, with nothing to go on other than the knowledge that I was doing as God had told me to do.

Shortly after resigning, doors did open for me and I found myself doing an internship with a church in another city. Throughout this time God impressed upon me that I was to be giving $30 a week out of my student income (less than $250 per week) which left me with enough to cover rent, some food, and petrol - and that was about it. However the challenges did not stop there. Two pieces of electronic equipment that had served me faithfully for years and were used on a regular basis - my computer monitor and my guitar FX board (which I used when I played on the church worship band) both decided to die during the year and therefore needed replacing. My landlady at the time told me a story about how she was a student and was living on even less than I was and that she was now in a high paying job and owned her own house. She said to me that "If you want to be blessed financially, God will first make you go without." I was discovering this to be true.

Despite the very tight financial situation I was in, God continued to provide. Money often arrived from unexpected sources throughout the year and I learned to live on the small amount I was earning quite well. But the most important thing was that my fear of lack was being purged and I was learning to live by faith - seeing that God could and would provide when needed and that He would never leave you without what you needed. The time of living by faith began drawing to a close earlier this year and even the small income that I had dried up yet now for the first time I was not afraid and finally stopped worrying about not having enough - because I looked at my non-existent bank balance and realized that I was still getting by. Once my fear had been fully purged, God blessed me with a full time job that I've been doing really well at for nearly 8 months now. I am making more than I have in the last 6 years. I am now able to truly enjoy what I am earning because it is built on the right foundation of faith. I learned that even if you have a lot, if you fear losing it all the time (as I used to) then you may as well not have anything anyway because it's not really a blessing to you. A foundation of fear will rot away at the inside of even the highest and most glamorous structure. Now that my fear has been purged I can enjoy the much larger income I have that much more, as my security is now in God and not in finances - plus, I'm able to save so much more because I had learned to live on so little.

Over the last few months me and my wife also saw another amazing example of God's provision when it looks like nothing is happening. We were blessed with a living environment shortly before our wedding with lovely Christian landlords who lived on top of us and although it was small, it was an amazing place for us and the ideal living situation to be in during the start of our marriage. In April this year I felt strongly impressed on my spirit from God that our living environment was going to change and therefore not to get too comfortable in this place. A few weeks after this our landlord came and saw us and told us that the house would be going on the market. Our immediate response was to start frantically looking for a place to live - an exhausting and utterly fruitless exercise that dragged on for months. We saw living environments that looked ideal yet they would disappear before we even got the chance to apply for them.

Time went on and eventually the house sold and we were given a move out date of the 19th of September. Our move out date got closer and closer yet nothing happened and we began to get quite fearful. God gave us the word "last minute" but even so we still found it hard to trust. Out of desperation we went to look at a flat that we both knew wasn't suitable for us, but we went anyway as we were getting desperate yet as soon as we got there we knew that it was not the right place for us, so we said no without anything else on the horizon. We knew we were right in saying no as the place was small, grotty and very far away from where we both worked plus we had a strong lack of peace in our spirits about it. We knew it would have been wrong to choose this place as it would have been chosen out of fear and we wouldn't have been happy there yet despite the fact that we were only a few weeks from when we had to move out of where we were, we did our best to fight through the fear and trust that God had somewhere better for us.

Four days before we had to leave we visited a place we had heard about through a mutual friend. It was a huge house (more like a mansion) where we would have the whole bottom level to ourselves, yet we could use the rest of the house if we wanted to. The bottom level alone was 3 bedrooms and 2 bathrooms and far more space than where we were - plus it was in a really nice area of the city and the landlady was Christian. It was even closer to work than our previous living environment. Straightaway we said we would take it as we knew in our hearts that this was where we were meant to be. I often look back on this situation in awe. I think of what we came so close to choosing out of fear and desperation - a small, grotty, inconvenient place - and what we ended up with because we waited for God's best and refused to settle - literally a mansion. If we had given into fear, not trusted our spirits and said "yes" to the first place we looked at, we would have missed out on the awesome blessing of the mansion we are in now and would have robbed ourselves of happiness and God's best for us. We are aware that we may have to move again in the not too distant future but we are no longer worried as we have seen the amazing way that God came through for us in terms of providing us with more than we imagined or expected so we know that wherever we go next - God has got it sorted already.

My challenge to you is this - how many times have you lost out on God's best because you rushed ahead and chose something for yourself, only to end up unsatisfied? Is God calling you to live more by faith and to trust Him for everything instead of trusting yourself and the things around you that you think that you can control? What is holding you back from truly following Him? I am more blessed now than I have ever been and I honestly believe it would never have happened if I had not taken that first step of faith and chosen to spit in the face of fear by taking a leap into the unknown with nothing else to go on, other than the fact that God had told me to. If God is calling you to live by faith and follow Him - you have two choices. Ignore Him and stay where you are, but leave the issues God wants to address in your heart unresolved which will create a wrong foundation in your life and rob you of the joy of event he things that you do have - or, accept God's challenge and do as He is calling you to do. I'm not saying it will be easy as you will certainly face the giants in your own life throughout this process but with God on your side, as long as you stick close to Him and listen to what He tells you to do, you will make it through and come out stronger and more blessed than ever.

Take care.

Fantasy VS Reality

This is going to be a very raw and personal blog over something that has dominated my life - yet I have struggled to understand it for a very long time until recently.

Throughout my life I have struggled greatly with any kind of difficulty in my circumstances or in relationships. The slightest hiccup in any of these categories has often sent me into a tailspin where my perception of reality has become clouded by a whirlwind of complicated, mixed emotions. I have only been able to get back to sense of balance and tranquility by taking active steps to make things better - usually by becoming a peacekeeper in situations and circumstances where I really didn't need to (and in some cases shouldn't have) but I did so anyway just for the sake of harmony. Keeping the peace is not a bad thing, by any means - but my motive for doing it has not been for the sake of relationships or anything else - it has been to spare myself of the chaotic whirlwind of emotions any sort of distress or discomfort creates in my inner being.

It has become increasingly more obvious to me that something has been seriously wrong with my thinking regarding real life and real circumstances. Getting upset and distressed at things that go wrong is a natural response but I have seemed to take it to a whole different level. I have been asking God for answers and I felt that He spoke to me regarding what the real problem has been in my life through one, simple yet extremely powerful word - "Fantasy."

This word floored me as I realized just how much sense it really made for me and my way of thinking. I began to realize that I have been living in a world of make-believe. Yes I have operated in the real world - but most of the time my heart and soul was never really there and never really prepared to face the facts of what was around me and what I was truly facing and dealing with. I began to see a pattern emerging in my life of being faced with very real circumstances and very real issues that I had been living in and facing yet instead of doing something to address it or at the very least speaking out about it, I have simply retreated into a world of make believe where I simply pretended the problem away and acted as if it didn't exist. For example - I was once in a situation with an organization where I saw a tremendous amount of backstabbing, gossip, criticism and negativity coming from the leadership and directed towards nearly everyone in the organization behind their backs - no doubt it included me as well once my back was turned. These things ate away at me but I continued to just ignore them because living in my little fantasy kingdom where I ruled everything and kept the peace all the time so I didn't have to face reality was more important than telling the truth and listening to what my heart was telling me. Though I did speak up in the end it took a long time and a lot of wasted energy lying to myself and ignoring the facts.

I realized that the primary way that this wrong thinking has shaped my life has been regarding my circumstances and my outlook on life. I have lived in a fantasy world where I have been at the center of the universe and therefore in charge of everything, where things happened the way that I wanted them to and I could control the future by controlling the present. I lived in a bubble of self preservation and all of my energy and effort went into protecting the bubble that I lived in rather than dealing with the real life circumstances and situations around me. Through prayer and further insight I began to see that this had been a problem my entire life - even when I was a child I used to constantly pretend and imagine that I was somebody else completely different to who I was. Imagination and fantasy among children is very common, granted - but I began to realize that for me it was based on a wrong foundation and from a young age in childhood it had become an obsession.

I began to realize that this fantasy world I had created was all rooted in the spiritual forces I had carried around with me since conception (many of these are explained in my book, No Way Out But Through). I realized that the darkness and pain in my soul was so great I had to basically create an alternative universe to live in where these things didn't exist and I could be who I wanted to be, where I could be in charge and where I oversaw everything including the future. This need for a fantasy world, borne from the need to escape the reality of what I was carrying around with me had consumed my entire life and made me into someone I really wasn't - not to mention it meant I was having very little genuine interaction with other people as most of the time they were not seeing me but rather a mask of illusion I had created over my personality in order to fit in with the circumstances I was facing and keep my fantasy universe bubble intact.

However - you cannot live like this forever. One thing that the last few years has taught me is that God is the master of popping bubbles of illusion in people's lives. What started the transformation from fantasy to reality for me is that I began to realize that I was never really that happy where I was and always wanted to be somewhere else. Even once I got something that I was longing for - such as a good job and financial security - my mind would automatically be wandering to the next thing, wanting for something else on the horizon. Then, of course, once I got that next thing, I would find a way to be dissatisfied with that too and would be longing for something else yet again. I became unable to enjoy anything - even the good things that God has blessed me with because I was always wanting something more, something different.

The main eye opener regarding this whole revelation came from actually receiving things that I had always wanted and then having to see that there were downsides to these things as well. I remember a while back once I had started working again, I became dissatisfied about something and began to question whether or not I was meant to still be at the job I was doing. God spoke to me and in a rather frustrated tone He said "You got what you wanted." I remember seeing a meme on the internet that said "Don't despise where you are because at one time this was exactly where you wanted to be." This helped me to realize that once I had gotten what I wanted, if I was not happy with this fact it was more to do with me and my thinking than it was to do with the circumstance itself. I began to realize that if I wanted to be happy where I was - this place I had wanted to be before I actually arrived there - that it was ME that needed to change and not my circumstances. I began to foresee that if I had continued living my life in a bubble of fantasy that I would have missed out on so many different things - such as the opportunity to speak into people's lives which is something that I enjoy being able to do. I realized I would have come to the end of my life and looked back on it to realize that I had never really lived at all, but just existed, drifting from place to place, working so hard to keep up an illusion while ignoring reality and real life responsibilities.

My reason for sharing this very personal story is because I believe that this way of thinking - fantasy and the constant need to maintain that fantasy - are very prevalent in today's society and contribute a great deal to unrest, dissatisfaction, relationships breaking up that really shouldn't have and people actively seeking to change circumstances when the true nature of the problem actually sits with them and them alone. I want to issue a challenge to each one of you out there - where are you living? Are you really living your life, in the now, in the moment, in the reality of your circumstances and where you are, or are you living like I was, in a zone of fantasy, looking at your real life and saying "I'm not really here - my body is here but my heart and soul are elsewhere." I'm not saying you can't live like this forever. Some people seemingly can. But how much destruction will you leave behind you if you choose to live this way? How many people and circumstances will you overlook and ignore because rather than being concerned with them and their reality your concern is made up with keeping your own little fantasy universe intact by controlling things around you to stop people from piercing your bubble? And, if you continue to live like this - are you really living at all, or are you simply existing, waiting for a point of happiness in the future that will never arrive?

Take care.

What makes a TRUE follower?

I have been thinking a lot recently about what it truly means to really follow Jesus. It's easy to call ourselves "Christians" but at the end of the day - what does that term really mean?


To be a Christian means to follow Christ - which means to go where He goes, follow in His footsteps and to obey His leading in all things. It is a life that is often sacrificial, a life that is not truly your own but a life lived under the command of Jesus to carry out His will and plans for your life.


Throughout the course of my Christian walk I have been lead by God into some frustrating, upsetting and often deeply hurtful circumstances. I have seen jobs that have been a huge blessing one day literally turn into a total nightmare the following day - and remain that way until I resigned. I have been lead into situations and called by God to do things that no one has understood and resulted in alienation and the loss of a lot of friendships. There has been times when I have been called to speak words of knowledge into people's lives (who claim to be Christians themselves) advising them to change their behaviour or suffer severe consequences yet I have witnessed them ignore the warnings and continue with their behaviour with seemingly little or no consequences despite the warning that I was called to give them.


I've seen myself living a life reduced to having very little, being unsure where I am going to live just a few weeks before I had to move out of my current location while I had my entire emotional psyche turned upside down, pulled apart and examined from head to foot while I've seen others who claim to be Christians living a life of ease where everything just couldn't go more smoothly for them if it tried, despite the fact that I've been called by God to speak truth into their lives and advise them that things need to change.


This has frustrated, hurt and upset me and has lead me to ask the question - "That person is doing wrong in God's eyes - I know as I was clearly called to warn them about their actions - yet they just keep doing it and nothing ever happens to them. I have absolutely no doubt that if I was in their shoes, I would see my entire world collapse in an instant for refusing to obey the spoken word of God over my life. So howcome there are consequences for me for ignoring God's word when I have done so in the past, and not for them?"


I asked this of God and I felt that this was His reply - "Graham, I can't bring about consequences in the lives of those you were called to warn because I do not have the power and the authority to do so, as they haven't given that to me. The reason consequences would happen to you if you tried to stray off the path is because you call Me Lord of your life - and you mean it. Therefore - I have authority to take control of your life and circumstances because that's what you've given to me and allowed me to do. I will not go against free will and I can only guide people when I am truly on the throne in their lives."


God's response helped me to realize that it is because I truly follow Him that He has the authority to lead me where I am meant to go in life and that He has the power to open and close doors regarding my circumstances because I have given him that authority. I have put Him on the throne in my life and those who have heard the spoken word of God to them, knew that it was God and chose to ignore it because it didn't suit them do not put Christ on the throne in their lives. Where He leads - they refuse to go because it doesn't line up with what they want.


Truly following God is not pretty, nor is it for the faint of heart. I was called into a season of financial famine where I was called to live with next to nothing in the bank. Every time it looked like I was about to get ahead financially something would happen to take the finances away - such as being called to go and study or to finance my book. I have been called to take huge risks I never would have otherwise taken - such as moving to a country for 3 months where my only contacts were people I had met on the internet. And I have been pushed over, above and beyond my limits emotionally and spiritually - sometimes even physically. Following God has been far from pretty in my life - and far from easy.


So why do it then? What are the rewards? For the answer to this question I often choose to look at the lives of some rich, famous people who seemingly have it all yet inside they have nothing. Look at Robin Williams for example. All of his fame and wealth yet he chose to end his life. Material possessions and fame could not cure the darkness in his heart. The only cure for that darkness is a powerful, honest relationship with God where Jesus is on the throne of one's life - where He belongs. My life has not been easy. But over the years of hardship and having my emotional and spiritual life almost constantly upheaved - I have steadily been building a foundation of peace and truth which has replaced the lies I have carried in my heart. I know now that my life from this point forwards will be built on a strong foundation which has been built by years of relentlessly pursuing after God - and paying the price for doing so. Anything built on a foundation of darkness and untruth will not last, and the higher it has been built, the more damage it will do when it falls. Not to mention a foundation of darkness will seep through and pollute even the most glorious life built on top of it.


What happens to those who claim to be Christians that God calls to follow Him in order to face the parts of themselves that they need to face in order to build a strong foundation - but they refuse to follow because it doesn't suit them? The most terrifying aspect of this is that for all of God's children - He wants to be on the throne in their lives. If there are idols occupying that throne - be they friends, relationships, pride, fear - God will relentlessly pursue those idols. If His people reject His pursuit of those idols in their lives then in time, they will reap a bitter harvest. Even if they do seemingly "have everything" and get to keep it, it's based on a wrong foundation so they will never really appreciate it anyway. And over time, others around them will begin to see the undeniable truth about who they really are - because the truth cannot be contained and buried under lies forever. God will go after them and will go after the idols in their lives. But if people continually reject Him - they are in grave danger of putting out the Spirit's fire in their lives, and seeing themselves walk into a place of continual wilderness where everything is just constantly difficult - an endless uphill battle. When we follow God into the wilderness - He is with us, so we are safe. When we lead ourselves in there due to our negligence and refusal to honour the spoken word of God in our lives - we put ourselves in mortal danger and even if things do go seemingly well for a time - that undercurrent of darkness God wants to address will rot away at everything they build from the inside out, meaning that even the shiniest, most perfectly happy looking life will be rendered meaningless.


In conclusion - it is worth it to follow God. We are not in danger when we seek after Him and when He leads us through immense hardship. We are in far more danger when we ignore His spoken word in our lives and therefore refuse to follow Him - thus putting someone or something else on the throne. A life following God is often not glamorous. But it builds a foundation that will last, and that alone is worth all of the hardship one can face.


Take care and God bless.

Understanding fear

As an anxiety sufferer, fear is something I have become very familiar with over the years as it has dominated most of my life. Throughout my Christian walk, large portions of my time have gone into studying the complexities of human emotions using myself as the primary example - fear being one of the main ones. I wish to share this post with you all in the hope of bringing some enlightenment into your lives on this topic.

1. Fear comes from within.

It is so easy to sit and blame fear on things around us when for the most part, fear actually comes from within ourselves. Granted, there are times when this logic does not apply - i.e. if you are walking on the edge of a cliff and a wind is blowing against you, feeling some fear that you may be blown off is quite natural and understandable. But there are also many, many times when the fear we are facing is far less about our external circumstances and more about ourselves and wrong thinking we carry within our hearts.

I used to be afraid of everything, and everyone. Afraid of people, afraid of speaking, afraid of confrontation, afraid of car accidents, you name it, chances are, I was afraid of it. I have been walking the Christian faith for the last 12 years. This journey has taken me within - to look inside myself to find the root of these fears. I had so much fear in my life that living a life where I never had to face anything I was afraid of was completely impossible. Yet now I am walking with a freedom greater than any I have ever known. I am not completely free yet by any means but I am more free than I have ever been in my life. Things that used to terrify me to the point where I was nothing but a shaking mess - I can laugh at them now. Why? Because I had to realize that the source of fear had nothing to do with other people. It had nothing to do with speaking, confrontation, car accidents or anything like that. The source of the fear was me.

I could try and never drive a car again in order to avoid my fear of accidents - but this was nearly impossible, not to mention highly impractical and would have been very frustrating for those who continually had to drive me places! The main reason why just avoiding driving was wrong, however, was because it wasn't dealing with the root of the problem. It was just cutting the leaves off of the weed. This fear needed to be faced at its source - the weed of fear needed to be pulled out by its roots. In order to do that, I needed to learn to look within myself and find the true answers there.

2. Fear is so much more complex than we realize.

It annoys me when people are just told to "get over their fears" because so often, it's just not that simple. In my younger years as a Christian I was given a lot of advice by well-meaning people who wanted to help that didn't actually help me to get through my fears at all. People would tell me things like "You've just got to listen to more Christian music", "You just need to pray in tongues more" and "You've just got to feel the fear and do it anyway". The first two didn't help me at all, sorry to say. The last one did indeed have some merit as there were times when I did need to "feel the fear and do it anyway" yet overall this wasn't really a permanent solution as each day I would just face the same exhausting exercise of doing something while my whole body was shaking with fear.

As I began to learn about the spiritual forces that had been passed down to me through the generational lines I began to see that my fear was so much more complicated than I could ever have imagined. There were layers and layers of wrong thinking in my life - subconscious belief systems I carried within my own heart and operated out of without realizing. I began to heal myself properly when I began to face these fears and walk through them in full with the guidance and continued revelation of the Holy Spirit who gave me words of knowledge to help me understand what was happening within myself and gave me the right words to confess which helped bring these fears to the light, which caused them to lose their power and hold over me. This was the journey I needed to walk through to truly begin to eradicate fear from my life. Just "getting over it" simply would never have worked and would just have resulted in a lifetime of frustration.

3. God takes us on a path to help us face our fears.

God wants us to be whole, healed and fearless in Him. In the Bible it says "Do not fear" 365 times - one for each day of the year. My journey with God has involved walking through the darkest, most painful and most fear-contaminated parts of my life. He has lead me into situations that have truly frightened me beyond what I realized. Why? To torment me? Not at all - because this was where I needed to walk to bring the horrible fears to the surface that had been lurking in my subconscious mind for so long and polluting my life from the inside out with a constant sense of dread, uncertainty and anxiety. God lead me through these places not to hurt me - but to help me to heal once and for all.

I am currently in a time of rest. Being an anxiety sufferer, rest is not something I am familiar with or even remotely comfortable with. I am facing deeply uncertain circumstances in my life at this point. I am getting married in just a few weeks, with nowhere to live lined up as of yet, no job and no money to pay for anything. Yet I am not afraid. God told me this morning that this is a time of rest for me, and to not be afraid because He holds my future. Was this hard to hear? It was - until I finally realized why I found it so hard. I realized that I have associated rest with unimaginable fear and torment. I realized that I have been carrying a subconscious belief system that tells me that the most fearful and terrifying place to be in in life is a place where you feel as if you have nothing to fear whatsoever and are therefore oblivious due to blissful ignorance.

The subconscious message in my heart has told me this; "In the place where you fear nothing, that is the place to be most afraid because you are unprepared for anything and able to be taken completely by surprise. The most terrifying thing you could ever go through would be to believe that all was well and suddenly realize all too late that things were not well at all, and that you should have realized this earlier, but you didn't and therefore didn't prepare to prevent this. You weren't prepared for something bad to happen, so when it happened it was all your fault because you should have known better and should have done something to stop it. The only way you can stop horrible surprise attacks coming at you that you don't expect is to be expectant all the time - to be constantly on your guard and prepared for the worst."

This subconscious message has been buried in my thinking for as long as I can remember and has pretty much defined my entire life and caused a deep sense of restlessness as well as a constant sense of doubt and mistrust of pretty much everyone and everything connected to me throughout my life. God realized that I needed to face this so He has put me in a position where I've got no choice but to rest even when I probably should be stressing out. He's done this because I needed to face this deep, dark and insidious wrong thinking. The path He set me on was the path I needed to walk down because it was the only way I could face this fear and thus finally begin to heal of it.

In conclusion, I hope this has shed some light for someone. If fear grips your heart, as it did mine - there is a way out of it. Jesus loves you and He wants to help you. He wants to help you rid your life of fear so that you can live with the quality of life you've always wanted. He can (and probably will) lead you into hard places - but remember that He has got you in the palm of His hands, and that the places He will lead you are the places that you need to go in order to remove fear, doubt and insecurity from your life. It will be painful, as facing your fears can hurt. But it's productive pain, and on the other side of it is a life that can be truly enjoyed.

Take care.

Depression: A view from the inside out

Today, I have the great pleasure of being the host on the final day of the Virtual Blog Tour for Richard David Price, author of the brand new book Beating the Adversary: A True Story of Schizoaffective Disorder RICHARD DAVID PRICEwas diagnosed with schizoaffective disorder as a teenager, as a result of a childhood accident.Despite his difficult adolescence, he went on to complete a Master’s Degree in Business and has two children to whom he is devoted.He is a devout member of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints and feels his mission in life is to help spread hope that we all can overcome our personal challenges.Yesterday, Richard visited Pippa Moye's 'Silver Ray Healing Therapies' blog at http://www.silver-ray.co.uk , where they talked about how Rick's spiritual beliefs have helped him.Today, I'd like to share with you a recent interview I had with Richard, when I asked him to share his thoughts on depression and medication. ***INTERVIEW***GRAHAM: How do you best define Schizoaffective Disorder?RICHARD: A schizoaffective disorder is a condition in which a person experiences a combination of schizophrenia symptoms (delusions, hallucinations, paranoia, etc.) and serious mood disorder symptoms (clinical depression or bipolar mood swings).  It affects every aspect of the patient's ability to function in social situations – with friends, in the home, at school, and at work – leading to a life of differing degrees of isolation.  It is not as defined as other mental health issues and symptoms differ from patient to patient. GRAHAM: Have you had experiences with depression? If so, what was it like and how did you cope?RICHARD: Schizoaffective Disorder is depression on steroids, so yes, I understand what depression is like and I feel very deeply for those who suffer from it.  It’s a little like an easy 50-piece-puzzle that may be hard for some.  Of course, if you break down depression, it is just emotion, for the most part.  Emotions can be controlled, although most people don't mind extremely happy people.  In fact, most people I start to get to know are so skilled at putting on that game face that you would not even know they had depression of some kind until they open their mouths. Then, if you know what to listen for, the truth will come out, and most of the time it just smacks you in the face.  Maybe that’s why people are afraid of the quiet ones, because they don't know what they’re thinking. Imagine a girl just standing there with her friend, and a cute guy walks by.  In an instant, this girl goes from very still to playing with her hair like crazy.  Or imagine a guy just sitting on some steps, dressed all in black with hair in spikes.  When you get close, you see in his lap a small notebook, and the beginnings of a drawing of a bird.  You never really know what these people are thinking.  I think that is the point.If you have depression, choose to live.  If you don't, choose to show compassion. I was a kid who liked comics.  I once created my ideal superhero and actually wrote down that he “did not have asthma” (I suffer from very bad allergies and asthma attacks).  I found it years later and remembered the feeling that I had to lose everything that could slow me down, to be who I wanted to be.  But asthma is not a life stopper.  It is only a reminder of being human. Depression is just like asthma, in that way; it is not a life stopper.  Learn to take care of it, and move on.GRAHAM: What are your thoughts on antidepressant medication?RICHARD: Simply put, I am for them as long, as they are administered properly and prescribed by a good psychologist, not the family doctor.***END OF INTERVIEW***I hope you enjoyed this brief interview with author Richard Price and that you'll check out his new book Beating the Adversary: A True Story of Schizoaffective Disorder . When you buy Beating the Adversary during its official Amazon launch, you’ll also receive a free novel entitled The Ladder by Vrinda Pendred, founder of Conditional Publications – an independent publisher dedicated to writers with neurological conditions. To buy Beating the Adversary
and get your free novel, go to: http://www.conditionalpublications.com/pages/beating-the-adversary.html Thanks for reading! Please do share your comments and thoughts below. I love reading your feedback.
And, as this is the last day of Richard's Virtual Blog Tour, I hope you'll swing back to the top of the tour, when he visited Ana Mirjam Brucker at http://blog.inspiredplanet.co/ , where they spoke about alternative therapies and the impact of receiving his diagnosis.

Believe in yourself

The subject of self belief has been one that I've struggled with my whole life. I've only recently begun to learn to do it and I have realized just how necessary it is for future success of any kind - whether it be in employment situations, relationships or anything else.

Due to the overpowering spiritual, emotional and psychological forces that have corrupted my thinking since the day that I was born, my self belief from day one was next to zero and people would often remark that I was "very anxious" and that I "didn't have a lot of self confidence". And they were right. After all, it's nearly impossible to believe in yourself when you have had so much negative, wrong thinking within yourself due to forces beyond your control. It becomes all you ever know and though the forces behind this wrong thinking are lies, if the root of the lie hasn't been exposed it still feels like truth and has power over you.

I only started to learn about the depth of the wrong thinking that had polluted my mind in my late 20's. Up until this point in time I was by and large a very passive, timid and fearful person - believing that others were always in the right and I was most definitely always in the wrong. If someone stood against me - it simply must be because I was wrong, otherwise they wouldn't be standing against me in the first place. My self belief was so low that the slightest sense of opposition would cause me to instantly collapse in on myself and basically repent to whoever was opposing me for everything - even if they were totally in the wrong. Needless to say - this was a miserable way of life for me. I was often mercilessly bullied and taken for granted by people who would then scold me if I reacted in any way (which rarely happened anyway as my confidence was so low.) I was the perfect servant - to everyone else except myself.

After going through burnout in 2011 which was in a sense being completely torn down and destroyed, God began the rebuilding process in my life from the ground up. One of the first things He began to work on was this non-existent sense of self belief I had. Over the course of 3 years since I burned out, He put me in two different situations where I was forced to "get over myself" and stand up for something. One situation was a godless, selfish relationship between two people who didn't care who they hurt just so long as they got what they wanted, and whom most of the people around them sided with saying that they "were so perfect for each other" etc, despite the fact that they left broken hearts and irreparable damage to friendships and relationships behind them. The other situation was one that arose in a church where the leadership allowed some very dangerous people to have a lot of control and influence over the church to the point where the safety of the existing members of the congregation was being compromised - so much so that people were being physically assaulted in the church while the leadership stood up and did nothing, even going so far as to send the police away when they were called to deal with these people engaging in physical violence outside the church building.

I stood up for myself and what I strongly believed was right in both situations. It was hard, and it was frightening. My default way of thinking was to back down and pretend like everything was ok, to blame myself for the way things had gone down, and to just stand back and let things happen. This was the safer alternative - one that kept everybody happy, didn't challenge anyone, and meant that I could continue my invisible existence as a timid, fragile human who hid in the shadows because he was too afraid to move into the light and stand for anything. But I knew deep in my spirit that this was not right, and that it's not what I was called to do. So I stood up for what was right - even though I was scared to death in the process.

Needless to say - I received a lot of opposition. People told me that I was wrong, that I was jealous, that I was insecure, that I was bitter, that I was fearful and that I was operating out of major character deficiencies in my own life, and that I needed to repent. I could feel the negative thinking trying to overpower me from within - to get me to back down, submit, repent. Saying things like "these church leaders are much older and more experienced than you are, Graham. They must be right, you must be wrong. There's no way that they are in the wrong in this - it's all you" - and other things like "Are you really sure you've heard from God? Did God REALLY tell you to stand against that couple?You've been wrong before. You're wrong again. You're at fault here, nothing will go away until you go and repent." But there was something inside of me that just said that backing down was wrong, and that I was actually in the right, despite what my built-in doubt and negativity was trying to tell me. But I still couldn't make peace with myself. So I went to God with a doubtful heart and asked Him if I was really in the right with these situations because I was struggling to believe that I was right, especially with all of the opposition I was receiving.

His reply was simple - "Graham, you are in the right. Your problem is that you don't believe that you are in the right because you don't believe in yourself. If you were wrong in either of these situations, I would have told you. I've put these situations in your life to reveal to bring up all of this lack of confidence and self doubt that has plagued you for so long. The opposition you are receiving from others is helping you to see the wrong thinking you already have in your own heart. Face that and deal with it, and you will learn to become more comfortable with what you believe in despite any opposition you may receive."

This word encouraged me to realize that there are times when I genuinely am in the right, and that in these two situations I was in the right with both of them. It helped me to realize that my fear and doubt regarding the stance I took was not because I was in the wrong in standing up for what I felt was right, but that my fear and doubt was that I genuinely didn't believe I could ever be in the right about anything, which contributed hugely to my passive, timid, pushover nature. God's word to me helped me to begin to believe in myself and my own instincts, and that if His Spirit was not convicting me otherwise and that every part of me was telling me that I needed to stand up and fight against something, those instincts were not wrong and sinful and needed to be trusted. I had to realize that if I was ever going to be a success of any kind, self belief was a key part of that.

It also taught me to realize that just because someone was opposing me, didn't automatically mean that I was in the wrong. In the first instance with the relationship that hurt so many people I began to realize that many of the people who so strongly sided with this couple did it not because they believed that I was in the wrong - but because it didn't suit them that they were in the wrong. In a conversation with one person who strongly supported them, God strongly convicted me to tell this person that He had told me to stand against them. As soon as I did this, he finally grudgingly admitted that he knew that I was in the right. I realized he was quite happy to sit there and lie to himself about what had happened because the truth didn't suit him even though he knew what it was. The Word of God cut through the lies he was telling me - and himself. I later confronted him about this and he had no argument because he knew that I was right. Despite how strong and forceful his initial argument was against what I had done, it eventually all collapsed because it wasn't based on truth. Ultimately we parted ways and haven't spoken since.

The important thing to notice here is that God ordained all of these events to happen to me because they were exactly what I had needed. Because I was such a frightened, limited, timid person I needed these situations to happen to force me out of my comfort zone of timidity and into a place where I was forced to stand up for something and stand by it later on. I needed to go through these things and I needed to upset people by standing for the truth in order to learn to believe in myself and my own instincts - and to trust that I do hear from God and that I can be right even when faced with opposition. It helped me to realize that opposition doesn't always mean that you are in the wrong - sometimes quite the opposite. It was a huge part of the building blocks to complete recovery and full mental wholeness and healing in my life.

I imagine that if I was by default a strong, outwardly aggressive person who oozed a sense of indestructible self belief and self righteousness, I would probably have had to go through the opposite in order to humble me. But God did this because I didn't need more humbling - I needed to be built up stronger. Since these events I have seen a remarkable change in myself. I am still not in the place of self belief I need to be in quite yet but I still feel so much freer than I did before. I have so much more faith in what I say now and how I feel about things and I have that much more confidence and belief in my own instincts and what my own heart is telling me - even if it opposes the views of other people.

To conclude - if you've been as passive and timid as what I have been, there is hope for you. There is a God who cares and wants to build you into a strong person from the inside out. Sometimes He will challenge you to do hard and scary things which will bring opposition to your life which will try to convince you that you are in the wrong. Don't fear these times. He's using this to bring up the fear, doubt and lack of belief in your life so that you can face it and deal with it, which will make you a stronger person. He's setting you up for a better life - a life of strength and courage, where you could do things you never felt that you could do before.

Take care.