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, officially released on 1^st December, 2014.  On its debut, it became Amazon’s #1 best-selling new release in ‘schizophrenia’.

RICHARD DAVID PRICE was 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.

Sowing and reaping

I've been thinking and meditating a lot on Galatians 6:7 recently - "Do not be deceived, God is not mocked. A man reaps what he sows." This is a scripture I've had in my mind a lot over the years, and I have desired to understand it more. Recently I feel as if I have come to some real revelation about the truth behind this scripture.

In my younger years I used to struggle with wrong belief systems that told me that people's actions had no consequences whatsoever. This made me very angry and created a strong desire for revenge as I felt that "if I don't do something about this then no-one will because there's no such thing as consequences for people's actions against me, unless I go out of the way to make consequences for them." This thinking was caused in part by a powerlessness I struggled with which communicated to me that I was not strong enough to be able to change anything that I was facing, therefore it couldn't be changed. There was no belief in God's overriding power and control above and beyond all things.

This belief system caused a lack of faith in the judgment, justice and character of God and created a lot of anger towards things which were seemingly out of anyone's control so could never be put right. Often if I tried to stand up for myself I would face consequences for doing that which communicated to me that "other people's actions towards me have no consequences because they are allowed to get away with anything, yet my actions towards others have consequences. This isn't fair!" This wrong belief system created a lot of anger and a belief that justice would not - and could not - be done.

However I have begun to realize that whatever we have in our hearts - be it good or bad - will bring forth fruit which will be shown in our lives. We sow seed out of what we carry within our own hearts. We sow seed in terms of the words we speak, the decisions we make, the actions we perform. And the sowing of that seed will bring in a harvest. Whether or not it's good or bad is dependent on what we sow because at the end of the day, God's Word is faithful and true and cannot return to Him void.

I have sown a lot of negative seed over the years - mainly in terms of negativity towards myself and my own abilities to change things or impact my own environment. There have been times in the past when I have sat back and allowed myself to be viciously bullied in work places and allowed so-called "friends" to lie to my face so that they could get something they wanted for themselves. I allowed these things to happen because I believed that I was powerless to change them. Some of these events still fill me with regret - mainly because I wish that I had stepped up and taken charge of things and fought for myself rather than sitting back passively because I believed I was too weak to do anything. I disrespected myself and I didn't deserve the disrespect I gave to myself. Granted, I am a different person now and far more capable of standing up for myself and what I believe is right - but these events have still hurt me and I wish I had the power to go back and change them.

The negative seed I had sown came from the spiritual inheritance I was born into, which I was operating out of without realizing. Granted - it wasn't my fault I had this inheritance, so it wasn't my fault that this seed was given to me, and because I was unaware of it at the time and therefore unable to deal with it accordingly I sowed that seed into my life through my own words and actions. The seeds of passiveness and fear I was sowing had me reaping a harvest of bullying and control from other people. The harvest greatly damaged my self esteem, confidence and emotional well being.

As hard as this has been - this has helped me to realize the true concept of biblical sowing and reaping. Though I had no control over what I was sowing I still reaped a harvest according to the seed that I had sown. This actually helped me gain a huge amount of faith in the justice and righteousness of God. You hear so many stories of people doing terrible things and then the excuses which come forth such as "they didn't know what they were doing" "It was beyond their control" and so on. Though these things may well be true - there is still a harvest that comes from that seed sown. There are a lot of people (like myself) who struggle with spiritual forces and curses operating in their lives as well as circumstances which have hurt them in the past and this has caused them to act in a negative manner towards others. For some people they take this even further and perform socially unacceptable actions - such as assaulting people violently. It's all very well for them to say that "they didn't know what they were doing" etc or that "they have come from a hard background" but at the end of the day the seeds they have sown will bring forth a harvest.

A prolific serial killer in the USA was given a life sentence for his actions. He became a Christian in prison and has sincerely sought to change his life. However, despite his salvation he must still reap a harvest from the seed sown. He will never be able to set foot outside of prison again for his actions and he will probably live with endless hate and anger towards him from the people whom he has hurt and frightened with his actions, not to mention people constantly questioning his salvation and thinking that he's just putting it all on to make people feel sorry for him. I for one believe he is sincere - but despite his sincerity he will never stop reaping the harvest for his actions. He has sown seed through his actions and regardless of what drove him to sow that seed - or how that seed arrived in his heart in the first place - he must reap a harvest for his actions and will reap that harvest until the day that he dies.

However, God can use the seed sown in our lives to guide us to better places. The spiritual inheritance given to me meant that I sowed constant seeds of hostility and a sense of "stay away from me" towards people. This reaped a harvest of many people not liking me and being unwilling to become close to me as they could sense I wanted them to stay away. Though in a way this was a bad harvest to reap - it was also for my own benefit and protection as it protected me from wrong relationships with people - especially females. Being engaged now to the right person for me I can honestly say that my hostility and "stay away from me" aura helped me dodge a few bullets in that department over the years - something that I am now deeply grateful for.

There are times when people do seem to get away with whatever they have done - but the important word here is the word "seem". It might appear that way but they don't really get away with anything. I have realized recently the powerful truth that sin simply cannot be forgiven - ever. People can be forgiven for their actions by God - but sin itself can never be forgiven. It will always be punished. It just depends on who. The person responsible for the sin will be punished for it - or their punishment can be transferred onto Jesus, with sincere repentance - a willingness to "turn away" from one's sins, not just saying a half-hearted "sorry" and expecting that to suffice. Every action by every person is known to God and if they do not find Jesus and sincerely repent of their sins they will face the eternal harvest of sowing seeds of a life without God. Even if people do repent and come to Jesus in wholehearted repentance and humility they still must face their actions and sometimes that means God calling them to do some hard things - such as go to people they have hurt and apologize. There is simply no easy ride.

How do we sow good seed and stop sowing bad seed? Give our hearts to God and allow Him to transform us from within. Come to the Throne with sincere repentance and ask for Him to change our hearts. I firmly believe that whatever we have in our hearts will be revealed through what (and who) we have in our lives. Throughout the long years I spent in the spiritual wilderness I have come to learn that the trials and tribulations that constantly came upon me happened because there was significant rotten seed in my heart that needed to be weeded out. The trials I faced were in accordance to the darkness I had within myself and once a trial I was facing had got rid of all the darkness it was triggering - the trial would end. I began to realize it was better to have the rotten seed uprooted through hard times than to have a nice, relaxed life without any hardships as this would give the rotten seed time and space to grow, which would in time, bring forth a bitter harvest. I have learned to welcome the process of uprooting the bad seed in my life as it gave me the chance to plant good seed which would mean a better harvest later on.

In conclusion - God is on the throne. It doesn't matter how much He may appear not to be at times - but He is truly on the throne. He cannot and will not be mocked. No human can outrun Him, no one can escape Him and His just judgment. What is sown will be reaped. There is grace, mercy, and forgiveness - but still consequences for one's actions. We all must carry our cross and reap the results of the seed that we sow - be that good or bad, or whether we realized we were sowing it or not.

Take care.

The power of belief

I've been dwelling a lot recently on the power of what we believe in and how it has the ability to define our entire lives from the inside out. I've put together a few points outlining what I believe in regards to how belief can shape our lives and how we need to go about changing those beliefs we need to change that are holding us back.

1. We are not always consciously aware of what we believe in.

One of the most powerful lessons I have learned over the past 12 years of being a Christian is the truth about the power of wrong thinking and how that defines us. When I came to Christ I was carrying overwhelming spiritual baggage which had been passed down to me via the generational lines. Receiving deliverance for these issues was only the beginning of the healing process. I realized that the spiritual baggage I was carrying had created layer after layer of wrong thinking and wrong belief systems operating so deeply within my mind and heart that they would affect my actions and personality on a daily basis without my realizing it. These belief systems - such as the belief that people were constantly trying to kill me - were so deeply rooted in my mind and heart that I didn't even know that they were there and would operate in a constant mode of heightened self awareness and self protection without even realizing it. God took me on a journey where He forced these wrong belief systems out of the buried depths of my heart into my conscious mind where I was forced to face it. This was a painful process but it was the only way to begin to free myself of the wrong thinking I was carrying within me as operating out of a constant place of fear due to this wrong thinking was wearing me out and draining my enthusiasm for daily life.

Though my beliefs were not in my conscious mind - but deeply buried in my subconscious - they still constantly influenced and affected my daily life. The hardest part was when something happened that upset me and forced the painful truths in my life to the surface. I would often react badly to the circumstance and could completely blow it out of proportion. It took many years of walking closely with the Holy Spirit for me to realize that the pain I felt in these circumstances was not connected to the circumstances itself but that the circumstances were simply being used to bring the deeply withheld wrong thinking to the surface so that I could begin to break free of it. During this process I had to rely heavily on the guidance of the Holy Spirit to help me to accurately define what I was actually feeling even if it wasn't what I thought it was. But as I continued to embrace this process of facing myself and understanding the depths of the wrong thinking created by the spiritual baggage I had been carrying around my entire life I began to get freer and more whole as a person because I wasn't medicating the problem by trying to control or change my circumstances - or people around me - but I was actually getting to the problem at its root and beginning to change it.

2. Our lives are shaped by what we believe.

Everything we do and everything we are in life is a direct consequence of what we believe in - be it consciously or subconsciously. One of the most powerful belief systems in my life has been the belief that I have been powerless, weak and unable to make a difference in my circumstances and unable to change anything. This wrong belief system has been a huge contributor towards depression in my life and it has also daily shaped my behaviour by causing me to try and shy away from conflict and not to fight for anything - even if it's something that needs to be fought for - because I've felt that I am too weak and powerless to make a decision and to be able to convince others that I deserve respect and that they need to acknowledge me and what I am saying. Over the last few years God has taken me through a hard process of training for leadership which has involved speaking God-given truths into people's lives whom I once considered close friends and are willingly acting in sin, then trying to justify it both to me and themselves. This process has involved God directly telling me to give words of knowledge to people and then telling them afterwards that if they refuse to acknowledge the spoken word of God then I could not maintain a friendship with them.

This has been an incredibly hard process and I have seen several once close friendships fall through due to the actions I have taken. Even with the spoken word of God behind me I still have felt a constant nagging sense of doubt and unbelief which has lead to me coming to God and asking Him "Have I done the right thing in this situation?" God's reply to me has been the following - "Yes Graham, you have done the right thing, you've done exactly as I asked you to do. Your problem now is that you don't believe that you have done the right thing because you don't believe in yourself and your own power enough. You also don't believe that you deserve respect and that your words have the power to change things. Continue to walk through the wrong belief systems in your life with Me and you will learn to be at peace with doing what I've asked you to do in this situation." I began to realize that my fear and doubt in what I had said and done was not because I was in the wrong but because I simply didn't believe I was in the right - even though I was.

3. You can do something you don't really believe in - but it won't last.

You can do something out of a place of unbelief - but only for a while. Eventually the truth will begin to come forth. About 5 years ago I was working for a company that sold cellphones and had just launched a new cellphone network. As an outbound sales consultant I was expected to be bringing in businesses and switching over all of their mobile phones to this new network as well as selling it to personal, individual customers. At the time I was a very shy and restricted person - not a good place to be as a salesman. I also knew that this network was still very buggy and besieged with constant problems and network crashes which left many people very unhappy (and quite understandably so). I did not believe I was to be in this job long term and I struggled to believe in my own ability to do the job - not to mention I had no belief whatsoever in this new network that seemed to create more problems than it did solutions. Needless to say - I struggled in the job.

I did my best to "fake it till I made it" as the old saying goes but the deeply withheld belief systems needed to succeed in this job simply weren't present in my life - not to mention the network gave me no confidence in wanting to sell it. It didn't matter how much I tried to succeed in this job because things just kept on getting worse. Eventually I just gave up and stopped trying because I realized that I was getting nowhere. Fortunately I was able to get another job working for a Christian camp which I really loved and took to like a duck to water. I excelled immensely in this job simply because I believed in where I was and what I was doing which helped me to believe in my own ability to do the job. As I later found out I got out just in time as a few weeks after I left the new cellphone network I had been hopelessly trying to sell crashed completely and wouldn't work for days on end which lead to the store being filled with angry people demanding a refund on their product - needless to say I am glad I got out before that happened!

4. If our beliefs as Christians oppose God's will then they will not last.

When I was younger I firmly believed I was going to be the next Kurt Cobain, or the next Kirk Hammett as a lead guitarist in a heavy metal band. I held onto this belief with a death grip and no one or nothing could tell me otherwise. Once I became a Christian God told me that He wanted to use me in ministry. I pushed this belief away and said that I knew that I was meant to be a rock star. However as time went on things began to change. I began to realize that I didn't really have the creativity or the talent to write and play music constantly as a profession and that my heart was going elsewhere. I certainly had (and still do have) abilities in that area but not to the extent I thought I did. As time wore on and I began to change on the inside I began to realize that being a stadium filling rock star was not my calling after all and that my gifting for music was to be used in a different way than what I had expected. I began to realize that if I had got what I wanted back then and been promoted to fame, riches and stardom I wouldn't have had the ability to last as my constant internal struggles would have destroyed me. In the end I was grateful to see that dream pass and I still get to play music to this day - but in a different way. Ironically, I think I have become a much better musician due to submitting my music gift to God's will as become more whole internally has freed me up to be more creative and to enjoy it more.

My belief throughout everything is that we need to be constantly asking God to show us what we believe about ourselves and for His help to change if our beliefs - whether conscious or subconscious - are holding us back from being who He has destined for us to become.

Take care.