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When God Validates a Man or Ministry–and He Can, He Does!

By Anita Mathias

                                  Edward Knippers

 

So Good Friday, the travesty of justice, ends with the greatest act of validation I know of, the resurrection.

 

Jesus, unjustly slandered and accused, is raised from the dead by God.

 

“Jesus of Nazareth was a man accredited by God to you by miracles, wonders and signs, which God did among you through him, as you yourselves know,” Peter says. (Acts 2:22).

                                                                                                         * * *

I mean, sometimes God showers the kind of grace and favour on people which a million dollars of advertising would not buy, as when a single mum read Rick Warren’s The Purpose-Driven Life to a desperate murderer, who dramatically escaped from jail, and then, sort of, allowed her to call the police on him.

Or think of the astonishing success of The Prayer of Jabez though there was clever marketing in its dramatic editing into a small, short book. Its message in essence is: Pray big, faith-filled prayers, and God is more inclined to answer. We’ve heard variants of this lovely and true message before. I think the run-away success of this book was God showing favour on Bruce Wilkinson, who had quietly done remarkable things for many years with his Walk Thru the Bible Ministries. (Incidentally, I frequently pray the prayer of Jabez, particularly when stymied, and this has contributed to changing my life.)

                                                                                                           * * *

Interestingly, the people God chooses to validate are often visibly flawed people, which maybe why God chooses to validate them, to show that, despite our scepticism, his favour rests on them.

I can think of a remarkable series of God’s validation in the life of a pastor I knew. He was numb and not praying well after a family tragedy. David Pytches, who paved the way for the charismatic renewal in Britian prayed for him, and he slain in the spirit and overwhelmed with the knowledge of God’s love for him.
He in turn prayed for a twenty year old boy, who was “pole-axed,” slain in the spirit, and is now among this country’s most gifted preachers and Christian writers.
I heard a woman tell this story about him. 23 years ago, their two year old, had advanced cancer, and the doctors in Great Ormond Street had given up hope. This priest visited for lunch, and was told about the child.
“Have you prayed?” he asked.
“Oh yes!” they said.
“Can I pray?” he asked.
And he took the child, and prayed with the simple intensity. And the parents heard the prayer, and knew that things were going to be different. The doctors at Great Ormond Street were reluctant to test the boy again, but did. He is now 25 years old.
The couple, an architect and psychologist, resigned their jobs, went through difficult financial times, but went into ordained ministry and full time prayer ministry respectively. “If prayer has such power, why would I want to be doing anything else?” she said.
  * * *
When I worshipped in this man’s church, a large, wealthy one, the days of anointing had given way to a time of insecurity and control. I am reading R.T. Kendall’s The Anointing, which describes this phenomena of “Yesterday’s man” like Saul, who initially started out in the spirit’s power, but now operates on ambition and manipulation. Staff appointments in the church were a revolving door, as anyone who disagreed with him or his wife–or whose giftedness threatened either–were publicly and humiliatingly dismissed. Lay people who disagreed with him or his wife were treated with astonishing, finely calculated, manipulative cruelty; if not for the earlier acts of validation in his youth, we would have been tempted to wonder if he were a Christian.
Once, this man’s eldest teenager ran away from home. A young Ugandan minister, John Mulinde visited him, and the vicar described his despair. “Well then, we must pray,” said Mulinde.
Mulinde prayed. When he stopped, he phone rung. It was a woman whose husband the daughter had run away with.
The vicar was instrumental in introducing him widely in this country. What validation for Mulinde, who is now embroiled in his own scandal and disgrace, as I discovered when googling him while writing this.
        * * *
Yes, God often bestows validation to those who most need it, either to validate them in other people’s eyes, or for their own internal reassurance that God’s favour rests on them.
I started out in lay ministry in 2001, at a time of great personal stress: exhaustion, marital stress, and the difficulties of trying to write with two lovely young children, one a toddler.
I wondered if I should even be doing ministry, or getting my own life, house and relationships in order.
Two small things happened to reassure me. A woman in my Bible study was distraught. She was divorced and remarried, and as is not uncommon in these circumstances, her nine year old son, Jake, had lost his faith.
I remembered what I was like at 9, and prayed with real feeling for sad, confused Jake, with the sense of going through the holy place, into the Most Holy Place, and seeing the face of Jesus, between the wings of the cherubim. “When you prayed, it was like balm on the group,” she said. The next week, she said “Jake said he’s decided to become a Christian.”
The same week, I asked my mentor how I could pray for her. She had a rascal son, who had been a millionaire, had married a Latin American, and got a Mexican partner, who used him as a front of his dealings with Mexican drug-dealers and gun-runners. He had lost all his money, and was out of a job. She said, “Well you could pray for Dan, but it would take a miracle.” The next week, she met me, eyes shining. “There has been a miracle. His uncle, Dick, asked his cousin to give him a job—and he did.” And it required him to move to Virginia, away from Texas, where his unsavoury acquaintances were.
 And then I began to pray bigger, dreamier prayers—and many were answered—like moving back to Oxford. And it was reassuring to know in my bones that Jesus looked at me at smiled, though I was weak, struggling with discipline, with weight, with patience. That he thought I was okay, because he loves me as I loved my messy, breaky, chattery, incorrigible toddlers—and thought they were okay—and more than okay!!
That God loves you, that he answers your prayers, that he thinks you’re basically okay because you are his child…ah, that’s the best form of accreditation!

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Anita Mathias: About Me

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My Books

Wandering Between Two Worlds: Essays on Faith and Art

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Francesco, Artist of Florence: The Man Who Gave Too Much

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The Story of Dirk Willems

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Premier Digital Awards 2015 - Finalist - Blogger of the year
Runner Up Christian Media Awards 2014 - Tweeter of the year

Recent Posts

  •  On Not Wasting a Desert Experience
  • A Mind of Life and Peace in the Middle of a Global Pandemic
  • On Yoga and Following Jesus
  • Silver and Gold Linings in the Storm Clouds of Coronavirus
  • Trust: A Message of Christmas
  • Life- Changing Journaling: A Gratitude Journal, and Habit-Tracker, with Food and Exercise Logs, Time Sheets, a Bullet Journal, Goal Sheets and a Planner
  • On Loving That Which Love You Back
  • “An Autobiography in Five Chapters” and Avoiding Habitual Holes  
  • Shining Faith in Action: Dirk Willems on the Ice
  • The Story of Dirk Willems: The Man who Died to Save His Enemy

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What I’m Reading

Dreams from My Father: A Story of Race and Inheritance
Barak Obama

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H Is for Hawk
Helen MacDonald

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Tiny Habits
B. J. Fogg

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The Regeneration Trilogy
Pat Barker

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anita.mathias

Writer, Blogger, Reader, Mum. Christian. Instaing Oxford, travel, gardens and healthy meals. Oxford English alum. Writing memoir. Lives in Oxford, UK

Images from walks around Oxford. #beauty #oxford # Images from walks around Oxford. #beauty #oxford #walking #tranquility #naturephotography #nature
So we had a lovely holiday in the Southwest. And h So we had a lovely holiday in the Southwest. And here we are at one of the world’s most famous and easily recognisable sites.
#stonehenge #travel #england #prehistoric England #family #druids
And I’ve blogged https://anitamathias.com/2020/09/13/on-not-wasting-a-desert-experience/
So, after Paul the Apostle's lightning bolt encounter with the Risen Christ on the road to Damascus, he went into the desert, he tells us...
And there, he received revelation, visions, and had divine encounters. The same Judean desert, where Jesus fasted for forty days before starting his active ministry. Where Moses encountered God. Where David turned from a shepherd to a leader and a King, and more, a man after God’s own heart.  Where Elijah in the throes of a nervous breakdown hears God in a gentle whisper. 
England, where I live, like most of the world is going through a desert experience of continuing partial lockdowns. Covid-19 spreads through human contact and social life, and so we must refrain from those great pleasures. We are invited to the desert, a harsh place where pruning can occur, and spiritual fruitfulness.
A plague like this has not been known for a hundred years... John Piper, after his cancer diagnosis, exhorted people, “Don’t Waste Your Cancer”—since this was the experience God permitted you to have, and He can bring gold from it. Pandemics and plagues are permitted (though not willed or desired) by a Sovereign God, and he can bring life-change out of them. 
Let us not waste this unwanted, unchosen pandemic, this opportunity for silence, solitude and reflection. Let’s not squander on endless Zoom calls—or on the internet, which, if not used wisely, will only raise anxiety levels. Let’s instead accept the invitation to increased silence and reflection
Let's use the extra free time that many of us have long coveted and which has now been given us by Covid-19 restrictions to seek the face of God. To seek revelation. To pray. 
And to work on those projects of our hearts which have been smothered by noise, busyness, and the tumult of people and parties. To nurture the fragile dreams still alive in our hearts. The long-deferred duty or vocation
So, we are about eight weeks into lockdown, and I So, we are about eight weeks into lockdown, and I have totally sunk into the rhythm of it, and have got quiet, very quiet, the quietest spell of time I have had as an adult.
I like it. I will find going back to the sometimes frenetic merry-go-round of my old life rather hard. Well, I doubt I will go back to it. I will prune some activities, and generally live more intentionally and mindfully.
I have started blocking internet of my phone and laptop for longer periods of time, and that has brought a lot of internal quiet and peace.
Some of the things I have enjoyed during lockdown have been my daily long walks, and gardening. Well, and reading and working on a longer piece of work.
Here are some images from my walks.
And if you missed it, a blog about maintaining peace in the middle of the storm of a global pandemic
https://anitamathias.com/2020/05/04/a-mind-of-life-and-peace/  #walking #contemplating #beauty #oxford #pandemic
A few walks in Oxford in the time of quarantine. A few walks in Oxford in the time of quarantine.  We can maintain a mind of life and peace during this period of lockdown by being mindful of our minds, and regulating them through meditation; being mindful of our bodies and keeping them happy by exercise and yoga; and being mindful of our emotions in this uncertain time, and trusting God who remains in charge. A new blog on maintaining a mind of life and peace during lockdown https://anitamathias.com/2020/05/04/a-mind-of-life-and-peace/
In the days when one could still travel, i.e. Janu In the days when one could still travel, i.e. January 2020, which seems like another life, all four of us spent 10 days in Malta. I unplugged, and logged off social media, so here are some belated iphone photos of a day in Valetta.
Today, of course, there’s a lockdown, and the country’s leader is in intensive care.
When the world is too much with us, and the news stresses us, moving one’s body, as in yoga or walking, calms the mind. I am doing some Yoga with Adriene, and again seeing the similarities between the practice of Yoga and the practice of following Christ.
https://anitamathias.com/2020/04/06/on-yoga-and-following-jesus/
#valleta #valletamalta #travel #travelgram #uncagedbird
Images from some recent walks in Oxford. I am copi Images from some recent walks in Oxford.
I am coping with lockdown by really, really enjoying my daily 4 mile walk. By savouring the peace of wild things. By trusting that God will bring good out of this. With a bit of yoga, and weights. And by working a fair amount in my garden. And reading.
How are you doing?
#oxford #oxfordinlockdown #lockdown #walk #lockdownwalks #peace #beauty #happiness #joy #thepeaceofwildthings
Images of walks in Oxford in this time of social d Images of walks in Oxford in this time of social distancing. The first two are my own garden.  And I’ve https://anitamathias.com/2020/03/28/silver-and-gold-linings-in-the-storm-clouds-of-coronavirus/ #corona #socialdistancing #silverlinings #silence #solitude #peace
Trust: A Message of Christmas He came to earth in Trust: A Message of Christmas  He came to earth in a  splash of energy
And gentleness and humility.
That homeless baby in the barn
Would be the lynchpin on which history would ever after turn
Who would have thought it?
But perhaps those attuned to God’s way of surprises would not be surprised.
He was already at the centre of all things, connecting all things. * * *
Augustus Caesar issued a decree which brought him to Bethlehem,
The oppressions of colonialism and conquest brought the Messiah exactly where he was meant to be, the place prophesied eight hundred years before his birth by the Prophet Micah.
And he was already redeeming all things. The shame of unwed motherhood; the powerlessness of poverty.
He was born among animals in a barn, animals enjoying the sweetness of life, animals he created, animals precious to him.
For he created all things, and in him all things hold together
Including stars in the sky, of which a new one heralded his birth
Drawing astronomers to him.
And drawing him to the attention of an angry King
As angelic song drew shepherds to him.
An Emperor, a King, scholars, shepherds, angels, animals, stars, an unwed mother
All things in heaven and earth connected
By a homeless baby
The still point on which the world still turns. The powerful centre. The only true power.
The One who makes connections. * * *
And there is no end to the wisdom, the crystal glints of the Message that birth brings.
To me, today, it says, “Fear not, trust me, I will make a way.” The baby lay gentle in the barn
And God arranges for new stars, angelic song, wise visitors with needed finances for his sustenance in the swiftly-coming exile, shepherds to underline the anointing and reassure his parents. “Trust me in your dilemmas,” the baby still says, “I will make a way. I will show it to you.” Happy Christmas everyone.  https://anitamathias.com/2019/12/24/trust-a-message-of-christmas/ #christmas #gemalderieberlin #trust #godwillmakeaway
Look, I’ve designed a journal. It’s an omnibus Look, I’ve designed a journal. It’s an omnibus Gratitude journal, habit tracker, food and exercise journal, bullet journal, with time sheets, goal sheets and a Planner. Everything you’d like to track.  Here’s a post about it with ISBNs https://anitamathias.com/2019/12/23/life-changing-journalling/. Check it out. I hope you and your kids like it!
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