“Hold on tight.

When you receive the Gift of Purpose you are in for the ride of your life” 

- Teresa Shields Parker

Did you know a lot of times, the sun isn’t even awake at 6 a.m.? That’s right, today, April 10, 2013, in Sutton, near London, England, where I live, the sun stayed in bed until 6:16 a.m. Why should I get up first?

I’m not a morning person. I never have been. I wouldn’t say I’m someone who likes to lazily sleep in till 10 a.m., but I’m also not someone who naturally rises at 6 a.m., either. I get up early to go to work, but I never get properly awake until about 8 or 9 a.m.

I also have a medical condition, epilepsy, which in my case is linked to my tiredness and lack of sleep. So, I even have a legitimate excuse for sleeping in.

The final icing on this cake; this is my day off. I don’t have to be anywhere today.

Here I am, at 6.47 a.m. on my day off, sitting at my desk writing. And, yes, I got up at 6 a.m.

Why would I, or anyone, willingly sacrifice a nice lie-in on a day off or on any day, for that matter?  Read more….

The above is a little excerpt from a guest post I wrote which went live today over at Teresa Shields Parker’s blog. The link to the rest of the post is below, but first here’s some more about Teresa and (more…)

I don’t normally write posts and post them on the same day. I usually take time to edit and refine them, to allow the message to marinade in my heart, before finally sharing it. As a writer who is growing in his gift, it’s a good discipline to learn.

But occasionally you need to take a risk. You need to go out of your comfort zone.

And you just have something on your heart to share which you know needs to get out.

As it is.

Raw and naked for the world to see.

I would think of it as is kind of a ’5 minute Friday’ of my own, on a Thursday, unprompted, unedited, on a theme which has come straight from the heart. It’s even in a different font, because it’s come straight from Evernote & I’m not quite technically savvy enough to change it. That’s how raw it is.

Seriously though, I’d recommend occasional spontaneous writing and sharing to anyone, especially those passionate about writing & creativity. It will unlock thoughts, feelings and questions you never knew existed.

Anyhow, here we go with mine….

 
I want to write words whose power goes beyond words.

I want to write words which open our imaginations to endless possibilties, words which point to infinity, which open our souls to the reality that nothing we can ever describe, experience or imagine can ever truly capture, contain, know, or aptly describe the wonder, love, grace, nature and awesomeness of God, or who He is.

In one way words are very limiting, but if we use them well, they can be liberating.

Words must always be the beginning, never the (more…)

At the Oscars this week – all the winners, including Daniel Day-Lewis (pictured) – made speeches thanking the often unheralded people who helped them achieve their success.

The winners could easily have forgotten these people, and most of us would never have known. But they chose to acknowledge them.

They made a choice to give thanks.

It’s easy to be selfish in a culture obsessed with self. We are fed messages from advertising all the time about products which will make us better. How “you’re worth it”.

And it’s a culture which often forgets gratitude. Often unintentionally, we neglect to thank others when things go well. And we are quick to blame others when it all goes wrong.

Like all of us, I’ve had times when life has gone badly, I’ve had a failure or been disappointed. And in many of those moments I’ve wanted to blame God, or someone else than myself – when often it’s been my own fault.

On the other hand, when I’ve had a success I’ve occasionally forgotten to thank (more…)

Today, I have a gift I want to share with you all.

It’s a resource I think will really challenge, inspire and encourage you whoever you are and whatever you do.

I recently had the privilege of interviewing author Jeff Goins. He’s a blogger, writer and speaker, who just published his first book, “Wrecked: When a Broken World slams into Your Comfortable Life”. It talks about how often it’s when circumstances and decisions wreck us, tear our world apart, when paradoxically, we undergo the biggest transformation.

Jeff is a wise, friendly and generous man and it’s a privilege to know and interview him.

In the interview we discussed the whole concept of being Wrecked and he shared some incredible stories from his own life.

He talked with great wisdom and insight on calling, identity, creativity, life balance and finding your voice. Issues which impact many of us.

The interview is an amazing resource for anyone looking to understand their identity and calling. Or if you’re trying to find balance in life, or a creative seeking to grow in their craft and build a blog platform. Whoever you are, I know it’s something that will both challenge and inspire you. I’m just really excited to be able to share it with you all.

The interview is in the form of two relatively small MP3 downloads for you to listen to.

And I want to give them to you as a gift, for free.Yes. I said free. (more…)

Have you ever wanted to be part of a blog? Have you ever read interviews with authors or speakers and wished you could have asked one yourself but never had the chance? Well this could all change right now.

I’m passionate about community and about building this into a great blog community – and as part of that I want you all to be involved, interacting, participating and engaging. You can do this through subscribing and commenting – but here’s another exciting way for you to be involved!

As many of you will know, I guest post for other blogs from time to time. Twice this year I have guest posted for the author Jeff Goins (@JeffGoins). He’s a writer  from the US, who runs a hugely successful blog on writing and the creative process which for I wrote this on engaging our creative side, earlier in the year.

He’s recently published his first book, ‘Wrecked – When a Broken World Slams into your Comfortable Life’ – about how our pain and brokeness can be the catalyst for huge change both in our lives and in the world at large. I wrote an post on my experiences of being Wrecked which was published on the site and you can read here.

I’ve been reading this recently and it is phenomenal. Jeff is an incredible writer and his story is compelling and (more…)

The eagle-eyed of you may have noticed a distinct lack of new material here in the last month or so. I decided to take a bit of what is commonly called a ‘sabbatical’ from posting new material here (though some guest posts have appeared elsewhere).

I’d love to give you all nice Christian jargon to explain this, like I ‘felt God leading me to’ or ‘it was a time/season of resting’ (come on, you’ve all heard this language before).

But that’s not really me, I’d rather just be myself and be honest. So here’s the deal.

I lost all motivation and energy for posting, and realised my motives were getting distorted.

Writing  – more specifically posting  – was getting me down. It had become a burden.

I posted out of fear of failure and anonymity, to be popular and successful. This fear had also subtly impacted my writing itself, in subtle ways. I had begun writing for everyone else.

What I felt I should write, what would be popular.

Writing and posting had become an idol. (more…)

Hello all! Today is the third and most likely final in my ‘Best of the Blog (So Far)’ series. (You can find the other parts here and here).

Before we get to the topic of today’s posts, (which as you can probably tell, are more personal in nature), I’d like to put in another quick mention of my upcoming newsletter.

One value that’s really important to me is to connect with my readers – you. So in the very near future I plan to be sending out a monthly newsletter. This will not only keep you up to date with what I’m doing and what’s happening here in a much more simple and accessible way, but will have the bonus of containing some exclusive content for you.

I’d really love to connect more with you all and have some exciting, exclusive material I really want to share with you – so I’d love to invite you to subscribe here (it’s free by the way!).

Hi all, welcome to my second posts on the ‘best of the blog’ (so far) which I’m publishing whilst taking a sabbatical from posting new material. Here I’ll be sharing some of my most read posts and some of the ones which mean the most to me.

Just before we get to that, I’d to put in another quick mention of my upcoming newsletter.

One thing that’s important to me is to connect with my readers – you. So in the very near future I plan to be sending out a monthly newsletter.

This will not only keep you up to date with what I’m doing and what’s happening here in a much more accessible way, but will have the bonus of containing some exclusive content only for subscribers.

I’d really love to connect more with you all and have some exciting, exclusive material I really want to share with you – so I’d love to invite you to subscribe here (it’s free by the way!).

Now back to the best of the blog. Today we’re focussing more on posts on issues concerning social media and faith. As ever, there’s a little except (more…)

In the last year or so I’ve become more aware of the work of Jeff Goins. He is a writer, successful blogger and soon-to-be published author. I published a two-part interview of him for this site earlier in the year and I recently wrote a guest post for his site.

He’s just written a new e-book, ‘You Are a Writer‘, and I’ve had the privilege of getting an advance copy to review. There’s also a great website related to the book, which you can find here.

I don’t often review others’ work, but Jeff is a compelling, challenging writer and it’s no understatement to say his work could be life-changing for you. Even if you don’t think of yourself as a writer,  wait and give this review a read – then go and get this book.

Trust me, you won’t be disappointed.

Jeff Goins is a writer.

In his new e-book, he makes clear you can be one too.

In this relatively short but powerful e-book, he calls us out to embrace who we can be – to stop dreaming of being writers, stop waiting to be picked and to start calling ourselves writers – and teaches us how to be writers.  (more…)

Today I’m going to be going back to the topic of social media . In the time since I last blogged on the subject I’ve decided that this topic is far too big to merely have a short-term series on it.

The issue of social media is so significant  and there are so many areas to cover that we need to devote time to it, and so from now on it’ll be one of the ongoing discussions/themes of my blog.

I recently decided to take some time off from social media. I’ve always believed it important we take regular sabbaths from social media  – but I’d always struggled to really lay it down and actually do it.

Which is a good sign that I really needed to stop.

So with the help of a couple of accountability partners, I decided to spend 48 hours out of the digital realm.

Cut off. No Facebook, no Twitter, no Google + or e-mail, for 48 hours. (more…)