why newday global?

Every night, when I put my kids to bed, we do 2 things together. Number 1 – we read the Bible. Number 2 – we read the Atlas.

Now I don’t feel like I need to explain myself when it comes to number 1, but let me take a few minutes to explain the second activity. Why do we read the Atlas every night? Two reasons.

Reason 1: I’m a geek, pure and simple. I love maps.
What do you do when you can’t sleep at night? Top of my list is map reading (I know it should be praying). I don’t care what kind of map – London A-Z or a world atlas, they’re all lovely. Give me a map and I’ll give you a kiss. I love everything about them.

Reason 2: I want my kids to be big, and I’m not talking about obesity. The Bible says that Jesus’ inheritance, given to Him by the Father, is the nations of the world – the whole lot (see Psalm 2). The Bible teaches that Christians are co-heirs with Christ (see Romans 8), so that means the whole world, is our inheritance. I want my kids to get that into their system from the earliest age. The last thing I want is small-minded, nit-picky, culturally-unaware, ignorant kids. The last thing I want is kids that grow up defending their little corner, their little way of doing things, embracing only their kind, and forgetting there’s a whole world out there that needs them because they have Jesus Christ.

I want my kids to grow up realising that they have been invited to the party that centres around God’s celebration of every tribe, tongue and nation finding forgiveness and new life in Jesus Christ – what a celebration!

Oh boy. This stuff is bigger than you can imagine. Ever heard the saying ‘the world is your oyster’? If you are in Christ, it really is. There is no place that is beyond the reach of God’s love, and there’s no place you can’t reach if God calls you there – literally no place! And the beauty of it is, even if it’s not time for you to go yet, you can reach it in prayer, any time you please! C’mon! Get this big-ness in your heart and before you know it, it will come out of you, spilling all over everything in your way – you may even end up buying maps and reading them at night! (Stamfords in Long Acre, London, is possibly the best map shop in the world, by the way).

Ever heard of Gladys Aylward? God called her to China, so she got a job, saved up, bought a train ticket, and went! The train only made it to Siberia (look up in the Atlas if you don’t know where it is) due to a war between Russia and China, so she got off there, and via being kidnapped and other stuff, she eventually made it to China, where God used her wonderfully. Why not you? I mean, seriously, why on earth not you? It starts on the inside, like a little mustard seed (see Matthew 13) and grows from there into a huge mama of a tree, and in the end all sorts of people are finding shade in you, and discovering their own destiny.

There are millions of lost people living on this same globe as you, waiting to meet someone like you, hear the message of life and be transformed out of emptiness, despair and slavery, and into fullness of life, the sure hope of eternal life, and freedom from the power of sin and death! Who will go for God? (see Isaiah 6).