the good the bad and the quick

i haven't blogged in a while. to both of you who read this blog i apologise.

quick.

here i'm refering to gabriel agbonglahor (or however you spell it). for those of you who don't know who he is he's a footballer and he's flipping lightning. i used to tell villa fans, or anyone else who would care to listen that he was crap. but he's turned into one heck of a footballer and fully deserved his england cap the other week.

anyway the reason i'm talking about villa players with stupid names is that the mighty gills are playing villa in the fa cup 3rd round and im so excited i could pee at seeing how those brummies handle a trip to a packed to the rafters, rocking priestfield!

bad.

i was walking home the other day. i'd just crossed the road on me way to somerfield to buy bog roll. and some woman was shouting at her daughter who was probably about 3 or 4. i couldn't believe the language this woman was using. as she screamed 'f*ck you!' straight at this poor girls face i thought about what the girl must be feeling. and what a crappy world we live in. as i was waiting to pay for my andrex i genuinely nearly cried. how can we treat each other like this?! aaaaaagh! it was horrible. maybe she was a terrible mum? maybe she's a great mum who's been ran ragged by a little terror all afternoon and the outburst was completely uncharacteristic? either way that moment of anger was just horrible.

good.

on the same walk home i bumped into colin. an old fella i vaguely know from church stuff in gillingham. a really pleasant chirpy bloke. he'd been christmas shopping and clearly enjoyed showing me what he'd bought for various people. he'd put real thought into his gifts and his goal was clearly just to make whoever got them happy. a few weeks earlier i'd shared a train back from london with colin and he'd given me a flipping lovely pot of jam that he'd been given by the friend he'd visited.

maybe the world isn't always crappy after all?

shouting, fighting, kindness, anger, joy, laughter, bitterness, peace, hatred, love, jam......

it's all in there

heurelho gomes is shit, don't build your house on him

the spurs full back vedran corluka vowed not to shave as long as the mighty yids stayed unbeaten under harry redknapp.........

..........so he's probably reported to training with a nasty shaving rash this week.

spurs got beat 2-1 by fulham at the weekend with their ever generous goalkeeper gomes gifting fulham the softest of goals whilst trying the extremely difficult skill of catching.

in recent weeks spurs have played with a togetherness and confidence that has brought me such joy. darren bent can't stop scoring. luka moderate is now luka magic. but gomes is shit. he looks nervous and instead of filling hs team mates with confidence he has them filling their pants.

jesus tells us "Anyone who listens to my teaching and follows it is wise, like a person who builds a house on solid rock. Though the rain comes in torrents and the floodwaters rise and the winds beat against that house, it won’t collapse because it is built on bedrock. But anyone who hears my teaching and doesn’t obey it is foolish, like a person who builds a house on sand. When the rains and floods come and the winds beat against that house, it will collapse with a mighty crash."

we can go to church. we can go to prayer meetings. we can put our change in the charity box. we can smile and be nice. we can wear beige.

but if we don't have jesus as our rock, our refuge, our base, our inspiration, our energy, our foundation, to the point where our 'house', our life, our world, would collapse without him we need to maybe think about re-location..........or a new goalkeeper.

you might say:
"i do follow jesus' teachings. i love my neighbour. i pray. i give."

fantastic. keep doing these things. but jesus also teaches other things. more difficult, harder things;

love those who really piss you off, abuse you, attack you, gossip about you, hate you.
and pray for them.

don't judge others. even skanky arsenal fans.

forgive others. whatever they have done.

love jesus more than our own family, more than our own life.

go and tell people about jesus, who he is and what he's done. tell everyone. everywhere.

challenging stuff. i don't do this. i try to. and i'm going to keep on trying......................

Fine Ale, Super Harry and a Whole Load of Creativity!

i flipping love beer! drunkenness is pointless and i hate the feeling of being dehydrated which comes with too many beverages but i love beer. i do. i just love it.





for years i was a guinness man, but recently i've turned from the usually hideously priced, but oh so satisfying black stuff to real ale.





laurie (my best friend, girlfriend, soul mate) has just left after a weekend visit. we see each other about every 2 weeks. it sucks like a dyson. she left. i was sad. i sat down at my computer. i felt like blogging...........i couldn't think of anything to write.....so i went down the co-op and bought 2 bottles of old speckled hen. flipping good beer.





so many blogs are just people moaning and i don't want this to be like that. my weekend was fab..... for a start SPURS WON A MATCH!!!!!!!!!!!!can't flipping wait to see all the action on match of the day 2 later...... and i think harry redknapp is the perfect appointment for us. gills also won so football wise top weekend!





8.55 on saturday morning, me and the beautiful laurie were on our way to london. tube to camden, bought a banana and a pear, then a short walk and we were there, london zoo! we were both very excited and skipped most of the way to see the giraffes (laurie's favourite). isn't God creative!!!!!! the zoo was ace. so many wonderful animals; giraffes, lions, tigers, zebras, monkeys, snakes, arsenal fans, bats, hunting dogs, gorillas and possibly strangest of all, okapis?! check out the picture!....it looks like a dog, a zebra, a horse, bugs bunny and martin keown were involved in a horrible high speed collision!

1.45 on saturday afternoon, me and the beautiful laurie were on our way from the zoo to camden market (via the zoo's gift shop of course, she bought me a lion notebook). we love being in camden. we wander. we natter. we eat falafel. we drink tea at the worlds greatest tea shop. one of us loves stopping at every stall to look at the earrings! haha. it's fab. isn't God creative!!!!!!!! so many different cultures, dress senses, personalities, faiths in this world and it seems to me each of them sends a representative to camden market. i love it.

i love my God, and learn lots about him through the bible and time spent in His presence. but i also learn so much about Him through people. through their smiles, generosity, boldness, individuality, sense of humour and patience to name but a few. okapis are great but us people are made in God's image. maybe not in outward appearance, i'm not sure if God has 2 arms, 2 legs and a head like me, you and Jesus do, but in character.

i love the fact that the creative genius who crafted this universe also created me. created okapis. created the many weird and wonderful people in camden. created all of us. how good is that?

joke to finish: (courtesy of laurie)

what do you call a man on your doorstep wth no arms and no legs?

matt

sermons or shinpads?

so the weekend rolls round and it's the same old question.....

no, not why the flip did spurs dispose of 3 quality strikers and replace them with a confused russian (pavlyuchenko), a promising 11 year old (campbell) and 37 midfielders...

the question is:

sitting in rows vs running in mud

trying to stay awake vs feeling alive

boredom vs action

CHURCH vs FOOTY

haha maybe thats a bit strongly worded but hopefully you get my jist.

'there's no childhood more delightful than one poised between sport and imagination' Eric Cantona

'football is the beautiful game' Pele

i love footy. i'm never happier than when i've got a ball at my feet. i totally agree with eric and pele, as a 24 year old boy i love nothing more than watching top class footballers on the box and then trying to emulate them on a sloping mudbath of a sunday league pitch.

'the Lord is like a father to his children,

tender and compassionate to those who fear him'

King David (psalm 103 v13)

'i am the bread of life. no one who comes to me will ever be hungry again.

those who believe in me will never thirst.'

Jesus Christ (john 6 v35)

i love God. i'm never happier than when i feel close to my heavenly father, this closeness made possible through what Jesus has done for me.

if i had to choose between my faith in God and the beautiful game however it would be like hull taking on any of the london clubs at the minute.....no contest! my boots would be well and truly hung up.

God i love, church however i find boring. i have the attention span of a goldfish with ADHD and usually find myself texting or daydreaming by the time the speaker has cleared hs throat and adjusted his beige tie!

i played football this sunday (we won 4-0) and looked around at my team mates in the changing room, most of them a similar age to myself and just as ugly. i knew that God loved each and every one of them but also that the church is crap at reaching out to, and is irrelevant to these young men. young men like me.

church: a body of people who are welcoming and non judgemental, love each other, care for each other, pray for each other, laugh with each other, cry with each other and learn about faith with each other.

i believe this is how Jesus intended his church to be.

the fact is, if i go to a church service on a sunday i wish i was playing football, if i play football i don't wish i was in church.

thank you for reading, please comment and let me know your thoughts on this.......

a joke to finish:

Jumper cables walk into a bar

Bartender says : Ill serve you, just dont start anything.

haha!

Lets try that again......

ok so i realise if i press enter after typing the title of a blog post it gets posted straight away....and as i don't know how to erase it, my 1st ever blog post is completely blank! not a good start. oh well i'll probably get bored of writing on here by tuesday next week so i suppose it doesn't really matter.

"did you here about the 2 brooms who had a miracle baby?!?!?!"

"they hadn't even swept together! haha"

WHAT THE HELL DOES IT MEAN TO BE A CHRISTIAN?!?!
be a good person?
go to church?
be a judgemental idiot with your head up your own bum?
drive a volvo?

although alot of these arguments have more weight behind them than emile heskey, i don't think any of them completely answers the question.....

my idea of what a christian is or should be seems to change daily as i crash through life making mistake after mistake, everyday trying to figure out what it's all about!

"A Christian is someone who knows what Jesus has done for them and this truth governs their lives"

this is my opinion at this time (1.42am on a saturday morning)
agree?
am i way off the mark?
i'm not entirely sure myself but i'd love for people to comment if only to prove i haven't wasted the last half hour of my life.

i'm also a spurs fan so if you want to leave a comment just to mock me your probably never gonna get a better chance!

First things first