Phil Rowlands

Hello, my friends!

Well, it's been a while since I last posted, I think last August. Obviously, I've had a bit of a hiatus; it's been quite the journey really. If you have followed some of my previous content, you would know that I have had lifelong battles with anxiety, depression and PTSD, with a healthy dose of neurodiversity thrown in to colour it up some more, lol!

So after a few years of being medication-free, and going OK but still very close to the line mostly, I found my system's little duck feet could no longer do all the paddling it was doing just to exist in day-to-day life. Being on medication isn't ideal; it has both positive and negative effects on one's life, but in looking at how unwell I was becoming late last year and what the spiral at the end was like, well, I know now that even though God is good, and He has blessed me with every spiritual blessing, for some reason, medication is God's passage of freedom for me. It's pretty common among the Christian community really, and it is getting less stigma than it used to, but the stigmatisation is still rife among the blab-it-and-grab-it super-spiro religious numbers, which are many, I can tell you. But nonetheless, I've found a place within myself where the goodness of God is being made manifest with a little chemical help.

I'm not entirely sure what I'm going to get up to on this blog going forward, but what I can tell you, it'll be real, it'll come from the position of in Christ and the meekness of His sonship. I don't like hype, I don't like overzealous yada yada or anything like that. I just like real stuff that passes the pub test, that resonates in my heart and the hearts of those who read what I write or hear what I have to say, or are interested in my journey because they are on their own journey and they feel like kin with me as they do battle with this world each day, doing their best to let Christ be the centre of their lives and live a life that is both content and joyful.

I think in December it was that I joined the Gold Coast Library, one of the best things I have ever done really. They have a couple of apps that you can download thousands of ebooks etc. from, and so I have been reading away huge chunks of my days over the Christmas period; I just love it. I actually really like dystopian stuff to be honest, like the Tomorrow Series, you know, stories about humanity being hit hard and reading about all the wins and losses and how people come together to survive disasters. I really think the end times will be a pretty hard deal for many; maybe I'm in training, lol.

Last year I didn't go to a church for a while after stepping away from one that went a very different direction than what my spirit would entertain. Come November, I think, after being on the new medication for a bit, I thought I'd go to the local mega church, mainly for the insanely good worship, and that part of it has been great. But the doctrine, although it has some flickers of grace through it, they still do lots of prancing around, and [saying] that everything is going to be mint on every level: “you'll all get healed, you'll all have babies, you'll all be prosperous, and the Gold Coast will have revival this year,” and on and on and on, lol.

So, I'm probably just going to pop in there occasionally going forward, just to get my dose of rockin' worship, but you can only take so much “preaching” and “proclaiming” of religion that doesn't really stack up in the real world. I'll most likely visit some topics regarding my experiences of recent going forward; it's always good to go and see what all the institutions are up to and where they are at and what is making them tick. When you have had a revelation of grace like I have had, you are sort of ruined by it in a way. You just see through all the rubbish, all the false promises and all the hype, and it actually makes me nauseous and triggers me a bit for a few days if I see and hear too much of it. Ha!

The other year I was creating some online content, and I feel I want to revisit that. I follow the AI space very closely and am always right up to speed with where everything is at; it's a pretty crazy space really. So, I'm going to recommence doing some shorts and some longer form stuff, maybe like little 3-minute videos for a while.

It's funny—well, not funny—people that know me know that I have a pretty vivid prophetic deal going on, but anyway, I was asking the Lord the other day where I should go, and He said “go where heaven touches earth,” then later when I asked Him what do you want me to do, He said “return to your software,” and the next day He said, “I haven't finished with you yet,” and this morning in my prayer time He said “you are concave and not convex.” So in looking at all that, sharing grace globally as in “earth” is a thing for me; the software part is all these platforms I use to do it with like blogging and media content and such, and of course we know Jesus is the author and finisher of our faith so, when He said “I haven't finished with you yet,” well that's just a really nice reminder of His promises and His truth. And as far as being concave rather than convex, I did a bit of a study on that and a concave person is a deep thinker, someone who ponders and assesses things, someone who is a bit of a quiet achiever, as opposed to convex where you are pushing outward, being really bold and outspoken. I can be convex too; I'm an introvert/extrovert, but I think as life has progressed I am more inward than outward. That's why I like expressing myself this way; it's nice and quiet and unhindered. I've done a bunch of preaching; I found it hard work, it always just took too much from me, so I couldn't sustain it.

So that's where I'm up to. This is just a little starting point for me. I know I'm not going to just be a keyboard warrior type incessantly, I love community and catching up with people, so it's a nice start, a nice emergence from a very difficult time in my life. We are all on a journey, we are all individuals, and not only are we all very different from one another, but God sees us that way and He has different journeys and pathways. Some are grouped together, some are outliers, some fit in really well, some fit in but in a jagged way, and some are just square pegs in round holes. But the glorious thing is, we all fit into Christ; we fitted in because He transformed us once and for all, so that we could be a son with Him of our Father in Heaven—that is just beautiful. The thing that gets me up each day is knowing that my Father in Heaven and my friend Jesus love me just the way I am, and that I am fearfully and wonderfully made with all the bumps and bruises and kinks here and there, and God loves every square inch of me, and I can't mess that up. He loves me, He loves you and He wants us to live in that, ponder that, meditate on that and God willing share that organically and freely when the opportunity arises, not forced, not over-baked or hyped up, just gently but also with anointing and powerfully. Our best days are always in front of us, no matter what it looks like, even if that's just going home to Him.

So be blessed today my friends, let God the Father smile on you today, for it is yet again a new day that He has made, and He loves you to bits! 😊

Phil