Welcome to our website, and it is open to deal with the most important issue we have: LIFE! Life is God’s greatest gift to man and how he lives it is most important, it is written: ‘God alone gives all men life and breath and everything else.’ (Acts 17:25) In the United Kingdom, from where I work on this most vital subject, a way of life has been shaped by a long history, it still shows how influenced it has been by the Christian Faith, especially Protestantism; although its impact is fast disappearing from its culture, one can still feel the benefits of a strong faith in God, which gives to every citizen the respect that is due, to the man at the top or at the bottom of the social ladder. Not everything is perfect, but like in many countries of the Western world, we still live better than in most of the world. Therefore do not give up, find the right way and live grafully! 

An important part of our heritage is ‘Education’ which is free. Education was started by Christians, who gave up their time on Sundays, and opened their churches to teach the children of the street how to read and write, that is how began the ‘Sunday School’, eventually it was taken over by the State, so that now free education to every child is the law of the nation! Today education is free up to eighteen years of age and it should be free even higher so that every child has, of whatever background it may come from, the possibility to reach as high as it is possible! It would give the possibility for everyone to enjoy a good career, whether it be in the manual or intellectual realm. When we consider some areas of the world, where everything is at a price, or not available at all; we realise the importance of free education. We should realise that if men and women that are  doing a menial job, were not doing what they are doing, the country would come to a standstill, so we are all responsible to respect each other for we are in it together!

A good education gives people a chance to achieve great things, without it, much of what seems so natural to most, it still is out of reach for too many and gives, to a lot of people, a sense of worthlessness. The lack of finance and the situation as it is, robs people of opportunities which to many are natural and expected! Yet, despite all that better is reachable, there still is a lot of people that grumble and look for something more, or better, without really knowing what they are looking for. 

For those of you that enjoy all these blessings in your prosperous countries, how do you feel about ‘your life’? To start with, are you grateful? Are you satisfied? I have discovered in my years of ministry, having pastored people in various countries and in all sorts of situations, that an awful lot of people are not happy, nor do they feel fulfilled and I often wonder why? Why are people always looking for something else, something better, never knowing what they are really looking for? Some feel disadvantaged, they have been unable to reach the academic levels that others have. Many factors contributed to that situation, some people have not got the capacity to assimilate what they are taught, therefore the subjects that are necessary for the career of their choice have been missed, others have missed better jobs because they did not work hard enough and have wasted their chances; there are an awful lot of such people, too many! Although further education is available in our country (UK), learning more does not attract many, because they have reached an age where money matters more than security of a good job. But what can one hope for if one does not have the means to afford a decent living, or if you can afford more and better, it is not there, sadly, too many are in that situation?  Are you one of those that are sorry to have missed good opportunities or never had them? Do you regret not to have taken your primary education or apprenticeship more seriously? Or do you just grumble for the sake of it?

On the other hand, I have known, and know, folk that have done well. They had a good job, a good home, everything appears to be right, yet I was surprised to find that some, having so much more than most, are unhappy, dissatisfied! Why?  It appears that they were, more or less, forced into a career by a parent or both. Working is obviously a necessity, yet their satisfaction would be better were they given the opportunity to choose the career of their choice? I have known a doctor who doing well in his practice was an unhappy man. Everyone in his family, for generations, was a doctor, so from childhood, he was destined to be a doctor, it seemed out of the question to be anything else! Another man I have known could have been a high-ranking engineer, but he wanted to be a pilot, he thought that flying aeroplanes was far more: ‘his thing’! Who knows if he could ever become this dream pilot? His dad wanted him to be an engineer, so his parents sacrificed a lot to send him to an university, he failed, because he was not interested. All the sacrifices his parents made to educate him, to that level, were wasted and he had to spend the rest of his life doing a menial job, which he hated anyway! 

There were times I wished I had something like a magic wand, so that I could change it all and take them back into time so that they could become what they always wanted to be! But such things are only possible in films, real life is very different.  Going back in time! Would not be the dream of so many; but who knows? I am sure that if there really was this time ‘machine’ making it possible to start life all over again! My! There would be a lot of traveling through time, and most, if it were possible, would do it more than once, because, somehow, man seems to spoil things not for want of trying; it’s in his nature. Something inside him has created a void that can never be filled! Yet all candidates for a change must work at it to get themselves out of this hole, because true satisfaction, a deep sense of fulfilment, this better life! can be found; but to find it one does not need hard work, nor travel through time, not even a lot of money! How? We’ll talk about it as we proceed!

These are facts of life, people that I have met and had to help as well as I could, have somehow found the way to a new life, which is that better one! The reason for much of it, is that we have structured a mentality, a way of life, in which money is everything, the NOW factor! ‘I know what I want and I want it now’! is the in word. And so, they use their credit cards without any serious thought and get into trouble, debts accumulate and to pay them they get another credit card, it happens eventually that they can’t sleep at night, because they have not the means to repay the monthly bills; but they got what they wanted! Thus, all the opportunities one has, blessings that others in poorer parts of the world can never dream of, is not enough, greed is the word, covetousness is a disease of the soul, and there is no cure for it. One seems to come out of one hole to fall into another, but still look for ‘that’ something else! But what is that something else? 

I saw a documentary on television about a country in great poverty, yet its people driven by a determination were so resourceful, they worked so hard, from dawn to dusk, got so very little for it, and yet they seemed so happy, putting us to shame. So, what can we say? Not much really; man is a mystery to himself and others around him, so much of my experience has brought me to the conclusion that true happiness and satisfaction are not found in what we have or who we are. What I have just written shows that, in the main, man is always searching for something else, something better, not really knowing what it is, yet there must be that better world or that better life.

The changes I have seen in my life time are amazing. When I reached the age of fifteen, I thought that I was greatly blessed and privileged to have a bike, not many boys of my age had one, I had found my freedom and went mile after mile around the French country side, where I was born, it was fantastic, terrific, little did I know that one day I would own my own car, and travel the world ships and high-speed trains, to top it all, fly in aeroplanes. In the world of electronics, we do not know what will come next? Some of it is frightening, we ask ourselves where is it taking us, because the world is going on a journey but where, we call it progress! So, this something is untried and unknown, it could be very dangerous? I say it by experience, being a preacher, I have considered the spirit that drives man, and have learned that past generations have taken that same way and ended badly! 

Whatever man has achieved, in whatever part of the world he may find himself, he still wants to reach something higher. Everest has taken a long time to be conquered, now that it has been done by Sir Edmund Hillary, with the help of Tensing, many are sorry that there is nothing higher. Man has already walked on the moon and talks about reaching Mars, if God allows it man will do it! From childhood, we are moulded by the culture into which we have been born into, it shapes and controls our thinking and attitudes. In the West, in the main, we have inherited, since the end of the Second World War, a culture that is based mainly on economics; our governments preach it very strongly, a better future depends on doing constantly better, but it all costs, at times it costs a man’s life. People already work their guts out, and yet we are told to work harder for very little more, but the country will be better off and that must be good! Is it? There is a prosperity that costs nothing and it brings peace of mind that no money can buy. 

When I was in the French Army, as a conscript, I became a friend of a retired Officer in the French Gendarmerie. A very clever man, I always enjoyed the times I could spend around the table in His lovely house, this was in Amiens, in the Somme region of France. There were many years between us and yet we got on so well. We spoke of anything and about everything. He said many things that to a young man, like me, made sense. One thing he said I have never forgotten: I quote: ‘If you want to know the state of a country follow the money market, if it does well the country is healthy, if not it needs a doctor or even a surgeon to put it right.” At first I did doubt it, but he was a man of experience and saw where the world was going and that strong finances where the foundation of this new world men wanted to build! I found since, that to a degree, he was right!

I would be a poor preacher of the Gospel if I believed that money is the thermometer that shows the temperature and the health of a country! What is really needed is faith in Christ which alone gives to a man hope for a real future! Oh! In response to such a statement I hear this great outcry of the majority: ‘What a lot of rubbish that is!’ After the vast destructions that the Second World War has left all over Europe, people of my generation, somehow began to blame God for all the wrong that one evil man brought on the world. Such an attitude is astonishing, but it is not new phenomena, man has blamed God for all troubles since Adam’s fall, and finds it wrong when he is called to reap the fruits of what He has sown! Over many parts of Europe, all that was left is tonnes of rubble, and it was left to my generation to begin to rebuild our lands from heaps of rubbish, hoping to build, from those vast ruins, a better world, free from hatred and from wars. 

But man has failed, for since that last world war, in many parts of the earth, people have been at war; great atrocities have been experienced, millions have been slaughtered by evil men trying to implant their ideas, philosophies or politics by force of arms, they tried to convince people that they were taking them to the promised land; none was as brutal as communism. They have all failed, and such people will come again and again and will continue to fail, because God is against workers of iniquity. But to achieve what has risen from total destruction, has required a lot of hardship, hard work and sacrifices, yet, after these many years, it appears to me, that there never was such a deep dissatisfaction. Millions are turning to anything: drink, drugs, illicit sex, anything except to God and Jesus-Christ by whom He created the earth, on which we are placed to live the life span that God has allocated to everyone, even those that do not want to believe on Him!! Men, being ignorant as to how to seek God and trust in Him, look more and more to their Governments expecting miracles from them, but the miracles they seek after, cost too much! People have been assisted for too long and they have become selfish, more and more societies are getting very difficult to govern!

In my teens, in France, where I was born and grew up, poverty was rampant, many were still dying from tuberculosis, with what little people had, somehow, they managed to survive! Under German occupation there was very little of everything, there was a lot of hard work deep down in the mines but very little money in return! As a young ‘galibot’ (apprentice coal miner) I once had to go to the face, where men were digging out the coal! I was surprised at what I saw, men black with dust and sweat, in a very dim light it was hard for me to distinguish them, but for two eyes peeping out from naked bodies, they looked awful, it was nothing else but total slavery! When my dad was twenty-seven years old, he suffered a very bad accident in the mine and was incapacitated, having almost lost his life! he never worked again! I remember enough to know how hard it was for my mother to put a meal on the table! I was eleven when the war finished, the coal industry was nationalised and little by little living improved. A new found freedom brought optimism, people were a lot happier, working hard became more rewarding and living became easier.

As months went by I could not imagine that my whole life was mapped out and that  much of my life would be spent working in the bowels of the earth as a slave to circumstances. In my church, there was a man whose work was putting him, occasionally, in touch with a joinery in a village near us. He knew my disenchantment in my job, and somehow, he was led to ask the boss if there was any room for a lad of fifteen in his business, and since there was, He told me about it and that is how I began my apprenticeship as a joiner. I spent almost five years in this employment, I passed all my exams and became a fully pledged joiner-carpenter whatever could be done with wood I was the man, and I fully enjoyed myself in my work.

In my life believing in the Lord Jesus Christ had a central place. I was brought up in a Pentecostal-Evangelical Church and I found there how different life is for people that have met the Lord Jesus Christ and committed their lives to Him, they were given this faith that gave them a song in every circumstance. Having had an experience with the Lord myself, I got a lot of strength from singing, so that I readily joined the Church’s choir. When, eventually, at nineteen I came to Great Britain as a student in what was called ‘The International Bible Training Institute, (I.B.T.I.) I realised, in England too, people suffered an awful lot and that things were hard, a lot of articles and food were still on ration and people, in general, struggled to make ends meet. This did not stop me to enjoy my life with young people from different countries and continents; my years in College were the happiest days of my life thus far. I felt that with the Lord Jesus-Christ, in charge of my life I could not fail. 

I learned a lot, and after six years at the I.B.T.I. I understood a bit more the real meaning of life and its true aim, I felt good! I married Thea, when I was still in College. Since Thea finished her two years of tuition she returned home and worked in London for an American Company. A year after my graduation I became a member of the faculty and taught on two subjects, Theology and the History of Israel. I felt so blessed to have this great opportunity. Now I can look back at my life and realise that my generation has seen the greatest changes the world has known.  One had to be well off to afford a new bike, now we have those lovely cars, costing thousands of pounds. We managed to buy our first electric washing machine in 1962. When we got our first fridge, we thought we had made it, what a luxury that was for both of us! We were a part of a generation full of optimism. My first car was an old Austin 45? I think, can’t be sure! Think of it? I cannot dwell too long on that, but just to say that the biggest change we have seen is in the mentality of the people! What seemed to us a great move forward, we could get things we never thought possible, and I think, that most felt like we did, very blessed, yet now material possessions are considered as nothing, something one has to have, to me and my wife it was a reward. We felt, with many other Christians, that we lived with or met occasionally, that we were blessed and we tanked God for all His blessings, spiritual and material which He helped us to acquire. 

Since then, many years have passed and many things we thought unmovable have disappeared. Society in some ways is better off, and have climbed the social ladder and the majority of the citizens, in the United Kingdom, lives on a higher ‘echelon’ in society and up the ladder of success. That is how people of my age view it, it is a real tragedy that people cannot appreciate and see life as we do. It seems so easy to get goods on credit, on the tic as we learned to say it! Nevertheless, and to a great degree, it has left a divided society, which is now called “the have and the have nots”. In the light of all the changes and the fact that men are generally ungrateful, I ask: ‘Is this really what life is all about? Is it just a race after materiel possessions, to keep up with the Joneses! To try and have a better car than the man next door! There’s a tag of eternity on every man alive, that makes it so important, life is not a game of marbles that as boys we used to play!

Socially, the whole planet is under stress, due to a materialised ideology, that has selfishly left behind millions of people in the world which can barely have one meal a day! Millions of them live in Refuge-camps, fleeing from wars, massacres, trying hard to save their lives and the little bit they still have. How awful it is to see on the television millions of babies and adolescents that are weak through starvation with a look in their eyes of total helplessness! Without hope. It pains any normal human being to see that this unbalanced situation in the world is creating a deeper division among the races and many people, much better off than the majority, have become hardened if not heartless, making this world a hard place to live in! But if you can, somehow, read this article or have someone to read it to you, you may, at least, through my humble efforts find the way to a real life, that has proved, through history, to be the only one that can change man radically to the very depth of his being! What is that life? Where can I find it? How can I find it? Then please read on! 

THE BIG QUESTION: ‘IS A BETTER LIFE POSSIBLE’?

Life is a very personal thing, nobody feels what one feels, what one thinks and what one aspires to do or to be. You alone live your life, and there is a secret slot that no one knows, ‘the real you’. I liken it to a swimmer of whom, one only sees the head, the rest being hidden under the waves of circumstances! Who are you? Who do you hide? What do you dream of? No-one knows, but God knows you completely and to His eye nothing is hidden! When one mentions ‘A better life’ it has different meanings for it seems that we all live together but each in his own world. We live in very different circumstances and have different aspirations. A very rich person has very different ideas of a better life then the poorest man that is working for him. The poorer man may enjoy good health, and be full of vitality, strength and he will want different things than the rich master he works for, who may be poor in health and struggles to live! We may live in the same town in the same street and know nothing about our next-door neighbour. Most of us want it to stay that way, we want to be invisible!

Very few people know anything at all about you; even the nearest person to you does not know the real you! I remember having to deal with a dear man that was left by his wife. It was a shock to his system because he was happy, he loved her, and thought that she was just as happy and that she loved him too; but he had to say’ ‘I really never knew my wife’. She came to the conclusion that another man would give her a better life, more thrills and whatever it is that people look for. She was prepared to leave children and husband to get it! It happens more and more, men and women are disillusioned. Although some may know their nearest more than others, no-one can really get to the bottom of who one really is! People in general have their families, and circle of friends, but everybody is suspicious of anyone that wants to get too close and know too much, even if their intentions are good, people reject anyone that seems to be snooping in their affairs.

The many years I have lived, and the experiences I have had, have taught me that life is a most precious gift, and that the greatest majority of people cling to it with all their might. Nobody, of a sound mind, has ever said: “I think I have lived long enough”, I better end my life, and leave the place for someone else!” The survival instinct is not only present in humans, it is also present in all animals; one will kill rather than be killed. It is true that it is precious, and one life is all we have; after which it’s the end and whether we believe it or not the end means eternity? But at that end where will we exist? There are so many views. Think of all that we, in the British Isles, spend on the health and the wellbeing of every citizen. Those who are healthy grumble somewhat about it, because they see that they pay more taxes that they should, yet, those that are sick are happy that we have a merciful society that helps them to get out of their sufferings, or a painless exit into the beyond! 

Some are invalidated through an accident at work, or on the road, others are so from birth, and it is only right that as a society we do all we can to ease their burdens. It is not so long ago that people of the working classes could not afford any treatments, not even pain killers. As a child in France, any way one could lose a toothache was to pull the tooth out, by whatever means at hand: ‘I remember it well!’ Although it was one of my baby teeth it still was awful! What I have written are only minor examples of life today. As I have expressed very quickly, there was a time when all over Europe, due to many successive wars, a great poverty prevailed, so that the gap between rich and poor was immense, just as it is now in many other countries of the world. I read in a book, that the after effects of the first world war twenty one million people died of various epidemics and diseases, due to poverty!

Although the situations seem to be inadequate for some, we can still have our cake and eat it! New generations have come and do not know what it was like seventy or fifty years ago, and a great dissatisfaction is gripping the people, for they feel that there must be something better that what they’ve got and they seek and want it; generally, they think that more money will do it, better job, paid better will help. Almost everybody, in the British Isles at least, hopes to be a millionaire by the end of each week, some indeed are, gambling is a multibillion business, covetousness has gripped the nation. As a preacher of the Gospel, I feel that serious questions arise, due to the mentality of this present age in which materialism has got pre-eminence and is woven into the tissues of modern life; but it has contributed to the loss of other values that are able to spoil the possibilities for a more balanced attitude to life! There is a saying that I have found to be true: ‘The best things in life are free!’ We live in very precarious times! Times that the Bible prophesied would come and bring great misery to the people of the world!

In conclusion, because life is dear, we should do all we can to make it easier, and better, for ourselves and everybody else. We have never, at least not in my life time, had to deal with so much information, by directives, advice and instructions, in newspapers or on the television, encouraging the public to do all one can to live better. But views differ so much as to what better living means? We are told endlessly, by people from different walks of life, as to what to do to ameliorate our income, what to do to have a better health, what food we should eat or not eat. More vegetables, is good for you! More fruit, less red meat! There are so many dieting programmes! Calorie counting! Carbohydrates! Not too much salt! And so on, and so on! In some cases, folk are already being discriminated for being too fat, what next? It will soon be dangerous for them to go out of doors, in fear of being taken by force to a health farm in the middle of be left in a big field of letuces! What a thought!

Whereas it is all meant to help society in general and to lead us to a better health, it does not really do it, on the contrary people are so confused and some are afraid to have an egg, they hide their butter because they are addicted to it and nobody must know! All these pressures drive a wedge of contention which do not really help people to feel at home! It just adds another way to seclusion of those who cannot afford a more expensive way of living. Tesco, one of the great food stores, mainly in Great Britain, have a slogan ‘every little bit helps’ meaning that their smallest effort to keep costs down helps our purse! No-one can dispute that! And yet some of us will soon need a mortgage to buy some sugar to make life sweeter! I want to say, ‘that every extra burden on the less well off, is one load too many. We all face, at the end of the day, a scary sect, people which seem dedicated to enslave society to their narrow point of view, and would almost force everybody to change their whole life style to cut out another grain of salt. Nonetheless, seriously, it all proves that we should be careful and seek the true meaning of life in general, for ‘every little bit helps,’ not simply to look after the shell, our bodies, but be especially serious about the need of the soul inside, the real you, which has been forgotten completely, for too long! It has lived on a starvation diet, that attitude is the reason for much of the depression that so many live in, there is not a pill that will eradicate it, only common sense! 

Through history there have always been people, in all races and walks of life, that had a strong point of view about certain things, which may be good, but everyone is entitled to live one’s life the way one wants to. Some strong-willed people have done a lot of good to society, but many have done a lot of harm. These people mount their battle horse, being enslaved to their point of view, they ride roughshod over everybody and every other idea, unless they get their way, they will not stop nagging! The big questions are, “Where will it end”? How will it end? 

All ideas and efforts put together are meant to contribute and impress upon us that, if we want to have a longer and a better life, we should take it more seriously. I agree with it all heartedly. Politicians of all colours have their agenda, and when in democratic countries, an election is in process, every party’s manifesto is very different; everyone has a better idea to lead us, the people, to a better tomorrow. But whoever wins, not long after they have taken office, the manifesto is forgotten, and the changed programme of the winners is forced on everybody else, even if the majority disagree! It is one way of governing nations, but I have discovered that as long as men rule over others, whatever the colour of their flag none is perfect! Alas we all think that at least they should be!

Some, in other parts of the world rise to power by unlawful means, and brutally oppress their citizens, convinced that they have their good at heart.  Evil men, even now, bring destruction upon the citizens of the world, and with impunity take the life of innocent peoples leaving the rest fearful and without hope. We have known it in Europe, and now that there is a kind of concord between certain countries, some do not like it and embrace a politic that seeks to destroy it, fully convinced that their idea promotes real peace, a better life, with more money as a reward. Somehow every idea finds followers believing that they have the right way to lead them to their Shangri-La!

 But evil continues, families, fathers and mothers and communities are still suffering the loss of loved ones, living with opened wounds that never heal. Young men give their lives needlessly, because of some power-hungry individual, who wanted, seemingly, the best for the poorest and the oppressed. Finally, however we live on earth, and some places are better than others, that is true, yet the truth is unescapable, we are not on this planet forever, after that, more and more people believe that there is nothing. What do you think? Or is there hope after all? Because, there is on earth a true virtue, and those that have embraced it, have come to know that when all is finished and done with, a better life is assured for all those who have dared to find it and believe it!

All these subjects are discussed on the television and the rest of the media, and yet everything that is projected into the public arena does not answer the need, it is too deep for man to remedy it on his own. Why? Because there is this great divide between the nations of the world. There must be more to governing a nation then to balance the books! Without love and compassion the soul of man withers, and such a spirit drives man to despair. The cost is great for those few in society which have to put up with and live in this selfish attitude. This ‘Life in the fast Lane,’ has left many behind with no hope, they are bewildered and lost and will never recover, nor catch up those that, hypnotised by a pointless, materialistic way of life, zoom with terrifying speed, towards an uncertain destiny! I have found that nothing is new in this world, according to the Bible, generation after generation has gone the same way and nothing changes, the end is always the same. It is like an immense circle in which people never find the true meaning of being in this worlde. The reason for that is that men to not believe that there is an unseen power that promotes evil and inspires divisions, injustices, and a lot of suffering.

These few paragraphs are short and very inapt to touch such an important subject. I have read them and so often I said to myself: ‘I wish I could say more on this subject, and I read a bit more and I said the same thing again, simply because I desire so much to tell you and tell it to as many as possible, that there is a way out of this pointless circle, a way to true fulfilment, happiness, a way of life that meet and answers the needs and aspiration of the complete man. There is more to life than trying to keep body and soul together!

To do it more amply, I hope to draw your attention further; because I have far more serious statements to make that could open your understanding to look at life in a more balanced and completely different way! There is more to life than you can imagine. The foods we eat, the air we breathe, the means by which we travel, etcetera, etcetera, are important issues. So are many others, such a better job, a job for all, the happiness of family life, make life worthwhile. Proper educations for all levels of society with better opportunities to make a success of the time we have been given to spend on this planet. But what comes after all that? When life and everything concerning it is finished, we will all face eternity!  

Well, to learn more about it I invite you to continue with our next chapter