There has been so much derision in the media of late implying that Blair, Bush, Gove, Crabb, Angela Leadsom and any other convinced Christian must have more than a few screws missing to actually believe that God speaks to them. How utterly absurdly naive of anyone. If our politicians are daft enough to think they hear the voice of God they should be locked up and the key thrown away!
As a Christian myself (nearly 60 years ordained Angican ministry) I can vouchsafe that the Spirit of the Lord God does indeed direct me to love, serve and sacrifice and by the way of direction SPEAKS! (You are to whatever people I send you and say whatever I tell you to say( Jeremiah Ch I verse 7 is one example from Scripture among hundreds)
Tony Blair has been blasted for an unnecessary war that had unforeseen consequences according to Chilcot. Yet, hardly a war in history is fought with the clear awareness of the consequences. At the time Saddam Hussein, a ruthless, monstrous, unstable menace who murdered thousands upon thousands of his own people and posed a severe danger to the whole of the middle east.
Hindsight is always easy. However it is true that Blair was anxious that Britain might not be ignored. The special relationship with America was at risk. In his praying whether he heard the voice of God or not, Tony Blair was sure that Saddam was a dangerous man out to hold on to power whatever the cost and needed replacing. As well as the undoubted chaos and bloodshed, there is a fledgling democracy.
Hearing God is not necessarily clear-cut. Our own thoughts and feelings, fears and emotions come into play so that there is always a danger that we can hear God wrongly. We are too much governed by our own needs and inclinations.
We need to practice the presence of Christ and learn to listen to Him speak. It can be an actual voice in the mind or it might be that we sense a certain course of action could be the right one.
Whatever, one thing is certain, ridicule and contempt about the whole matter comes from ignorant, arrogant attitudes.
Just the same do we need to pray for Tony Blair. ‘The love of money is the root of all evil’ so the Good Book tells us. It could be that like all good people with the best of intentions, the beginning is good (Take the Kosovo intervention, the Good Friday agreement — all excellent and very much a Blair success. There were many other great initiatives by the Blairite Government of NEW LABOUR.
One huge mistake! Iraq. Blair is vilified by the general public. His name is mud. Maybe to compensate for his loss of prestige and success he turned towards another god than his Faith in the One True God: MONEY!
Now Tony Blair is trying perhaps to redeem the time (Ephesians Ch 5 verse 16) in an evil day (But when has the world not been evil?) muscling in at a time of delicate, imprecise, tentative, Brexit negotiations to imply that a large proportion of the British public (presumably those who did not have Blair’s advantages of education and upbringing) are nutters!