Emily Graves spoke with Charlotte Gambill

Charlotte Gambill

We often face situations in life that are hard. Whether it is a job loss, a difficult marriage or problems with the kids - harsh storms come and we can quickly feel overwhelmed, even desperate.

In the beginning of creation, God entered the darkness and void and displayed his turnaround nature. His turnaround power brought order into the chaos. In the same way, God enters our lives with the power of his turnaround ability and offers not just a slight improvement but a complete turn around.

Using examples from her own life and those of biblical characters, international speaker and teacher Charlotte Gambill offers that God is more than just a little bit of help; he's all the help we need. It's time for us to fully understand that there is nothing that God can't turn around! Emily Graves spoke with her to find out more.

Emily: Tell us about yourself.

Charlotte: I am married to Steve and we have two children, Hope Cherish and Noah Brave and a dog called Jake. We pastor Life Church, in Bradford, with an amazing team who are building a relevant church in our community.

Emily: You have written a book called Turnaround God. Why did you choose that subject?

Charlotte: There's a story behind the book as there usually is. I had previously written two books and said to God, "I am not writing another book because writing a book is like having a baby and I've done two babies this year: that's it." But I got a phone call from America and it was Thomas Nelson saying, "We don't normally do this - normally people send us manuscripts - but we would like to approach you to write for us," and they said, "And also we know what we would like you to write about." I said, "Really that's interesting!" They had been on the Internet and they'd heard a message I preached a while ago now called "Turnaround God", which I just literally did for our home church here in the season that we're in. They said, "We think this is a book title, Turnaround God, and we think it's a book that needs to be written." So it was a very God way that it came about.

I found myself in America in a meeting with the people at Thomas Nelson and agreeing to write a book after I'd just said I wouldn't. I said, "When do you need the book?" and they said, "We really believe it needs to be in our hands by the end of January" and this was December. So not only was it a labour, it was a fast labour. God really did a download to my spirit, of a message of hope that I didn't know was in me, but God clearly did.

Emily: So what does a turnaround God look like?

Charlotte: I think for me it was the concept that we can so easily get away from, which is that God is not with limitation. God's very nature is to turn things around. God came into the chaos and brought creation-force and God took dust and created humanity. God's nature is to turn things around and the enemy's nature is to reverse the turn that God began. He came to try and turn man away from God and to destroy the garden and we've got to get back to the nature of God, which is this power that he has within him and therefore places in us, to bring a turn into our community that would turn things for good and turn things to a place where they reflected him and his nature. I think that was what I was becoming increasingly aware of in our community, city and in my own life and the lives around me, that God has no limitation. So I was looking at what it would look like if we took the limitation off our own thinking and began to believe for things to turn around?

Emily: So how have you seen God turn people's lives around?

Charlotte: I've seen it in many different ways with being a local pastor for many years now and getting the opportunity to travel as well and see churches and lives across the globe. I've seen God turn marriages around. I've seen God turn around relationships that have been destroyed: teenagers to parents and vice versa. I have seen in our community, us going to areas where there is no hope and I've seen us bring the life and the joy of Christ and seen the community turn around; that the crime rates reduced and people have a different disposition about them and they have a hope where they didn't. I've been in the slums of Africa where I have seen, working with Compassion, how they're turning things around in a place where there's abject poverty everywhere. I've seen it in my own life: I was told I had a barren womb and I saw God open my womb and have two children as a proof that God's a turnaround God.

Emily: Do we sometimes settle for less and limit what God can do in our lives?

Charlotte: Absolutely! I think we do it without even realising we've done it. The nature of the way that we do life with the busyness and demands means we get into this place where we keep everything together ourselves and we cope and we put ourselves and our world in a box. I think we draw invisible lines of what we feel we can manage to do. I think we've got to be willing to remove the lid and say: "What would it look like if I rubbed out the invisible line and said to God, 'Is there more in me?'" I didn't know this book was in me, but God did and when you step into that place where you're removing a limitation and saying "yes", instead of saying, "I'm ok", or, "I'm fine", then you'll find that the other side of that obedience is an equipping and empowering God to do things that you didn't even realise you could do.