Previously I wrote about “Year of Wild Adventures”. Several of you commented favorably on my theme for 2019.
You may be forgiven to think my calendar is now filled with preaching engagements potentially resulting in numerous conversions, and accompanied by awesome signs and wonders.
The past six weeks have been relatively quiet; it was a fallow period.
No public engagements. No adrenaline flow as I prepare and deliver “anointed” sermons.
Fallow is an agricultural adjective. It describes soil being turned over and resting so that the seeds planted will be in fertile soil.
This Brief Fallow Season Has Been An Eye-Opener.
“Waiting on the Lord” takes a new meaning.
It meant enjoying more of His presence and company.
This meant wanting more of Him rather than wanting Him for more blessings. Interactive prayers followed. When I asked Him how I can best pray for Pastor A. and his church, “disconnected” flashed across my mind. So, I prayed that he will align himself to God’s will and for healthy connections amongst members of his flock.
One day, quite out of the blue, I felt a deep stirring to contact C. a former worship leader.
I’ve heard a relative of his telling me how C. was going through a rough patch spiritually. I phoned him at his office. He was overjoyed to hear from me, and I suggested that we meet for coffee in nearby Soho.
“No, I want you to come to my home for dinner so that we can have a long chat.”
A few days later I made my way to his home. For three hours, I sat listening to him as he poured out his heart, revealing his struggles to abandon his faith.
For a start, he had stopped going to church.
God’s demands and expectations of him sucked out every ounce of joy and energy.
He spoke of how evangelical leaders he admired for years, gave advice that crippled him and portrayed the God he trusted, as a legalistic deity with his priests dispensing spurious counsel and setting unrealistic goals.
Listening without judgment and asking questions simply to clarify his new convictions enabled him to understand the living Lord is a far cry from the “God” he thought he was worshipping.
When he asked how does he know that the Lord still cares for him, I whispered with a cheeky wink, “He sent me to share your journey, He longs for you to know that he is there amidst the darkness and shadows.”
I could not have been with him, had my diary was filled with public engagements.
And I believe the Lord was teaching me the importance of listening, learning and loving if I were to gently lead others closer to Him.
Later when I returned home, I sent him a couple of quotes from Barbara Taylor, a noted pastor-theologian who has helped countless Christians to know the Lord walks with us in our darkness as well as in the light.
During this fallow period, I was watching more football matches on TV and tonight (27 February) my grandson’s taking me to watch a live football game featuring his beloved Arsenal.
When I felt a tinge of guilt overpowering me (shouldn’t I spend more time praying, visiting needy folks, studying etc?.)
I heard the Lord saying, “You’ve always dreamed for more time to view sporting events. Sit back, relax and enjoy.”
You may not believe it.
Soon after writing the above, a flurry of invitations flooded in. My fallow and rest period is coming to an end.
QUOTES
• I have learned things in the dark that I could never learned in the light, things that have saved my life over and over again. There is really one conclusion, I need darkness as much as I need light.
• “…new life starts in the dark. Whether it is a seed in the ground, a baby in the womb, or Jesus in the tomb, it starts in the dark.”
• I know that the Bible is a special kind of book…… If I am not careful, I can begin to mistake the words on the page for the realities they describe. I can begin to love the dried ink marks on the page more than I love the encounters that gave rise to them. If I am not careful, I can decide that I am really much happier reading my Bible than I am entering into what God is doing in my own time and place, since shutting the book to go outside will involve the very great risk of taking part in stories that are still taking shape. Neither I nor anyone else knows how these stories will turn out, since at this point, they involve more blood than ink. The whole purpose of the Bible, it seems to me, is to convince people to set the written word down in order to become living words in the world for God’s sake. For me, this willing conversion of ink back to blood is the full substance of faith.
• That is the way God sees us, you and me and everyone who has ever inched his way on this earth. He sees not our history but our destiny. Not what we once were but what we will one day become. He sees not our drizzly gray past but our sun-washed future, a rainbow full of promise arching over the whole of it. For God sees not as man sees. We see the disgusting sinner; He sees the destined saint.
• Finally, I learned that we shouldn’t seek answers as much as we should seek God. We get overanxious. We try to microwave our own answers instead of trusting God’s timing. But here’s an important reminder: If you seek answers you won’t find them, but if you seek God, the answers will find you. There comes a point after you have prayed through that you need to let go and let God. How? By resisting the temptation to manufacture your own answer to your own prayer.
• Jesus didn’t die to keep us safe. He died to make us dangerous. Faithfulness is not holding the fort. It’s storming the gates of hell. The will of God is not an insurance plan. It’s a daring plan. The complete surrender of your life to the cause of Christ isn’t radical. It’s normal. It’s time to quit living as if the purpose of life is to arrive safely at death. It’s time to go all in and all out for the All in All. Pack your coffin!
• We don’t see the world as it is; we see the world as we are…if someone has a critical eye, they will always find something to be critical about. And if they have a grateful eye, they will find something to celebrate even in the worst of circumstances…Having a “good eye” in life changes how you see yourself and everything around you… your focus determines your reality.
• Most God-ordained dreams die because we are not willing to do something that seems illogical.
