Cry

Yesterday was one of those days that seems to be a day where my life seemed to come to abrupt halt.

Bad religious politics once again hit Dawn and I below the belt.

So much so that this time it really hurt us both badly.

And yesterday we could have easily walked away from it once again.

When I got home yesterday I'd had enough. And these days that takes a lot. So much so that completely out of character I began to cry. But this was not a normal cry. It seemed to rise from the depths of somewhere deep and soul like. It shuddered through my body as if I was holding on to a pneumatic drill. I sobbed from the pit of my stomach out into the air and I could not control it. Poor Dawn was so frightened by it she had to make some phone calls because she didn't know what to do.

I was crying because at the time I was feeling that we just couldn't move. It felt like we were trapped. It felt like we couldn't operate how God would want us to operate. Other people make decisions about your life without actually knowing facts. And it forces you to react and act out of character.

But this cry was not a cry I've ever experienced in my life before. Something deeper was going on, something much deeper than anything that has happened to me before.

And the tears were hot and big and copious.

In those tears, intermingled into the chemical construction of them was healing. A deep healing that changed something big in my life last night.

Something just broke.

Something that I now know was a stronghold, a cancer in my spiritual life that has hung around since the day I asked Jesus in my life.

Something that I knew I shouldn't hold on to but held onto tightly regardless of what I knew was right.

The stronghold basically consisted of pride and self building. It had crept up on me sneakily and deceptively. It made me feel I needed to please others, to play the game in the Salvation Army so that we would guarantee good appointments. Sad I know? I had fell into a trap I believe many ministers stumble into? And I feel good today confessing it to you guys my readers.

But last night in those tears, as they burned the skin on my face, I was taken to a different level of my relationship with God, I could almost touch his face. And face to face I felt the pride snap and everything changed for me. All I had harboured in my head about the way forward for me just disappeared. Where we should live, what type of ministry we should be doing, how I should do it, who could help me get to the next point on our journey. All those crazy things became massive in my head.

All that just evaporated into thin air?

Thin air in the thin place that my office at home became last night.

I realised that I cannot have any impact on the Salvation Army, the only possible thing our ministry can have an impact on is the other broken people like me who desperately need a saviour.

So right there and then I let go of a fight that I didn't know I had been fighting. Or, as is more likely, I was aware of deep down but chose to ignore the numerous warning signs God had given me.

When the tears and the violent sobs subsided. Seriously a peace descended like I've never known. And I was kind of floating in a land where nobody lives! I felt weightless and deeply joyful.

And this morning, knowing also that loads of people prayed for me last night, I awakened with a resolve.

Never again will I let the religious piety of systems shape my character nor my future. Never again will I try to rely on systems or others to shape my ministry.

I choose to follow God not man.

And man can only get to you if we let it happen.

And I have to admit I have let man get to me.

Boy I felt something that I've preached on many times to probably thousands of people now during the course of my ministry, I felt freedom.

Freedom!

It feel like I actually have an understanding what it means to be born again today. Maybe being born again takes tears? Tears that transform and realign a persons life? I don't know, but for me this morning I am feeling a true freedom.

And I wanted to share this with you today, even though I wrestled with writing this today at a vulnerable level, the Spirit of God laid it on my heart to do it.

If there is anyone who identifies with this? I pray today that God will touch your life in an amazing way.

Allow him to resurrect you! To realign you. To restore you. To re-stoke your passion for him.

Do not let pride or ambition suck you in.