Encounter part 1

So I got this feeling that I needed to get up off my sunbed, the one I'd just laid down on for the past five hours, and take a dip in the pool.

It was about 4pm in the afternoon and I was getting really hot due to the thirty two degree heat from the sun which ambles along in a cloudless sky.

Earlier in the day I'd taken a walk along the beachfront in Benidorm. It was packed with people. Those who've been to Benidorm will know it has seen better days. It is not a very attractive place and has been built on the back of it's main industry.

Nightlife.

Although by the look of the amount of people cramming the shabby bars and night venues drinking long golden lagers at 10 o'clock in the morning, from gangs of young people to the seventies plus generation, you just can't separate day and night anymore in Benidorm.

As I walked in the stifling heat among the dirty streets, watching with interest the comings and goings of people, God cut in.

And I realised that I was on holiday in a very needy place.

And my first encounter of the day was with God. The love of my heart.

I began to picture the need for a Saviour in this place that William Booth, the founder of the Salvation Army, would have definitely viewed as a place where the darkest of souls reside.

I could feel it.

I could taste it.

I could definitely smell it.

I just sensed massive need all around.

And I started to pray.

As I was praying I pictured a house of prayer, right in the middle of this throbbing
hellhole. Those of you who know Dawn and I know we have a passion for building ministries based on prayer, but prayer is only an element of the mission that houses of prayer engage in. In our experience they become houses of, well, houses of the whatever really! Whatever need there is? Then touch it with Gods love. We have seen how HOPS can become like spiritual amoebas breathing the Spirit of God into downtrodden lives. Dawn and I have a dream to see HOPs in the needy cities and towns throughout the globe. A big dream? Yeah but Gods bigger than that dream so it can happen.

And I saw the need right here in this place.

So, back to my sun bed in my run down hotel, by a rundown tired swimming pool, and where was I? O yeah, I need to get into the pool for a cool dip, as my already over tanned skin needed it's temperature readjusting.

I get up and step into the shallow end.

Within a second, my second interesting encounter of the day occurred.

A very large (if you read this beautiful lady? I mean larger than life!) lady about seventy years of age zoomed up to me in the shallow end and poked my tattoo.

I have a tattoo (My mum hates it) on the top of my left arm and it simply reads "Micah 6:8".

So she pokes my tattoo, and says, "Are you born again?" I didn't quite catch what she said at first, so she shouts in the shallow end, "Are you born again!" again!

The people around the pool went quiet, as if waiting for my answer, so I simply said, "yes."

She asked me what Micah 6: 8 reads so I reeled out the words of the scripture.

She then went on to tell me that herself and her husband had felt the need to come to Benidorm for eight weeks to pray for the town. She said she had heard there was a big prophecy over Spain right now relating to it's dark places. She said she had based herself at a little English Evangelical Church on the seafront only a short walk from our hotel. She then invited us to come and share at communion on Friday at 10 o'clock and then pray with them for the town afterwards.

The thing is guys, there are a couple of things here. The first is I don't think the concept of holidays has hit, or ever will hit, the Kingdom of God! I think God likes us to rest, but from earthly things not Heavenly things! The second thing is I think we may have lost the value of encounter. Not only with God but with other earth dwellers through God.

We sometimes can't see past our own thoughts!

I know I suffer from that way too often.

But if we really look, everyday of our lives are full of encounters that hit us in the areas outside of our own thoughts?

It makes so much sense when God says, "My thoughts are higher than your thoughts?"

It made me remember today that God is always at work and we need to be ready for the encounters he sends our way.

Who have you guys met today? Who have you brushed close to? What about tomorrow?

I think we need to sharpen the encounter antennas that God has built in to us. Be more vigilant.

I think we need to because I don't know wether you have noticed but God is on the move on this planet. He is doing new things, he's connecting the Christians in a big way. I think he's a bit fed up of the gaps between denominations etc? I think he's just raising the warrior psalm, he's mobilising the foot soldiers, those who will march into the darkness of people's lives and rescue them.

The Holy Spirit is doing a kind of welding job. He's welding fragmented bits of Christianity into one big gloriously useful weapon.

He's doing it through encounter.

So be on the look out! Don't be surprised if people are put in your path who you have never met. Don't be shocked if you connect with them spiritually and something extremely exciting evolves from that encounter.

This is part one.

I'm going to write again on Friday after I've met with these people in the run down church in a Benidorm back street, so watch out and tune in on Friday night.

And I'm expecting God to be his astonishing self.

Bless you amazing people!