The Tension was thick in the atmosphere.
One gang of guys sat at one end of the hospitality area in
S21 Salvation Army Building in Durham, at the other end of the hall sat a
solitary guy, high as a kite on a cocktail of drugs and alcohol and you could
see he was seething. Something had gone down as they had made their way up to
Church.
The day had started with Dawn, myself and our volunteers
opening up the building at 10am.
We had already cleared a stack of empty vodka bottles from
the steps that front a doorway on the front of our prayer centre.
One guy was already asleep in the doorway waiting for us to
open.
We both sensed this morning that we needed to pray extra
hard for some reason, so we prayed in every area of the building, whacking huge
amounts of prayer on everything that we have at our disposal, calling down a
rain of blessing into every inch of our place.
And the air was electric with a kind of uneasiness that had
your inner warning antennas buzzing wildly.
Suddenly it kicked off.
I have no idea what started it but the solitary guy stood up
and started walking quickly toward the group of lads at the bottom, shouting
stuff like “I’m going to break your neck you ..........!
Me and another guy who was helping this morning somehow
managed to calm it all down, and the lads all left quickly possibly taking the fight to another place.
We are constantly inundated with the marginalised and the downtrodden,
the needy and severely broken people who have frightening stories of past
lives, and many who just haven’t had a chance in life of any kind.
This brings a dangerous element into the mission mix,
everyday.
And this morning, as we almost witnessed a free for all
brawl in church, I wondered where the hope I believe in, preach about, and
operate in, actually was.
But my mind filled with a re-run of the whole David
Wilkerson, Cross and the switchblade events from the 50s, a book I’ve read
seven times! I remembered David Wilkerson saying that he only saw life changing
transformations in the lives of vicious gang members, heroin addicts and other
needy people when the Holy Spirit was brought into the picture.
It’s funny because just before this incident this morning I
had felt the urge to turn to Luke in the bible, Luke 1: 26- 38, Mary the mother
of Jesus’ encounter with the Angel Gabriel.
The Angel had just told Mary she would give birth to Jesus, and she
couldn’t work it out, because she knew she was a virgin. The Angel says, “The
Holy Spirit will come upon you, and the power of the most high will overshadow
you, then after some more info tells Mary “For nothing is impossible with God.”
The transforming factor in this part of the events leading
up to the birth of Christ was the Holy Spirit. For the impossible to turn into
the possible then the Holy Spirit has to be involved.
And there is the hope.
The Holy Spirit always makes the impossible possible.
So that really means there is hope for these people, many of
whom seem so lost in drugs, alcohol crime and violence.
We pray for these guys and girls, we feed them, we help
them, we clean up unspeakable messes that they leave on our floors, we’ve
cleaned up their urine and their vomit. We’ve responded with love to their
aggression and their unreasonableness. We’ve found shelter for some of them;
we’ve prayed with them and talked for hours with them. I’ve seen people showing
incredible care in dangerous situations.
And so often it seems fruitless.
Even impossible!
Transformation feels unreachable and unattainable.
But that’s not how God sees it.
When the Holy Spirit touches a situation or a person
absolutely everything changes.
The impossible becomes totally possible.
We are going to keep on fighting for these people, hanging
on to the truth that the Holy Spirit can transform the hardest of lives, the
most lost of all lost souls, the darkest of beings, the seemingly unreachable.
I realised today that maybe I had been trying too hard. I
desperately want to see these people’s lives turned around. But maybe Gary was
getting in the way a bit? Maybe I was bringing them Gary Lacey instead of
bringing them the Holy Spirit.
I relearned this morning I will never help these guys unless
I let the Holy Spirit come through.
And the Holy Spirit will come upon us, and we will be
supercharged with power from God.
We will continue to pray, love, and walk in the Spirit.
Without that?
Last man in church hand the key back in.
If we want to see justice and liberation for the poor, for
the lost, for the broken? Then we can have all the conferences and the
programmes and the ventures we can set up, but we need to remember it’s the
Spirit of God who transforms.
It’s the Spirit of God that saves.
It’s the Spirit of God who makes the impossible possible.
The afternoon settled down a bit.
I felt so much better things this afternoon.
Hope was restored, life has returned to my heart. The Spirit
of God has changed me today, and I feel free and liberated and ready to fight
once again.
Massive blessings on your life today.
