A visionary Army

I said a quick Amen and sat down.

The host took over and told the crowded auditorium that following the final worship song, a prayer team would be available at the front to the left immediately after the session.

And on a whim he added, “O and maybe Gary will hang around the front too?

I had just finished speaking in the evening session of a conference in Wales.

 If I’m really honest?

I was looking forward to getting to bed.

The worship band finished leading the last song. The session came to a vibrant end.

The prayer team had gathered in the allotted place and people started coming forward to be prayed with.

I trudged across and stood with them.

I stood alone for what seemed like a long time.

After a while I started thinking about sneaking off and getting a cup of tea in the foyer.

Out of the corner of my eye I saw a very old guy heading slowly and gingerly, with the aid of a walking stick, towards me. As my eye caught him he kind of half raised his walking stick in a gesture that said, "Wait I am heading for you." So I waited, feeling a bit frustrated inside that I probably wasn't getting a cup of tea or a bed anytime soon. He seemed to take an age to reach the raise area at the front where I was standing.

He was helped on to the slightly raised area by two helpful guys standing near by and finally came slowly face to face with me. He was so close to me I could almost see my face in his shining bald head. He raised his eyes slowly but purposefully and his gaze interconnected with my own gaze.

The guy turned out to be in his 90s and a veteran of a previous Welsh revival that had happened early in the twentieth century.

He was rippling with anointing.

So much so I could hardly stand up.

He looked me straight in the eye and said he had a word for me.

"God says through his Spirit that you are going to come against some brick walls. the vision he has laid on your shoulders will not find an easy path. But God wants you to know he will get you over every wall."

With that he dropped his electric gaze, turned and began the slow journey to the foyer.

I was left pole-axed by the Spirit. My body filled with feeling. A feeling I cant even begin to describe, so I won't. Dawn, my wife, had to drive me home because the whole of my being was a kind of spiritual jelly.

That was over six years ago.

He had said, "The vision God had laid on our shoulders wouldn't have an easy path."

Yeah.

God had laid a vision on dawn and I.

A vision to see prayer and justice transforms lives in Cities throughout the world.

And there have been walls.

Denominational leadership structures and systems can undoubtedly place walls in the way of vision while pretending to do just the opposite.

But some walls if I am honest are built expertly by myself.

Walls of doubt, frustration, sometimes apathy, sometimes a kind of resignation that things aren't going to happen.

But whatever the wall, whoever builds it, however it is built, God can get us over them.

This is vital to grasp when carrying and pursuing a vision given by God.

I was in a business meeting recently, when somebody talking about vision said, "It would be good if people were prepared to die for the vision."

I get bored in business meetings but this statement would not let go of me. and it is still resonating with me now.

Are we prepared to die for the vision?

There is a lot talked about vision.

Everyone has to have a vision!

I cringed recently when someone showed me a letter from a more senior minister saying, "You need to come up with a vision by next Friday's meeting!" 

Come up with a vision? 

Get real.

Vision in the Christian context comes from God alone.

The day any of us are forced to create a vision just for the sake of having one is the day the game is over.

But?

When God speaks a vision into our lives, which will always mean transformation of lives, then get ready.

The path will never be an easy one.

There will be walls to scale.

But he will get you over or round or through them.

Everytime.

Lately, in regards to the vision God has given Dawn and I as a part of the whole of God's vision for the Church, I am standing on the wrong side of one of those walls. A wall partly built by daft religion but mostly built by me.

Its a big wall.

I stand knowing we have driven this vision now for over ten years and we are at a point where we really need more senior decision makers to catch this vision, embrace it and then release us to drive it further. 

And it appears at first glance right now that we have reached the end, it almost feels we cant take it any further.

But every time I put another brick in the wall I hear the words "are you prepared to die for the vision?"

When I deepen that thought I find a whole host of things I need to die to. Die to self, die to doubt, die to feelings of inadequacy die to all kinds of things.

If i don't die to these things as well as being prepared to actually die for the vision to see lives transformed by the power of God then the vision dies.

God says, prophetically, I will get you over the walls.

why?

Because God needs a visionary Army. An Army prepared to die for the vision. the vision of transformation of the lost and the broken. God needs an Army that stops building its own brick walls. God needs soldiers who every waking hour dream of transformation and all the possibilities that it brings. God needs an Army willing to be saturated by the Spirit of God. God needs an army that chooses the spiritual over the worldly. God needs an Army that puts Salvation before self.

God needs you.

He needs us.

Maybe you are tired of hitting brick walls. It is tiring.

Listen.

There is no leader, no system, no denomination, no self built belief, no enemy who will ever override God.

So I pray today that we will receive strength to have a faith so strong that we believe God will get us over any wall.

Believe the vision he has laid on you. Test it, pray for it, carry it.

Be prepared to die for it. 

So this world will be saved.