It’s been a mad week or so.
Dawn received her change of appointment that sees us both
move to Winsford in Cheshire on July 13.
We have been to visit family in Yorkshire and Liverpool.
One of my daughters is pregnant and boy doesn’t she talk
about anything else!
I’ve had to slip in and out of my various life roles
constantly. Father, Brother, Husband, Son, Friend, acquaintance and so on and
so on.
All of this?
While trying to reassess where I am in life.
And.
Attempting to engage with God about what he would have my
future to look like, you know, which direction should I go down.
I kind of feel like I’m standing at a junction with a
thousand roads ahead of me, anyone of which I could take.
It’s kind of exciting.
It’s kind of scary.
If you stand at the junction too long?
It gets a bit confusing.
I’m shouting at God ‘What would you have me do?’
Then
Without warning.
An old song from the days when I was stuck in traditional Salvation Army stuff, one of those golden nougats out of the time before my transformation out of that dark place, flew
into my head straight from Heaven and landed smack bang in my mind and my
heart.
"Mid all the traffic of the ways, turmoil’s without, within.
Make in my heart a quiet place, and come and dwell within."
My study for my Master’s degree came flooding back. I wrote
a dissertation on silence. I had written about how silence is massively
important to be able to effectively join Gods mission.
Basically?
If we don’t stop and hear God?
Listen to what he is saying?
Reflect on what he is doing?
Then forget effective.
In fact, I remember at Sanctuary 21 in Durham, a prayer
centre that Dawn and I planted from scratch, when one lady out of the
hundreds of people that came for one to one prayer ministry with either Dawn or myself or
one of the team, came into be prayed with, and she was in complete turmoil. Some
serious stuff had happened in her life and she was all over the place. Before we
minister to anyone we obviously pray to catch a hold of how God would want us
to approach the session. When I was praying, I really felt an overwhelming
feeling that God was saying, “Send her to the prayer room without her bible,
without her handbag, and tell her to be silent before me, for however long it
takes. I don’t want you to minister to her on this occasion I need to directly minister
to her.” So, being as obedient as I could be I sent her to prayer room five to
be alone with God. When I explained this to her she looked at me as if I had
two heads. But she went. About three hours later she emerged out of the prayer
room looking tearful but radiant. To cut a long story short, she had been
incredibly touched and changed by God and he had given her a new direction.
So.
Hey.
Remembering all of this?
I stand at the junction with a thousand directions ahead of
me.
Mid all the traffic of the ways, turmoil’s without, within.
Make in my heart a quiet place and come and dwell therein.
I head for a silent space today in the third prayer centre
we planted, a fantastic place that is testament to the power of God.
And.
I wait.
To hear where he requires of me next.
To point me to the right road.
And.
I write this today because there maybe someone out there
standing at the junction of a thousand roads.
I urge you to try silence.
Get away, no notebook, no bible, no pen.
Just you with all your inner stuff. With all your anxieties,
with all your thoughts.
Be still and know he is God.
Be silent.
