Oooooh I'm REALLY excited today. Just spent an amazing evening with Jacqueline and feel endlessly inspired. Love God conversations that just happen.
What I'm really excited about it just the realisation that one day I am going to preach. It is my dream. God has put a fire in my heart and words in my mouth that I just can't hold in... ooooh reminds me of Jeremiah 20v9 'His word is in my heart like a fire, a fire shut up in my bones. I am weary of holding it in; indeed, I cannot'. But that's the cool thing. I want to preach so much because I believe so much that I have been annointed to bind up the broken hearted and to set captives free (Isaiah 61). And I know God is going to honour this desire and that His will will come to fulfillment in me, even if that means preaching. Ephesians 3v20 'He is able to do more than we can ask or imagine'. Woooop. See I'd secretly like to preach and share God's mighty word to 1000's of people and see 1000's of people saved..... now put that in context of Ephesians 3v20. What's your dream? Now put it in the Ephesians 3v20 context and dream on..... Dream big dreams and let God do the rest - more than you can ask or imagine!
Anyways nothing to do with what I was going to talk about today... So this morning I was praying for my school where I work. I was praying hard and really asking to make a difference there and to bring the presence of God to that place. That was great. I believe that happens. But it is not my responsibility. It is my job to be obedient to Christ and to let the Holy Spirit work through me to do that. I can relax because it is God who works in us, His Holy Spirit who works through us to act and bring about change. We just need to be willing and obedient....
Philippians 2v13 says 'for it is God who works in you to will and to act in order to fulfill his good purpose'. How cool is this! See for ages I have been trying to change people, to act, to make things happen, to hold things up, to hold things together. But it is GOD who does this. Wow. Pressure off.
My prayers led on this morning to a picture. I saw my school held up by matchsticks or really thin, flimsy branches that were breaking and splitting under the weight. God then showed me how I cannot hold the school up myself and make a difference myself. I am not the foundation of my workplace. He is. He needs to strengthen those who hold up the school i.e. the senior management. It is my job to pray for a strengthening of the foundations of the school i.e. the senior management. I cannot impliment change myself. But through prayer and holding up the leadership team in prayer I can make a difference. Enough trying on my own.
God then showed me a hole in the foundation of the school building and a light shining through the hole. The light is going to shine up through the foundations i.e. the senior management of the school so I need to pray for them, to strengthen the foundations. Interesting stuff.
How often do we try to impliment change ourselves. We get all excited about the sunday sermon (which was totally amazing yesterday - thanks Tim) and think, right time for ME to impact my workplace. Yes! And No!. How amazing that we want to make a difference. That is awesome. But it is GOD who changes, who alters, who strengthens, who breaks, who upholds, who is the rock and the firm foundation, not us. We need to be obedient to Him. We need to pray for the foundations of our workplaces - for the management, for those with responsibility, for the principalities and powers. And we need to watch God work - not try to do it ourselves.
Interesting thoughts. I'm not saying this is the total right attitude to have, just some thoughts I'm spiralling off. What do we think?
PS 'The Spirit of the Lord will come on you in power...' 1 Samuel 10v6 - It is GOD and His Spirit that works. We just need to be willing and obedient!
ReplyDeleteOoh, exciting! It's tremendously liberating to realise that God does the heavy lifting when it comes to changing the world - there's something metaphysical about the way God works that just doesn't make sense to a culture that is obsessed with burning itself out to get results. God has plans, but none of them involve burning people out - I love the way the The Message approaches Matt 11:28-30 :-
ReplyDelete"Are you tired? Worn out? Burned out on religion? Come to me. Get away with me and you'll recover your life. I'll show you how to take a real rest. Walk with me and work with me—watch how I do it. Learn the unforced rhythms of grace. I won't lay anything heavy or ill-fitting on you. Keep company with me and you'll learn to live freely and lightly."
But I digress.
It's interesting that you describe the senior management as the foundations of your school - I don't know your school, so that might be the case, but I think that the foundations of a school (or any workplace or community) are less a particular group of people and more the shared values and ethos that they are a part of, and authority is a much more distributed attribute now than our structures perhaps dictate. Of course it's good to pray for those in positions of power, but I wouldn't be surprised if God chose less predictable routes to change.
Incredibly exciting stuff about feeling called to preach. I can't wait to see how that grows!
Rob, you make some excellentand interesting points - thanks!
ReplyDelete