Over the last few weeks I ( by the grace of God) have persuaded two churches to stop and to commit and re-commit themselves to an intentional period of waiting on God, I have suggested that we simply stop doing some things we have always done and use the time for prayer instead, both corporately and individually. I have also persuaded one group of very tired Stewards to take turns in taking a months sabbatical. where if they wish to they can visit other churches or even have a lie in on a Sunday, and need not worry about business and activities during the week. The challenge to them also has been to re-focus their attention from church and on to God. In a sense I have asked folk to stop, to wait, to pray and to see what God can do.
I know that this is deeply challenging because we are not very good at waiting or stopping, we tend to think that we must keep the show on the road, and we fear what might happen if we don't. Quite often our busyness prevents us to see what is unfolding around us. That became very clear in a meeting on recently when one member spoke of there being no younger folk in church when she was actually surrounded by them. I wonder how often we rehearse our stories to ourselves without stopping, and the effect is that they blind us to what is going on.
So we have chosen to stop- it was a church decision, my suggestion but they took it up, we are stopping in the midst of the storm to wait, we are ceasing pressing on with our ideas and programmes and waiting on God for his. It might be that he will smile upon us and tell us to wait a little more.
For some the thought of waiting and not doing is scary, the need to keep on keeping on gives a comfort that stopping and waiting does not, when we still ourselves and wait we might begin to discover things about ourselves that make us very uncomfortable, truths about ourselves that we need to confess, things that we need to deal with. This will also be true both individually and corporately, especially as enter into the discipline of prayer with the intention of waiting on God rather than bringing a shopping list of our own wants and needs.
I am looking forward to seeing what God will do among us, the one thing that we will be starting is time for prayer together and a commitment as individuals to turn to God, to seek God and to try to discern the Spirits leading for us. I firmly believe that God has a plan and a purpose for his people, I also know that the kingdom of God has never been static, and that it grows and changes through the generations. We belong to this growing changing, wonderful, dynamic and awe-inspiring kingdom, we need to re-discover or even simply to discover what it means to be the pilgrim people of God, people compelled by the warmth of Gods love and the flow of the Spirit, people who know the heart of God is for them, and the grace of God surrounds them, hedging them in before and behind.
It is so easy to get stuck in the stuff of life, to keep on keeping on without taking stock, to plough forward in an ever deepening rut until we have buried ourselves with our own efforts. A wise elderly member who had a stock of sayings once reminded a Church Council that; "the only difference between a rut and a grave was its depth", the danger is that we bury our hopes and possibilities by our continued activity.
The waiting will not be easy, nor will it be comfortable as I have said, but right now it is essential, in God we trust, in him we not only face up to our dis-ease with ourselves but that dis-ease can be healed and our paths can become surer as we respond tho the Spirits leading. For now we are choosing to be still.
O Lord hear our prayer...
Recent Comments