It is now just three months since Val and I returned from our journey around the world. We were rather tired when we returned, but truly enjoyed being back in our own bed and in our own home. It took a few weeks to sort through and answer the mountain of mail and even though we had kept fairly up-to-date with e-mail, even they demanded a certain amount of time.
If you looked at this blog you would see that over the last week's we have not been writing anything at all, because there has been nothing happening, but because we just haven't been orientated to keeping in touch. For which we apologise. We aim to keep up the blog and encourage readers to contribute comments.
Just three weeks after we returned from our journey we gathered together with 30 or so others at a home in central Victoria. This rural location was chosen when we met together over Easter. Again we enjoyed just being together and reflecting on the place that God has brought us to. The gathering shared some video clips of folk we had met in different places in the world telling of how God had led them on in relation to himself. It was a rich and happy time.
We have been asked many times what things stand out as we look back on our three months on the road. There are four headings come to mind.
1.God is at work in his church and the gates of Hades nor the organisation of men have stood in the way of it.
We met many people who were confident that God was leading them on in their Christian walk in a freedom to live and decide to live in a submitted way, endeavouring to live as faithful followers and friends of the Lord Jesus.
Some were part of institutional churches, others met in what they described as house churches while others still quietly lived in relation to the Father, Son and Holy Spirit and in a gentle relation with other believers. But in all the people and groups we met, the evidence was that God had dealt with them individually. He had led them through situations that were as different as the number of people. To the place where they started to ask Father, "What are you saying to us?" To different degrees people followed what they saw he was asking of them. They entered an adventure where they began to know him into deeper way, sometimes where they were by themselves, with little fellowship with other people, even wondering sometimes if they
had "got it all wrong". Interestingly, we met no one in these groups who wanted to go back!
2. God deals with his people as the individuals who matter that he declares that we are.
Time and again we heard the story of how God had moved in the lives of people through things that were very specific to the individuals involved. This was not a man made "movement" of places where God revealed to individuals and small groups his desire for his people. And while people related the story of how God led them on which was unique to them, when we look back at the scores of people to whom we listened, one can see very clear similarities.
They all spoke of
1. Something coming to their attention which they felt was out of order and gave them a sense of dis-ease which resulted in them crying out to God and asking him about what is going on..
2. They had a sense that one way or another God showed them a way ahead which often entailed leaving places where they relied on other people for their fellowship and encouragement in Christian living and learning to find their resource in Jesus alone. Through this time they learned much that they have never known before.
3. They found that every step of the way is part of his teaching. Many told how they had hunted for "good Biblical teaching" and felt the need of regular admonition and direction from people around them. But they saw that as Father led them on the many and varied ways in which they were learning, sometimes through things that they had read other times through a chance encounter with a brother or sister. The scriptures had come alive to them and their walk with God seemed to have a new freshness.
It seems that what God is doing in places all around the world is growing his family as a church and a people who are walking into the future with a different paradigm. What an exciting time to live!
Subscribe to:
Post Comments (Atom)
1 comment:
Yes! It is indeed an exciting time! My son asked me once, "dad, if you could go back in time, which would be the time you would want to go to?" I said, "I won't want to trade being in this time for being in any other." He wondered, "Why?" All the prophets, and apostles and all the sons of God throughout the ages, had waited for this time. For this season, where Christ gathers His Church.
Post a Comment