Sitting here at the beginning of November 2019, I'm reminded that we're rapidly approaching an anniversary of our Time2 journey! On 11th November last year, we announced to friends and family by email and to the wider world via social media, that we were going to be leaving ngm at the end of February. It's hard to believe that we're just over a week away from this milestone and that it's now 8 months since we actually moved back home.
I've got to be honest and say that we never dreamed that we'd still be in this position. When we initially sat down with Nancy in June 2018 to talk about our vision and discuss our desire to leave ngm, we'd expected that we would have a property and be hosting church leaders by now, especially after the prophetic word that we'd received from Micah about God's provision. As we've said in previous blogs, we've learnt so much in the waiting, but it's been a real time of testing of our faith. There have been numerous occasions where it would have been easier to say that we'd given it a try and that it obviously wasn't meant to be, or even that we'd made up the whole vision. But every time we've been at that point, we've received a word of encouragement from someone out of the blue or have received a financial gift that enabled us to put food on the table or to get the car through it's MOT.
We met with a couple yesterday, who having talked with us and prayed for us, felt that we might still have a little longer to wait, but they felt that things would then move very quickly. This reminded me about what happened after the miracle of the feeding of the 5,000, as told in Matthew 14. Immediately after Jesus had dismissed the crowd, He sent the disciples off to sail across the lake in a boat, while He spent time alone praying on the hillside overlooking the lake. Though Jesus had given the disciples very clear instructions of where to go, Matthew reports that as soon as they set sail, the wind was against them. The disciples (many of who were experienced sailors/fishermen) spent a number of hours struggling to row against the wind and waves, they weren't making much progress. Just before dawn (so after virtually a whole night of struggling to do what Jesus had told them to do), the disciples were shocked and scared to see Jesus come walking across the lake towards them. After the initial shock (and in other gospel accounts we have the story of Peter walking on the water), Jesus is welcomed aboard, the wind and the rough waves die down and they immediately arrive at the other side.
We all need to remember that when the wind is against us, it doesn't necessarily mean that God is against us! Many times, the confirmation that God has spoken to us, is actually the fact that the wind is against us! The wind wasn't against the disciples because they'd disobeyed Jesus, but it was because they were actually going in the direction that He'd commanded them to go. The wind is often against us, so that we know that it's the Lord's presence with us that makes us successful. If the wind was for us, then we could end up thinking that we'd done it in our own strength and not in His.
The news that we might have to wait even longer, wasn't the most encouraging thing to hear, but being reminded that even the disciples had to struggle against the circumstances that they faced was a real encouragement, as was the fact that suddenly they were moved from being half way across the lake, to arriving at their destination! It looks like we might have a few more months of rowing ahead of us, how about you?
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