An invitation: It’s for NOW, so don’t wait!

In a prayer group recently, we were presented with a couple of pictures that immediately spoke to me deeply, linking in with a number of other thoughts. The first of these pictures was a garden doorway.

(C) Richard walker - Used with permission (https://www.flickr.com/photos/richwall100/3878198108)

Straight away, I saw an invitation here from the Lord for us to enter in to a new and very different space. It is an invitation to step out from what is familiar and filled with what is known, out from what is expected and seen as normal, and out from what feels safe, into the UNKNOWN and UNFAMILIAR.

From a season of extended lockdown, (particularly here in Melbourne, Australia), there is an invitation to step out into something we possibly can’t even see. It is not only the “unknown”, it is also the “unseen”. Just as in this picture, we cannot see around the corner, we don’t know what lies outside that door, the only way to find out is to step through the doorway. We have to make a commitment to STEP FORWARD before we can see what we will STEP INTO. Perhaps we can’t even see Jesus in the space we are stepping into – it is filled with so much uncertainty, particularly as we lack long distance vision or understanding, but I hear His voice coming from around that corner, in the distance, calling us, “COME ON!! COME ON!! MY BELOVED, FOLLOW ME into this new space. I have so much for you here, but you have to step out, you have to let go of what is past.”

This leads to the second picture. In this, of the last strand of a rope about to be cut, I immediately saw that God is wanting to cut our ties to the things of the past. It is not necessarily that they were bad, but that they are not for now. The problem now is that they will only slow us down and keep us busy and focussed on that which is not important at this time. It is a season where we need to streamline, to slim down in order to travel fast and far. Just like travelling by air (remember that?!), you can’t take everything with you. You have to trust that anything extra you need will be available at the other end in some form, that you will receive the provision for your needs as you go.

We are entering a new season and a new season needs new ways. Many people have been quoting Is 43:19 in the last couple of years: “I am doing something new; it’s springing up — can’t you see it? I am making a road in the desert, rivers in the wasteland.” The repeated message is, “if it’s new, it’s going to be different, it’s going to be unfamiliar, we won’t know what it looks like until we get there.”

If we go back to verse 18, we have further admonishment: “Stop dwelling on past events and brooding over times gone by”.

Over the past month or so, I had three dreams about people dying. In the first and third dreams, they were people who were significant to me who actually died many years ago. The middle one was a current friend. In all three dreams, I was absolutely distraught by grief and woke up expecting my pillow to be saturated. After the third dream, I was really wanting to understand what God was trying to get my attention about in this – the level of grief seemed extreme to anything I felt on waking.

I sensed that these dreams are about what many in the Body of Christ are experiencing now around what is missing or even gone from our lives. In the dreams, there was almost a desperate desire to bring back that which was gone and there was the associated powerlessness that comes with loss. We are hurting from the loss of what we held dear. But, somewhat brutally, I feel that again, Jesus is calling us forward, almost callously, like He spoke to the rich young ruler in Luke 18, who He invited to give up everything that was valuable to him: “Forget the past, move on, we don’t have time for grief, for what needs to be left in the past, I’ve got so many new and better things for you, but they require you to forget the old ways, to be ready to learn new things.”

In our small, semi-rural community, we have spent the past nine months – the time of gestation! – pondering all this.

What does it look like to be a Kingdom people, to step into something new, to step into what God has for us?

What do we bring with us?

What do we leave behind?

What needs to change?

In the last weeks, in the middle of arguably the world’s harshest, but most certainly longest lockdown, rather than look at all the things we can’t do, we have been doing what we can, as well as asking the question around what we can do in new ways. Meeting together has obviously had it’s challenges in many places around the world. For us, a few weeks back we were told we could meet outside the church with five plus a pastor. So we have.

A couple of days a week, we have stood outside our church with a guitar and our masks, and we have worshipped God and prayed, possibly to the amusement of the mechanics across the street and others walking past. We are not polished, we are far from perfect, we haven’t practiced, but we stand there in confidence and faith that God is with us, and that what we do there is important.

In the middle of this, there have been a number of confirmations that God is not concerned about us getting back to “church as usual” inside our buildings. I actually think He is overjoyed that we are coming out! Perhaps that is one of the “unknowns” Jesus is calling us all to. To be really harsh, we might hear Him call to us:

“Lazarus, come out!”

This makes me think of Martha’s response: “…by this time he stinketh”, and I am reminded of items I have collected that are from the past, whether my own, or from the generations before. When I bring them out of storage, there is usually a bit of a smell about them, a smell of mustiness, of staleness. To be blunt, for many of us, it is time for us to freshen up, to start carrying the fragrance of heaven, rather than the fragrance of everything from the past. Just like yesterday’s dinner smells are no longer as appetising as they were when we sat down to that meal, we need to open up and let the wind of the Spirit freshen and clean out what belongs to the past. We must let go of it.

And just as James admonishes in James 2:17, “…faith by itself, unaccompanied by actions, is dead.”, it’s time for us to show that our faith is indeed alive, filled with the abundant life, the overflowing life that Jesus promised us, through our actions. There is such need, such hunger, such poverty in our communities, whether that is physical, emotional or spiritual. Will we continue to be blind to it? As painful as it can be, can we afford to keep it at arm’s length and not allow it to touch our hearts?

As we worshipped and shared in the front yard of our church on Thursday, we had a discussion about what God has for us in this new season and I felt to read again from Acts 2, where Peter stands up and says, “‘The Lord says: “In the Last Days, I will pour out from my Spirit upon everyone. Your sons and daughters will prophesy, your young men will see visions, your old men will dream dreams. Even on my slaves, both men and women, will I pour out from my Spirit in those days; and they will prophesy.”

Even as I started to read, the word “POUR” leapt up in my heart. God does not give us His Spirit by drip feed, or on occasion, or when we are particularly being “good-enough”, or “spiritual”. His promise is to “POUR IT OUT”. One of the ladies in our church is starting a painting that is three metres high and is of a waterfall with a person under it. I believe this is what God has for each of us – that just as Jesus POURED OUT His life for us, He continues to POUR OUT His Spirit over and in us. We just have to position ourselves at His feet, like Mary, to receive from Him. It is a place of humility; it is a place of letting go of our personal preferences, our personal desires; it is the place of SURRENDER.

The only question that remains is,

“AM I WILLING?”

“ Therefore, prepare your minds for action; be self-controlled; set your hope fully on the grace to be given to you when Jesus Christ is revealed.” (1 Peter 1:13 )