We have been privileged to "stand on the shoulders of giants": to be a part of this vision is to be a part of something that has been seeded a long time before we arrived on the scene in the hearts of others, others who had their own vision and goals blocked in the will of God so that we could see their prayers answered through us.
A recent visitor to (and, hopefully eventual, member of) HomeChurch has been a long time lover of Morecambe. Committed to the cause of Christ, His kingdom come, and the people of Morecambe, she and a few others from various churches in the Morecambe area used to meet up to pray for the city and it's inhabitants. They wanted to open a place where people without a family could be a part of a family: the family of God. They prayed to this end for a long while, and looked at the very house we now live in, hearing from God that it would be a place of discipleship, love and spiritual growth. they attempted to buy the place, even put in an offer to it's owners around 2012, but for one reason and another the whole thing fell through.
I can imagine what that felt like. I may be guilty of ascribing my own experience to others, but it is not hard to imagine them feeling let down, even hurt by God, and possibly angry at themselves. "He said it! Did I hear Him wrong? was I imagining it? Why would He point to something and not deliver? What did we do wrong? Have we failed?
I'm not sure any of these questions are wrong questions, as long as they are asked directly of God and not grumbled at His people. We can be guilty, like the children of Israel in the desert, of complaining about God, rather than dialoguing WITH Him. All of the Christian walk boils down to relationships. Us to Him, Him to us, us to others. When we put the relationships in the wrong order we end up with various kinds of very destructive sins: gossip is taking a one another relationship and spreading it across to other people, but gossip against God, grumbling and complaining, is taking the us/God relationship and spreading it to others in the same way. The questions we have of God should be shared privately with God and our anger dealt with. Some of this is contained in the LORD's prayer: Your Kingdom come, Your will be done is a statement that implies my will is secondary to the all encompassing purpose of the "hallowing", or showing as awesome, holy and righteous, of His name. Sharing one's own will with God is a part of the process, but only the beginning. It is sharing and allowing His sufficiency, His good, perfect and pleasing will, to overcome our own feeble empire building.
I am glad that those faithful folk submitted to His will. What He promised He has delivered, and not because of anything better or more significant about us, but because it pleased Him to do so, and His will is the hope of the nations. Every endeavor we pursue in the cause of Christ is surfing on the back of another's faithful prayer and service: we have been privileged to see that. Many, the Bible says, do not see the fruit of their faithfulness, the promises of God come to be. remember they are no less blessed for it, for everything done in secret will be made known, and many who are last shall be first. Let us remember that the next time we confuse our worldly success of perceived failure with the blessing or disfavour of God. God does not promise our own dreams will come true, but that He will place us in the middle of His dream: a world of saved sinners, made saints by His blood, a world of love, peace and joy, a world that can only be fully realized at His return, but a heaven that invades earth in the here and now as we live before Him in humility and repentance. A good dream. A revolutionary dream.
Who wants to be a part of that?
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