tonite, we will step out of the boat…

in about 2 and a half hours a youth week meeting is going to be starting in the Florida Keys and i am really excited [and somewhat nervous] to see what God has in store for tonite…

i was chatting to the leaders this morning as we sought to hear God on some stuff and just vibed about how things could look tonite and i was reminded as i was speaking to them that while one of the great things about some of the amazing stories in the Bible is how they turned out when God pitched up, one of the worst things can be that we start to read those stories from the perspective of knowing how the story finishes and it can lose some of its power…

take for example Shadrach, Meshach and Abednego facing King Nebuchadnezzar and boldly refusing to bow down to his statue when the band played even though they were threatened with being thrown in the furnace [Daniel 3] – they are confident God can save them but leave a little proviso that “even if He doesn’t, we still refuse to worship your idol” and so there seems to be an element of “man, i really hope He shows up” and i imagine to them that God showing up would look like them not being thrown in the furnace… but it didn’t – they got thrown in but didn’t burn up [and i imagine when they got home the first thing they did was change out of their urine-stained robes!]

we see David, the little shepherd boy, standing in front of a giant who is terrorising the whole Israelite army and we know how the story ends so we read it knowing he will defeat Goliath with a little stone slung from his sling… but David doesn’t know how it ends when he accepts the challenge and walks out to meet him… we can’t hear the beeps that the censors had to put in to cover what he was really mumbling as he strode forward…

Elijah climbing on top of a dead kid [he lays on him three times and the kid comes back to life – imagine if he hadn’t…], Jesus inviting the disciples to feed the crowd of 5000 men [and women and children – what is interesting about this story is that the food does not get multiplied before they start feeding – they start handing it out and as they do so it doesn’t run out – it required an action of faith] and Peter climbing out of the boat because Jesus had called him to walk on water…

we know how it ends, but they don’t.
as each of them stepped into a action of faith, i imagine each one of them is quietly screaming out to God “please show up, please show up, please show up!”

and tonite, some committed youth leaders who have lead this youth week for years, and who only met me on Saturday, have given the yes to a nite of stepping out in action linked to a similar kind of faith and if God does not show up tonite then i [and probaly them] will be embarrassed – we have discerned what we believe God is calling us to and trusting that He is going to show up and do the stuff He needs to do.

[and i need to write this now because it is a much easier blog to not write later if things don’t go well]

for a chance of a great miracle, there has to be the chance of a great flop or embarrassment… and i am okay with that, because i know the God i serve is faithful – i don’t always understand the ways He works or chooses not to sometimes and as He says in His word, His ways are definitely not my ways…

i have invited 30 plus people [as an echoing of David’s Mighty Men] to be praying around the world for tonite and some of them have grabbed groups of people together and there are people in this church who are and will be praying and together we will all anticipate God showing up and blowing us away by How gracious and loving and mighty and powerful and healing-filled He is… reminded that He loves every single person coming tonite way more than any of us can and ever will.

so we will step out of the boat… and if He shows up then we will celebrate and watch Him work mightily…
but even if He doesn’t [or doesn’t in the way we are expecting or hoping] we will still proclaim that our God is a mighty God
our God is a God who saves…

to read what happened next, click here