My desire is to dive into the deepest depths of God's heart, to find the things that I know he has hidden for me there, to know him better and therefore, to love him more! This is my life's goal to seek God and his kingdom first in everything, this is what it is all about. The amazing thing is that I cannot earn it or merit it, I cannot do anything to make it happen except respond to his love which he has freely poured out on me. The depths I dive to does depend on my obedience but the more I know his love for me the easier it is to be obedient quickly, even in the harder things!
I'm not there yet but am excited that I am closer now than I was even just a couple of weeks ago. This post is about my journey in stepping out and taking risks with the people we meet on the street. I hope you are encouraged and blessed.
I have always found it easy to speak to people on the street, to just love on them right where they are at, to encourage them and draw out the gold in them. The harder thing for me has been moving from here to bringing healing or salvation, even when I have known that Holy Spirit has said is right to do so. It's not that I never do it but often I would feel like I made such a mess of it that I wondered why I ever tried. However, a few weeks ago at Friday Night Strikes I got to share the gospel and see someone step into new life. Wow!
As a team we went to Safeways and on the way in I spoke to the man who was outside, he told me to f*** off and so I blessed him and we all went in to the store. Jonathan, one of our group, decided to go out and speak to him again and a few moments later I was asked to go out side and Mark (the man who had swore at me) apologised to me. Jonathan went into the store and I stayed and chatted with Mark and he told me a little of his story and his struggles, especially with addiction. I shared how God could remove his addiction and shared a little of my testimony with him. He said he would like me to pray but not in the open! As we were giving him a lift to his mum's I suggested we prayed in the car, which we did when Jonathan came out. We drove him to his mum's and continued to encourage him on the way. As we pulled up Jonathan said to me that I should share the gospel with him. Aaaggghhh! I did it in about 90 seconds and at the end he said he wanted to give his life to Jesus so I led him in a prayer. Wow! What a privilege! We celebrated with the angels that night.
I was so grateful to God that he had Jonathan give me the push as I would not have shared the gospel otherwise. Though I have not had opportunity to share the gospel since I know that my fear of messing up is now gone. I will not get it perfect but God asks for willingness and risk taking, not perfection!
The next couple of stories are about me stepping out with words of knowledge, something I have rarely done and so have always backed off from. Thankfully, God doesn't give up on us and loves to answer our prayers, especially if we are willing to risk a little too.
The next week at Friday Night Strikes I was asked to lead a team and we headed off to the library. We got to speak to a few lads but there were not many people about and so we headed down to a convenience store one of the team felt led to. There was a man in front of us and I really felt like I should talk to him, I considered running after him but wisely decided to pray that we would catch him up. He stopped outside the convenience store and I started chatting to him. He was a little suspicious at first but soon became much more interested in my accent than anything else (my accent is a blessing here!). After a few minutes I felt like he had a bad back (my first word of knowledge for healing that I remember) and so I asked him, amazingly he said yes, he had arthritis in his back and was always in pain. I invited two of the girls to come and pray for him and they did. When they had finished they asked him to check it out and so he did. After a few minutes of bending and stretching he said he just wanted to be certain so he didn't lie to us and then he bent some more. We were all eager to hear his verdict. Wow! He had no pain and full movement, something he had not had in a long time. As we were saying goodbye he told us he was a Muslim and we blessed him.
The second story is different, I was out with my housemate as part of our evangelism track and we started speaking to a guy at a gas station. I felt like he looked like a musician and when I asked him he said he was. Made a bit braver by this, I asked if he played the guitar and he said yes. We had a great chat with this guy and were able to pray for his wife's back to be healed (she was at home with the children) and we were also able to prophesy over him and he was greatly encouraged.
Two words of knowledge, both different but both brought blessing to the people they were given to. I would love to say that I will never doubt and I will always step out in faith from this point on. However, the truth is sometimes I will and sometimes I won't but I know my confidence will grow each time I do step out and I will step out more and more.
The last two stories come from my trip to San Fran last weekend for city service. On the Friday night I went to the Tenderloin (the homeless, drugs and prostitution area) with 2 guys from the team. One of the guys really wanted to grow in stepping out in healing and so I was keen to facilitate this. We chatted with one guy called Larry who said he had pain in his right hip and ankle. We prayed and he said he felt heat in his hip. We prayed twice more and he said his pain went from 6.5 to a 3. Wow! However, the best bit was when he exclaimed that his lungs had been healed and he could breath properly! Praise God! He sovereignty chose to heal something that we did not even know about. Amazing!
A little while later we met Rick who was limping. I asked if we could pray and he said yes and explained he had been shot in his left thigh. After just a few moments of prayer he walked off declaring he was healed. To be completely honest I was not convinced as he was still limping and I wondered if it was just a ruse to get away. How wrong I was! About an hour later and 4 or 5 blocks away we are walking up a street and we can hear someone telling someone how God healed them. Sure enough, there was Rick outside a bar telling 2 guys his testimony of healing! He was so pleased to see us and tell us again what had happened. I was blown away by this man who was so touched by God that he had to tell others and also that God let me see this, despite my scepticism. He is such a good God!
Here I am God send me!
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