Praying into the Flow

A key aspect of the strategy that we are pursuing is to work out who among the people we meet and talk to is spiritually open. Who is the person where the Spirit is already working, leading them to have a curiosity and spiritual hunger to discover?

A Biblical example of someone very open is Cornelius in Acts 10: a Roman centurion who is already fervently praying and seeking ... so much so that God arranges to fetch Peter to come and preach directly to his household. Lydia in Acts 16 is another. Of course not everyone is already seeking as clearly as Cornelius, and some maybe don't even know that deep down they are searching - perhaps they will only realise much later.

A clear principle we adhere to is to only invite people to some kind of Discovery Bible Study when we sense that a person is spiritually open and potentially interested enough that they might sit down with us. That is based on us gauging the conversations and level of interest (praying of course in the background!). For those that do say "yes" to our invitation, we then find that the preliminary sessions give indications of a person's inner hunger. The simple test is in scheduling the next session - the more open & hungry the person is, the easier it will be to schedule and hold to it. Of course it is not an exact science - things happen, arrangements fall foul of circumstances and so on.

The people who are open to spiritual conversations from time to time, but not really so hungry to explore Jesus, tend to be the ones who let discovery sessions be missed and seem to be hard to follow up. Again there is no exact calculation: circumstances, personality types, and a host of other factors can be a part. We should also pinch ourselves and remember that for a person it may simply not be the right time for them at the moment. Perhaps there will be a different link in the chain of witness that will stir their hunger later.

These observations should feed into our spiritual discernment - discerning who Jesus is calling us to concentrate our own personal finite resources on. We cannot pray intensively for everyone we ever meet, and our limited time & energy means we cannot continue to the nth degree trying to meet up with someone who in reality is not in an open & hungry place to want to meet up. Put another way: it can be okay to let someone drop off our personal prayer list, and it could be the right thing to do to not follow up someone yet again to re-schedule. This can be coupled with an ongoing trust in the Spirit: if the Spirit is intending you to be part of their journey, He will arrange something - be it a meeting out of the blue, the person messaging you, etc.

All this means learning to Pray into the Flow - praying with the direction and flow of the Spirit so that your thread of praying for people, chatting with people, inviting them to discovery sessions, becomes ever more resonant with what the Spirit is doing in people's lives out there in the community. Hitting that resonance will involve bumping into the person the Spirit has already prepared for you (e.g. like Lydia). Those occurrences will seem relatively easy and not a struggle compared to the many others that we interact with. That is not to say that every session will always be easily scheduled or go perfectly well, but a God-given momentum will be established that leaves us concluding: 'This must be God!'.

Festival of Light

Today - 31st October 2024 - is a festival of light! British and Americans would typically recognise the date as Halloween, but in India and the Hindu population this year it also happens to be Diwali - a festival of lights.

Like all things in life, we can choose what we celebrate, what we pass on, what we amplify. We can choose to pass on that which is wholesome and uplifting, or that which tears down, is dark, or troublesome. For example one of the global crises that we have today concerns  social media posts - some of which are dark or just plain false yet nevertheless get shared, re-shared and amplified ... because people choose to celebrate, pass on, and thus amplify them.

Paul wrote to the Philippians: "Whatever is true, noble, right, pure, lovely, admirable ... think on such things".

The Diwali festival celebrates a sense of victory of light over darkness. For the Hindu community it is an opportunity for great celebration - sweet food, lights, fireworks and partying in general. People wish each other a happy Diwali along with prosperity into the future much like western New Year greetings.

The celebration of light and overcoming of darkness of course resonates in the Christian faith: Jesus is the Light of the World (John 8:12), and the light has come into the world and the darkness has not overcome it (John 1:4). That is worth celebrating! For those taking part in Halloween activities, we want to lovingly point them to the light. For those enjoying their Diwali celebrations, we celebrate Light too - His Name is Jesus!

From Mentor to Soul Friend

I felt particularly blessed recently! I had the opportunity to catch up with someone who I had seen grow from childhood through youth to now being a young adult. We covered typical ground of hearing how their studies are progressing, involvement at a local church, outreach initiatives on campus etc., all of which made for a mutually encouraging conversation.

Into the conversation I asked the question: 'So what do you feel God has been on your case about recently?'. That got them thinking, but without too much of a pause they were able to discuss a passage of Scripture that had grabbed their attention and had led to some internal wrestling. Their ability to engage in the question was a positive fruit of the mentoring relationship that we had over the years. I offer the question as a 'Soul Friend' question - one that we can use one-to-one or in a triplet to touch base on where we are at in our discipleship. The mentoring relationship wasn't simply to produce a nice person, but to contribute to someone's discipleship journey such that they continue in active following of Jesus in their own right into their future.

Then came a wonderful surprise switch-around! The person then asked me: 'So what do you feel God has been on our case about recently?'. In asking me the very same question, it was my turn to be honest about my discipleship, whether I was being attentive to the voice of the Spirit, trying to wrestle, learn and develop. I talked about a scripture passage that had caused me to think again on a key faith concept, and we discussed that briefly.

I was mega-chuffed, because in asking the question back to me we now had equality and reciprocal exchange! The relationship had matured from the senior/junior mentoring dynamic to two people being Soul Friends able to prompt one another to think about their faith and walk with Jesus as equals. This is surely the outcome we desire of faith-mentoring relationships, providing the safe yet stimulating environment where a person rises to be our equal and journeys beyond the orbit of ourselves into the calling that God has for them.

To be able to see the fruit of that process is a wonderful blessing.

Quiet Confidence in Sovereignty

If we are wrestling in the spiritual realms, praying for significant shifts in how things are, do you feel the need to make lots of noise or pray lots of words? When you hear others doing this, do you ever wonder if there is some kind of meter measuring the volume or quantity of prayer - as if hitting some special total will be what it takes to unlock victory. Or do you think it requires some kind of show of strength, as if you and your peers can fix things if you get your efforts strong and directed enough?

Joshua was shown a different way when it came to overcoming Jericho - a fortress city with reinforced walls. God's instructions to Joshua are instructive: for six days have the army simply march around the city. Do it with the ark in the procession, with seven priests carrying trumpets. The trumpets sound, but compared to typical war-cries of an army it is to be a relatively quiet six days

On the seventh day they are to repeat, though this time make seven circuits. Only after this 7th iteration on the seventh day is everyone to shout. The walls will collapse - then you go in!

It seems to me that Joshua was being taught to be quietly confident in God's sovereignty. They were to loop round for 6 days with ark plus some announcing priests to proclaim relatively quietly and yet actively: 'we are here - God is sovereign'. All they had to do was be confident in God - it didn't require big noise or extraordinary fanfare to prove it, for God is sovereign regardless. The circuits on the seventh day repeated this, still with a relatively quiet yet clear confidence. Then they could go into full volume mode, but the walls will simply crumble before their eyes anyway - for God is sovereign and He has determined for them to come down.

As we prayer walk our neighbourhoods, or pray in other ways wrestling in the spiritual realms for the shift that is needed, let is learn a quiet confidence. May we know that the outcome is not factored on the noise we can make, or the quantity of our prayers, but that it all rests on His sovereignty. We can walk round, relatively quietly yet actively knowing His sovereignty, and look for that sovereignty to be brought to bear on the area/situation in our prayer focus.

We don't have to make a great noise until the moment that God finally tells us too - and by then the walls of opposition are crumbling away anyway.