Sea of Need, Burdens and the Spirit's Direction

"The people need to hear the true meaning of Christmas", someone said to me. They had a valid point: People need Jesus, full stop. And Jesus is God come to us - the deal in the Christmas story - and so telling the true meaning of Christmas does help lead people to Jesus.

It was not that the need as stated was invalid. It was the implication that this need (relating to Christmas) might trump other needs. The reality is that there is a sea of need (or even oceans of need!). Who is to discern between them?

Now I do accept that an individual or group seeing a particular need might find themselves feeling a burden regarding that need, which they are right to express to others. Yet surely the correct path is to then hold that burden in prayer and see how things develop. Of course typically the Spirit will lead those burdened to become the very activists who do something about it (you might then suspect that it was the Spirit who gave them the burden in the first place!) - but that is a process wrestled in prayer.

We must learn to enter and embrace that process, almost stepping back from the need (and the burden we may feel), to let the Spirit properly gestate and birth in us the action we are to take. That means preventing ourselves from simply mapping the need down onto action, and instead praying and waiting for suggestions for action to bubble up.

Sometimes the Spirit will confirm ideas that match the perceived need, but this waiting process leaves room for the Spirit to lead quite differently. Take those episodes in Acts where Paul was led in a whole new mission direction (see chapter 16 for example). Its not like there was no need in Bithynia, but the Spirit in this case was leading to Macedonia!

So be careful of the word 'need', pray and wait on burdens, and in all cases keep alert to the leading of the Spirit!