THE BATTLE FOR PEACE – DON’T TRY TO FIX YOUR PERSONAL WHIRLWIND!
A CORPORATE WORD FOR AND FROM MULBERRY HOUSE!
(You may be sent this one as friends of ours as we think this might be bigger than us but if you are experiencing no ash on your horizon please do not panic!)
PEACE NOT AS THE WORLD GIVES
God is wanting to bless us. There is so much more but it is being challenged. Most of us realise by now that the battle is for that PEACE we crave, our promised land. NOT the peace of the world which is simply the absence of conflict and problems -a kind of uneasy truce with the enemy or a time when things in our lives seem to be going OK and we heave a sigh of relief. I think some of us may well remember that we actually ASKED for that peace -well just remember how God answers when we ask for patience!!
So what has been going on? Our worst fears, our old wounds, our Achilles heels are being attacked with an aggression from the enemy. Families are in chaos, relationships are a battleground, there are unexplained and inexplicable health problems, threats of more job cuts, disruption to family routine, blocks on cherished plans and investments. The list goes on.
Is it all Satan? Yes and no! Satan is being used in order to bring us to a much deeper place of peace. We have been told recently not to make our own plans with gay abandon and expect that we can make long term plans – the word actually says that we are to say only that God willing we will be in a certain place at a certain time. Just ask several thousand stranded Brits what it meant when they were clearly NOT going to make it where they wanted to go. It seems like it was even being reflected in the heavenlies that we were being realigned.
ACHILLES HEELS AND DISUNITY
God has also promised us some things through the trials -that HE will cover our Achilles heels and that the huntER was about to become the hunted. Maybe you need to think what your Achilles heel is. You can also take comfort that in all the places where it seems the enemy has you on the run, things are going to change!
We had a warning against dis- unity but not in the sense that we usually mean it. When we Christians talk about dis-unity, we usually mean that there has been some falling out of brothers and sisters, some slander or gossip going on. This is NOT the same though. This disunity comes because EVERYBODY IS DOING THEIR OWN THING. It might seem a good , even a spiritual thing BUT it leads only to distraction. Wow yesterday morning we felt that EVERYTHING was thrown at us to stop the unity coming in the Spirit. Nobody had fallen out. Nobody was offended. BUT when we finally stopped the meeting to see what was happening in the Spirit, it turned out that we were all feeling it was just us in our private thoughts busy sorting our own heads out -this meant that there was no CORPORATE strategy to deal with enemy assaults. Yet ALL TOGTHER WE HAD THE ANSWER!
One of our ladies had had a picture of us all back to back and shoulder to shoulder covering one another and our own backs -we actually enacted this and had to fight hard to overcome fears of all kinds -as if the bottom of the barrel was being reached and we are desperate to enter God’s rest.
ME AND MY LITTLE WORLD
One of our ladies brought a talk called highly appropriately “ Me and My little world”! This is exactly what is currently going on. Now your little world might be quite a pleasant place. It might be a place of turmoil and torment. It does not matter. God is saying we need a CORPORATE AND COLLECTIVE STRATEGY and we need it fast. That means we are going to have to re-focus. Our vision has to increase. While I am busy in my little world, there are general elections going on, there are nations to pray for. My little world can get so busy that I cannot see the wider picture. Maybe I take my little world to the community on Sunday and return home disappointed because I can see that my problems continue. The thing I want to happen has not happened. My healing is still incomplete. My family is still in turmoil. My finances are still shaky. BUT all the time, nations are affected, the heavenlies are being changed, the city is being affected by our CORPORATE WORSHIP and PRAYER.
We need to deal with our hearts -wounded and with huge walls of self protection and fear between us and God. We saw that wall yesterday and we were desperate to get past it and into that place of peace in the Father’s heart. BUT when we get distracted by our own individual worlds it is impossible. You need others to make this kind of breakthrough. God is looking for a CORPORATE BODY of believers willing to come out of their world and see the wider picture. Satan is a MASTER DISTRACTOR AND A MASTER DECEIVER – God is looking for mature believers who can see this and ACT when needed. We KNOW this already. In fact we have known most of this for a very long time. Now though is the time to hear and OBEY. Two entirely different things. Our hearts are hard in our woundedness and our fear is that more wounding will come if we expose ourselves further. We were given a picture of hearts not like concrete to be attacked with a pick axe as we often think but of hard hearts made of RUBBER. The thing with rubber is that you can deal it a blow and make a dint but the rubber just bounces back unscathed. Rubber is hard to destroy -just think of a scrap yard and the smell from burning tyres! Rubber hearts know how to defend themselves from further hurts. The fire of the Lord has to melt that kind of hardness. It’s as if it has been there all along but now we are at the place where the rubber hits the road -pardon the pun!
DON’T TRY TO FIX YOUR WHIRLWIND
Order IS coming out of the chaos. As an expert worrier I am absolutely spoilt for choice what to worry about next! Many folk are the same with situations way out of their control turning round like a whirlwind around them, unsure what to try to tackle and what to leave alone. You can’t FIX a whirlwind! Particularly one which changes direction and is full of the debris of your fears and panics and disasters! Elijah couldn’t fix his either. You can either RUN or GET IN THE CENTRE God is wanting to bring his holy hush in the centre of that storm which seems to have been perfectly designed to make you feel shaken on every foundation. Like that famous film -the “Perfect Storm”! God wants us to see the wider picture.
Remember Elijah? God deals with his runaway prophet who is trying to run from his very own perfect storm on Mt Horeb. God shows up but shows Elijah that still, small voice and then POINTS HIM TO THE BIGGER PICTURE. He does not explain himself, appear to comfort or acknowledge Elijah’s wonderful work and commitment but reveals himself in the still, small voice which puts all Elijah’s fears at rest.
God is in the CENTRE OF YOUR WHIRLWIND! That means you have to pass through a certain amount of debris and disasters to get to the bit in the middle.
You are about to see a whole new vista opening up after the storm. You will not see it as the whirlwinds of thoughts and situations seems to whirl out of control around you but when it all dies down – hopefully like the ash from the volcano in Iceland- it will be a whole new ball game. Elijah’s heir was Elisha and a community of prophets. Obviously prophets need time to be alone and Elijah was absolutely amazing but most of us need collective places to come and share and see the wider picture together.
JESUS BE THE CENTRE
For us this means a time when CORPORATELY we begin to see the bigger picture. Our focus HAS to be Jesus and we have to get our eyes OFF our own little world to see that HE is wanting to be the centre of all.
JESUS IS THE WORD
All of this can seem so much trite stuff we have heard a thousand times before. The difference is that God is making this a PRESENT REALITY IN US. We KNOW we should not worry, get distracted by crises or family stuff or any other cares in this world but knowing it is not the same as being able to deal with it. We wear ourselves out trying to fix it and work out ways round the problems and catastrophes -God is wanting to give us a TANGIBLE experience in the middle of the storm that HE IS GOD.
GOD OF MYSTERY
We live in an area much affected by the work and spirituality of the Irish Celtic saints. One of our folk reminded us of an aspect of their spirituality we forget so easily. They did not need to have God explain himself. Just as well because I don’t think God is going to explain what he is doing this time either! He will tell us what we need to know in HIS view and it will not look like what we have thought about him either.
We are being told to put on a garment of humility and put off our striving and restlessness -it seems we have prayed for this as well and are beginning to see the results! We don’t know God as well as we thought and he flat refuses to do what we want. We will just have to try not to get in his way!
Anne Griffith
For Mulberry House Community