Complacency or expectation?
I think that we in the west have begun to take God for granted; we have settled for what is in our heads; we have lost our awe and our sense of expectation.
This was revealed to me in a very real way this morning at our church meeting.
One Sunday we had a visiting pastor from Freetown in Sierra Leone, once a drug addict, gangster, drunk and sex addict. He is now leading a church that seeks to reach people who are living the sort of life he once led.
Last year my friends, Bob and Margaret, who pastor a church in the NW of England and who used to be our neighbours and part of the church I now belong to, went over to SL for a visit and today I heard an incredible story about their ministry there.
After the worship there was a call for those who needed prayer to come forward. We've all been in places where that has happened, but what happened next was astounding.
A lady approached my friend and asked him to pray for her to regain her sight. She was wearing a hood pulled well down over her face so he asked her if she would mind removing it. She did so and he was so shocked by what he saw that he had to close his eyes.
That lady had no eye balls but he laid hands on her and began to pray as the spirit led him. The lady started to scream but he carried on praying, still with his eyes closed, and when he eventually opened his eyes he couldn't believe what he was seeing. The lady's eyes had been restored, they had grown back.
Now this isn't a guy who earns big bucks on a high profile preaching circuit. To me he is a good friend who gives great hugs, and was the guy next door whose wife is my very best friend and whose kids I have seen grow up. Somebody I spend time with and respect greatly.
He wants to be used by God and God uses him.
A lesson to all of us do you think?
@Nancy,
@Butterfly,
@"ByGrace" ,