Hatfield Travel Lodge isn’t exactly Mount Sinai or the Mount of Olives, but God sent a message anyway.   I was sleeping fairly lightly; a combination of a warm non-air-conditioned room, a 4 month baby, 7 year old daughter and Mrs C sharing the same space too.

Every time I woke up I was hearing phrases repeated over and over in my head:

‘One hope, one hope, one hope, one hope…’

The next time:

‘One faith, one baptism, one faith, one baptism, one faith, one baptism’

And then

‘One Lord, one God, one Father, one Lord, one God, one Father.’

By this time I wasn’t sleeping, my attention truly ‘grabbed’ and so I listened:

‘One body, one Spirit, one hope, one Lord, one faith, one baptism, one God and Father of all’

You may or may not recognise those words from Ephesians chapter 4, Paul writing to the church about the Unity of the Body of Christ.  And so, scrambling for my iPhone I read the passage again.  A really key passage for the church.

The tone I was hearing these repeated phrases in wasn’t ‘casual’, they were sharp, pointed and adamant.  They were strong.  And as I waited again, these words:

‘I, the Lord, am One.  Let no-one divide what is not divided.  There is one Body united by the same Spirit.  And there is one ministry, the ministry I have set in place.  Let no-one divide what is not divided.’

And then, for a few moments, I begin to feel like Jonah headed for Nineveh.  Some of the out-workings of that word speaking clearly.  The Lord never comes with a reminder of his word without the need for that word to be shared, proclaimed and lived.  As I woke up and became more lucid, I could see as plain as day what God was saying to me and I guess I need to work out how I need to respond.

For me personally, I heard this:  God is the source of all we have and are in him and he calls us to himself.  Its a reminder that he doesn’t segregate his Kingdom, his people nor ministry within that Kingdom.  It reminds me that God is the one who calls, equips, ordains and anoints.

Over a week ago, someone gave a prophetic word to me on similar lines.  He spoke of the time when Samuel was looking for the one to anoint out of Jesse’s family. Jesse presented all his candidates, his eldest sons, and Samuel said ‘The Lord has not chosen these…God does not look on outward appearance, but on the heart’.  And then David, the youngest and least likely, was ‘brought in from the field’ and Samuel sensed God’s ‘yes’ for the task and then anointed David.  He continued:  ‘Andrew, you’ve been brought in from the field at this time because you are the person for this ministry.  May God continue to give you the obedient heart of David for the task ahead.’

I guess that brings to an end any sense of un-ease I had about how this whole thing is going to work out.  Time to get stuck in.  To God be the glory.