To be perfectly honest, I was really sick at Altars Scotland. I dragged my exhausted body to Edinburgh in my wee camper van, Cuthbert. My legs and feet were agony, my blood pressure was sky-high, I had little energy to stand longer than a few minutes, and in the main, I worshipped, listened and prayed with as much of my heart I could muster leaning on a wall or on my stick all the way through the weekend. In between the main sessions, I went out to my van, pulled out the bed, and slept so that I had enough energy for the next session.
I have some chronic health issues, but whilst they are normally ‘managed’, I’ve been so pressed that some things have made my sickness worse. I am in pains at the state of the wider church on our island – I’m grieved for the Bride. I am working in too many areas to just try and have a wee bit of Kingdom influence and not taking care of myself. I am, of course, burdened for the lost of our island, and for our nation of Scotland. This has always been the case, and this in itself is no bad thing. However, this was MY sin of leadership that the Holy Spirit spoke to Kenny Borthwick brought to mind when he spoke in his session. I had to confess that, even although the things wearing me down are somewhat ‘worthy’ issues, and rightful burdens that fuel my prayer, I had started to carry them when they weren’t mine to carry – not in the way I was carrying them. When we have a spiritual burden for something, we must be able to carry it in a way that is healthy, and to carry them to the cross instead of hauling them around on my shoulders.
The Holy Spirit ministered peace and rest to me in the days following that confession. As I mentioned, I had gone away to a retreat centre afterwards and all I could do was lie in the bed and rest. A mixture of sleep, reading, listening to teaching and worship music as I lay there, and God did his work of ministry.
Now, everyone, including me, knows I have too much on my plate. Thing is, its so difficult to know what to let go. Having said that, there are a number of things that I’ve let go, and that has been right to do. Towards the end of the week, I was taken back to Acts 6…a passage that I’d preached on only a few weeks ago at Arran Baptist as we go through our series in Acts 6: 4. The verse that struck me was this:
But we will devote ourselves to prayer and to the ministry of the word.
The context, of course, is the appointing of the seven deacons in the life of the early church. The idea was the unburdening of the apostles with all the tasks…some things were getting overlooked, and to avoid it, this call was made. Now, whilst there is always space for me to be delegating tasks to the ministry of others, the focus of the call to me was to realign my own approach to deeper prayer and ministry of the word.
Now – as far as I can discern, the Lord has brought us here to Arran for our life’s work. Unless the Holy Spirit says different, we won’t move from here. I need to be able to take the long view, and I also need to let God take the lead. Don’t we all? I remember someone quoting what John Wimber felt God say to him: ‘I’ve seen what you can do, John; now step back and see what I can do.’
Whilst my medical team are working with me to realign some of those things that are going wrong, I need to realign my pace, my rest, my prayer, and my devotion to the word. The people I minister amongst need someone close to Jesus, not a superman. Our Lord Jesus will faithfully lead us.
The chorus that resonates from the conference is this:
We’ve prayed our prayers, we’ve made our plans: but if you’re not in it, we don’t want it; O God, would You move! Only you can heal our land! Holy Spirit, come and fill us, O God, would You move!
