8/7/2019 MMW Getting Ready Time
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Getting Ready TimeAs pressure hardens carbon into diamonds, so
pressure sharpens our spiritualinsight and perspective. To put the
Kingdom in terms of the election there is alwaysgoing to be an
opposition. When we are being prepared for any Kingdom job wemust
expect to feel pressure to stop.
This happened to Jesus just after His baptism by John the
Baptist. He went out intothe desert for forty days to fast, pray,
and prepare for His ministry years. As withmost of us in similar
circumstances Jesus was confronted with alternatives, ways tocheat
that were supposed to achieve the same result. Three times He was
presentedwith the lie and three times He pronounced the words it is
written with a responseappropriate to the lie that was
presented.
At the start of a new Kingdom endeavour we can usually
experience some sort ofopposition, different to Jesus but
appropriate to us or the endeavour. I have found byexperience that
the bigger the potential difference and the closer to Fathers will
theproject is the harder and more personal the opposition is.
But hang about I am jumping around hoops that really are
critical for it takes time to
make a diamond out of coal, time and pressure.Waiting ready or
not
Sometimes, quite often it seems we get a hint of what is to come
way before we areready and, in fact, before the project is ready to
start. We may think now that is agood idea or we might wonder why
someone isnt doing that. The reality may bethat you have been
volunteered but need training, may not be physically readywhether
in the personal, financial or e quipment sense. It may also be
possible thatthe project ia not ready for what ministry that you
see.
Fifteen years ago, some Christians volunteered to help serve and
prepare food for a New
York City AIDS hospice with a clientele primarily of homosexual
men. Since the hospice was
involved in the gay rights movement, its administrators were
nervous about letting church
volunteers inside their doors. They made the expectations clear:
you can come and serve, butdon't proselytize.
Today, Christians still come and serve food in the hospice. But
they also come to help with
something else, something that would have been unthinkable 15
years ago: a worship service.
Promise of God
When we really are ready to undertake the project that God has
for us then we willbe able to face up to the opposition that comes,
and it will come, to try to force us toabandon the task. We have
Fathers promise that He will never abandon us, if thepressure does
get too much and we abandon the task it is because we fail to
keepour focus on Him who leads us and supports us in the time of
trouble. Thank youDaddy
