off the map

There are times when people are very direct.

Which is good. Because God can be very direct.

Today I was speaking with someone at length and the person suggested the following sentence might well be God's word for myself -

"Teaching MUST be followed with action that makes room for God to move".

It's stuck with me all day.

We weren't speaking at all in abstract terms. It had to do with a specific situation. And the way that God's directing things and what that means for me. Kind of re-inforcing what I'd felt God saying yesterday as well.

Like it's not enough to merely teach his truth. I've got to do the thing as well. So it's not enough for me to teach the people here about the challenge of 'doing church' another way. I've maybe got to show them what that means.

As in do it myself.

To some extent it's that which I've been trying to do for quite a while. But there's maybe more. Further, larger, 'riskier' steps of faith. Action which makes room for God to move.

Action which affords the chance for what I'm trying to say to be in fact now seen.

I went back to the book from which the quote had come. And straightaway my eyes were drawn to something that the author wrote about the sort of leadership Alexander the Great had exercised.

The guy had conquered all the known world. But not content with that he figured that he'd like to cross the Himalayas and extend his conquests into all that lay beyond.

Which was awkward. Because no one knew what did lie beyond. They'd come to the edge of the map.

His officers "had a decision to make: would they be willing to follow their leader off the map, or would they be content to live within its boundaries?"

I think that's where I'm at! Which is a bit scary. And a bit exciting too!

Am I willing these days to venture off the recognised 'map' of how church should be done?

Today there've been meetings, and people to speak with, through most of the day. Same again at night. And right on through to the very end the theme has remained the same.

The meeting at night was an interesting one. Committee meetings of any sort aren't always quite like that: and committees of the Presbytery of Edinburgh less so than most. Sometimes these meetings almost do my head in!

But tonight's was good and kind of got quite heated by the end. In a right sort of way. Not the 'aggro' sort of heated up. Just lively. Animated. That sort of thing.

And about exactly this same issue on a wider front. The call to be bold and to venture off the map.

I don't often speak at these meetings. I haven't much to say. But tonight I found myself talking, with urgency, passion and zeal. Along these lines again.

Venturing off the map.

And then when I was thinking back about it later on, I thought of that same quote again - "Teaching MUST be followed with action which makes room for God to move".

It's not enough to say these things and urge them on a crowd of other folk. It's got to be followed with action.

My being ready myself to venture off the map.