gob-smacking stuff

Some days I don't make half as much progress as I'd hoped I might on the things I'd planned to do.

This was one of them!

But, over against that, there are days when it seems the Lord just moves things forward in a very sovereign, quite amazing way.

And, yes, this was one of them again!

So I'm really not that bothered that the things I'd hoped to do remain undone. There's a fairly pressing deadline for them all, but I figure the Lord knows that and I figure he'll help me find the space to get them all completed by the time they're due. Like tomorrow!

The day's been pretty full. Mainly of people. Most of whom I'd diarised to see. So it wasn't as though my meeting with them all at different points was any big surprise. It's just they all took rather longer than I'd thought they might.

Not that I minded the time involved. Because, as I say, the time was nothing if not well spent. And there's been throughout the day that sense of real significance in all that's been discussed.

The future, mainly. Like the Lord simply opened up the doorway to his future in a striking, sovereign way. In a couple of different ways.

I couldn't even begin to describe the details of it all. But it was exciting and thrilling and just another instance of the hand of God at work! Brilliant. Gob-smacking stuff.

The bulk of the morning was spent with a couple of folk, exploring under God just what my own involvement with their work might be.

I think they've sensed, as I have too, that somehow there would be some real involvement on my part. But what and when and how exactly all of this will be has been at best a blur.

Until now, at any rate. Today it became a whole lot clearer to us all I think.

Anyway, we prayed at the end. And we prayed about a certain pressing matter and we asked the Lord, as a token of his hand upon the work, himself to make provision for the major and immediate need there was.

Before they were home, one of the two had called his wife who told him, really quite amazed herself, that while he'd been away that pressing need had been most wonderfully met!

It was just as if the Lord had said -

You want a token, you want to be convinced? OK. Well here you are.

As I say - pretty gob-smacking stuff! This sort of thing happens quite often. The Lord is for real and it's sometimes scary stuff.

Which was pretty much what the person I saw the bulk of the afternoon was saying as well. Excited and scared was how she summed it up at the end of the time we'd spent.

I'd asked her if she'd countenance assuming quite a major sort of ministry among our people here. Partly because the way it works at present, with it focussed round myself - that's almost becoming an impediment now, I think: an impediment to progress and development.

Partly, too, because it seems to me this person has the necessary gifts: and in her changing set of circumstances at this time it seemed to me she hasn't really found quite yet the 'role' she's sort of looking for in life.

(I mean, she has, of course, in her work and in her family - but it's always seemed to me that there's been something more she's waiting for)

So anyway, I ran the whole thing past her and was thrilled to bits she didn't just dismiss the thing right out of hand. Indeed, she said that she'd been praying this whole last year that God would open up the next step for her in her life.

It felt like prayer being answered in a very striking way! Right there on the spot.

Gob-smacking stuff again.

So that was pretty much the afternoon. And the evening soon got spoken for as well.

The undertaker rang mid-afternoon. A lady here in the village had died today. So I called by on the family in the evening. Her husband and their daughters all were there and gave me such a warm and lovely welcome.

She was, I think, in many ways, the quintessential epitome of an older village life. It was good to have the time with all her family tonight.

They were surprised (and pleased, I think!) to find there was no fee at all required. But I told them that it's very much my privilege to be involved with folk at times like this. And I think they sort of understood at least a bit when I put it all like that.

From there it was on to another friend, who's very much involved in different aspects of God's work. I'd arranged in advance to see him, too. And the time was profitably spent.

But it meant that most of the things I'd hoped I might get done .. well, they're mostly still waiting!

Am I really bothered? Silly question!

On a day like this, when the Lord is so plainly at work and blows my pretty modest plans right out of the water by his presence in our midst - I'd take his glorious presence in preference to my plans any day!