shaking

There's very little let-up at present. The days are full, the weeks are short, and there's much that's going in.

Most of my Mondays for the last few weeks (and into the forthcoming weeks, too, about as far as the eye can see) have been taken up with my meeting with other Christian leaders in a range of different contexts.

These are hugely significant days. Almost certainly more so than most folk really imagine.

There's a great verse towards the end of Malachi, the final book of the Old Testament.

"Then those who feared the Lord talked with each other, and the Lord listened and heard." [Mal.3.16]

Something important is happening when there is this coming together to talk of those who fear the Lord. And something important will follow as well.

The Lord sits in on all the conversation, on all that's being said. It's not that he's quietly eavesdropping. Anything but. Those who gather like that to talk are keen that he be very much the centre of it all. We're talking together with him and about him and from him.

And he hears. Not just in the sense that it all somehow registers with him. But in a far more potent sense. He hears and responds. He hears and heeds.

Something is triggered in heaven by such people thus gathering together to talk: the streams of grace start to flow. The Lion of Judah is roused and starts to move.

These are the days in which we're living. And this coming together of leaders, in all sorts of different contexts, is as good an indication as you'll get that something important's afoot.

But it does make for weeks seem that much shorter!

Today saw me off and away for the bulk of the day. And the evening's been filled with some visits to folk - and then some preparation, too, since I've the assembly at school which I'm leading tomorrow first thing.

These are days of great 'shaking'. What we have seen, and are seeing, politically (in Tunisia, Egypt and Libya, for instance) and geologically (in Christchurch and Japan, for instance), is strangely mirroring a profound 'shaking' which increasingly is being felt spiritually as well.

"And you will again see the distinction between the righteous and the wicked, between those who serve God and those who do not." [Mal.3.18]

That's how the prophet goes on. That's the sequel to what he's said before. That's what happens more and more when those who fear the Lord start coming together to talk with each other before the Lord - and when the Lord himself responds.

There's a sifting. A massive spiritual shake-up, which sorts the stones from the earth.