Tag: revival

Perhaps it’s time…

To share an experience, more than a dream, this was an experience of the multi-faceted, deep-layered loveliness of God, in all His honest, beautiful, gentle wisdom and love.

It was sometime before the first lockdown and I had a dream….or an encounter in the night. So many things spring to mind when I think of it. The burnishing snese of the Spirit of God going through the floors above where I was standing as I watched: He, the Spirit, was washing through, like a burnishing tide all of the places and spaces that were above the ground floor of the building that I was standing in.

It seemed like a place either in Brighton’s Lanes, or London’s narrow streets around Fleet Stree (perhaps) ancient, narrow paths through the centre of an ancient city whose streets have been trod for generations.

I was in a formerly industrial building, narrow, or seemingly so, just off one of thise side streets with boutiques and bars and expensive places to spend well(?)-earned money after work in the City. Smoked glass doors, metal handles and a sense that these pillars that I saw – cast iron, black, solid and recently painted – were here to stay.

The building was clean. The floors empty – donwstairs, where I was I sensed that the Lord had been in this place. It was awesome. The sense of strength and purposeof the Spirit’s move was immense and somewhat awe inspiring. Not a one for much cleaning of houses (!) I felt slightly intimidated at his abilit to get right into every corner and ‘clean it all out’ – I guess – for those who know of these things – it felt a bit like the time before Passover when Jewish families search every corner of their home for hametz (yeast) and brush it out with a feather, minuscule movements, forensic and totally oveboard! Perhaps fun for the Lord as He is Spirit and the search and the action are both one and the same, releasing cleansing power as He speaks into each corner of our minds…

And so I became aware of my own attachment (He the Spirit was evidently cleaning me out as well!) to things, belongings, material things, that I – like my own Dad – had stored away in my attic “for a rainy day” random stuff that I would one day (if need be such) sell and have enough to survive …but this was not the Father’s way. And I saw that I was attached – like a spaceman to his mothership – by a long umbillical cord of lust for things that I depended on to ‘survive’ financially, and I knew I had in a moment to commit to get rid of these things, and this attachment to them, so as to be able to fully depend on my Father for life, for provision, for freedom and peace of heart, connection – all things in fact.

So in my mind and heart there and then in the dream I knew i had to do that and get rid of the stuff that encumbered my trust and blocked relationship with His heart. I knew I could grow in intimacy, which is the lifeblood of my life if I could do that and then, settled I returned from seeing my ‘attic addiction’ to my the dream building…and I saw some more amazing things happening…

My feeling for the church in the nation

It’s time for awakening, to our responsibilities and to our calling as a church. To hear the voice of the One who raises the Dead, who speaks Life and calls into life those things that were unspoken, those things that are dead. He calls us forth. Into new things, as yet unspoken.

He calls us into newness of life and wants good things for us.

I’ve just come back from a visit to York. Awesome city. AWESOME! I loved it, full of open sky and rich history. Full of people who are riding their bikes – which is good by any measure.

There are new things for us as a nation. I feel that Revival of the society, the community of church will come.

I sense that we will have to change our itineraries, change our expectations and enter into a new understanding of life  – full life – that God wants for us. In the same way as the King diverted the river to create a Fish pond at the Red Gate in York, and it disrupted life and changed the landscape, so we will have to respond to an influx of “water” – the Holy Spirit’s life as huge numbers of people come into “the church”.

People expecting things to be different, hoping for new things; expecting us to react and respond to the difficulties of life around us for so many.

People will make demands of us because they will have a new revelation of the power and presence of God that is not bounded by previous expectations of what church has been – but fixed in their eyes will be a hope for what church should be. Their eyes will be “undivided” unwavering. Hope-full. Inspired by encounter in the secret place with Him who opens the eyes of the blind and enables them – us – to see.

“If he can do this, why shouldn’t He also do x and y and provide for those in need around us?”. So the flow will begin and continue over the ground that is our nation. Precious people, men and women – perhaps especially women – will flood the land with His ideas, ideas that have their source in His Presence.