Mysterious Ways

Mysterious Ways

From the moment Linda and I realised that we were called together by God, we have wondered why? Our meeting at all was a miracle of technology with God’s fingerprints all over it. Our moving to this area and joining this church also had God’s mark on it too. The big question was always – why? What is the reason? What on earth had He got in store for us?

Linda’s background is prayer and deliverance. Mine is prophecy and healing. Not a bad match, as things go, but still the questions hung in the air. Knowing we were coming to a bigger church, we determined to keep as low a profile as possible, saying as little as possible about ourselves. Well that one was blown out of the water before we even got here! The friend who had been so helpful in getting us here had told everyone, it seems, about us and our ministries. As it turned out, this did us a great big favour on day one as a situation came up and we were immediately ‘invited’ to minister. We were uneasy about this as nobody in the leadership team had a clue about us apart from whatever they had been told before we got here. So we went to them and asked their advice. This pleased them greatly and we seemed to be immediately accepted into the rank and file of the church.

Still the questions dogged us and occupied a deal of our prayer life. We joined in whatever we were invited to join and we got kinda busy. Being retired this was fine but even so we were very busy. Then I was asked to mentor a young man, fresh out of prison, homeless and jobless. Around the same time, we were invited to help with a group of similar people – disadvantaged, hurt, lonely, and usually jobless. Thus began a journey of learning to love, honour, and respect these people whilst trying to help them change their life around too.

Emotionally and psychologically it was exhausting but God was changing us, moulding us, and moving us into the place He wanted us. Eventually, we were asked to start a home group for the hurt and wounded – those very wary of the church and very ‘tender’ as far as Christianity is concerned. Then it started to become clear where God had us heading – towards these hurting and wounded groups – many wounded by their life style and many also wounded by the church.

All this while, the church had been running a charity shop and café as both an outreach into the town and as a funding vehicle for various charities close to their hearts. The founders of this charity were about to retire and the trustees sought to replace them so they advertised the jobs. We were approached but laughed it off – until the Lord woke me one night at 04:00a.m. and for two hours poured vision into me for the place. We took the hint. We applied, were interviewed, and were offered the job.

As the local objectives for this job are so close to our home group objectives, suddenly a few questions are being answered. Now we see quite clearly where God has been leading us. He has changed our hearts and our attitudes to a whole group of people we might previously have eschewed. He has led us deeper and deeper into His purposes for both us and for our church. In short, He has been leading us towards being the church and not just talking about it.

God still does move in mysterious ways His wonders to perform.