Scarlett's April update: spending time with God

Here’s the latest update from our FP intern, Scarlett…

Works

This month, during one quite time of mine, I had the stark realisation that I'd been making everything in my life something to impress people with and prove myself in: 

Hospitality,

Gifts,

Learning Spanish,

Leading kid's work,

Evangelising,

And probably more...

These things had become less enjoyable for me the more I let the fear of responsibility replace my God-given peace. I'd associated them all with work, when actually they are opportunities I enjoy and am blessed to be serving in! But this made it difficult to differentiate between work and rest, making both less enjoyable! 

My life had become about how I perform rather than how I see God, or how He sees me. I was doing "good things" but, without God's timing, they were not always "God things"! This is why I found them more and more exhausting, yet was still anxious to continue them!

This all made me realise more of why I enjoy being in and watching nature so much. It's because there's nothing I can do to make it more impressive, it just is. There's no way I can perform for it! I feel God's presence so tangibly there because I'm at rest whilst doing something I enjoy. And just like everything in nature, I was created by God for love, and to praise Him only!

So, I feel led to stop pre-preparing so much of my life, and trust God's leading. To just be and enjoy doing things with Him, then share them if the opportunity comes about and I feel the Holy Spirit prompt me to! It is not what I do but what God does through me - less of me and more of Him!

The last Saturday of this month I decided to dedicate the whole day to realigning my heart with God's. I fasted to allow the Holy Spirit to reveal my desires and show me more of Christ. I headed out of my house to be solely with God, and ended up on a 2 hour prayer walk hoping to hear how God wants to use me in His restoration plan. God broke my heart for what breaks His and I spent the majority of my time lamenting for the lost in our fallen world.

I dare to say I felt similar to Paul when he wrote: "I am speaking the truth in Christ — I am not lying; my conscience bears me witness in the Holy Spirit — that I have great sorrow and unceasing anguish in my heart. For I could wish that I myself were accursed and cut off from Christ for the sake of my brothers, my kinsmen according to the flesh. (Romans 9:1–3)". 

I resorted to sitting on a log praying God would turn every tear I cried into joy in seeing His Kingdom come (Psalm 126:5). 

When I returned home I started reading Small Footprint Big Handprint by Tri Robinson. On the 19th page I was struck by what he wrote: "our physical life was isolated and basic, we quickly came to the reality that the complexity that robs one's peace doesn't solely come from a confusing world but rather from within. It was because of our desperation for truth and healing that in the solitude and simplicity of Robinson Canyon Ranch we discovered an authentic relationship with Christ."

Then on page 20, a quote from 2 Corinthians 11:3: "but I am afraid that, as the serpent deceived Eve by his craftiness, your minds will be led astray from the simplicity and purity of devotion to Christ", followed by Tri's comment: "We have almost emphatically declared as a society that we do too much, own too much, owe too much - all without doing much about it."

I recall on the Thursday before this, sitting with Sally Mallard and Janet Halford telling them I do not want to acquire lots of possessions, for I do not want to be hindered when God calls me to go. But as Tri points out, it is not just things that contribute to us having complex lives which can get in the way of our devotion to Christ. It's also jobs, responsibilities, technology, money, hobbies. I do not want it to be true of me that I am "seemingly everywhere but present nowhere" (Tri again). 

Similarly, something Andrew Bunt said, on our Student & 20s Weekend Away, that has stuck with me is: "you worship what you spend most of your time doing." Tri warns us of how time to enjoy God's presence can easily became an intentional discipline rather than a natural outflow of our lives!

God has continued to remind me throughout FP, especially I feel overwhelmed with tasks, that it is not what I do but who I am (when/if doing it). So, it's time to reassess what I am actually doing, and ensure I'm keeping the main thing the main thing (relationship with Jesus)!

Lastly, I am inspired by Romans 12:2: " Let God transform you into a new person by changing the way you think. Then you will know what God wants you to do, and you will know how good and pleasing and perfect his will really is."

Thanks for reading, isn't God good!

If you are feeling discouraged at this moment in time, please let me encourage you to stop what you're about to do next and just be with God; for however long He desires to spend with you. He's the best thing for you right now, and always will be. 

Marathon 2019 Report

As you may have seen on our website over the last couple of weeks, a number of members from our Durham and Chester-le-Street congregations recently attended the Regions Beyond worldwide conference in Marathon, Greece.

Below, Ali Scott provides some great insight into what took place at the conference, including some of the prophetic words that were shared there…

Around 8 of us from Emmanuel attended the Regions Beyond worldwide conference in Marathon, Greece, from 8-12 April 2019. Regions Beyond is our worldwide family of churches with whom God has called us to partner in the gospel. We are led by Steve Oliver and his global team and we are joined together by 11 core values. At this gathering, there were around 300 leaders from all over the world. The weather was for the most part wet, cloudy and windy but the Spirit was powerfully present.

Each day consisted of a 2 hour prayer meeting, a choice of seminar tracks and a 3 hour celebration with worship, teaching and prayer ministry. There were three major prophetic words that came before and during the conference that shaped much of the praying. These were as follows:

  1. I believe God is taking us into a new era. It’s not a change of season as it is not something we have experienced before. New eras present a total change of landscape, which brings about such a significant change in the mode of operation. Seasons are recognisable by those who’ve experienced them before and one can find yourself back at the same point - a new era is something totally new.

  2. We can live on the memory of yesterday’s fires at which we warmed our hands at the expense of the re-ignition of fresh fire today. Yesterday’s fuel has become today’s ash - let the history books record those great days, however, it is detrimental to the future if we dwell at a pile of ash because it was once a raging fire. It is time to shake the ash from the grate so that breath of the Spirit for a new era can touch and ignite the Apostolic embers. The fire of a new era is for the purpose of sending out sparks to ignite many around and to which many will come and take burning embers so as to cause the same fire to burn in other regions and nations.

  3. As we were worshipping, I looked out of one window and saw the sea and land beyond. When I looked out of the other window, I just saw the sea; no land, only open ocean. I felt God speak to me about that difference! I sense that as a movement we have worked where we have been able to navigate. When we see a landmark or mountain or coastline, we are able to navigate according to that point. It’s almost like we are a business. We are ferrying people along the coast. We are dropping people off, planting churches and building communities. Everything is navigated along the coastline and is governed by the size of the ship we have. The boat is like a ferry that takes people along. That’s how we have operated. I feel God would say; Look to the bigger thing! Look at the open ocean. There is a whole land and people group on the other side of the sea, that I want you to reach. I see them beyond the horizon. I believe God is saying in the 2020’s, we won’t stop the ferrying, but we do need to invest in a bigger boat. In my mind I’ve got the discovery of the Americas; the boats that had traded around Europe and England were not sufficient to reach the Americas. The new, larger ships were captained by pioneers and, although the crew was made up of ordinary people, they made landfall and built colonies and a nation.  I feel God say it’s time to build a different kind of boat; time to restructure in the movement, maybe? There are things on the horizon you have not yet seen. God is saying I am going to open it. It’s time to invest in a bigger boat and start to navigate to the open sea.

 

In one of the main sessions, Steve Oliver preached to us from Nehemiah 1 about weeping over the lostness of our city/town/village. If we are going to be used by God to see great things for his kingdom, this is the starting point. We were asked to put a flag in the ground for the town, city, region, nation God has put on our heart (see picture). Personally, God really challenged me to weep again for County Durham, to not just walk on by people in pain and see as God sees.

In another session, Marc Dupont preached on the Father heart of God and many leaders, including myself, received a powerful fresh revelation of the Father's love last. We also heard heard from the book of Ruth about overcoming fear and past hurts. The big point coming through has been that if we are going to give ourselves fully to the mission of God, we need to be secure in God's love so we are not hindered by inadequacy or fear. Just in case you needed reminding, church leaders are on the lifelong journey to find complete wholeness in Christ, just as a much as anyone else! To be in the place where that is happening in such humility is beautiful to see and bodes well for our churches around the world.

Another highlight were the interview times in which we heard of various wonderful works of the Kingdom happening all over the world, including the church in Rio and its bridge into the community through English language classes. We also heard of a new training base for Africa that is going to be built on a farm just outside Pietermaritzburg in South Africa. This is going to be a residential base for training church planters. There are plans for other such training bases in other key regions around the world. We listened to stories of pioneers in troubled nations around the world who are real heroes of the faith. Finally, a couple in India shared their powerful testimony of setting up a preschool business in partnership with a businessman in another part of the Regions Beyond world. It was beautiful to see gospel partnership in action across our family of churches.

I think I can honestly say I have never experienced a conference quite like this. The sense of God's presence is so powerful, combined with the humility of the leaders of our movement, the diversity of nations and languages being expressed, and the sense of family and togetherness is very moving!