Join the dots

I've been using the wingclips.com website to get ideas for assemblies and rich starting points in classwork generally. (At some other point I'll blog about how God's opened the way for me to share some wonderful stuff in assemblies, how He gives me the ground I stand on, how He helps me to flow and connect with the students and staff in those special, sacred gatherings at school.) I guess film distributors also have a new neat way of promoting upcoming releases. They email updates, and I clicked on this one, a testimony from one of the actors in Roland Joffe's There Be Dragons.



And bearing in mind what I blogged about a couple days back (about God showing us a steer in the matter of looking at the heart, not outward appearances), I was just blown away by how he took the everyday things and melted them together yesterday. I mean, it was beautifully orchestrated, if you choose with eyes of faith to join the dots.

I felt prompted to head along to a kind of outreach service that a couple of friends of ours are involved in, a brief scooter ride away (and with a handy park next door for when we turned up early and there weren't bacon butties after all...) So I'm working on my probably very embarrassing freerunning moves on the equipment, and I noticed a guy just resting in the sunshine on the grass slope nearby. And I felt something from God nudging me to talk to him. Because I was just getting these feelings all weekend about connecting with people out on the streets. And also that morning the Spirit had brought to mind Heidi Baker's phrase "Stop for the One" (and also the bit where she was kind of incapacitated by God to show her that she couldn't do things on her own and needed the church to help her.).

Anyway, partway through the service inside I noticed that the guy from the slope was actually sitting beside me, but then Theo and I got playing a pairs game on the floor at the back. We were kind of nipping back to our seats for the kids' bits, then back to the back for tricks from my rucksack of improvised joy. A while later I noticed the guy heading out the door, and God just compelled me to go after him.

I wanted to find out why he'd been, and to let him know that whatever it was he was looking for, Jesus really did have all the answers, even if on the face of it the church didn't. And he stopped, and we talked for ages, and cried, and prayed, and hugged, and there was this Bethel moment throughout the thing, heaven touching earth. So much stuff that he'd been putting in my heart and mind for weeks, even the Wes Bentley video clip I'd seen the day before, just came tumbling out and found its right place and expression. I mean, I was doing some good listening too, it wasn't about packaging a message and heading off, but God also stuck to his promise (which is his nature) to give me the words to speak, because some stuff needed to be said, to bring hope in a dire situation. And I'm praying with everything I've got for what follows from it, for the guy on the slope, and for me.

Out there on the street. With someone who needed to hear it and feel it. With me, the someone who needed to express it to believe it more. Just like he'd been nudging all along. And he was gracious to give me a second chance. But I so want him to help me to hear more clearly the first time, and to have the courage to step out sooner. Because for me, that's the stuff I'm here for.