Prayers, Please.

"The man who is called by God is a man who realizes what he is called to do, and he so realizes the awefulness of the task that he shrinks from it. Nothing but this overwhelming sense of being called, and of compulsion, should ever lead anyone to preach." ~ David Martyn Lloyd-Jones








I don't know which I hate more: being wrong ~ or being right for reasons that send me into a panic. 

There is a reason I live where I do in my stagnant little backwater that doesn't even have one set of traffic lights,  where the Postie asks your opinion on internet access & the young jailbirds down the front still call me Mrs H in very respectful tones ~ & leave my car alone when they're looking for free petrol.  I appreciate the little things in life ~ like my petrol staying in my car & not mysteriously vanishing while I'm on the mainland. 

 Mostly I feel I can cope.  I can't get lost.  The traffic is never stressful.  The library is brilliant; even now I have half a dozen new, unread books from there I picked up yesterday in anticipation of this week's travelling.  As a homeschooler I'm no longer obligated to participate overmuch  in community things like the school fete, the Christmas Parade, The Girl Guides.  Been there; done that; over it.  I no longer work outside my home ~ don't work much inside it either, but that's another ball game.  

 And God is good.  When the church over here fell apart God gave me amazing on~line friendships.  Extra bonus.  I cope very well with distance friendships.  What I don't cope so well with is being bodily dumped out of my comfort zone.  Without warning.  Without so much as a by~your~leave.  Without consultation.  Yes, I know it makes no difference in the long run but I do like to be consulted about these things.

And it's horrible.  Really, really horrible.  I have the art of self~delusion down pat.  I know many of you, not all but many of you, people who's friendship I treasure, whose opinions I respect, whose theology has proved sound, do not approve of women in the pulpit.  And I have been happily scooting along because we haven't had a church & technically I haven't been behind a pulpit in years so no conflict of interest!  None at all.  Anything I do on~line I can fob off in my mind as *Thinking Out Loud*.  I do a lot of that.  I happily abdicated the pulpit to those who wanted it.  I overturned what I knew very clearly, if I was honest with myself, what God had shown me was not just *for a season*  ~ but as I couldn't more forward & also felt I had been told to *wait*, I waited...with infinite patience.  I have never liked being in the firing line & was in no hurry to put me back there.

I did such a good job that when I asked God about Rhema I fully expected to hear No.  Not now.   So great is my ability to wear blinders I comforted myself that we didn't have the money so part of the confirmation would be the money.  You know what's happened, don't you? *sigh*.  I consoled myself that I might have heard wrong?  Hope dies hard.  I have not.  People are crawling out of the woodwork to confirm this.

The papers have arrived.  I knew what was on them because I filled out Dino's for him.  Dino doesn't like paperwork.  And there it was, the question that stripped the blinkers away.  Are you called to the Ministry?  In what capacity? I didn't even have to think about it.  It has never changed ~ ever, not since God first showed me the unsaved cluttering the pews on Sundays. 

I don't know how Jonah managed it.  It has always boggled my mind that Jonah managed to refuse the urgings of the Holy Spirit.  I'm not that strong.  When the Spirit spoke it was with a terrible sense of urgency because Christ is coming.  Even now he stands at the very door.  The time grows short ~ so whatever you personally believe please pray that I will be obedient to the call God has placed on my life because nothing about this is going to be easy & I think Star's about to have a conniption.

There is a big, fat, unhappy toad squatting in the pit of my stomach.