Dear Friends,
Nehemiah famously took a midnight ride. He journey to being the governor of the territory including Jerusalem began with a message from his brother about the terrible state of the city. “Those who survived the exile and are back in the province are in great trouble and disgrace. The wall of Jerusalem is broken down, and its gates have been burned with fire” (Nehemiah 1:3, NIV). At the time Nehemiah was serving as the cup bearer to the king . . . of Babylon: the occupying enemy nation. His heart was broken and God placed a vision in his heart to do something about it. After many months, and an unbelievable story of God’s providence and leading, which brought him to this point. Nehemiah still has one more thing to do before he went public with the full reason he had come to Jerusalem. He had a midnight ride to take.
Each of us need to take our own midnight rides. Church planters, before throwing it all in and launching, will visit the city and neighborhood they are going to plant in. Missionaries will make exploratory trips to the country they are going to serve before going public with their plan. Pastor will sneak into town ahead of a candidating weekend. The purpose these clandestine activities are to investigate before they initiate. Is the place God has called them to, the place where his vision will grow and be refined. If it is not, it may be found to just be a good idea but not the vision or the way of the vision.
The sixth Building Block is to, Walk before you talk; investigate before you initiate.
Even after we have jumped all it is still possible we will find things will not go as we expect. Plans can still fail. Opportunities can still disappear. Funding may never come.
“Spiritually speaking, faith is confidence that God is who he says he is and that he will do what he has promised to do. Faith is not a power or a force. It is not a vehicle by which we can coerce God into something against his will. It is simply an expression of confidence in the person and character of God. It is the proper response to the promise or revelation of God” (63).
There is a time to investigate and move cautiously, there is a time to dive into the unknown. There is nothing wrong with failing, nothing wrong with changing our minds, but doing nothing is unacceptable. The purpose of investigation is to determine where to move not whether to move.
Blessing,
Pastor Stephen
Quotation taken from:
Stanley, Andy. Visioneering. Sisters, Or: Multnomah Publishers, 2005.
founder of the Church of the Nazarene, are certainly going to make their way into the motivational repertoire. One of those I heard frequently was a story of a person asking old Phiney what he would do if he were told he only had ten years to live. Phiney, lowering his voice and fixing his eyes on his poor unsuspecting inquisitor replied he would spend the first five years preparing for the last five. With that men came into the room and carried off the questioner to study in one of the many fine Nazarene institutions of higher learning. From then on no one dared asked Phiney any more questions.