TOAM – Thousands of international pastors reflect on the challenge of the Gospel

TOAM – Thousands of international pastors reflect on the challenge of the Gospel July 5, 2006
We have reached half-way. The most striking thought is the need to WAKE UP to our responsibilities to PROCLAIM the Gospel, and EXPECT God to act in miraculous power. Boy, if just some of the leaders in this conference really began to focus their lives and ministries on reaching the lost and crying out for supernatural interventions, think what could be accomplished!
I am writing these short thoughts in the hotel as I am about to go and lie down. Ironic, isn’t it, that as the next session starts, my shingles pain is the worst it has been so far, just after we heard that faith-stirring talk on healing! I did think about slipping off and telling no one I was missing a session – and then I realised that a gap in the blogging would be obvious!
I also bumped into a couple of people on the way out whom I know, so I am rumbled! One of those was Lex Loisedes, who confessed that he had Googled his name and found my blog through doing it. As he put it, I have made him famous online. I so wish that he would start a blog of his own, or at least get his stuff on the Net for us to listen to. His passion for the lost, for doctrine, and for the miraculous is exemplary and a great influence on many of us!
Anyway, going back to the irony of hearing a talk on healing . . . then going to lie down because you are still in pain . . . this is part of the tension of living in the now, but not yet. Even in the midst of Bible times, Paul could speak of his friend nearly dying, and urged Timothy to drink wine because of his “frequent illness.”
Last Sunday, a prophetic guy said to me that God had made me to “limp” so that I would work in team. Ironically enough, just now, as I was about to leave the centre, I bumped into a great hero of mine, and as I was talking about the notion of teamwork with Greg Haslam on the way out of the gents (yes, we men DO sometimes talk in the toilets), I tried and failed to open a door, which it turned out had been built into a wall. I didn’t have my door-opening team member with me!
Certainly this current season of weakness is reminding me even more of my dependence on God and others as I serve Him. I only hope I don’t need this reminder too much longer.
It is a shame to miss the session, and so sadly you will not see notes from Dave Holden’s talk, unless anyone who did make it sends me notes at adrian.warnock@gmail.com, or perhaps someone here lets me have some written notes to look at. Since this blog is a reflection on my own experiences, I suspect that, in fact, I may just not post anything from this session.
I am going to lie on my bed and rest now, and reflect on the great messages I have heard so far. It is no bad thing to be cast back on God and reminded of the fraility of my human body. God can, of course, meet with me as well in my room as in the big meeting place, but those who know me will know how unlike me it is to just SLOW DOWN. Perhaps I can spend some time in contemplative prayer and meditation on Him. They say suffering is the megaphone God uses to teach us lessons we cannot learn in the rest of our lives, don’t they!

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