The one who calls you is faithful

A couple of years ago I took a group of people around the nation on what YWAM calls a Trumpet Tour.

In such tours we visit churches and encourage them into ministry and missions, and it's almost as though we're sounding a trumpet in the spiritual realm, calling people to serve God in the great commission.

One of the 15 or so churches we visited was the Round Church in Cambridge.

I felt our night in Cambridge was one of our weakest moments as a team. Most of our set up arrived late and we were scrambling to pull things together last minute. However, I do remember the worship was really good-- that people didn't seem to care about our lack of set up or good sound--they worshiped from their hearts. I was encouraged by that, even though it felt like we were teetering on the edge of a precipice.

So I was chatting to a friend of mine from that Trumpet Tour team who is now based in Cambridge. He told me that when he was asking about the spiritual climate of Cambridge before he moved there, the YWAM'ers were telling him that everything seemed to shift spiritually and open up in the city after a trumpet tour came through town a couple of years ago.

"Really?" he said, "I was there that night!"

When he told me this story I was both astounded and greatly encouraged. We really have no idea of the fruit we're leaving behind in our little acts of obedience.  Sometimes we get to hear about it later, and some of us won't ever get to hear about it until heaven...like so many in Hebrews 11 who believed and trusted God without seeing the fulfillment of all they believed:

All these died in faith, without receiving the promises, but having seen them and having welcomed them from a distance, and having confessed that they were strangers and exiles on the earth. (Hebrews 11:13 NASB)

The one who calls you is faithful, and he will do it. (1 Thessalonians 5:24 NIV)

God doesn't tell us when or how--only that He will make a way.  He walks with us through it all and sometimes the only answer we get is His reassuring presence.  There is often a lot of pain involved as we struggle to believe and to persevere in the promises we have.  And though we know He is true to His word--it doesn't always work out the way we are thinking or in the time we are thinking, does it?

A dear friend prayed for me today as I have been working through some of my own challenges.  My confession of faith is that I won't stop believing...though the fulfillment tarries. I trust God.

This led us to talk about how we get spiritual authority.

Spiritual authority is something that often comes in persevering by faith. When we believe in hope against hope... and when we keep believing in the midst of suffering.  There is no short cut in getting that spiritual authority.

I'm grateful to hear about some of the fruit of our trumpet tour. It's fantastic to hear how people can see that we made a difference. But there are so many areas where we keep persevering even though we have seen no change.  We keep praying, we keep believing... and yet we have yet to see the fullness of what we have asked for.  We have no idea if we are making a difference.

Sometimes we're persevering through illness, believing for healing...sometimes we're asking for peace in a relationship... reconciliation where none seems possible... praying for a loved one who has walked away from God... and we don't see any change...yet still we pray...yet still we believe. yet still we trust in God.

I was listening to a sermon about suffering and having 'indomitable' joy in the midst of sorrow.  Unconquerable, unquenchable.  I think to have this means that our ultimate joy comes in knowing we are loved by the most precious person in the world-- that no matter how we lose our footing or our place on this earth, we have a seat beside the maker of all things in heavenly places.  It means that no matter what is taken from us and how we suffer-- we know that our greatest desire remains with us always because He remains with us always.

It means that through the tears, we have hope.

He, Himself, is our hope. Thank you, Jesus.