Chapter Two

On March 20th 2020, I was reading in my daily readings the story in Exodus 32. Moses was up the mountain and God was writing the commandments for him on two tablets of stone. After he had been gone for some time, the people pressured Aaron into taking things into their own hands. ‘Let’s build a golden calf and forget God and Moses’ This really spoke to us as leaders that our role was to get up the mountain and be with God! We were truly in uncharted territory and peoples’ thoughts, views and opinions were flying around, bombarding pastors and leaders of how to charter the waters ahead. Being honest, it was tough! What we decided was, we would listen to everyone, we would pray and think things through, but at the end of the day, we would ultimately seek to do only what God was telling us to do. Things eventually calmed down and everyone found their rhythm. Our first BRAVE broadcast was on the 21st March. The day that would have been our conference.

March 21st 2020

Psalm 91 was where we began our BRAVE online journey  ‘He who dwells in the shelter of the most high, will abide in the shadow of the Almighty, I will say to the Lord, ‘my refuge and my fortress, my God in whom I trust’

How big is God’s shadow? Think about that for a moment. It can surely cover a lot. There’s never not enough room in His shadow. But you have to do something in order to abide in that shadow. And that’s ‘dwell’ we have to make a choice to dwell or we can’t abide in the shadow. Too often we quote the ‘my refuge and fortress’ part and ignore the ‘he who dwells’ part. We must dwell and abide in or for God to be our refuge.

Today, (March 21st) would have been our BRAVE conference and I would have been talking to you about ‘boots, not flip flops’ We need to adapt our footwear depending on where we are walking in any given season. You cannot climb a mountain in flip flops.

We have to make a choice to advance even if that is from our lounges for now.

The encouragement from today is to make sure that you dwell, no virus can stop you doing that! Nothing can stop you growing in your faith. We have so much access now to online teaching that, if you use your lock down time wisely, you can get closer to God than you’ve ever been before!

After thought (October 23rd, 2020)

When I broadcast this on the 21st March, if you’d have told me we’d still be going through the ‘C’ word, I’d never have believed you! Right now, Wales is in a very strict lock down, even churches have closed again. So sorry for that.

Thanks be to God, Psalm 91 hasn’t gone anywhere, hasn’t gone into hiding, isn’t in lockdown. We can still dwell, we can still choose to do that. If you’ve fallen down, if you’re in despair, get up, get up, get up. Get up high and look down on what might be bringing you down. Don’t let it get on top of you, you get on top of it!

It’s harder now; this has been going on for a long time…. And, we are absolutely believing that our authority in God will turn things around quicker than is being anticipated. In the natural, it seems there is no end in sight, BUT we are not natural beings! We are supernatural. Elijah stopped the rain. We can stop Covid. We can stop the deceit and fear that is being spread across our land. If you don’t think we can, then we may as well stop praying for anything.

If Covid has stopped churches opening (talking about ones that can and are not) how can we just go back to singing victory songs, lack of fear songs, once it’s gone away? ‘I’m no longer a slave to fear’ will have to change to ‘I’m no longer a slave to fear (except the fear of Covid) A bit tongue in cheek there, but a serious point to consider. It’s time for the church to rise up. If you have any influence in your church and it isn’t open but could be, open it! Talk to your leaders, start a prayer meeting! Get up Church. Your nation needs you.