spiritual eyes

              Having a week or two at home now gives me an opportunity to reflect a little on some of the things I have seen and heard since going on sabbatical almost a month ago now. Time flies doesn’t it. God has been saying some significant things to me through that time. Thought I would reflect on some of these over next few days.

 

      The first thing I did upon leaving work was to fly straight to Manchester where I spent two days in a gathering of leaders under the banner of the Willow Creek Association in the UK. This was to promote the Global Leadership Summit which initially happens in Chicago in August but then is shown again on the big screen in various venues around the world in October, including this year in Bangor Elim. It looks like a significant event with this year speakers like Colin Powell and Jimmy Carter. I hope some of us will go in October.

 

     Yet in the midst of all the promotion for this event, I heard God say some things clearly to me in my leadership role and as a disciple of Jesus.

 

     The first thing, in fact he said it on more than one occasion to me, was the importance of seeing with spiritual eyes. Dave Loveless, pastor of Discovery Church in Orlando, spoke of the story of Elisha at Dothan in 2 Kings 6 where in the face of an overwhelming siege he saw the gathered invisible armies of the Lord gathered around the enemy. They could only be seen with the eyes of faith. The challenge was to ask God to let us see the way he sees, to confess our fixation on the visible and to ask God to help us to begin to imagine looking for solutions we cant see with human eyes. I found that enormously challenging. “ Sometimes you can really only see by closing your eyes”.

 

     Dave’s two points were, “ face the impossible but don’t focus on it”. And “ focus on the invisible so that you can do what seems inpossible”.

 

        I have been thinking about it ever since.

 

Gordon  McDade