A new resolve had entered my life. Instead of talking about him and preaching about him and evangelising about him and being a pastor for him, I wanted to know God. And now that's my heart: to know him and to know him more. Not to know more about him, but to know him more. Everything else follows as an overflow of that relationship. When the major passion of my heart changed from mission to simply knowing him, the mission activity then began to flow out of the knowing.
To live a life for God involves loving Jesus and desiring his presence above all things, and then pouring out love to the least and last, the lost and lonely, speaking for the voiceless, clothing the naked, feeding the hungry, declaring good news and being good news to the world around- all from the overflow of time in his presence.
A number of years ago I felt a cry rising up in my inmost being- there has to be more than this. As I remembered my dreams of what living like a child of God would be like, there was that cry again. There has to be more than this. I was stirred by memories of great days in the past when God had seemed so close, but that's where they were- in the past. O God, there must be more than this.
Looking at church initiated the same cry. There is so much good, so many signs of blessing in many local churches and fellowships, but looking more broadly at the national scene raised the question 'Is this really all the Father has in mind for the bride of his Son?'
These cries reflect the searching of the early desert fathers. And I sensed that this was more than merely the cry of my own heart. I could hear echoes of it in the conversations I had with others as they reflected on their own lives and the reality of church life. I believe that God himself has put that cry in people's hearts because he's stirring them up.
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