Yes and Amen!

I went prayer walking last week with the youth leader from another church in town. We were wandering around, keeping our eyes open for what God might be saying, looking for places that need light to be shone into the darkness. There’s a beautiful verse in Joshua 1  that I always pray when I walk, that says, ‘I will give you every place where you set your foot, as I promised Moses.’

God is promising his presence and his power at work to Joshua as he leads the people into the Promised Land. He doesn’t need to fear for his leadership, the God of Moses is giving him the land. It’s a promise that stands close to my heart in these days as we look towards the future, as we cooperate with God in the plans he breathes over Banbury. 

Shannon was full of God’s reminder that, ‘no matter how many promises God has made, they are ‘Yes’ in Christ. And so through him the ‘Amen’ is spoken by us to the glory of God.’ (2 Corinthians 1:20) And so we walked around town, declaring God’s promises, remembering them, claiming them, praying them into being. That’s faith-stirring stuff. We prayed for The Salvation Army, coming out of our Sabbath year. We prayed for WeAreOneBanbury, the amazing anti human trafficking schools work that Shannon heads up. We prayed for people we know, people we don’t, churches, businesses, government, schools, clubs. For peace, for hope, for good leadership and economics. For unity, for revival, for conviction of our need for Jesus. It was precious, and it was powerful, because we were praying God’s heart back to him. Things he wants to do. Things he’s promised to do if we cooperate with him. 

Here are some of the things God has promised us as a church in the recent past:

- Matt 11:28 ‘Come to me all you who are weary and burdened and I will give you rest.’

- To do/ show/ give immeasurably more.. (Ephesians 3:20)

- Prophetic words about becoming Prayer Beacon – being a house of prayer, a house of healing, fruitfulness, greater things (it never ends)

- The best days are ahead, not behind.

- Forming us into charcoal, which is messy but pure, burns hot and melts iron.

- To lead us forward into the Promised Land.

In the last month of the Sabbath year, God specifically reminded us to not think it’s over yet. ‘Therefore, since the promise of entering his rest still stands, let us be careful that none of you be found to have fallen short of it.’ (Hebrews 4:1) Some of us still felt like Sabbath was not for us, some of us felt like we hadn’t quite got it yet. For Xander and I, we had the worst night’s sleep of our lives. Ironic? Maybe. This past year we’ve had to fight for rest, spiritually and physically. The promise of the Sabbath year still stands. God has done amazing things this year.

God encouraged us to not fall short. To not miss out on what God has for us.

You know when (theoretically speaking, of course) you’re on a diet and you forget, or ‘forget’ and eat a big piece of chocolate cake at 10 in the morning, so you figure, ‘oh well, I’ve already given in, might as well finish off the cake’? This is not that. It’s not too late. Let’s be the people who say, ‘it’s still only 10 in the morning, I’ve got a whole day left to not eat cake.’

He has promised us rest. He is faithful to keep his promises. He is faithful even when we are not faithful, because he cannot deny himself. It’s his nature, his character to be faithful. So we decided to rest with all our hearts and minds and souls and bodies.

God keeps his promises.

Do you remember the story of Jesus walking on the water? Peter sees Jesus and wants to join him, so he jumps right out of the boat. This year, we’ve jumped out of the boat and done all kinds of things outside our comfort zones because we’ve seen Jesus there and we’ve wanted to join him. Peter looked at Jesus and walked towards him, walked on water. But then he took his eyes off Jesus, he looked at the wind and the waves and he started to sink. Disobedience doesn’t always feel big and bad, all it takes it taking our eyes off Jesus. Jesus calls us to keep our eyes on him, to grab his hand and to walk with him. He has rest for us. Rest that looks like learning the unforced rhythms of grace, even in the busyness and the circumstances around you that you can’t change.

The end of the Sabbath year is not the end of rest. The call of the Sabbath is to keep on working out in the 6 years what you learnt in the 7^th. It’s a cycle, a rhythm, a way to do life. We take hard won lessons straight from the heart of God and apply them to our lives.

I’m convinced, as we go forward from here, into activity and the things that God has for us, that now is not the time to start getting harried and frazzled, puffing up a lot of steam. If I’ve learnt anything this year, it’s that our best work happens when we lean into God and what he’s doing and take it from there.

What are the promises God has spoken over you and your community?

Yes and Amen.