Fresh Wind, Fresh Fire

12 weeks ago two of my friends from church and I started on a spiritual journey together. We each had personal reasons that were all our own and a larger community reason; we wanted to pray for the revival of our church. We decided to read Fresh Wind, Fresh Fire by Jim Cymbala. This is an older book and we all had read it years before but thought it would inspire us to pray for our own church as we read the story of the Brooklyn Tabernacle. We met as a very small 3 person Sunday School class using half our time to discuss the book and half the time to pray together. We got together outside of class to pray as well and kept in touch daily through email.

As you can read in my previous posts, I have been unhappy with my church, so I decided that I would take this time (12 weeks according to the 12 chapters of the book) to seek God’s will for which church He was calling me to. I hoped to have a decision by the end of the 12 weeks. At the time we started the book I did not realize that 12 weeks added up to the end of the calendar year.

Over the last 12 weeks I have grown to love my study partners, although they were already friends, this time of fellowship has been amazing for me. Our time in prayer together is very special to me as well, not to mention effective. I have seen the Holy Spirit move as we have called upon Him. Continually through out our book study the pastor’s message has been in line with what we were discussing…I love it when God confirms what you are learning.

God really came through loud and clear last Sunday, the pastor said almost the exact same words as our discussion. His message was about familiarity as a faith crusher. How Jesus could not do miracles in his hometown (Mark 6:4-5), because the people in Jesus’ hometown could not believe that the little Jesus that they knew, Joesph’s son, a carpenter could be the Son of God. The pastor said we can be too familiar with a situation to have faith for God to change it. Are we expecting it to change? Are we expecting God to move? Or are we too familiar with the reasons why it won’t be different? Same questions we just discussed in class.

I was on the edge of my seat…”God, You are talking to me. I hear you.” I wanted to turn around in the pew to look up in the balcony where my study partners were sitting, were they as floored as I was? After the service I found my study partners with their jaws on the ground. We could hardly talk. Clear confirmation.

To be continued…