Being real

I had set the Lord a deadline.

Whether I was right to do so some people have disputed, as I have shared the story with them. And perhaps they are right. My thinking was that because God is real we can afford to be real with him. I must stress though, it very much needs to be done in a humble way.

I was a novice in the ministry when ‘being real’ got under my skin to challenge me. In God’s great grace our call to the church had been unmistakable for my wife and me. In fact we were certain about what would happen months before the church was. That was not foolish self-confidence on our part, but all to do with God’s kind reassurance to frail people.

Spiritual fillip

Preachers are called into ministry, yes, with a view to feeding the church on the Word of God, but also with a view to seeing unchurched non-Christians saved. Timothy was commanded by Paul to ‘do the work of an evangelist’ (2 Timothy 4.5). Would God use me in that way? I don’t think my motivation was about pride, but more about wanting to see people come to faith and for the existing church to be encouraged that God could still and would still bring ‘rank outsiders’ to Christ in the modern world.

The church to which we were called, though it had many sincere and lovely members, had become somewhat ingrown in previous years, and needed the spiritual fillip that new birth among us would bring. So with much prayer and with a felt sense of needing to get very low before God, I asked that within two years of the outset of my ministry we would see a real outsider saved. The church needed the boost. I didn’t want to waste the church’s time. If I was not going to be of any real use to the fellowship of believers I could still go back into teaching. I suppose it could be compared to anxious Gideon putting out a fleece. Ann and I spent time seeking God in prayer along these lines.

God’s answer

We had seen a young girl from one of the church families make a profession of faith and ask for baptism. But good though that was, praise God, it wasn’t really what I was hoping for. We prayed on.

In his great condescension the Lord did come through for us. It was just before the second Christmas in the ministry that two young nurses, off the street and with no real Christian background, turned up in an evening service, prepared by God to hear a simple gospel message on the parable of the prodigal son. They came to faith. I was astounded! Not one new convert, but two! God was there. God had been listening. God had been gracious. As an old Scottish proverb says of God: ‘He’s better to the worst of us than the best of us deserve.’

Get real?

Have you ever thought about the principle that God’s reality should lead to a reality in our Christian lives? Like a cut diamond with a variety of sparkling faces this truth reflects light helpfully into many aspects of the Christian life. I just wonder if there are churches and ministers who, given the situation that they face, need to ‘get real’ with our living God? All power in heaven and on earth is given to Christ. With men something might be impossible, but not with God (Mark 10.27). There are some contexts in which God wants us to put him to the test (Malachi 3.10).