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PROPHECY REVISITED

PROPHECY REVISITED

On Easter Day our church makes much of the renewal of baptismal vows, with these radical questions:

• Do you reject the devil and all rebellion against God?

• Do you renounce the deceit and corruption of evil?

• Do you repent of the sins that separate us from God and Neighbour?

And then these glad affirmations:

• I turn to Christ as Saviour;

• I submit to Christ as Lord;

• I come to Christ, the way, the truth and the life.

For me this went deeper this year, because I’m seeking God and talking to friends about ‘The Vow’ and whether it is for me and for some of them.

But it went deeper for another reason: Prophecy, and prophecy revisited. It was 29 years ago when a prophecy given at a Fountain Trust celebration in Guildford Cathedral changed the direction of my life and catapulted me into full-time Christian ministry. The impact of that prophetic word had been all the greater for the fact that I wasn’t supposed to be in Guildford that day and knew nothing about the event – nor even that prophecy occurred! - But that is history.

I was back in Guildford at the end of last year, and took the opportunity to go again to the Cathedral, to take time with God there with what He had done to me those years ago and since. It was good. I wept much. And here’s the thing; I heard that prophetic word afresh in my heart, with a greater clarity than I had the first time round, and it has gone well deep into me in ways I didn’t allow 29 years ago. First time round it was all to do with what I must do with my life, or so I understood. This time round it was, well, distilled into one word: Obedience.

"Tom, I know you enjoy my presence; and so I call you to obedience"

This time round it’s not about career choices and accepting vocation to ministry – outward things. It’s about the essential inward thing: being His.

Obeying Him with all that I am and in all that I do.

A few days after this prophecy revisited, I was telling a friend about it and heard myself say, "So He has called me to glad obedience," and immediately thought, no, it is not conditional. The call is to obey whether or not I feel glad about it.

I am still unpacking all this, and as you can imagine it means all sorts of things about my attitude and choices and priorities and relationships. But all the while it is coming clear to me that the emergence of the Mustard Seed Order, and its threefold vow, provides a framework for this focussed obedience, a framework on which it will, please God, bear fruit that will last. And that is my whole desire.

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