Surviving The Shift

This is the word that has been in my spirit throughout the day...not certain that I understand it completely or that it is time for me to explain it totally to myself...but for now this is what I'm hearing in my spirit...Times are a changing! If you read CNN online today you'll find an article stating that President Bush has heard from the Iraqi Commission and now realizes somethings need to change in our war in Iraq, it's time for a shift. You will also read of typhoons in the Philipines, weather shifts, and some of the most ridiculous attitudes in the history of mankind. There is a shifting taking place. Shifting speaks of movement, sometimes it is up and down at other times it's forward or backward, and it is also from side to side...it's all about change...movement that brings us into new dimensions, new levels, it requires a response to an action that we may or may not have initiated, but we must react to. As a minister who doesn't want to come across overly spiritual, like one that has the word on everything or who has a red God phone next to his bed...I sense God is doing a different work in the earth...I'm just not sure what He's doing...Years ago it was revival, that was the watch word, and we believed that revival was going to escalate our churches into growth and maturity...if we could have revival everything would be all right...some churches had it and some didn't, some thought they did and didn't, some thought they didn't and did...we've moved on from that phase, and it was an important season...but now I sense God desiring to remind us that He is in control, and that church and being a Christian really isn't about us, it's about Him. The way that we do church and how we live as believers is being challenged, there are many streams of thought, some misguided signals and directives...we're all right and we're all wrong...we want to grow and be big...we're just not sure how...As individual believers we desire to put the principals we've learned from church and personal study into practice and live victoriously...really we do...until the car breaks down, the kids get sick, a payment is due, and the lists goes on...how do we balance our faith between what we do in church and how we live at home...and then there's this shifting...we sense that something is on the spiritual horizon...but what? The question is can we survive the shift? As God takes us from where we've been to where we are, and from where we are to where we're going...will we move with Him? Can we accept His movement and allow Him to take us places we've never been, to unchartered territory, and trust Him that when it is all said and done...we will have fulfilled His purpose because we simply obeyed Him? I know I've rambled along...I'm just thinking out loud!