Beyond Imagining

I've heard a few different people this year share more than typical New Year's vision -- more than campaign "hope" and "change" rhetoric (though it is echoed there, too). There is a kind of expectation in the air that I can't get away from and I don't really want to try. 

One person referenced the image of Aslan being on the move.

I do believe that God is always at work in this world. I also believe that there are some unique God-sized workings that appear to be colliding on a global stage -- things like the rise of the "majority Church" (last year we were calling it the "Church of the South and East" because we didn't know what to call it) in size and, more significantly, in a missional focus.

Am I predicting the end of the world?  No...but yes. REM wasn't all wrong with their statement that "it's the end of the world as we know it...and I feel fine."  

The point of all this isn't another end times saga, but a reminder to myself that when things begin to move like this all around us we come to a point when a spiritual status quo is no longer standing still but loosing ground. (When I start mixing up metaphorical mumblings, it's time to add the last period and move on...so we're close here.)

And, with that said, I'll echo what another colleague said recently: we must be in prayer. ("If we've even needed the Lord before, we sure do need him now." Imagine that song playing to a swelling crescendo in the background.) Prayer -- not telling God how to make our weekend better or what new gadget we'd like next or which people to heal and which to sweep under some sort of eternal rug -- but prayer that listens and tunes our hearts to His Word and His way. Prayer that is about God far more than it's about us.