Anyway, this is a little story from the past week.
Over the past 18 months I've been trying to be a bit bolder at stepping out in what I think God is telling me to do. I've asked God to give me opportunities to step out and sometimes I've bombed and bottled it and sometimes I've somehow managed to put my fears aside and step out. Some of which has been documented on this very blog.
If I'm honest the 'stepping out-ness' had gone a bit quiet, for a vast amount of reasons I'd just stopped expecting to have to step out much, especially publically, with people who don't know Jesus.
Anyway last Friday I was very excited to be purchasing an iphone from the o2 store in Croydon. I'd previously been in there to talk about tariffs etc and as I got into the queue on Friday I caught the eye of the bloke I'd spoken to before. He was so helpful and went straight out the back, picked up the handset I wanted, bought it out, allowed me to jump the queue and just started sorting it all out for me, much to my amazement and probably to the annoyance of the people ahead of me in the queue.
So anyway, I join the o2 bloke and it takes him a while to sort out the paper work etc. We have a jolly old chat about the iphone and various other stuff. He tells me his wife has an iphone etc etc. We're basically chatting like friends. Now all through this conversation I'm noticing he has a brace thing on his wrist. 'He's hurt his wrist' I think to myself. My next thought is 'If I was in a bold mood, I might offer to pray for his wrist..... but I'm not, so I won't.' Then he starts telling me about his wrist, how much it hurts, how the Dr was rubbish and didn't really help at all etc etc... I remember thinking 'OK God, I hear you, I hear where you're taking this, and I'm choosing to bottle it right now...' Our conversation continues and he asks where I work... 'I work for a church I reply, with young people...' He pretty much ignores that and moves on to do a credit check.
It turns out there is a 15 minute wait for the credit check because everyone is getting a new iphone on the same day I am. So there we are with another 15 minutes to talk. He continues to tell me how the pain in his wrist was so bad the night before he couldn't sleep. In my head my conversation with God goes like this 'I can still see what you're trying to do, but I just can't today... I'm still choosing to bottle it...'
Mr o2 continues talking about his wrist and I kind of feel God say something a long the lines of 'we can go on like this as long as you'd like, or you could just offer to pray.' So finally after about 40 minutes I give in and managed to muster some line about the Church I go to seeing people healed and could I pray for his wrist....? His response 'yeah sure, as long as I don't have to, I'm not into the whole religion thing...but if you think it might work.....'
Then the conversation quickly changes and we're back to the nitty gritty of sorting out the iphone. I think I'm off the hook... eventually he hands over the contract, phone and everything else and I think 'oh well, at least I offered to pray, I'll pray by proxy and maybe he'll get healed, he's clearly not up for me praying and I don't want to be pushy...' and then he says to me 'so what do I have to do if you're going to pray for me, do I just take this off (pointing at the brace thing)?' I'm thinking 'hmmmm...there really is no way out of this now, I'm just going to have to go with this....'
I encourage him to do so, I hold his wrist and then tell the pain to go in the name of Jesus. In the middle of a packed o2 shop, with his colleagues looking at me like I'm a loon...something of the fear of man was broken in me.
I don't actually know if he's been healed or not, he thanked me and we shock hands and I said 'let me know if that gets better...' I don't really know why I said that as really he has no way of letting me know....!!! I'm wondering about plucking up the courage to go back in there and ask him.... at the moment though I'm sitting on the 'chicken' side of the fence!
Isn't God good though... he chooses to use frail, nervous, 'chicken' people to bring his Kingdom on earth as it is in heaven... I guess this is just a little story to illustrate that we're all on a journey with this which has mountains and valleys, sometimes we get it right, sometimes we get it wrong, sometimes we're just plain stubborn but God perseveres with us, all of the time God believes in us far me than we believe in ourselves, I'm so grateful I serve a God of second, third, fourth....(and the rest) chances.!
