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seeking invitations


Putting down, stopping, giving back, to receive the new.

One thing I have learnt or relearnt. Not being able see the obvious way forward should not result in apathy, rejection or abandonment.

In the not seeing I have had to learn or relearn Patience, prayer and that very unfashionable perseverance.

In my new role on the team of Spiritual Directors in the Worcester Diocese I have been reading much about prayer. Anthony Bloom wrote about the need for Israel to live a new life after exiting Egypt and finding themselves in the new land. They were not good at this. Exodus 14:12  & 16.3. What they were good at was looking back yearning for the old ways.
This was a light bulb moment and I don't get many.



I felt or discerned a direction to put things down, to stop, to give things back. This would allow me to see what God would give me back (if anything). Firstly i withdrew my PTO for Birmingham Diocese, severing a 40 year relationship. Then I stopped going to my local Anglican church. Finally and most difficult, cancelled my expected trip to Mozambique where my brother Dwight was supportive and encouraging.

Then I waited and not much happened, at least as far as I could see nothing much happened. Like winter in the garden, the potential is below the surface waiting for the right time.
So in the waiting we prayed. In our waiting there was enough indicators to keep going.

I think what im learning is making space in my life for God's new work. We then began to pray for a new invitation from God to something new in my life.




Then came the invitation to pray about a possibility of going to St Mark's Pensnett. I had never heard of the place. We did offer some parameters as we are in a very different season of life, settled in our own home, children, grandchildren and age. Hopefully wiser.
I also committed to not visit the church before accepting. I just accepted the invitation, after prayer obviously. I felt if I visited I might find too many reasons not to go.
This new invitation and life will be very different to any offers we have responded too.

If you are the praying kind I would appreciate your prayers as I undertake this invitation and journey. 

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