I've actually been praying for the content of this class for a while. I knew the topic. I knew some of the influencing books. I had a basic outline of content and progression. But as far as the meat of each week...well, like I said: I've been about 5-10 days ahead. Each time I prayed I just heard God saying to me "I'm going to give it to you." And he has. I've been reading and writing faithfully what I've been hearing from the Lord and simply continuing in my relationship with Him in a focused way each day - searching for and expecting Him to speak to me about the topic at hand.
So Monday night was the first class. And something popped out of my teaching - a phrase that I noticed I repeated twice. It was a sub-point at best - more like an illustration of something I was saying. And then it popped out on the feedback forms that night "hey - I want to hear more about that" or "I could relate to that concept." I knew this was the Lord giving me something about the class He wanted talked about, so I prayed on the way home that night asking Him to reveal it me me. Two days later I was reading in my bible in the morning and BAM! there it was. The concept, the explanation, the very thing I knew He wanted taught. Don't get me wrong; it wasn't in black and white but it was THERE.
A few things I'm learning in this process:
- If you get ahead of the Lord, you'll miss actually experiencing relationship.
- The Holy Spirit is the revealer of truth. Period.
- (Many times) our daily spiritual disciplines are the exact way that the Lord will reveal Himself. Our faithfulness and discipline begets revelation and intimacy with Him.
- The Holy Spirit empowers us to minister to others -- the gifts are for the Body. God is excited about giving me insight and empowerment to teach His Word to His People. He doesn't hoard His Spirit. He is generous and giving!
More to come on what He is actually saying....
3 comments:
I experienced this exactly when I did Mamelodi the first year. We had never done it before, so we didn't know what to do. And before every meeting God would give me what he wanted me to cover. It was so freeing. It was perfect for me in this case b/c we didn't know what we didn't know (how do you take 300 Americans to SA?) The harder part is allowing God to take control when we think we know how to do something (like in your case with this community group.) Way to balance preparation + being guided by the Lord.
I love that we're at a similar place- an ocean apart. I'm teaching a class to our interns every Friday on identity- and as much as I've wanted to be 10 steps ahead- God is asking me to let it be a journey of faith.
Bingo! We cannot tell God that our plans or programs pre-empt his working. His fresh words, and the new revelations of what he's doing in the moment, are more precious than anything else. We often need to drop our pre-conceived ideas in order to get with his program.
I also second the notion that our faithful disciplines are where he gives us the daily bread, which will be used later and elsewhere.
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