The Lord’s Time
Back in January I had a big shake up in my life. Things had been working up to a boil over on my job for several months and one morning it happened. The details are not important to this discussion and in the end it was a good and necessary thing but at the time it was hard—really, really hard. I had hit a wall and something needed to give, and it did.
But in the process I learned that things I had put too much stock in—my job, relationships, abilities and desires, could not be and must not be, who I am and where my identity is found. The Lord showed me that it could all be gone in an instant and just how fragile and unstable anything that is not in or from Him can be.
Now, I still have my job, there have been changes, the biggest one being my perspective. ‘Nuff said.
Anyway, when I came home the day it all hit the fan I was really shaken, shaken to the core. So I took another blood pressure pill and some Tylenol for my head felt like it cold explode, and I walked up into the hills behind our house to pray—fervently.
The Lord, always faithful when we are determined to actually hear, began to speak to me. In a nutshell; the Spirit spoke to my heart that it was “time for me to come out of retirement” and I knew He was speaking about the ministry as I had stepped down from the pulpit two years earlier, and that I should “look for an open door.”
I realized afterword that it was literally two years almost to the day when this happened that we had had our last service at Hope Chapel Red Lodge. Was it coincidence that this big shake up in my other vocation had happened on this day? I don’t think so.
I already knew from previous words from the Lord that I was not to partner up with another ministry, the Lord had spoken that very clearly to me in various ways. But I was not too keen on getting locked into what I had done for 20 years of formal ministry—serving as a pastor with all the demands on my time and heart that come with that, while trying to work full time construction with it’s intense demands and be there for my family.
But the Lord was stirring things and ideas in me that I have not been able to shake. I knew I was supposed to do something as the Pastor the Lord had equipped, called and ordained me to be. I learned long ago that I cannot run from my call nor the One who calls me.
So I asked few trusted brothers and sisters to be in prayer for me, including a prayer warrior named Margene. She scoffs at the notion in her humility but her prayers have affected my life, and many others, in significant ways we will never fully know until we look back from heaven.
A week or so ago I ran into her at one of the churches we have been frequenting, a Spirit filled church in Billings where the Holy Spirit is welcomed and free to move among the family of believers in their services. I told her that her prayers were appreciated and that I could feel them having an effect. I told her that I was feeling more and more like I was supposed to start a church in Bridger where I was now living, where the Lord had blessed us with a house that he had graciously given me the ability, strength and time to design and build myself, with help from family–as all of you who read my blogs know.
I still had that unspoken question on my heart though, what is this open door I was supposed to look for, and how does that square with me being instructed to be a lead pastor, not an assistant, and to be free from restrictive denominational yokes?
So as Margene and I visited I told her that after much prayer and counseling with other Spirit filled pastors I trust that my hearts desire to minister to God’s people and to advance His kingdom was starting to crystalize into a desire to start another church in the community where the Lord had planted me. A place where there currently are no Spirit filled, or Pentecostal if you prefer, churches—(I hate labels as they come with so much baggage).
As we visited about this and the heavy responsibility and seriousness this portended for me making me want to be cautious and sure about what I believed the Lord was leading me into she said, “Well this is the year of the open door.”
Immediately my attention locked in on that term open door. Seeing the look of shock and question on my face she further explained; “We are in the year of the open door according to the Hebrew calendar.” Immediately I began to tear up. Here was the answer to my biggest question and fervent prayer; ‘What is this open door Lord that I am supposed to be looking for?‘ I know she had no idea that the Lord had just spoken to me directly through her although she knows the Lord well enough to know that He certainly can, so I told her; “You have no idea what that means to me!”
I wanted to explain right then but I was too flabbergasted in the moment to do so I just thanked her and resolved to dig into this Hebrew calendar thing and see exactly what she was referring to—this cannot be a coincidence but I had never heard of this.
Well, it really is a thing. A quick internet search will bring up numerous sites revealing that this is the Hebrew year of 5784, which started in September, and the numbers, which have symbolic meaning in Hebrew, as do all numbers, signify that this is the year of openings, especially as concerns doors.
Of course to us in this culture, an open door is a metaphor for opportunity—that the time is right and ripe for whatever it is that is on our heart to advance. What this meant to me now was that the door is not a place, it is a time.
In my mind and in my heart, I could receive no more stark confirmation of what I had been wrestling—wrestling with my doubts and fears, with the Holy Spirit, and my ability to truly discern the Lord’s plan—that it is indeed time to return to the pulpit as a Spirit filled, prophetically gifted Pastor, teaching God’s word, bringing healing, hope, encouragement and empowering God’s people by His Holy Spirit in a ministry where the Spirit is invited and allowed to move.
This is the time, we are in what seems to be the end times and we need all of God’s called to step up in God’s power and be Jesus to a terrified and hopeless world.
The door is open—and Jesus is holding it for you.
DanSwaningsonWordsAndWit 