I'm giving up my spot today to post this piece, an excerpt from the book Streams by Canadian writer/pastor, Murray Pura. I was inspired by it and I think you will be too. :)Marcia Lee Laycock
All of us have
stories about God asking us to start something big with meager resources, our
five loaves and two fish stories. I think most of us also have stories about
God asking us to step out of our safe boats and walk in faith the kind of walk
we have never done before. This is one of those.
I didn’t see it
coming – neither did the disciples bent over their oars and plowing into the
wind. I was rowing away in my own fashion at my college studies, at Hebrew and
Greek and scads of other subjects, when I went to morning chapel and listened
to a guest speaker from Northern Ireland. His words astonished me. Former
Loyalist and IRA gunmen coming to faith in the real Jesus at the Maze Prison
nine miles outside of Belfast. Praying together. Reading the Bible together.
Wasn’t this the kind of reconciliation and transformation Jesus had died to
give to the world? When he said he was looking for volunteers to come to
Belfast that summer and work with his organization and various churches to
bring Christ’s love to Ireland I put a leg over the side of my cozy North
American college boat.
I was ready to
walk the walk. But later when I delved deeper into what they wanted me to do in
Northern Ireland, I balked – open air public speaking, public speaking in
churches, open air drama and music, children and youth work, door-to-door
ministry – no way did I want to do public speaking outdoors at market days or
rallies and no way did I want to go door-to-door clutching leaflets in my hand.
The wind was picking up, the waves were getting higher, I lost my nerve and
quickly clambered back into the boat. I hardly got my feet wet.
God let it go.
Or at least he appeared to. I went on with my studies and forgot about Ireland.
Others I knew were making plans to head over during the summer, praying about
the mission and praying about funding. Good for them. I finished the term at
Christmas, wrote my exams and drove home to be with my family over the
holidays.
I relaxed with a
few books. In one of them a man talked about his experiences doing missions
work all over the world, including the Middle East and Asia and Africa. All of
a sudden I flipped a page and he was in Northern Ireland.
I hadn’t
expected it, but I read the chapter through anyway. He talked about the
Troubles, the shootings and bombings and hatred between Irish who wanted to
remain connected to Britain and others who wanted to join the Republic of
Ireland. He talked about things he had seen Christ do in response to the faith
of a few people. I was inspired as I had been by the talk in chapel months
before. But then I closed the book and that was that.
Before I got out
of the chair the strangest sensation went right through me – I felt compelled
to go to Ireland. I protested, “Lord, I can’t, the deadline has passed.” But then
I felt an even stronger urging from his Spirit and in an instant all my
objections were swept away. I was meant to go to Ireland regardless of my
fears. I was bewildered, delighted and challenged all at the same time.
So I began to
get out of the boat and odd things happened. At Christmas dinner my mother said
she didn’t mind if I went anywhere in the world as a minister as long as I
never went to Northern Ireland. Back at school I felt some doubts about my book
reading conversion and went into a prayer room to agonize over the whole
matter. When I walked out of the door the student who was organizing the whole
Irish mission – who happened to be Irish himself – was sitting and waiting to
get into the prayer room himself.
I was astonished
to see him. He said hello and I blurted, “I’ve got to go to Ireland!” He said
my eyes were wide as soccer balls. “All right,” he responded, not sure what
else to do, even though they weren’t taking any more applications.
The waves came
up and the wind was against me. Some of the team members didn’t want me on the
mission. I needed so many dollars by such and such a date and while others had
been gathering funds for months I had only a few weeks. I needed to tell my
mother about what I was intending to do – would she be able to handle it or
could it plunge her into a state of anxiety and fear?
The money came
in, mostly from fellow students. The mission team bonded and we grew to love
one another. My mother grew proud of what I had decided to do. That summer I
was in Ireland and wound up talking to people on their doorsteps, preaching
gospel messages to crowds on market days, writing and acting out stories and
dramas for children and teens, playing soccer with 50 players to a side and
cowpies always underfoot like patches of ice – it was one of the most
astonishing summers of my life and it changed me completely as good summers
often can. The children we spoke with and listened to, the youth, the adults,
the lives we blessed and the lives that blessed us, there was never another
summer like it. I was walking where I had never walked before and I kept
walking even in the wind and the waves.
For there were
wind and waves, though not so much within the team as all around us: shootings,
killings, kneecappings, teens being kicked to death by street gangs. When we spoke with the Irish we did not focus
on Protestant and Catholic, Loyalist or Republican, choosing one side or
another, it was all about Jesus and God’s love for everyone. Even when we drove
back up from our few weeks at Carlow in the South and got tangled in the
traffic and smoke and shattered bodies of South Down’s Warrenpoint Massacre,
our Irish friends in Belfast frantic, worried we had been caught in the blasts,
it still had to be Jesus and forgiveness or else there was no message to give
to Ireland.
That was August
27th, 1979 – Lord Mountbatten blown to pieces on his boat Shadow V
at Mullaghmore in County Sligo in the South, a place we had driven past a few
hours after it happened, and eighteen British soldiers dead in two bombs at
Warrenpoint, just as we came over the border, dark smoke and confusion and army
helicopters roaring over our heads. The things you never forget when you climb
out of the boat and walk where Jesus asks you to walk. Sometimes it is where
the heartbreak and carnage is greatest. Northern Ireland has seen its civilians
killed, its fathers and mothers and children, its police and its soldiers. And
when you walk on those waters with Jesus he cares about all of them, it doesn’t
matter which side they’re on.
Walking on water
is not easy and it is not common. Sometimes we need to be in our boats and
crossing our lakes, sometimes we’ve been out of our boats long enough and need
to get back in them, sometimes there are things to do on shore. But sometimes Jesus
invites us to walk on water that is torn by wind and storm and if we can find
the faith to walk there with him it changes us and, a walk at a time, it
changes the world we live in.
****
Murray Pura was born and raised in
Winnipeg, Manitoba. His first work of fiction was published in Teen Power when
he was 16. Canadian publications include the novels Mizzly Fitch, Zo, and The
White Birds of Morning as well as the short story collections Mister Good Morning and The Poets of
Windhover Marsh. In the United States two books of popular theology have
been published by Zondervan while several works of fiction have been released. Murray has been a
finalist for The Dartmouth Book Award, The John Spencer Hill Literary Award,
The Kobzar Literary Award, and The Paraclete Fiction Award. A Baptist pastor
for 28 years, Murray currently makes his home in
southwestern Alberta. Visit Murray's Website
and find him on Amazon
Great to see you here, Murray. I keep bumping into you online. (We were interviewed at the same time on Book Fun about our books.) I loved this post and the challenge. "Never say no to God, right?" Been there, done that, had the same result!)
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