ruthradley's posterous

Went to a training the other day fully prepared to share about surrounding our children in prayer, using scripture to pray over them etc etc. Was NOT prepared to hear the small small whisper of the Holy Spirit in our sung worship time telling me to give a personal testimony! I am always for this if it will help and encourage people, but do not want to elevate myself in any way. But, when I thought back to what this was – as I frantically prayed ‘Lord, are you sure’ it DID fit with the training we were doing. A training on parenting, and Gods heart for it. Stories had come up – many of which would have come up in any country – that broke my heart, children not being understood or valued was at the root of it all. It Fitted. And to share it within a group of my family, Gods family, was fitting. We have to understand more of Gods heart for HIS children, who He has loaned to us.

It also seemed timely as Sam and I had visited a church a week before to encourage them with their children, and I felt compelled to share something there as well. In this church the children presented a song – a very common practice here, lots of other children were watching them. I really had on my heart to share with them Psalm 8:2. This is my ministry verse. The one which powers me to do what I do. The one which makes me feel so frustrated at times. The one which I think we often know, but do not allow to penetrate our very souls. And the one which the Lord made special to me about 8 years ago, and confirmed it again with the testimony I gave in the training. The verse which, I am SURE if we could only fully grasp the sheer awesome-ness of it and release our children – would help us a much different church – and world.

Let me share this testimony with you.

When I worked for SMB church in Canterbury, I would always take myself off for a day each term, to get away from the hustle and bustle, to be quiet with the Lord and seek direction. I would usually take the car, blast some worship music as I drove somewhere remote, read some scripture and go for a walk. This time I had decided that I would try to find the beach named ‘Joss Bay’ – which I had heard was beautiful and had real sand, mostly the beaches around Kent have horrible pebbles. Not so unusually for me, I collected the car and drove – actually having NO idea where this bay was! Just kinda heading sea-ward with a full tank of fuel faithfully....! Amazingly I came across a bay! I wondered if I had found it, so I parked and wandered over to have a look. Ergh – this was stone bay, not really beautiful at all, and not where I had wanted to be! I turned to walk back to the car, when I heard that still small voice again. ‘Ruthie, I want to talk to you here!’ I was honest, ‘well I don’t want to walk here, so we had better find somewhere else!’ but I guess you know who won! I soon found myself climbing down the steps.

This was a period in my life where I was questioning whether the Lord wanted me to be overseas, it was critical that I heard His directing. I walked around the bottom of the cliffs, clambering over rocks – it wasn’t the easiest walk and I had no idea where I was heading. At some stage I became aware of the surroundings, and it was not a pleasant sight. Hundreds, literally of dead crabs, a birds paradise! Shells here, legs there, pincers everywhere....something struck me about these crabs. What was it? Yes – they have armour on. They have protection, but they are still in pieces. As Christians, we have armour...I wasn’t finding this an encouraging walk at all. Were these Christians who had fallen? Mission Partners who had indeed lived and shared life abroad, but returned in less than whole pieces – if they returned at all? I KNEW the Lord was speaking to me, but I didn’t get what He was saying, I found the whole thing very discouraging. Apart from the fact that I DID end up at Joss bay, and it was beautiful!

As I prayed over the next couple of days nothing seemed to come clear to me. I eventually got less persistent, and didn’t press further.

Some months later, maybe even a year, I found myself at All Nations Christian College in preparation for coming to live in South Sudan. Living in community is wonderful on many forms, but it is also a bit like being in a bubble. I used to get myself off on as many walks as I could. But something weird was going on. On EVERY walk I was on, I saw something dead. I am a country bumpkin and I know that this is all part of country life, but the weird thing was, I was noticing them. I KNEW that this was something to do with the Lord, but again, I couldn’t get Him. Finally, one dead there was a tiny dead baby bunny, no obvious reason why this little one had died. This for me was the final straw, so I literally shouted out to the Lord ‘WHAT are you saying?’ only this time....I got it.

Psalm 8:2 that ministry verse which the Lord had revealed in a special way a few years before was about to get a whole lot deeper for me! Out of the mouths of CHILDREN and INFANTS you have ordained praise....to SILENCE the Foe and the Avenger’

As I walked along I heard the Lord say;

            ‘My children are ordained to praise me. In doing so – they silence the enemy. But all around the world [in every country] my children are BEING silenced. They are not being released to do the job they are ordained to do. They are being silenced through ignorance of adults, through fear, through death, through war, poverty, abuse, sickness....’

By this time I had reached the final hill back to college, and I had tears streaming down my face. Although I knew that in only a few weeks time I would be on my way to South Sudan, I renewed my commitment again to dedicate my life to working with children – wherever the Lord chooses that to be. I asked the Lord to take me where He would, and knowing that with my hand in His, I couldn’t go wrong.

This was the testimony I felt led to share that day at our training, and there were many encouraging comments after it. But when will we really see? In the UK we talk about accepting our children ‘unconditionally’ but we don’t. We think we know how worship should be, and therefore the children should fit into that. We make it adultified! We allow our children their role when it suits us.

What are the consequences of this? What would our church look like if we allowed our children to do their Kingdom role, even if it seems the 'wrong time'? I just wonder....my heart aches at times when I see so much unjustice and pain in the world as it is now. Are we allowing the enemy to get more of a foot hold and cause more chaos, because the children are too often misunderstood? We hold ‘church  prayer meetings’ but they are not! They are often held at 8pm at night, that’s an ‘adult prayer meeting’ since most of our children are in bed by then. I could go on....but I will not. I will merely ask the question again: what would our church look like if the children were really released and encouraged to go their God given Kingdom role?