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A testimony of Grace

by | Apr 9, 2018

March 2018. A team of five of us from Hope Centre Tauranga were on the Vanuatu island of Erromango where we were encouraging and supporting local leaders.

As the morning meeting was getting underway at Williams Bay, one of the Presbyterian elders summoned Ross and me to go and pray for someone. In a nearby building a lady was lying on a bed with others in the room and our instructions were “the baby needs to come”. Ok, so now I’m figuring this is a birthing table and the other lady in the room is the midwife and the man in the room is the husband.

While Ross is praying for the mother I’m listening to God with equal measures of desperation, inadequacy, and total focus borne out of a sense of being completely out of my depth. Isaiah 42:22 comes to mind which says “this is a people…..trapped in caves….hidden away in prisons….with none to deliver… and none to say ‘Give them back!’” So now I have my instructions to call the baby out of the womb and I speak to the child that it’s time to leave that place of comfort and safety and be welcomed to a new place of safety.

Mother begins to moan so we exit and make our way back to the meeting. Only 20 minutes later, Elder William summons us again to tell us “it’s a baby girl and all is well”. I am completely undone and dissolve in a wash of tears. Then William says “You need to give the child a name”. My first reaction is “you can’t expect us to name this child! We’re just visitors – the name is for a lifetime”. Fortunately Ross is more in control of himself than I am and he begins to pray. As I struggle through the range of emotions I strongly feel that the baby should be called Grace and Ross later confirms that he also felt this was the right name.

As we go back into the meeting I am overwhelmed with what has just happened. My tears keep leaking till around midday when I’m finally able to regain my composure. For me, this memory is a treasure beyond value and I’m so grateful to God for allowing me to be a part of what He was doing.

God has a bach

by | Oct 15, 2016

In New Zealand it is accepted that many people have two houses – one where they live and work and the other is a bach (pronounced “batch”), or if you live in the south of the South Island it’s a crib. Anyway it’s a holiday house, usually at a beach or lakeside. We love to get away to the bach to relax and be refreshed. I grew up in Hamilton but most of my summer holidays were at the family bach by the sea at Raglan. That little two bedroom cottage that Mum and Dad bought in 1966 is now four bedrooms and still in the family.

It seems to me that God has a bach and that bach is us. Isaiah 57:15 says that God lives in two places: “I dwell on a high and holy place, and also with the contrite and lowly of spirit”. His high and holy place is His heaven and we see a good description of that in Revelation Chapter 4. But He also lives with the humble of heart.

Isaiah 66:1,2 says the same thing:
Thus says the LORD, “Heaven is My throne and the earth is My footstool.
Where then is a house you could build for Me?
And where is a place that I may rest?
For My hand made all these things,
Thus all these things came into being,” declares the LORD.
“But to this one I will look,
To him who is humble and contrite of spirit, and who trembles at My word.”

God is looking for a place to rest. He doesn’t find that in anything He created but in something He didn’t create – the outcome of our will. Our surrendered will is the one place in the universe where God finds rest outside of Himself. God doesn’t look for rest because He’s tired or needs a break, it’s just that He enjoys being with family.

When Noah sent out a dove from the ark the dove looked for a place to rest. In the New Testament we see that the dove is a picture of the Holy Spirit. The Holy Spirit today is still looking for a place to rest.

Will you be a holiday home for God? Allow the Holy Spirit to chill at your place.