70 Main Street: The Great Adventure Begins.

Somewhere in the middle of the week I was struck with a realization so moving that I teared up and had to tell Tricia of what God briefly made me aware.

As a number of you know, this Thursday we will move to 70 Main Street in Northampton, right in the middle of town; right on downtown Main Street! A year before we moved to Sunderland last summer we prayed that God would put us in the center of town. He moved us to Sunderland first, especially to give our daughter, Eslie, time to gather money for going to school. She is now at the Le Cordon Bleu School in Cambridge, MA. It was the right move to make.

So as I was sitting there, it suddenly became crystal clear that our moving was momentous, filled with portent for the future of which we grasp little now. I was overtaken briefly by the awareness of what God was doing. It is no small thing that we are there in that exact location. While I do not have little clarity about what he has it will all look like, I am convinced God is up to something "immeasurably more that we can ask or imagine," right now. Phew.

Interestingly, as each of the team members are moving into town, the spiritual warfare is fierce with obstruction after obstruction. It seems the invaders and usurpers are aware that something threatening is about to take place and they are trying to make it as difficult as possible for us to make the move. We are all aware of the adversary's efforts.

And...lest anyone think we suffer from delusions of granduer, please don't waste too much time on it. None of us feel special or superior. We are constantly made aware by the Holy Spirit of the stark fact that if anything is going to happen of Kingdom import through us in Northampton it will be solely and utterly his doing, period. I can't tell you how many ways he reminds us of this.

So there I was last week being absolutely transported for a moment by the sheer amazement of what God just did to get us on Main Street accompanied the unmistakable assurance that this was the beginning of an adventure all of us were made for.

I think Steven Curtis Chapmen's song The Great Adventure seems to fit well:

"Saddle up your horses, we got a trail to blaze.
Through the wild blue yonder of God's amazing grace.
Let's follow our leader into the glorious unknown.
This is life like no other.
This is the great adventure."

Indeed.

Make it so, Jesus, and let us miss nothing of what you have charged imagine/northampton to do, for as long as you have charged us to do it - not one whit!

Soli Deo Gloria.