Dave Gibbons said...

 

 

Last year Sheila and I had the privilege of sharing a dinner with Dave at a meeting Rick Warren initiated. During that meal I listened intently as Dave told a bit of his story. It rocked me. So I was really dialed in during his talk at the Story Conference last week. 

He quoted Isaiah 6:1-8 and then questioned the wisdom of stopping too soon in the text. He cautioned us. "If you read on through verse 13 you learn God tells Isaiah people won't listen to him. When Isaiah asks how long to preach the message, he's told, 'Do not stop until Israel remains a stump.  But it will be s stump that will grow again.'”

Dave suggested every generation has a starting point for the Gospel, and that starting point is pain. So when he said, "When there is personal revelation of your weakness it releases more fully the power of the Holy Spirit," a great hope welled up inside me.

This I believe.
If we will be prophetic, even in our pain, a seed will be sown - a seed of hope and promise.

Isaiah 6:11-13  -  Astonished, I said, "And Master, how long is this to go on?" He said, "Until the cities are emptied out, not a soul left in the cities— Houses empty of people, countryside empty of people. Until I, God, get rid of everyone, sending them off, the land totally empty. And even if some should survive, say a tenth, the devastation will start up again. The country will look like pine and oak forest with every tree cut down— Every tree a stump, a huge field of stumps. But there's a holy seed in those stumps."

Comments

[James Kytta]

It is amazing how God is in the business of resurrection and restoration.
John 11:25 "Jesus said to her, 'I am the Resurrection and the Life! He who believes in Me, though he die, yet he shall live."
Romans 8:39 "nor height, nor depth, nor any other creature, shall be able to separate us from the love of God which is in Christ Jesus our Lord."

[R W]

I know how a stump can come back to life. Its good to know that God can work with even seemingly dead stumps and start a new forrest. Not to mention those dead / dry bones.

Ezekial 37;

5 This is what the Sovereign LORD says to these bones: I will make breath enter you, and you will come to life. 6 I will attach tendons to you and make flesh come upon you and cover you with skin; I will put breath in you, and you will come to life. Then you will know that I am the LORD.'

Amen, He is my Lord..