Fail Forward

By nature, for better or worse, I am an emotionally charged person. In addition, for the past number of weeks every service has been experientially powerful. I share that as a contrast to this past Sunday when, although engaged and grateful for worship and word, I was not so emotional.

In the closing sets of songs I had a sudden thought or impression: it would be helpful to hear a present word from God, something specifically fitting to an individual or individuals. I believe we serve a God who speaks and who loves to draw near. I believe we are to earnestly desire the spiritual gifts (I Cor. 14:1). So in response I “leaned forward,” asked God to speak, and tried to listen.

Because my emotions were relatively “flat,” no one person, event or truth had been stirring on my mind all morning, I did not expect much. And then one phrase in the current song caught my attention: “The veil tore before You.” The emphasis that was trumpeted in my mind was “before You.” He was tearing the veil. And suddenly I became aware of many potential individuals, desiring to know God, experience God, receive from God, trying to tear that veil.

I imagined that huge woven tapestry, thirty feet high, separating the Holy of Holies from the Most Holy Place, and people on this side of the tapestry climbing a ladder, trying to tear it, looking for a tool, an aid, asking others for help, all in vain. Doctrinally, we did not choose him. He chose us. Our prayers are not waking a sleeping God. Our active God is stirring our hearts to pray. We are not pounding down his door. He is ripping through the veil!

And now I had a decision to make: do I step forward and suggest this might be something someone needs to hear, or just keep quiet?

I’ve been through this too many times over the decades: laboring to hear and understand better what are my own emotions versus God’s emotions, what is a word for me versus a word for someone else, whether this is a word for now or for another time, another place. I have a better sense, but mostly I know that I don’t always know. All I can do is offer. Maybe it will serve someone. Maybe I’m off the mark. There’s no way to know but to "fail forward."

So I shared the impression with someone, and he thought, "Yes, it should be shared." The impression was shared right before the meeting ended. End of story... almost.

Before leaving that morning, I got to interact with a friend who told me that when he heard the word he had to sit down. On his drive to the service that morning he had sensed a veil around him, closing down on him, choking him... a problem he could not overcome. That word spoke hope to him, at a time when he desperately needed hope.

I share this experience because of a passage I read in Joshua yesterday:

"And the manna ceased the day after they ate of the produce of the land. And there was no longer manna for the people of Israel, but they ate of the fruit of the land of Canaan that year."–Joshua 5:12

No manna. None needed. The miraculous provision in a desert was not for show, but for necessity. I often wonder, living in a land of plenty, whether we would see more demonstrations of God’s power if we were more in need.

It’s been a hard year. As a culture we have not moved from the desert to the promised land as much as we have moved from the promised land to the desert. It’s a good time to be leaning forward and asking for the impossible, especially for those who are broken and desperate around us.

We serve a God who came not for the healthy, but the sick (Mark 2:17). There are many who would not have asked for prayer a year ago, but now would be glad for a drink of cold water. We are the ones to give that drink, if we will be alert, and in love, willing to reach out with a word, a prayer. And we don’t even have to feel something to do it.