Waiting in the airport in Glasgow I got a text from Jan, one of our fired up young women, challenging me to have words from God for whoever I sat next to on the plane. This was on the back of Jan, Kat, Johnny and Lennie having had a great time healing a guy’s back and prophesying over a couple of Muslims in a chip shop earlier in the week. So, on to the plane I get. I get chatting with the businessman next to me, who is surprised to be sitting next to a pastor, as he had had some free time that day and had sat in the cathedral. I shared the gospel with him and spoke a few simple words of destiny into his life. It sounds like one of his fellow directors is also a Christian.

 

Then on the last day of the conference I notice one of the waitresses was in pain when she bent down to wedge a door open. I offered instinctively to pray for her and she felt much better. It turns out that as I am doing this, my wallet is being stolen from the conference room and I become embroiled in a scam where lots of money is siphoned out of our accounts. Now a bit shell shocked, I get on the plane home. Inside I am thinking ‘I’ll just read my book, I am feeling discouraged’; then I think ‘what about the guy next to me?’. Anyway, I engage in a conversation, and share the gospel with the Hindu guy in the next seat and lay hands on him and pray that he would have an encounter with God, he is a bit surprised by this, but clearly God wanted him to know about Jesus.

 

I learned a couple of lessons in all this. One is that it’s important to pray for protection as well as breakthrough. It is not for nothing that Jesus said to pray for the kingdom to come and pray that we would be delivered from the evil one. Dave Carr shared at the conference that he had a visit from a ‘senior devil worshipper’ who said his master didn’t mind him having a big church, but he should stop praying for the sick or unpleasant things would be unleashed on him and his church. Well they didn’t stop healing the sick, but they had to pray earnestly for a whole load of horrible relational difficulties to end.

 

The other point was that turning to Jesus, rather than dwelling in discouragement produces better outcomes! We often have good reasons to stay discouraged. Bad events happen, but to let them disconnect us from God’s goodness and love and hence our mission is a mistake I (we) often make.