City Appointed_Winning a City for God Page 2

  The Lord had revealed to her that he was about to release a new strategy to turn the tide of the city. God had a plan, and that plan involved Riverdale influencing the nation for good instead of evil. He had also shown Gabriella that every city has a mission, a reason for being and that he has placed every city by design. God’s purposes are woven into the finest detail, each person is a thread, a part of the tapestry of his eternal purposes. She also met weekly with a group of prayer warriors, and they shared insights together and prayed as the Lord led them.

  Late that evening, Liberty sat in the back of the car gazing out of the window as her dad drove the family home, having eaten out for dinner. As they passed the General Store, she noticed a boy about her age with a guitar strapped to his back, walking along the road.

  ‘Wonder where he’s going,’ she thought to herself as three strands of Angel-Light weaved past him.

  4.

  The Save

  Caden, the boy Liberty had just seen, stepped into the store to get a snack. He was hungry after having had an extra-long band practice that evening. It was late, and Caden hadn’t eaten in hours. He grabbed an energy drink, a small pack of chips and a chocolate bar. He went up to the service area and placed ten dollars down on the counter.

  “Late one tonight?” said the store owner to Caden as he slid the change back over the counter.

  “Yeah,” Caden responded as he took his purchase and turned to leave.

  “Hey, careful out there,” called the owner after Caden as he walked out into the night.

  He stepped back out onto the street and breathed in deeply. The cool night air was refreshing and helped him to feel more awake.

  The guitar rested snugly against the leather jacket that Caden was wearing. His red and black checked shirt, with top buttons casually open, suited his ripped jeans. The leather boots contributed to the ‘casual Rock Star’ image that the band had spent time mastering. Too much ‘over-the-top Rock Star’ would be classed as ‘try hard,’ so they introduced just enough ‘casual’ so as not to distance themselves from their small group of followers that was growing every week.

  Caden turned and started for home. As he walked past the park, munching on the bar, he saw two figures struggling under a street light. He stopped and stared, his eyebrows lowered and tightened in a worried expression ‘What do I do?’ God instantly gave him insight into the knife-point mugging that was taking place. Caden quickly jumped the fence and skidded down the grassy slope, maintaining balance, he stayed on his feet. He felt the anointing of God surge through him.

  Full of faith, he shouted at the assailant, “Let him go!”

  The attacker turned to face Caden as he approached.

  “Get lost, or I’ll stab ya!” the assailant shouted in response.

  “Drop it in Jesus name!” Caden commanded. The attacker’s hand involuntarily opened and the knife struck the path with a clatter. The assailant looked at Caden in astonishment, then charged at him. Caden knew what the power of the Holy Spirit felt like, and he felt it now. He also knew that anything was possible for a child of God. Jesus had said that himself. So Caden put the principle to the test.

  Caden stretched out his hand toward the man running at him and yelled out, “Go!”

  The assailant was forcefully knocked off his feet to the ground. Even though Caden hadn’t been in that situation ever before, he felt that he could handle whatever eventuated.

  A familiar verse resonated in his mind: ‘...with God all things are possible.’ Matthew 19:26

  The assailant got up, looking bewildered. Not sure what to do next, he decided that it was best not to get caught, so he wisely chose to run off.

  Caden called out after him, “Don’t come back or I’ll smash you to the other side of the park!”

  Caden did not think God would throw the guy to the other end of the park. He also didn’t want to test God and try that little manoeuvre again, but the statement had the desired effect as the attacker ran off into the shadows.

  “Phew, thanks,” said the figure straightening out the wrinkles in his shirt, “I was nearly a ‘goner,’ or at least my wallet was. Thanks for the help. Are you a Christian? I got the feeling you might be when you mentioned the name ‘Jesus’”

  “Sure am. Oh, and I’m Caden,” said Caden as he finally relaxed and reached out his hand with a smile.

  “Great! I know the Lord too. I’m Jack. Good to meet you,” said Jack as he caught his hand in greeting, “So what was that thing you did with your hand? You didn’t even touch the guy.”

  “Not sure, just happened I guess.”

  “Well, whatever it was, it saved me, and I’m very grateful. You know what? I’ve been serving the Lord for many years, and I reckon you have some incredible creative faith. I get the feeling that God is going to use you powerfully in some way and that you are going to have a significant impact in this city. Maybe even in the very near future. Just a feeling I have,” Jack said with a glint in his eye.

  Caden felt a prophetic anointing as Jack spoke. “Thanks for your word... well, I guess I better get back... hey, nice to meet you.”

  “Yeah, OK, I’ll see you again sometime. Thanks again,” said Jack as he turned back into the night.

  As they parted, Caden sensed they would meet again. He also had the feeling that the encounter was more about the two of them meeting than it was about him coming to Jack’s rescue. As Caden walked, he turned his head to look behind him, in Jack’s direction. Jack wasn’t there. The path was empty. ‘He can’t have run off that quickly,’ thought Caden as he spun his whole body and glanced around at the trees to see if Jack had wandered off the path to rest against a tree. Caden appeared to be the only one in the park. He didn’t feel scared, but it left him wondering where Jack had gone.

  “Anyway,” said Caden to himself, “I need to get home.”

  God had been stirring Caden lately towards something significant. He had felt that God was preparing him for a new season of his life. He walked away thanking God, excited about what possibilities lay ahead.

  The next morning he went out for his usual morning run. He found it easier to talk to God while he was running. He started to think about what had happened the night before as he ran past a series of cliff faces, famous in the area as a favourite rock climbing spot. Caden glanced up.

  5.

  Insight

  A silhouette of a muscular teenage boy could be seen crouching over the edge of a rock face. His form cast a shadow onto the grassy landing twenty metres below.

  “You’ve got a crack in the rock above your right hand,” suggested Tristan from above.

  “Thanks,” puffed Shaun who had been on the rock face for eight minutes. With a few more heaves and lunges, Shaun pulled himself up and over the top.

  “Great job! Nine minutes twenty,” said Tristan.

  “Yeah, not bad,” said Shaun who rolled over onto his back, breathing hard on the sunny Saturday morning. Shaun had his shirt off exposing his broad freckled shoulders and hot chest. His short ginger hair couldn’t conceal the beads of perspiration that had developed all over his head and streaks began to roll off onto the rock on which he was lying. Tristan, who had fine blond hair and blue eyes, wore a tank top, cargo shorts and a new pair of climbing shoes that enabled him to grip small ledges that regular shoes would have rolled off. Both were into sports and enjoyed pushing themselves physically. Shaun had considered joining the army or the police force once he had graduated college, as he also had a sensitivity for social justice. Tristan, on the other hand, preferred to play a sport for recreation, rather than do it as a job. He felt the call to ministry anyway and enjoyed leading the youth group and felt that there was a place for him in the church where he served.

  Shaun picked up the conversation they had begun at the base of the face.

  “I have heard God speak to me as I have been reading the Bible,”

  Shaun continued. “You know how it goes – as I read, my attention is drawn to a ve
rse somewhere within the chapter of the Bible that I am reading. From that verse, I get a revelation or a thought of how the verse applies to my life right now. I know that the main way God speaks is through the Bible, but I want to be able to hear his voice in my mind. You know, in the moment. I especially want to hear him when I have a decision to make, just knowing what he wants me to do. In those times I just can’t hear him speak to me no matter how hard I listen.”

  He sat up having semi-recovered from his climb, shrugged his shoulders, and continued, “I know that you can hear God speak to you...” Shaun felt a little defeated with the subject of hearing God’s voice.

  “Oh well, I guess we had better get back.”

  “Yep, guess so,” said Tristan as they picked up their gear and started down the hill on the west side of the rock face.

  It seemed to Tristan that he had always been able to hear God’s voice. He had grown up being taken to church by his parents. He had never heard God audibly but usually knew when God was prompting him to do something. Tristan was always conscious of not ‘over-sharing’ the revelations that God had given him because he didn’t want to appear to be a ‘know-it-all.’ In this case, Tristan felt that the answer was quite simple. It all had to do with faith. It’s all about what you believe. You either believe that what you hear in your mind could be God, or believe that what you hear in your mind is only ever yourself. If you think that it is only ever your own words, then you rule out all possibility of God ever speaking to you.

  The way that Tristan usually operated when it came to hearing God’s voice was to ask God a question, then catch the first thought that came into his mind as the answer. He figured that it probably wasn’t the best theology, because what if the first thought that came to mind wasn’t God? Though, from experience, Tristan found that God usually got in the first say. It was like getting a ‘gut-feel’ and then after that, the thoughts that followed were usually his own reasoning, trying to rationalise what he was feeling. So Tristan would take the first thought and ask himself if it sounded like the kind of thing that God might say. He would also consider if it lined up with the Bible. If he felt ‘yes,’ then he would act upon it and the outcome would usually indicate if it was God or not. The process of doing this helped him to recognize the voice of God more readily over time.

  Questions seemed to unlock revelation within Tristan, sometimes even before the question formulated, he knew what an appropriate answer would be. It was a kind of spiritual discernment. He described it as looking at a busy, inner-city scene from the vantage-point of a high bridge. As he looked at the multitude of people going about their daily business, a telescope-like lens would pass in front of his vision and bring a person, way off in the distance, into focus. He felt he would know what to say to that person and that it would bring freedom and breakthrough into their life. With his friend Shaun, who felt that he couldn’t hear the voice of God, this was now the case. The revelation was available if only Shaun could grasp it and accept it. One thing that had always intrigued Tristan about these visions was the colouring. The sky was always a golden colour, and there was usually a wash of blue in one direction and a wash of red in the other. He had asked God from time to time if these colours had any particular significance to what he was seeing. Or were these colours just light refractions of his spiritual lens? ‘All in good time,’ he would sense God saying.

  Trying to be as encouraging and yet as relaxed as possible, Tristan said, “You know what?”

  “What?” said Shaun who had noticed a gentle breeze beginning to cool his face.

  “I reckon you can hear God’s voice.”

  “So I’ve been told,” replied Shaun in an unconvinced manner, but with a smile.

  “Yes,” stated Tristan, “It’s not that you can’t hear his voice. Rather, out of everything that you do hear and see and think, it is working out what is God and what is not. The problem with hearing God’s voice in your mind is that it is such a natural thing to do. It is so natural that you can easily miss his promptings every day. God speaking to you sounds the same as you speaking to you. Often I ask God to speak to me; then I catch the first thought that comes to my mind. Let’s try this – what is the first thought that comes to your mind right now?”

  “Breakfast!” stated Shaun.

  “Oh,” said Tristan, realising that this conversation may not have the desired outcome.

  “Yep, I made myself a cooked breakfast this morning, and it was good. Just to get me ready for the climb.”

  Tristan decided to leave it at that, as they wandered back on to Shaun’s property.

  “Speaking of breakfast,” Shaun said, “I should check I turned off the element on the stove.

  As they entered the warm kitchen, they both instantly saw that the element was still on and Shaun ran across the kitchen to switch it off.

  “Yikes, lucky we didn’t arrive back to flames!”

  Tristan raised his eyebrows and nodded once in agreement.

  ‘Breakfast’ was from you H.S. wasn’t it,’ thought Tristan. ‘Yes’ came the response (Tristan called the Holy Spirit ‘H.S.’ for short).

  “OK, gotta go,” said Tristan, “I’ll catch you tomorrow.”

  “Sweet bro, see you then,” said Shaun.

  Tristan stepped out of the house, got on his bike and rode through town.

  A new café had just opened, so Tristan decided to go in that direction to check it out. As he came up the street, he noticed that inside the café was busy, but only two girls were taking advantage of the afternoon sun on the outside tables. ‘They’ve got the right idea,’ he thought, as he turned the corner towards home.

  6.

  At the table

  The two stylish girls who sat at the table were Trinity and Samantha who had been best friends throughout their schooling years. Trinity wore a dark grey round-brimmed hat given to her for her sixteenth birthday. It framed her long brunette hair which draped over shoulders. She wore a white t-shirt with the print of the Eiffel Tower, somewhere she had always wanted to visit. Her tight black jeans and black Chuck Taylor shoes finished off the high-contrast black and white look. Samantha, on the other hand, enjoyed injecting splashes of colour into her attire. The bright orange skirt and matching handbag were her ‘colour statements’ for the day. The denim jacket, white embroidered top, and black boots were appropriate for the trendy new café.

  One of the unique things about their relationship is that even though they had been born in different cities, they had also been born on exactly the same day, in fact, just one hour apart. Samantha’s family had moved from Bucklands to Riverdale when she was five, because her father got a job opportunity. So Samantha found herself in the same primary school class as Trinity. The two of them hit it off immediately, and they had been best friends ever since. They felt their friendship was destined by God, not just because they shared the same birthday but because of something else that they had shared over the years. The two of them discovered they would get similar dreams and have similar experiences.

  Now that they were sixteen, life was busier. Both were currently studying for exams, playing netball and serving as part of the youth leadership team at church.

  Three nights ago, on a Wednesday evening, they had both been sitting together in church and seen heaven open up during a worship service. They saw a waterfall cascading down onto the stage and flowing out over the seats. As they looked intently at the wonder that filled their gaze, they noticed that the ‘water’ appeared to be a gush of a million diamonds that refracted the stage lighting onto the walls and ceiling. Many people who were standing at the front of the meeting got healed, and about twenty people came up for the salvation altar call at the end. It was an amazing night, but apparently, no one else saw what they saw.

  “I feel like something big is about to happen,” said Samantha sipping her latté and lifting her eyes to the sun for a moment, causing her to blink a couple of times to clear the moisture that immediately developed around the ed
ges. The scent of the freshly cut spring flowers sitting in a small vase in the middle of their table, blended with the aroma of fresh coffee grounds pervading the air from the coffee machine busily at work inside the café. Sparrows could be heard chirping from the trees planted along the landscaped footpath. Riverdale was an excellent example of a city that merged parks and high-rises into a busy metropolis that also had quiet, secluded spots where people took advantage to have picnics and engage in a variety of pastimes.