Margaret is blessed by a very strong prophetic gifting. There are things which God just shows her about other people or situations. Some of this is by what she calls insight- an intuitive observation of people and events that gives her knowledge of situations that other people just don't see, but when she explains it seems obvious or at the very least plausible. At times the Holy Spirit just tells her things she couldn't know by any other means.
People don't understand this gifting and find it threatening at times. I guess it can be uncomfortable to have somebody tell you what is happening in your life, but if you understand that God loves you and wants to heal you of the hidden hurts in your heart then it's easier to take, and can be received as a grace.
On Sunday evening, Margaret was supposed to preach. She wasn't really inspired about a message, but got something together. We knew it would be a small group (it always is) as some of our regulars had told us that they wouldn't be there.
Margaret told me in the afternoon that she felt there would be a visitor at the service, and she wouldn't be surprised if Terry (a developmentally disabled man who demands personal attention when he shows up) would be there also.
Now Philip had told us that he would be coming to visit after finishing work at 3 o'clock on Sunday afternoon. At dinner time she says "I bet Philip would be at Singleton now." So she calls him and says to him "Are you at Singleton?" He says "How do you do that!" Then she says, "And you're just about to leave" and he says again "How do you do that? I've just finished dinner at Maccas and I'm about to leave"
So of course at church, we get to the end of the songs and a man comes in whom we had known of but never met- he is actually a member of the local Seventh Day Adventist church. So we spent some time talking to him, during which time Terry comes in. Basically that was the end of the formal attempts at conducting a night service- what we did was led by the Lord anyway.
Over the last few years Margaret has had some strange and high level "ideas". One of these is that some of the christian leaders in this nation need to all come to Narrabri and sit in our building and talk to one another in order to overcome the differences and misunderstandings that exist in different parts of the church. Why do they need to come here? I have no idea! Why would they come? Only if the Lord orchestrated it! They would all much rather go to Sydney or Canberra or somewhere "iconic" like Uluru- but for some reason it has to be here.
She also believes that a number of other people well known in ministry will be coming through here and staying some time in order to sort out aspects of their lives that need a little redirection.
After seeing this three-fold prophetic accuracy on Sunday, I have to take this vision (and everything else Margaret puts forward) very seriously. I can't see how it would ever happen, but I guess a God who can move stars and galaxies and keep everything in perfect balance would have no problem moving a bunch of high flying church leaders to a tin shed in an insignificant little country town!
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