Higher Thoughts!
By Jenny Edwards MBE
I have just returned from a wonderful week of fellowship
on a Through the Roof accessible retreat near Torquay at
Brunel Manor. There were a lot of very familiar faces, but
also two new people who knew very little about TTR or
DCF and were about to experience complete acceptance
as we worshipped, prayed and laughed together. Two new
friends of this ever-growing organisation, very exciting!
Sixty years ago, DCF started with one lady needing prayer,
now all these years later, there are many people all over the
country who have benefitted from DCF and all that it
offers, particularly fellowship, acceptance, and love.
We are familiar with the saying ‘out of small acorns great
oaks grow’, but are we as familiar with God’s version of that
saying? Isaiah 54 verse 2 reads ‘Enlarge your house; build
an addition. Spread out your home, and spare no expense!
For you will soon be bursting at the seams’.
The past twenty years of TTR have seen many changes of
staff, volunteers, activities and offices! Recently we have
enlarged the staff team with Janet and Fiona joining us, we
also have two new Trustees, and almost daily we hear of
new churches and supporters joining the team that God is
putting together, yet we find ourselves in a small office
where we have to juggle our hours in order to find a space
at a computer desk! What does it all mean? We are
enlarging and spreading far and wide, and God is blessing
us abundantly in many ways, yet I am a firm believer that
God does not wish us to enlarge and spread so much that
we become a big organisation and we lose the personal
touch we presently have with those who contact us or
share in the various activities and programmes. Perhaps
the small office is really a blessing!
We have new staff, potentially a new prison workshop, new
areas being reached, new holidaymakers and many new
challenges, but in all of this we need to seek God’s
guidance even more than we ever did before. We do not
want to stray from that job description that has been given
to us by God all those years ago, not just the years of TTR
but the 60 years of DCF. Turning over the page in your bible
you will find Isaiah 55, and these famous words in verse 8
“My thoughts are nothing like your thoughts” says the
Lord, “And my ways are far beyond anything you could
imagine. For just as the heavens are higher than the earth,
so my ways are higher than your ways and my thoughts
higher than your thoughts”.
I believe this is God saying to us, just wait on me, ask for
guidance every step of the way, keep in touch with me and
I will show you the way, in other words, when we get ideas
and want to branch out further or change how we do or
say things, consult with our God every step of the way of
that journey, and He will be with us every step we take, and
it WILL be the right way, and He WILL bless!
We can apply that to our personal lives as well, so be
excited, look forward to doors opening where they have
never opened before, step through them with God beside
you and neither TTR or you will go far wrong. We will
enlarge, we will expand but in His timing, not ours!
www.throughtheroof.org