A normal day with God

So much is happening at the moment that I can hardly keep up with writing. Saturday was such a „normal day with God“.

Some days are largely without any great new insights. Just normal days with a God who wants to meet me. And through me to others. And through others to me. My daily prayer is: „Lord, use me to make something of your kingdom visible in my world.“ This Saturday it looked like this.

Saturday is my ship day. I go to my ship and help with the construction work. I felt that I should go to a certain underground station. I experience this relatively often, that I hear God's quiet voice. Sometimes I recognise the meaning of an instruction afterwards. Often I don't. But that's ok. I trust that he already knows what he is doing.

I am alive because I followed such a small impulse. Years ago, friends invited me on an outing. At the last minute, I decided not to come along because of a „funny feeling“ - at that time I didn't know the quiet voice of the Holy Spirit very well. At a junction, a car crashed into the back of them - so hard that the back seat was crushed down to the front seat - and from the front it almost hit a bus coming from the right. Nothing happened to either of them, but if I had been travelling with them I would probably have been crushed or run over by the bus. It is helpful to learn to listen to the small impulses of the Holy Spirit. And to follow them.

On the way to the S-Bahn, I see a woman with a walking frame in a shop. We strike up a conversation. She says that she has pain in all her joints. I can't find the time to offer her prayer in the cramped, crowded shop. I definitely prefer it when there is more time and space for prayer. I still want to learn how to pray spontaneously in uncomfortable spaces.

I get a call from a friend on the SBahn. I had told her that I was thinking about making an online course from what I had learned in England, like the courses I had already developed on strength in life, work organisation and relationship with God. And maybe even do a live training course in Berlin. I already have a name that I like: WUM: Wunder unter Menschen. Experiencing God's power, of course.

My girlfriend is really excited - excited. „You, I just wanted to tell you that you're spot on with your course. Yesterday I was talking to two young women who went to Bible school but never learnt there that you also have a shape and boundaries in the spirit and in your relationship with God. Of course, you can expand the boundaries. But if you try to go beyond the limits of your previous growth in God too quickly, you end up in burnout or despair. I feel that it is totally important that you do this course and I wanted to offer you that I could do a session on „Growing in the Spirit“. I'm delighted at the encouragement and reply with a laugh: „I've already scheduled you for this topic!“

I take things slowly on the ship. I paint, remove paint from the new door that now leads to the foredeck - and realise that paint that has been heated with a heat gun is still hot afterwards. I help to carry large, unwieldy wooden panels, one of which weighs 50 kilos, on board. My back hurts afterwards. But I think that's normal. It's a shame that there was no one on board who was stronger than me.

One of the helpers has a big bruise that doesn't look good. I pray that everything heals well.

After a swim in the Spree, where I imagine myself surrounded by God's healing waters, I make my way to the birthday party. The birthday girl was a participant in one of my seminars. She has asked her guests to help finance the tea kitchen on board my boat! How wonderful!

A guest I know looks sad. I ask about it. The reason is the burden of caring for elderly parents. I listen and pray for blessings and new strength. Another guest tells me that he knows the birthday girl's husband from seminars in State. This small village experienced a spiritual awakening when a new pastor arrived. He realised that the local farmers hardly had time for spiritual matters in the summer - but they did in the winter. They set up beds in the large vicarage and organised Bible weeks in the winter months. People came to faith. God was at work. One day, the pastor was a guest in a house for deaconesses - Protestant nuns, so to speak. He told an elderly sister about what had happened in his place. She started to cry. She had run a children's home in this place and had prayed for decades that a spiritual awakening would happen there. I cried with her when I heard this. How often we don't even know who was responsible for the blessing we experience through their prayers.

On the bus on the way to a charity concert - not all my days are that full - a woman coughs in a way that sounds very painful. I speak to her and she tells me about allergies. I ask her if I can pray and, when she says yes, I pray for her across the aisle of the bus.

In the underground, which runs partly above ground, I saw that it was raining heavily. I didn't have an umbrella with me and was delighted to find a large cardboard shopping bag on the floor of the station, which I quickly converted into a rain hat. I thought about the fact that as God's children, we bring light into the world - simply by being there - and decided to take the route to my destination, which led right through the middle of the street, where most of the women are forced by poverty or human traffickers to offer their services. That evening, they were not standing on the street as usual, but huddled under a canopy to protect themselves from the rain. When they see me with my „rain hat“, they start to laugh. Not maliciously, but the happy laughter of children who see something funny.

I laugh and wave back and wish them a good evening. I am glad that I was able to bring a little bit of light and joy into their dark world - and I am grateful for my friends who run a café there and help the women as much as they can.

At the concert, I enjoy the marvellous jazz music and Sarah Kaiser and her band pray from afar in blessing for a woman who seems very restless and wears a corset on her back.

A woman I know tells me that her husband fell awkwardly and broke four ribs. I offer her prayer and feel that I should pray above all against any self-reproach he may be feeling. Thinking to myself „How can I be so stupid“ probably doesn't contribute to quick healing, which of course I also pray for. Not so much asking, but rather blessing. In the knowledge of the authority that Jesus has entrusted to us.

On the way home, I hear a man shouting very aggressively through the open flat window. The words, which I won't repeat here, are insulting. It makes no sense to throw out demons who are then immediately invited back in. I want to protect the person being shouted at, so I bind the aggressive spirit. There is silence. I go home. A normal day with God comes to an end.