Insipid or Demented?

May 1999.
When you are given a glimpse of the heart of God, it can feel like a heavy burden. Mercifully, most of us only pick up on a small portion at a time (which is probably just as well,) for it may become too much to carry and you need to retreat awhile into everyday life. Therefore my concern for Serbia has therefore not always been equally intense; but it has got my attention.

The baffling problem has been what to do with the burden. Good things await the Serb people, but surely they are the ones who need to know it, not me? And how can they be told from two thousand miles away by a stranger who knows little about Serbia?

Pushed by the sense of burden I consider writing to some newspaper or other, but I know nothing about Serbian news channels, and even if I did, most likely that is a waste of time. Why should anyone take it seriously? Of course I would choose the words carefully, but if muted the burden seems insipid, when "told like it is" it sounds demented, and could even end up misused in support of extreme nationalism.

I really find no solution; and in the meantime the demands of everyday life drown out the urgency.

Suspended Disbelief

Since religious assertions are not objective items but subjective persuasions, nobody should swallow them uncritically. On the other hand it it not wise to reject them out of hand, either.
In the New Testament the principles are: "believe not every spirit". Test them to see if they are of God. Only when they are proved genuine should you take them seriously.
Therefore no one should simply take my word for it that I have had some communication from the Lord, misled people with strongly held and wrongly held religious convictions are two-a-penny. In fact, you have no proof that any of this ever happened. I could be simply inflating my own feeling of self-importance.
Keep an open mind: "you shall know them by their fruits".

When the pillar of cloud moves on.

Not that I want to see Serbia lose Kosovo when I see how much it means to so many, but it is hard to see how you can hang on to it without a ruinous demand on your resources. And with so many opposed, clinging on can only bring trouble, while “tolerating the intorlerable” may win you friends.

But even more important in my view is that Kosovo will divert your attention from God’s true purposes for Serbia, and hinder you from reaping His blessing. You are too important to God for Him to wish that to happen.

Let Kosovo go with your blessing and in the end it will be to your benefit;

Let it Kosovo go with your ill-feeling and it may bring you sorrow.

God has moved on; the Pillar of Cloud has removed itself

And the time has come to strike camp and follow.

Serbia's true identity

It is often claimed that a person is "the sum of their thoughts and their actions," but this is not the whole story.

We have a past, and it explains how we got where we are now; we have a present, and that is expressed in our daily lives; and yet we have a future as well, something we will become, and if and when that potential is realized it may supercede all that has gone before.

We have a potential, -- all of us-- that God has in mind for our good. Its origin is found within His love for us, and it begins as soon as we allow Him to have His way. Beyond the horizon it stretches like an open country.

When we enter into God's paths He transforms us. The whole of our past takes on a different context. Of course it is still there behind us, but ahead is a future He longs for us to enjoy, and in comparison with that future, our History fades into insignificance.
This is true not only on a personal level, when we receive Him into our lives; it can be true of whole nations as well.

Serbia has passed a watershed in its History. From now on, things will take a different turn. The waters will all run in different direction. God will bless this people, and when He does, their sorrows will turn to joy. They have something good ahead of them, if only they could know it, something important, a new identity, because what God makes out of you makes everything you were before obsolete.

"No longer is your identity to be found on the field of Blackbirds

It is to be found in what I am going to make of you,

In what you become

When I meet with you."

If the Lord takes away Kosovo

If the Lord takes away
Kosovo from Serbia

It will not be defeat;

Not be retreat;

Nor yet rejection;

But redirection:

For the Lord takes away
And the Lord gives

So let it go with your blessing

And He will bless you for it,

While ahead lies a fresh agenda

Kind beyond our grasp;

A watershed in history has been passed,
and the future begins today.

Beograd

Sunday the 11th of April 1999
The burden from Easter Day lies so heavy upon me that I wish I could be in Belgrade now; --there where the people are suffering under NATO's hammering. A futile wish, of course; what use would a crazy foreigner be to the Serbs at a time like this? I find myself longing to tell them they are cared for, they are loved.
And where was God during the NATO bombing?
Right there where the bombs were falling
Suffering with the people.

"There was once a people, feared and hated

and despised the length and breadth of Europe. They were called the vikings, -the modern day Norwegians. But God took that people, changed them, and made them a blessing to the other peoples of the world.
And there is another people, at present (april 1999) feared, hated and despised throughout Europe: the Serbs. But God wishes to take them, transform them, bless them and make them a blessing.
--What God has done with you Norwegians, can He not also do with the Serbs?

Shutting the stable door

Wednesday the 7th of April 1999.
My views of Serbia and of Serbs has been shaken to its foundation, and the sensation will not go away.
NATO has resumed the bombing. Our church holds a prayer-meeting about the Kosovo Crisis. The invitation to share prayer requests is given, but telling about my experience earlier that week doesn't quite seem to fit in. I hold back, but regret it afterwards, and tell the pastor after the meeting is over. He asks me to email the information to him, which I do, but the frustration of not speaking about things still hangs over me...

How Typical of God!

5th of April 1999
Was it real? or do I have an over-active imagination?
And yet my impressions from yesterday hang heavy upon me, and feel especially frustrating as I could not pass on the message straightaway (although I accept the wisdom of that decision).
I have had this kind of conviction come over me before. That doesn't give me a carte blanche to say what ever I feel like, though, and both the speaker and the hearer have a responsibility to check out the truth of a Word. What criteria am I to test this Word by?
Well, nothing seems unbiblical: that God loves the Serbs, I can see from the Bible; that God does not want the death of any, I know (-and it will be literal death once the bombs start falling again!) And I know God wishes to bless people everywhere.

But as I think of my Easter experience three things strike me especially as making this, "prophecy" ring true. (Let's call it that, even if it does sound pretentious.)

1. the unexpectedness. It was completely contrary to the current public opinion and definitely not something I felt already. On the contrary, given all that negative press and the continual stigmatization of the Serbs, I was more inclined to approve of the NATO reaction if anything!
2. the experience left me with a completely new sense of love, concern and identification with the Serbs and their plight. I felt like I was vibrating in harmony with heart of our Lord.
3. the positive content of the message:
   

Mankind wants punishment,
God longs to forgive;
Mankind uses force to solve things,
God prefers a change of heart.
Man stoops to bombing, war, destruction and hate,
God stoops to bless.

--How typical of God!

"But if that is to happen, then something will have to change...?"

4th of April 1999. NATO has agreed to a pause in its bombing of Serbia over Easter. What can I do, but pray: "What about the Serbs, Lord?" And like a bombshell an answer, unexpected both in shape and message, comes to me. I sense the Lord's longing to bless that people, to heal and help them. Bombs from the sky are the last thing He wishes for. Rather, He wishes to see them turning to Himself, finding comfort and renewal.

"But if that is to happen, then something will have to change...?" Again I sense something: I see a wave of sorrowful despair sweeping over Serbians; repentance, as they find how they have been made the alibi for things they would never have wished to happen. Then the scene changed. Something best described as like sunshine coming out from behind the clouds shining over the landscape. People changed; hearts melted; a blessing passed over the land and they were transformed. And then the blessing spread outwards, reaching the countries around them.

While this was going on, our congregation was being told how God intended to bless the Norwegians, and make them a blessing to the rest of the world. --The Norwegians, a blessing! The people once feared and hated up and down Europe, now a vehicle of God's blessing?

And the Lord gives me these words:

Behold, I show you a great wonder this day:

The Norwegians, --a people once feared, hated and despised the length and breadth of Europe--

I have taken, and transformed and made into a blessing for all peoples.

And I show you another great wonder this day:

The Serbs, --a people feared, hated and despised

I will take and I will bring great sorrow over that people and they shall repent,

and then I shall raise up change and transform them

And they will become blessed

And a blessing to the nations around them!