Elbow Room

Elbow Room

May 2010

The pastor stood confidently before a crowded auditorium filled to the brim with congregants. He looked out over the sea of people, overjoyed to see so many eager, hungry and faithful hearts flowing in Sunday after Sunday. He was overwhelmed. Each of their three Sunday services was this way.

But Easter was around the corner. He believed there would be many lost souls who were destined to meet the Lord on this upcoming, monumental day when even the most ambitiously sinful might darken the doors of the church.

And so, he stepped out in faith. That Sunday, the Sunday before Easter, he asked the members of his church to come to a service on Saturday night the following week so that their Sunday services would have empty seats.

This message—one of casting nets, stretching boundaries, increasing territory, releasing faith, leaving room for the supernatural—is one I’m learning. It’s one that Elisha’s school of eager, young prophets is helping me to learn:

Now the sons of the prophets said to Elisha, “Behold now, the place before you where we are living is too limited for us (2 Kings 6:1).

Their words rang in the depths of my soul after I took them in—the place where we are living is too limited for us. This place, this home, this land, this situation, this setup, this scenario, this job, this setting, this site, this location, it’s too compact and snug for what’s in store.

Inherent in their desire to find a new, more widened space to live and work in was a glimpse of the foresight and expectation that these men had. They were in anticipation of something. They were eagerly awaiting the more that they were fully awaiting without reservation, so much so, that they were willing to make room for what they could not yet see. They were willing to find new territory and build new structures in faith that what would soon happen in their midst would require greater capacity in which to receive it.

What type of vision and faith must one have to decide that where they are now is not going to work for much longer? And what type of faith do you have to release to decide to move out of your comfort zone even without evidence that all the margins will eventually be filled in.

Elbow room.

That’s what I’m learning I need, and it’s what you need too. It’s the risky faith place left open and available for God to do what God does. It’s this space that will keep our knees down and our hearts and hands up. I wonder if just maybe one reason we don’t see increase is simple because we don’t have the capacity to receive it. Like my friend and fellow Bible teacher shared with me, “Christians often beg God for miracles and then spend our days trying valiantly to avoid the context in which miracles happen.”

The context?

Elbow room. God space.

So press the margins my friend.

Seek God. Get direction and then make room for Him to move.

I have a feeling that the place you are now is just far too limited for what He wants to do.

Priscilla Shirer, Going Beyond Ministries