Pilgrimage – Another Form of Purposeful Exile
Last week I introduced the notion of liminality. Threshold experiences. We enter into a place of betwixt and between. These periods are different than normal life – we step out of the regular activity of the everyday to get fresh insight and perspective. As a result our spiritual senses are not clouded by the noise of the mundane but alert to a more holy voice.
Pilgrimage is a planned and purposeful mobility for the sake of being alert to the movements of God on this earth. It often is geographically situated around places of past revivals and unique manifestations of the presence of God.
Recently, I began reading a book by Mark Batterson, Whisper: Hearing the Voice of God. He writes to get us to be alert to the God whispers in life. In answering the question of why God does not seem to speak very loudly or obviously at times, Batterson points to what happens when someone whispers.
We lean in.
It implies connection. Relationship.
And that is the crux of communication with God. It is not about getting information. It is about intimacy. Conversation. Dialogue. Relationship.
I need liminality because I live in a noisy world. Think of the voices that bombard us - self talk, worldly criticism, and Accuser condemnation. And that is in between the constant backdrop of music (not so white noise), sirens, crashes, and an ever-continual flow of world news.
I need to lean in – purposefully.
In recent years, one of the places of leaning in for me has been pilgrimage.
I have been on The Camino (the Way) to Santiago de Compostela three times.
I have re-dug the wells of revival in Italy, Ireland, Scotland, England and New England.
I knelt to pray at prayer bench of John Wesley, asking God for an increased anointing in evangelism.
I stood at the sacred desk of Thomas Aquinas, asking God for an increased anointing to write with theological clarity.
I knelt to pray in the study of John Knox, asking God for more anointing in preaching.
I knelt on the bench in Salem Tabernacle Church, where Adoniram Judson was commissioned as the first missionary sent from America, asking God for more favor in crossing boundaries with the gospel.
I stood in the tabernacle of Old Orchard Beach, where A.B. Simpson met Jesus in a fresh way as Healer, asking God for more signs and wonders in our day and for revival in New England.
In each of those spaces, my spiritual antennas were especially attuned. I was expectant. I was separated from the norm. And I saw undeniable demonstrations of the kingdom of God in some of those spaces.
For the past week I have been on a pilgrimage with 15 other people around the revival sites of Wales.
Wales has experienced several major revivals. The one that has especially caught my attention is the revival from 1904-1906, that had many launching points . . .
. . . the united prayer of four unnamed young men;
. . . the intercession of a preacher named Seth Joshua;
. . . the cry of a young woman named Florrie Evans during a worship service “I love Jesus and I give myself entirely to him;”
. . . the prayer of Evan Roberts “bend me O Lord.”
God was quickening people by his Spirit. Each one proved to be an ear alert to and a heart open to Holy Spirit saturated revival. It is estimated that 100,000 people came to Christ in two years. That is quite a number for a population just over 2 million.
The revival explosion did not stop in Wales. The Azusa Street Revival in the U.S. (1906) and the Pyongyang Revival in Korea (1907) can be traced to Welsh wells of revival. The missions result of those two revivals is so large that it is impossible to recount.
Possibly the three greatest evangelists of the 20thCentury, at least in fruitfulness of preaching the gospel, can be spiritually linked to the Welsh revival waters – Luis Palau (father converted in Patagonia, Argentina under ministry of Welsh apostolic church missionaries), Billy Graham (baptism in Holy Spirit with Stephen Olford before his ministry took off), and Reinhold Bonnke (trained at the Wales Bible College under Rees Howells). The evangelism ministry of these three alone accounts for millions of people discovering the love of God through Christ in the past decades.
And these are the stories we can trace. God is always telling a better story than the one that is right in front of our noses.
[If you want to read more about Welsh revivals check out http://daibach-welldigger.blogspot.com/]
Pilgrimage helps me to lean in again or anew. But you do not have to go someplace geographically to walk renewal paths.
At this stage in my life, I prefer to refer to life as pilgrimage rather than journey.
You have heard the phrase repeatedly - life is a journey. Certainly this is a good metaphor for life. However, some contemporary movements have made me a bit suspect of references to life as journey. Why?
Journey makes me feel like I am in control of the destiny. Journey feeds into my wander lust.
Wander lust travel is not exile. It is self-serving.
Pilgrimage travel is exile. It is God-seeking.
On exile with you in a long tradition of exiles.
