Posting the vision

Over the last few weeks, as we approached our summer walking, I felt bolder towards posting the original vision the Lord gave me for walking our county. This is because we walk to finish well, completing the race set before us, and re-engaging with the Lord will motivate and propel us on. The last few days have been a real encouragement as we reached Stansted Mountfitchet and realised we are on the last leg. We need your prayers more than ever...


Re-reading Chapter 13 of Martin Scott's incredibly prophetic book, Impacting the City, made me realise the importance of finishing well in a Sardis place (Rev 3)...on p172 Martin says "There is also an inability to complete what has begun, for Jesus says their works have not been found perfect (or completed). Like the city itself...the church had not brought to completion what they had started. Perseverance has to be developed in these places." In 2004, Martin spoke prophetically over Essex and Havering, naming them as Sardis places and I recently posted these words elsewhere. In the book, he goes on to demonstrate how, because of "the sevenfold dimension of the presence of the Spirit of God", there "can be wells of prayer and the prophetic open...for whole areas or even nations." Emerge Wales (http://www.emergewales.com/) have urged this year, of all years, that we listen to the prophets. We seek to open the wells of fullness for our region and the nation.


I believe that if Essex, and my own area of Havering, are to find fullness as 'Sardis cities of mercy' where destiny can be found, where initiation is born, where influence is created...then we must keep confronting passivity and finish well. Our focus as we walk, therefore, given the vision God gave me, is to 'close the wheel'. Now to the vision.


As I started the walk, I felt inadequate and ill-equipped for the task I was been called to and it is still from this place of trembling that I write. This is not false modesty or superficial humility. The closer I come to Jesus the more un-able I feel and yet, I know this is both the place and the time to be walking the borders of the county calling for “the wild goose, you know”! One Friday morning, early in 2008, I was asking the Lord what the walking would be about. I already knew I was to ‘walk the Essex marshes’ – two people had spoken prophetically about that. It had also been prophesied that I would ‘receive revelation in the gateways’. This day I sensed something was occurring in the spirit realm. I felt the fatness of the Spirit – filled up with silent joy and unspeakable anticipation, yet overwhelmed with awe! Symbolically, under the waters, I was gently but forcefully pushed to my knees. Was I willing? I’m not sure I had choice.


I saw Essex, the county, laid out before me in England as if looking at Google Earth. It was impressed upon me to walk the Essex borders. ‘Connect’ the gateways and gateway people on the way. Once round the borders, I should then go to the centre with 'connectors' from the other gateways, carrying ‘what God says’ from their town, to the centre. This would form a wheel frame and spokes over and in the land.


This land-wheel is like ‘one of the wheels that carries the living creatures’ (Ezek 15). In Ezekiel 10.2 & 6, the wheel (Heb. galgal) is a whirlwind blowing up dust and chaff. I 'saw' how Essex will form a wheel for the ‘tower’ of England to assault the stronghold of Europe. How this will work, I don’t know. (More on wheels in a later post). Therefore,

I walk to fulfil the prophetic word (19.5.09) and the vision (1.2.08)
I walk to serve the body in Essex and call her into her destiny by walking the land.
I walk to learn to speak the ‘language’ of those in the gateways and those over the borders, and to take that language from the liminal places to the centre.
I walk calling for the prophetic to be in the foundations.
I walk for the KofG to ‘take and occupy’ (Matt 11.12) the gateways and the centre.
I walk to be an inspiration to the intercessors – those who are willing to stand in the gap for Essex.
I walk to emulate the peregrinati in our generation.
I walk in the footprints of him who has gone before us.

The list above has been spun out like woollen threads from the wheel as we've walked and if this stirs your heart and your spirit in these days – then pray for our land as we close the wheel. The whirling wheel of this warrior land is beginning to create dust.

This is one of the many signposts we have relied on during our journey. It signals the next stage of the Stour Valley Path.

At the start, we stood at the crossroads begging for the ancient paths – believe me, it is a good way and we have walked in it and are finding rest for our souls (Jer 6.16). We haven't walked to stir anything except through love, power and sound mind, carrying grace and mercy and by humbling ourselves. There is no name to this activity, no centre, no structure – it is under the radar, born of relationship between us and the land. We wear only what the Lord chooses to give us for the day – boots, rucksacks and Holy Spirit.

Where we are welcomed, we seek relationship; where we are not, we bless and move on. The walking itself is our intercession and we give not take. Our testimony is that Jesus has met us at every crossroads, river and path.