Lower your head and run!

A couple of weeks ago I went to the Drive 2006 Conference at North Point Community Church. I thought I would do a few posts about some of the amazing messages I heard. I took a ton of notes, so I'll have to pare them down a whole lot.

Charles Stanley spoke on the last morning of the conference. He told the story of getting on a bus as a kid and going to visit his grandfather. His grandfather was an evangelist and Charles felt the need to go and just listen to him. One thing his grandfather told him was, "If God tells you to run through a brick wall, just lower your head and run and God will make a hole in the wall for your head." Charles said that on the way home he realized what his grandfather was telling him: 'Obey God and leave the consequences to Him.' I was very challenged and encouraged as he told us that God assumes full responsibility for my obedience and He works on behalf of those who wait for him (Isaiah 64:4). "Omnipotence is on the side of obedience."

Stanley went on to tie this in to conflict, specifically to pastors and conflict in the church. The tendency is to run and hide from conflict, to allow it to distract us and destroy our focus. But Stanley encouraged us to run towards conflict while allowing God to take care of the consequences. "If I run from conflict, when will I stop? Runners never make an impact. There is not enough conflict in the world to defeat the power of God!"