I had a major trigger this week.
My favorite preacher/Father of the Faith from Bethel Redding, lost his wife to cancer.
Losing such a Kingdom great woman of God as Beni Johnson made the day of finding this out as holy. Losing such an amazing woman of God and then reading all the tributes about her shook me to the very core of my being.
Her book the “Happy Intercessor” was key to helping me learn how to pray from a place of abiding and not striving.
My thoughts also went to an email I wrote a month or so ago…where amidst being by Dave in pain with cancer, the major word was …”Do the next thing.”
I wrote:
I learned this while reading a powerful book by Elizabeth Elliot. There’s an old legend inscribed in a parsonage in England somewhere on the sea coast, a Saxon legend that said, “Do the next thing.”
It seems to fit the gaping area of the jigsaw puzzle of my life where there needs to be something placed there to make sense amidst this walk with cancer…..
So even now, as Dave has been gone (here) for over a month, the “do the next thing” for me might be to simply spend extra time in the Word and Worship as I travel through the journey of trauma and grief.
It also means to prepare paperwork with bills, probate, and other misc tasks.
I do the next thing and walk it out in child like faith.
Do the next thing for me now also means to stay even more connected to my amazing adult children.
So back to Beni. I discovered she too suffered tremendously from cancer. That made my heart ache for her and for Bill.
I read a powerful quote about Beni from Johnny Enlow which stated:
“One thing I am sure is that Beni is definitely not ‘gone’. She is an even happier intercessor today as she is now seeing from a much better vantage point the outcomes she has been contending for.
“My spirit also sees and knows that she remains involved with us as it would be impossible for her to simply ‘move on’. When you eat, sleep and breathe kingdom there is no moving on. There is only reassignment to a more privileged place of ushering in that kingdom. She is there. Her pain is gone. Her smile is bigger.”
So for tonight?
I’m going to do the next thing and watch Bill Johnson as he does “the next thing” preaching at Bethel Redding just days after losing his beloved wife Beni.
What “next thing” is God calling you to?
I share more how Bill’s message impacted me profoundly. Listen to episode 194 of the Kingdom Mentor Podcast.