Digging For Treasure

I said in a previous Blog that each Treasure Hunting experience is totally different and our latest Hunt was definately a case in point! Before we started our Treasure Hunt, we were praying and just asking God's presence to come as that is the most important thing, so that we are able to release God's presence whilst we are walking around.  I had a clear picture of a golden spade - it was really big and I wasnt sure if it was a clue for the Hunt or a picture for us.  To cover both basis I put it as a clue but also discussed it with Lizzie, I thought it might be about digging foundations in our church for Prophetic Evangelism and Lizzie said maybe it was to do with us having to dig for Treasure!  Little did we know!

We looked at our clues and decided on the route that they seemed to be taking us on so we went through the Cathedral Green, past the Pasty Shop, and up the high street towards the Odeon.  We took a slow walk up the street expecting to see some of the clues we had for appearances, but we didn't see anybody at all, which is really unusual but undeterred we carried on.  We carried on up towards the Odeon, and began to realise that we were passing lots of clues but they weren't people, they were things in shop windows or other shops on our list.  We walked past a Flower shop, Sainsburys, an Orange jumper, and Dominoes.  Everything seemed to be leading us to the Odeon and I really felt that when we got there somebody would be outside and they would be our Treasure.  But no!  We got to the Odeon and there wasn't anybody around at all, it was really quite odd because normally we would stop a few people and then strike gold but nobody we had seen had fitted any of our clues, not even slightly! I suggested that we walked back down the same way we had come up seeing as all the clues were on the same side of the road, and revisit them.  We got a little way down when we suddenly saw her - she had crutches and was wearing a yellow top.  We squealed a little with excitement as we knew this was God's Treasure.  The lady disappeared into a shop for ages so we had to hang around outside and look a bit like stalkers, but it all comes with the territory.  After a while she came out of the shop and Lizzie approached her and explained who we were and that we had prayed before we came out and God had given us the clue of a person with crutches and a yellow top.  We explained a bit more that all our other clues had lead us to her and that we knew we had been sent to come and speak to her today as she was God's Treasure.  She was blown away!  We offered to pray for her leg and she readily agreed, so we found a bench to sit down.  She began to talk and she told how much pain she was in and how last night she had been in bed crying out with all her heart to God for the pain to go, and also to forgive her of things she had done wrong in her past and that she wanted to turn to him - that sure sounds like a Salvation prayer to me! We prayed for her leg and she said the pain was less, so we offered to pray again and she agreed but it stayed the same but she looked at us and said 'This is a miracle, God really heard me last night.' and we agreed.  She said she had always wanted to be a follower of Jesus and that now she was.  I asked her if she wanted to know God and she said she felt she already did, so I gave her a copy of the New Testament, a Why Jesus and a leaflet about Treasure Hunting with our church contact details on it.  She left us, a new women, knowing that Father God had heard her cry and that he loved her so much that he sent us the next day to find her to reaffirm to her what she had prayed alone in her bedroom the night before.  Amazing!

I think the spade was definitely about us really digging in for treasure that day, we could have given up at many points (even before we started as I wasn't feeling too well), we could have given up whilst we walked up the high street and didn't see one person to stop, we could have given up when we got to the Odeon and there wasn't anybody there, we could also have given up whilst we waited outside the shop for the lady as she was in there for ages.  But we didn't and kept digging and we definitely found Treasure.  God loves perseverance!