Dear Josh,
I would like to share a story that goes back … to 1985 when you visited our city to spend a week of teaching and ministry in Newcastle England.
I was a student then and my memories of that week are still clear in my mind. The teaching you gave us is still with me too, and I wanted to get in touch to say thank you for impacting my life in such a profound way and to share with you just a couple of the many things I learnt from you back then.
On the Sunday morning you taught on Phil 4: 6-7 — which are verses that have been permanently imprinted in my memory ever since.
You taught on how we can talk to God about absolutely anything. When we bring to Him what is on our hearts, we allow Him access to our desires which means that He gets to either take them away and replace them with something better, or to empower them by changing our motivation to glorify Him.
I can’t describe just how life-changing that simple teaching has been for me since. I still use it regularly and it’s provided such freedom in being able to approach God with whatever is on my heart, no matter what it is.
One example I’d like to share was in a Bible study once. I gave an example of how I prayed for something that I wanted even though it seemed like a strange thing to pray about and then discovered a few weeks later I didn’t want it anymore.
A woman at that meeting told me later that it had spoke to her and previously she’d been afraid to pray for things in case it wasn’t God’s will. This helped set her free in her prayers.
The other major area of teaching that has stayed with me was the very challenging area of interpersonal relationships — how to get along with each other. I have found that the church has many people who don’t know how to handle conflict. It is sad that there is such a great need among Christians to learn to handle differences without hurting each other. However, I believe that God plans to use me to bring people together who are at odds and your teaching provides me with the material with which to do that.
In closing, I can’t overstate how much your teaching impacted me, even though it was just one week many years ago.
This tells me that there was a strong anointing on what I heard and it was God speaking through you to me. May God continue to use you in the lives of people so that your words are still bearing fruit in [many] years time.
In Christ,
Maxine
