 I had a dream years ago when I was pastoring and this dream was a great help to me and I've not built my life at all strongly on dreams and so on so when I have them I know it's unusual for me and I should pay attention to them and it was a time when there seemed to be so much emphasis in the church amongst the prophetic types of saying what the next thing is that God was doing and what we should be part of and who was the voice and who were the emerging preachers and the emerging moves of God and so on and what was the next thing going to be and trying to find language for it and we should be here and we should be there and doing this and doing that and I was quite bothered by it and I don't know why I was bothered by it I felt I felt inadequate as a pastor to respond to it because I didn't know the answer to that question and I felt I should have done like some of you guys that are pastoring the field that night I had a dream one of those evenings in the midst of that and in this dream there was a baby fast asleep in a crib still calm quiet beautiful serene setting and then slowly people began to appear out of the shadows and come and stand around the crib and I realized in the dream that these people around the crib were desperately wanting the baby to wake up and they're growing impatient with the sleeping child but the child didn't wake up over the crib was a mobile that was of course stationary and still you needed air to move it so one of the people around the crib decided to blow on the mobile to get it to move and then others began to blow the mobile so they could get it to move more in the hope that the movement of the mobile and the noise and movement to create a group wake the baby and eventually as the dream came to a close all of them around the crib and others that came to join all began to blow on this mobile to wake the baby but the baby did not wake then I woke up it occurred to me in the days following the wisdom I took from that what I felt God said to me through that was that the baby represented God fast asleep and still and that those around the crib represented us me us that was so desperate for God to wake up and tell us what he was doing next and where we could find it and who was the person and the people and the voices and was it me was it us but because he didn't we tried to wake him up by blowing the mobile by creating movement ourselves by creating activity ourselves and perhaps then we could call that what God was doing whatever that became and he brought a great peace to me because he gave me confidence to stand before the church and to say to the church around the world can we please stop trying to wake God up can we please stop trying to blow the mobile to create something because that's more about us than it's ever been about God and I feel now reason I talked to you about this is because now as we come out the other end of covid I'm sensing that again in the church and in other voices outside the church that everyone's wanted to know what's the next thing is it this is it that what was all this about what was this leading to and people trying to get on the cutting edge to ride this wave and again the prophetic types and the prophetic kind of voices forecast in predicting prophesying it's this it's that it's that person this person that church and it all feels to me like we're blowing the mobile again and we're trying to wake up the baby so that we all get to have a continuation get to be part of something we get to have a role and a function and a part we give language to something that people are waiting for us to and I think I'm appealing to you maybe it's a stage of life thing for me in which case you're welcome all of those that are coming up behind me maybe it's a stage of life thing to say to you all we need to calm down and cherish the silence and the pause and the stillness because covid certainly given us that and we need to stop doing our own versions of blowing the mobile trying to wake god up like they did in the store on the lake angry because he wasn't intervening angry because he wasn't doing the thing he should have done to which he just said well you people of little faith I wonder if the greatest gift we can give to each other in our world at this time is to stop trying to blow the mobile with our own ideas of what we think the next thing is and just settle down and instead why don't you and I just become the next thing because the next thing really should come out of the next you and the next me and the next us I think that's the work we should be doing let the baby sleep on for a while it's okay it's all good okay love you guys