I just came back from Pakistan, where a small team of us had spent a week there to launch Kingdom Invasion in Islamabad. From 19–21 October this year, we’re bringing Kingdom Invasion to Pakistan as part of our City2City Project to impact the nations. We’ll be renting a major convention center in the capital of Pakistan that can seat 4,000 people and we’re bringing together pastors and leaders from around the whole nation for this event. Imagine the impact when 4,000 pastors gather together over three days! From what I understand from the local leaders, this is only the fourth time that they’re having a national pastors’ event in Islamabad.
What I found amazing was a string of “coincidences” that marked the launch of the event. It was exactly 10 years ago when I first went to Islamabad in the year 2007, and on that trip we met a young pastor who had just started his church not too long ago. They had also just purchased a piece of land on which they were planning to build the church building. We spent some time with this pastor, praying for him, his ministry and also stood over the church land to pray for the construction of the building.
10 years later, as we launched Kingdom Invasion Pakistan, the pastors’ launch gathering was held with the same pastor, in the now-completed building that we had prayed for! I recall as well, how we had gone up to a high point in the city of Islamabad 10 years ago to pray for the city and for the nation, and to ask God for revival and blessings on the nation. On this trip, we received an invitation from a Christian cabinet minister of Pakistan to visit their Parliament, and we had the privilege of attending one of their parliamentary sessions and also got to meet their Speaker of House and numerous other cabinet ministers.
As I look back at the things Cornerstone had been involved in and started, I see random events and encounters that all seem so accidental, but on hindsight were significant events that God was engineering for us. I remember how in 1994, in the midst of the Rwandan Genocide, Pastor Yang had stood up in the congregation and prayed for what was happening in Rwanda at that time. He tried to find practical means to help but at that time we were unable to. Yet today, through the most unusual of circumstances, we have an incredible bible school in Kigali that has equipped and graduated hundreds of pastors for the work of the ministry.
During my second year in university, Pastor Yang introduced a book to the whole congregation titled, “The Intercessor”. It was about the life of Mr. Rees Howells and it transformed our church. I remember sneaking out during lectures to go to the bathroom to read the book because I simply could not put it down. Reading the book and weeping went hand in hand for many of us, and there came such a desire to give our lives more fully to the Lord. Years later, God called us as a church to purchase the Bible College of Wales started by Mr. Rees Howells and today, the bible school is operating again. I know greater things are going to come forth out from there.
God is not random and He does not do coincidences. Instead, there’s a sense that our lives are deeply orchestrated by a loving Father who has prepared good works for us to walk in. When the Lord called Abraham to walk through the length and breadth of the Promised Land, it was not a random excursion to visit the land. Instead it was a prophetic journey to enable us to understand God’s commitment to His promises and to His greater purpose for mankind. As we look back at the places that we’ve been to, the prayers that we’ve made, and the encounters we’ve had, we realise that those were divine moments of impregnation. It’s in those moments that God lays a seed of His plans and purposes within us. As we continue to walk with Him, those seeds begin to germinate unbeknown to us. Yet in due season, they come forth in the most beautiful and incredible ways imaginable.
Our prayer is that we can all continue to be receptacles of His divine seed by being available, full of faith and always ready for the coincidences that God brings our way. Sometimes they come as inconveniences that disrupt our well-planned schedules. At other times, it requires for us to do something that’s beyond our comfort zones. It’ll always require a heart that’s tender before the Lord, and it’ll always require faith.
