Watching, seeing, following, worshipping, listening and obeying

When I sat down to pray the morning after I had seen this vision of God’s glory and the picture of prayer beacons breaking out across the UK, I asked God what I was going to pray!  He led me to numerous passages from the Bible and I shall be sharing them regularly through this blog, but the first passage was about the Magi and really resonated with me…
 
Matthew 2:1-12
 
Here were wise men who watched for signs of God’s activity and when they saw his star in the east they willingly and eagerly left the comfort and familiarity of all that they knew to travel to find the Christ.  After they had found and worshipped Jesus, they continued to be so open to God’s guidance and demonstrated such dependence on him, heeding God’s warning in a dream and returning home by a different route.  What struck me was that the Magi were not simply other worldly stargazers; no, they watched and then they took action!  Watching, seeing, following, worshipping, listening and obeying; that’s a pretty awesome example and I am praying that I will be more like them and I am praying the same for our leaders and churches too.