I know it isn’t really “Day 9” and I have missed a couple of days; nevertheless, it is “Day 9” in “Light the fire again”. So, here goes…

After his “conversion” experience, Wesley travelled to Herrnhut to visit the Moravians  in the community that Zinzendorf was supporting.

Wesley was clearly impacted by their life of faith, but he was also a “thinker” in his own right.  There were aspects of their life with which he was uncomfortable and recognised that, compelling though it was, there were things he would do differently.

Wesley had been “ignited” – the spark of the evangelist in him was being fanned into flame and there was no holding it back.  The quiet contemplation of the Moravians was never quite going to be enough for Wesley.

But that doesn’t make it “wrong” or inadequate.  We need, in the body of the Church, all sorts of ways and means of approaching and discovering God.  We need all sorts of ways of bringing people to Him so that we might fulfil the task that Jesus gave us – of making God known.

When we “wake up” to the call of God on our lives there is a danger that we may jump into the first “worthy cause” that comes our way and be distracted from the true calling upon our lives.

There is also a danger that, in discovering our calling, we may find that God’s plan for us is very different to the one we had expected it, or even desired it to be. It may bring both internal and external conflict and difference of opinion.

Wesley experienced such conflicts and faced them head on.  He also, though, had sufficient wisdom to recognise the true nature of his calling and how God’s particular plan for him and God’s call upon his life was not going to look the same as it did for someone like Zinzendorf and the Moravians. Wesley was burning with a zeal for making God known, and to do so in the fields, the streets and the market squares of Britain – and to do it loudly.