I found this poster lying in one of my boxes when I was spending eight hours cleaning out my room for the cookout last Monday. To be completely honest, I actually nicked it off the back of a washroom cubicle door in the Acer Arena during last year’s Hillsong Conference.

It’s  a bit beat up, having lived in my haversack and travelled across the oceans from Sydney to Singapore. Creased and nicked in some places. Rebelled against the blu-tack because it was rolled up for so long. But there’s something I love about it; maybe it’s because it has a certain history about it. Maybe because it wasn’t bought in a store and was obtained through a bit of reckless daring, and thus more appealing. Maybe it’s because I love old things — even though I loathe hype and ‘vintage’ being all the rage still — because of the dozens of little stories contained in them. My eyes light up when I spot a used CD/DVD shop… maybe someone cried to that Tori Amos record, or kissed someone they loved when they were playing the Smiths, or watched the Texas sunset from their car windows to Explosions in the Sky.

I can’t help but wonder if they ever imagined the future when these old things were new to them… what would they have thought or felt when they could see then, whatever is happening around us in the world now? Would they be amazed or baffled at the world we live in today? What will my sons or daughters think when they look at a first-generation iPhone or a Moleskine journal? What kind of world would I have left them, twenty or thirty years on?

It’s a funny time to be this introspective, especially when this season of my life is seeing exponential increase in ministry. I’ve come to realise that all of is beyond me — that it is all so completely beyond my own abilities that only God can make it work. The truth is that I am really only a vessel. A vessel that carries His spirit and walks in His will and desires to see the destiny placed in me be fulfilled in the measure of fullness that only God can encompass.

Wisdom and favour. Romans 8:28. Stretching. Being a ready vessel. These are the hallmarks of this season. And He is always faithful.