Railton, Ratatouille, Repentance and Revival!

It’s a wet, cold, grey Saturday morning in February. I go to the hall to get it ready for Sunday. Having hoovered up ‘Tufty’s’ crumbs and set out the chairs I stay for a time of prayer. Later in the afternoon, still in prayer, I make my way to Abney Park Cemetery in Stoke Newington. During the half an hour drive to Abney Park I keep on praying - the Holy Spirit has already brought much to my attention, wrong attitudes, unforgiveness, pride, ‘sin in the camp’ and of course hope – so much hope!

If I have a favourite spot in the world then this it – sitting on the rock slab that shields the mortal remains of George Scot Railton from the elements. On one side of George lies William, Catherine and John Lawley on the other side is ‘Fiery Elijah’ and across the way Bramwell and Booth Tucker. When it comes to sitting down there are a lot of slabs to choose from! However, my favourite spot is George’s.

Now don’t get me wrong, there is nothing spiritually significant about this spot. This is not an altar or a ‘high place’ and I do not come here to chat with the Army’s first Commissioner. I like the spot because it is tangible proof that these people actually lived and therefore the historical information I know about them – incredible though it seems – is actually true! Sometimes the lives of these pioneers take on mythical proportions – yet when you sit here among their bones all doubts are destroyed.

Whenever I am here (and I come here often) I always ask God to give me the same spirit that these great pioneers had - indeed I ask him for a double portion! Yet of course I know that the spirit that drove them forward and gave them such success was nothing less than God’s spirit. Before I leave I kneel down and ask the ‘God of Elijah’ to ‘hear my cry’ and ‘send the fire’ I ask him to begin the ‘revolution’.

I tell him that I want to be obsessed with the Army – some would question me and say ‘you mean obsessed with God don’t you?’ but I don’t mean that, I mean what I say, I mean the Army. For me God and the Army are synonymous – you can’t have one without the other. I want to be like Railton – I want to have no clothes other than my uniform. I want to always travel second class unless there is a third class! I want my life to be a complete ‘living sacrifice’. I want to be radical, if necessary I want to turn up at Westminster Central Hall in sackcloth and ashes! My prayers and my spiritual fantasies become extreme and God gently brings me back to earth.

I turn and walk the short distance from the grave to where I have parked the car. It is like walking through a time slip – I have left behind the big bowed bonnets and working class roots of the Army and stepped into the sophisticated coffee bars and pasta restaurants of urban London. Suddenly the world is full of three wheeled designer buggies and young couples sipping black Americanos in pavement cafes. Maybe I do need more clothes than just my uniform after all it is 2006.

As I get into the car I wonder where it will all meet? Where will all the strands come together. So much of ‘the old’ is in my blood, I didn’t ask for it to be put there, it’s always been there ever since I was a small child. I never asked God to make me feel the way I do, but I feel that way all the same. There is something in the past that needs to power its way into the present. I can’t quite put my finger on it yet - personal holiness, separation from the world, prayer and fasting, practical evangelism, bravery, aggression, compassion, initiative – yes it’s all that - but there is something else too.

For the moment (from my mortal perspective) everything seems so impossible, the future, repentance, revival, return from exile, the restoration of ‘Jerusalem’. It’s all too much, too complicated. Yet things are happening, there are stirrings, rumblings, rumours – God is on the move. The dry bones are waiting to come together waiting for the sinews and flesh to be applied - waiting for someone to ‘prophesy’ and say ‘hear the word of the LORD! I will make breath enter you, and you will come to life. I will attach tendons to you and make flesh come upon you and cover you with skin; I will put breath in you, and you will come to life. Then you will know that I am the LORD.'

I get into the car and the CD player strikes up with

“I’ll follow thee of life the giver,
I’ll follow thee suffering redeemer,
I’ll follow thee deny thee never,
by thy grace I’ll follow thee”.

I drive the same route trudged by those who buried Railton and the inescapable question that must have challenged them challenges me ‘The old warrior is dead - what are you going to let God do in you?’