Pilgrim Soldier

So NATO has arrived in Latvia and over the course of today the likes of George W Bush, Tony Blair, Angela Mertel and Jacques Chirac will be arriving. To ‘celebrate’ this event Riga is pretty much shut down, although some shops are probably open.

Consequently the vast majority of people have the day of work and it definitely shows. Looking out our bedroom window this morning it was comparable to January 1st, which is the only day in Latvia when everything shuts down. Only the occasional car drove past and there weren’t many people walking along the road either.

The key word for this summit is Transformation and it reminded me that this is the business that we are in. Back in August we had our own ’summit’ in The Salvation Army in Latvia, well it was really a leaders’ retreat, and we spent the time looking at the subject of transformation as well. I took loads of notes but have held off posting about them as I really wanted to get them sorted in my own mind.

One of the things I took away though was that transformation has to start with ourselves. Whilst we know we have to go first to God to get His guidance on any issue, it seems that our logical next step is to look outside of ourselves. Whether this be transformation in the Church, society or individuals, the process has to start with a change of attitude or thoughts in our own heart and mind.

I pray that after listening to God I will be open to His leading to look inwards as well as outwards.