Chasing the Dragon Read Online Free PDF

supposed to do it.
    Not long afterward, I met a factory worker from West Croydon who had been with us on the sausage-sizzle mission.
    “You got any answers yet?” He knew I was praying about the future.
    “No,” I said apologetically.
    “You wanna come to our meeting?” he said, nodding his head knowingly. “We always get answers in ours.”
    What kind of monopoly on God did he think he had in West Croydon? I was furious, but I was also intrigued to know what was going on at his meeting. So one Tuesday night, I took the bus over.
    When I arrived, someone told me confidentially not to be surprised if anything odd happened. Nervously, I sat myself near the door—apparently they were going to use “spiritual gifts” at their meeting, and I wanted to be in a good position to get away if necessary.
    I was not sure what to expect, and I thought maybe someone would prophesy in a loud voice, “You’ll meet a man who’ll give you a ticket for such and such a country on such and such a date,” and that would be God’s way of answering me.
    The meeting, however, was orderly and calm, with normal prayers and songs. One or two people who were present did speak in a strange language that I did not understand and others explained what they meant. But there was no booming voice from God talking to me.
    Then it came.
    It was not a great booming voice at all. Someone was speaking quite quietly, and I was completely sure that it was meant for me.
    “Go. Trust me, and I will lead you. I will instruct you and teach you in the way which you shall go; I will guide you with my eye.” 5 There it was, what He had been saying all along, but now it was underlined. I was sure that God had my life in hand and that He was about to lead me somewhere.
    There was no doubt that West Croydon got answers, but they did not tell me how I could receive spiritual gifts myself. I went home to wait. God had quite clearly promised to guide me, but I still did not know where to go. I gave in my notice for all my jobs so that I would be free to leave after the summer term—and I tried to pray by my bedside a bit more.
    Still no answers.
    During the Easter holidays I went to help in Richard Thompson’s Shoreditch parish for a week. As a minister, he had known me for some time, and I felt as though he was in a position to give counsel. I well remember the carpet in his study, for I spent a good time staring at it before plucking up courage to speak. Then I told him that God and I had reached a stalemate; He had told me clearly to go. I knew why I was to go, but He would not tell me where. So how could I go?
    Richard’s reply was extraordinary. “If God is telling you to go—you had better go.”
    “How can I—I don’t know where to go. All my applications have been rejected.”
    “Well, if you’ve tried all the conventional ways and missionary societies and God still is telling you to go, you had better get on the move.”
    I felt frustrated.
    “If you had a job, a ticket, accommodation, a sick fund and a pension, you wouldn’t need to trust Him,” Richard continued. “Anyone can go that way whether they are Christians or not. If I were you, I would go out and buy a ticket for a boat going on the longest journey you can find and pray to know where to get off.”
    I did not exactly hear bells, but this was the first time in all those months of searching that anything made sense.
    “It sounds terrific—but it must be cheating, because I’d love to do that.” I still had the idea that anything to do with God had to be serious. I was sure that Christians always had to take the hard way and that enjoyment was no part of suffering for their faith.
    But Richard Thompson told me that it was quite scriptural. Abraham was willing to leave his country and follow Jehovah to a promised land without knowing where he was going, because he trusted. 6 In the same way, thousands of years later, Gladys Aylward journeyed in faith to China.
    “You can’t