So we had delay after delay. I did two years of applications to try and get a piece of land, and every two months it would be delayed by some more bureaucratic red tape; had to get permission from the Hospital Board, had to get permission from the Council, had to go to the Ministry of Works, had to go to the Ministry of Health, had to go to someone to value the land, and then the guy died in the middle of it. It just went on and on and on and on. This went on for over a year, and of course I'd think GOD, HELP! Then the Baptists said, you've got to get out of the building by the end of the year, and time went on, we still got no land, nothing's happened. I've got to get out of the building in January, and we've got to get a school up, and a school in place, and I hadn't even got a piece of land, so by about Maybe HURRY UP! Oh hurry up! Then we had to change the plans, because sometimes you have to change what you've got, to take into account that God is not doing what you want, the way you wanted it.
We had this grand plan for a great big building, but it was not to be. I had to change the plans, and so it got down to about October - HURRY UP! Then I changed. When I changed, I changed in October. In November we got the land. [Laughter] I was sorry it took me seven years to change. It was mostly impatience, and frustration, and feeling a failure, and all the stuff that goes with that. It's a bad track you go down when delay goes, you know that. But you've just got to come to a place where there's surrender in your life, and you learn how to wait on God, and hold God's promises over your situation. I did everything. I did everything, but I know it was all a trick, and it was all my attempts to make God do it in my timing - and He refused, He said, because I'm interested in making you into a certain kind of person, you've got to hang in there. So it went on and on and on and on. We did five years with one piece of land, went right through to the Privy Council in London and still we got turned down. I mean this is years of battle to get a piece of land, then two years to battle to get another piece of land, and you know what? In November I got the land, at the end of November, 30 November. The 1st of December I had bulldozers on there to get this land underway, and we got a whole team in, we built the whole school in the space of six weeks.
It was a shock to everyone that we could ever get the thing up in such a time. No one believed we could do it, but we did it, and it just was God working through all the people having a heart to work, and to get it done. It was just astonishing how people came together, even people from other churches came and helped us, we got this whole thing. So I'd gone seven years without being able to solve this problem, and in two months God got the whole thing done. I wish I'd known a bit more in those days, I didn't know too much. So divine delay, the purpose of divine delay is to make you a bigger person, so what are you doing when the delay is on, that is crucial?
Here's the last thing is, the reason that dreams are delayed is because you're actually failing to do what you need to do. Now let's face it, dreams don't come about because you dream about them. You've got to do something, and this is about faith always has action. In the kingdom of God no one is passive. In Matthew, Chapter 11, Verse 12, he says the kingdom of heaven suffers violence, violent pressure. There's a certain measure you have to be assertive to bring things from heaven to the earth, so waiting for God doesn't mean you're doing nothing. You have need of faith and patience that after you've done something - you've got to be doing. There has to be a doing, so there are some things we're doing, and notice Joshua's told you've got the Promised Land, wonderful, now go in and fight, and every bit of it by the sword. How about that - and he said not only that, I'll put some enemies in there, just so you can learn how to war. By the way, I want you to learn how to war.