But as for me, I trust in You, O Lord; I say, “You are my God.” My times are in Your hand. (Psalm 31:14-15, NKJV)
We need to trust God's timing. As I look back over my life I can see that God always had a specific purpose, and a specific time. God will always make a way when there is no way. In 1964, only three and a half years after my first visit to Jerusalem, I lost my voice. Unable to preach in my church, I went to the hospital to be told I had throat cancer and needed an operation. I fell on my knees and said, “O God, teach me how to pray!”– It’s one thing to pray when they say you have cancer, it is totally different when you only have 3 days before they take away your voice! I remember crying out, “Oh God, I haven’t yet seen Your power in my life! Oh God, my dream, my vision is not fulfilled! Oh God heal me! I’ve seen so many miracles! But now I need a miracle!”
In Habakkuk 1:2, the prophet cries out, 'O Lord, how long shall I cry, and You will not hear?' We all have times when we are unable to pray. The need is so great, the pain is more than we can bear. But I want you to trust God's timing. He had a specific time set for my healing from throat cancer, but before He could heal me, God also had a specific purpose to fulfil in my life. Without that healing from throat cancer, I wouldn't have had the faith to believe for my deliverance from a communist prison, and without my experience of the prison, I wouldn't have the ministry I have today. Trust God's plan.
After 10 years as a full-time pastor and evangelist in Britain, my ministry to Russia and Europe began in 1961 when I organised the first ever overland expedition to Jerusalem, travelling behind the Iron Curtain through the Arab countries and into Israel. I had heard that there was to be a World Pentecostal Conference in Jerusalem on the Day of Pentecost! Full of expectation of what God would do, I determined to be there! I had no money to go, but was challenged to do the impossible – set up an expedition, go by road!
Everyone from the motoring organisations to the British Foreign Office said it was too dangerous: in addition to the hazards of crossing the Iron Curtain countries, on unknown roads, without suitable hotels – in Turkey they would be killed by bandits, and in Syria shot as spies – and it was impossible to make the two way crossing by road in and out of Israel! Even my own father (Rev W G Hathaway), a man of faith, prayed desperately that God would stop me! But my heart was set because I believed that if I went by faith, revival would come and I myself would experience a new personal Pentecost.
I went. No, revival did not come in the conference, but God lit a fire in my soul, an unquenchable passion which grows stronger every year for God’s power to be demonstrated in Europe today!
Exactly forty years later, May 2001, I was again in Jerusalem in the same hall, this time to evangelise! Before it started I spent days walking round the hall praying and crying to God, “40 years ago I was so hungry, so determined to receive new power from the Holy Ghost, but You didn’t do anything! I didn’t receive the new fire! What was wrong?”
God answered me, “Forty years ago, after you came here, what happened?” I said, “My whole life changed!” I became a missionary to Israel, coming up to eight times a year, bringing tourists. In order to get to Jerusalem I had to go behind the Iron Curtain, through the communist countries, and God opened my eyes. I made contact with believers, people were pleading with me for Bibles and God began to put a new power in my life. I thought my ministry was Israel, but God said no, it’s in the communist countries.