“Should I Stay or Should I Go?” Mike Hoye – 26th January 2018
Starting our 2018 theme of “A Fork in the Road” we were pleased to welcome Mike Hoye from Brown Jacobson to share his life lesson.
Mike shared about a time when he was facing a choice and recalled Isaiah 30:21 “…and whenever you turn to the right or to the left, your ears will hear this command behind you: “This is the way. Walk in it.”
While living in Towcester (pronounced toaster!!) and working in Milton Keynes in the 1990’s he recalled feeling that he needed to move on and felt the job was becoming boring! So Mike found a new job in Peterborough and went about applying, being interviewed and then being offered the position. Whilst working his 3 months’ notice period and preparing for the job move he gradually became uneasy for some reason. Within a month of leaving his old job he realised he hadn’t prayed about it, as he had thought that if he got the job it must God’s will.
“I felt terrible. With a couple of weeks left I finally cried out to God and asked him to help me.”
After praying, Mike recalled being drawn to remember Exodus 33:15, “If your presence does not go,” Moses responded to him, “don’t make us go up from here”. So he asked God to intervene as to where and what to do!
Following a conversation with his Dad they came to the conclusion that if he was uneasy with the job move he could go to see if he could remain in his current job.
The next day he sat down with the Head of the Legal Department, un sure of what to say he began, “You know I handed in my notice…”. His boss immediately cut in, not even allowing him to finish his sentence by saying, “If you’re saying you want to stay, we would actually be delighted”! Mike was overwhelmed with a sense of relief and God’s Peace, and continued in that employment for another 5 years!
Mike remembered something he had heard in the Alpha Course: The five C.S.’s
- Controlling Spirit – The Holy Spirit leading
- Commanding Scripture – The Bible speaking
- Circumstantial Sign – What’s happening
- Counsel of Saints – Advice from other Christians
- Common Sense – Goes without saying!
He recalled at the time he was reading Robert Murray McCheyne a 19th century Scottish pastor and writer who wrote his Personal Reformation. He began by saying, “It is the duty of ministers in this day to begin the reformation of religion . . . with confession of past sin, earnest prayer for direction, grace, and full purpose of heart.” He then gives us simple, but challenging insight into how a pastor must go about loving God and loving others.
McCheyne writes, “I am persuaded that I shall obtain the highest amount of present happiness, I shall do most for God’s glory and the good of man, and I shall have the fullest reward in eternity,” by doing three things:
- “By maintaining a conscience always washed in Christ’s blood.”
- “By being filled with the Holy Spirit at all times.”
- “By attaining the most entire likeness to Christ in mind, will, and heart, that it is possible for a redeemed sinner to attain to in this world.”
Mike now tries to live by this rule. In 2017 it seemed this was all to repeat itself, but by prayer and following the principles he had remembered, he knew what he needed to do. So his new year resolution was to have an over-riding principle to be in the Lord’s will and follow where he leads.