Soul care is a very spirit-led time where a person is guided through traumatic (more or less) events in their life in order to bring closure or truth into them.
What happened after my second installment in rural Botswana was quite unexpected.
After the gut wrenching hour and a half journey down memory lane, I sat in a slightly euphoric state, mesmerized by the beautiful landscape of the Okavango Delta. The colors were so bright, even the chirps of the bird’s were more crisp than I have ever heard. It was as if a veil was lifted from my senses and I was able to experience life in a brand new fullness. Mills, my squad leader who was leading the session, had two words which made a vague amount of sense at the time, “the scales have fallen off,” and, “the details matter.”
As all this conversation continued, I felt the Lord urging me to remove my contacts. I didn’t really understand why, especially after the whole, “details matter” thing.
As I removed my lenses the once bright, crisp tree leaves, vines, and doves faded into color splotches which mocked my poor eyesight with their afternoon cooing. My few moments of Spirit filled elation was replaced with a fair amount of confusion and a headache from straining my eyes to see through the African bush.
However, all I heard in my spirit was, “three days, three days, three days.”
Day one of this “vision fast” we didn’t have Bible study because part of the team endured a literal all day trip to the grocery store. It was 4 hours away so they bought food for the entire month in one trip. Needless to say, there was quite a bit of sorting to do afterward. There wasn’t room for everyone to help so some of us went down to the delta to watch the sunset.
All I could see were shapes and blended colors. However, I heard from my team the sky was immaculate. As I was asking God why He would paint such a beautiful sunset the same day he told me to remove my contacts for three days, Paige, one of our raised up squad leaders, handed me a small yellow flower.
I appreciated the flower for a few seconds, then dropped it and squinted my eyes as hard as I could to see the sunset. The yellow and peach clouds came into a muddy focus, then the clarity would be whisked away, only for me to try harder the next time. Eventually, I grew tired of straining my eyes so I just plopped in the sand of the delta. Feeling utterly defeated, I began to examine the little flower again. It was actually quite immaculate when observed closely. There must have been a hundred deep yellow, baby petals emanating from the fuzzy black interior. The stem was pale green and had tiny little hairs which glinted in the fading sunlight. It looked as if a few small bugs enjoyed a fancy leaf dinner, perforating a small section of one of the blades.
As I was drinking in the beauty and detail of this flower I realized, I would have never paid attention to this amazing little flower if I was able to see the sunset.
i.e. The details matter
An exercise in perspective:
The hour by hour, minute by minute, second by second decisions we make every day bring us one step closer to or farther from God’s “big plan” for our lives. From how we treat our brothers and sisters in Christ, our interactions with strangers at the grocery store, to how you treat your server at the restaurant after church, (it’s a big deal y’all, servers hate the Sunday crowd because, typically, Christians are picky and the worst tippers. Be the gospel to your server, but that’s for another blog.)
Our choices and interactions today are the literal bone structure of the big picture God has for our lives.
Do we see the beauty in our every day circumstances and situations, or are we too busy grasping to make sense of the big bad future?
I’m not saying we shouldn’t dream however, if we focus too much on what we will be doing 10 years from now, we may miss out on the very life changing opportunity which will catapult us into everything the Father has for our lives. Or better yet, what He has for someone else.
How many of us walk around blind every day to the opportunities which are presented, not out of a lack of care, but simply because we don’t see them in front of us?
As I mentioned in my last blog about Michael, the man we met in Cambodia. God places ministry opportunities in front of us every day, but how many of us are actually looking at life through the lens of building Kingdom?
We can’t afford to zombie our way through this battle with 20/80 spiritual vision.
The cost is much greater than someone’s life here on earth to be changed or blessed.
The cost is their eternity.
Moreover, I believe walking with clear vision comes with a new level of responsibility. Because we can now see the opportunities placed before us, we are entrusted to steward them well. This is a weighty responsibility however, it is what we have been called to do. In closing, I will borrow Paul’s words in Ephesians, “Awake, O sleeper, rise up from the dead, and Christ will give you light.”
It’s time to wake up from our spiritual naps and thrive in this light we’ve been given.
It’s time to flourish with clear vision.
It’s time to fully experience the life of discipleship to which we have been called.
