As I’m trying to squeeze the most out of these last few days in Honduras, I often find myself looking back to try and understand just where this month went. Much of my time was spent building memories with the kids here at Heart of Christ – cuddling, exploring, learning to say pleas and thank you, and this Friday we had a birthday celebration complete with a piñata! You can see photos here: https://www.facebook.com/wrcorriemeyer/. While those memories will always make me smile and have left an imprint on my heart, when I reflect on the blessings of this first month on the race, I am drawn inward.
My time here has been a springboard for a spiritual journey of learning who my God is and who I am. Don’t get me wrong – I’m not very far yet. Think of Sam Gamgee getting to that point where he says “If I take one more step, it’ll be the farthest away (from home) I’ve ever been.” I think I’ve just taken that step. Equally exciting and terrifying. Exciting to learn to hear the voice of my Shepherd and to be reassured that he’s been trying to speak to me my whole life. Terrifying to tear down the walls I’ve put up to keep people out. Lots of walls…
It took me a very long time to even believe that the Spirit truly did ‘speak’ to people in any way, and when I finally did (the stories people like Paula Benne shared with me made it impossible not to believe!), it was something I believed in for others, not for me.
I believed the lie that I’m not worthy enough for the Spirit to talk to me.
Here in Honduras our ministry hosts have been patiently chipping away at that idea. Mami Gracie makes communication with the Spirit seem so ordinary, so normal for each of us. God wants a personal relationship with each one of us and with me too! A relationship that is different than the relationship he has with anyone else, one where he can share love with in a way that is unique to me.
- So far I’m not hearing the audible voice of God, or visions, or even strong gut feelings, but I am getting a massive amount of repeated messages from all directions. It happens so often that daily I find myself smiling at the sheer volume of ‘God coincidences.’ I find myself waiting for them all throughout the day now. Things like:
- One of our very first devotions with Mami Gracie, we together listened to a sermon from Steven Furtick (watch this for sure) about the healing at the pool at Bethesda (John 5) – the very same scripture passage we had studied at a squad right before launch, and the very same message of “do you really want to be healed?”
- During a one-on-one with my squad leader Hallie, we prayed for balance with respect to seriousness and light-heartedness, and then the next morning my first listening prayer question is “is my life in balance?”
- After diving into the book Daring Greatly, and exploring how to embrace vulnerability, a few days later, Mami Gracie opens our devotional time saying she wants to “discuss vulnerability today.”
- When I was trying to find the verse in the Bible “Be still, and know that I am God” so I can give it to Papi Lee as my prayer verse (the struggle is real without google at my fingertips!) and it ended up being the exact scripture meditation I had the next morning.
- When we first met Mami Gracie and she mentioned how her dad told her she has diarrhea of the mouth, which made me think of a story from my own life about verbal diarrhea, aka purple diarrhea, and I realize she’s wearing a purple shirt.
- One morning I was feeling guilty about rushing through my listening prayer questions in order to get to breakfast, and literally the next question was “Do I pause sufficiently in my interactions with you?”
- When my listening prayer studies had me reading different examples of the variety of ways God speaks to us, specifically reading about the Philip and the Ethiopian eunuch in Acts 8:26-40, and how Philip is physically transported from one place to another. I made a mental note to ask Mami Gracie if she knows of anything like that, and a few days later she randomly brings up a story of exactly that happening to her and some racers a few years back.
This list could go on for awhile and that makes my heart smile. Some of them may feel like stretches, and perhaps they are. Yet I cannot deny the sheer mass of them. In the Gospel of John, Jesus tells us he is our Good Shepherd, saying
“The sheep hear his voice, and he calls his own sheep by name and leads them out. When he has brought out all his own, he goes before them, and the sheep follow him, for they know his voice.” ~ John 10:3-4
God is talking to me! Me! He’s probably always been there talking to me, but now I’m starting to hear and recognize his voice. And here’s the thing, I didn’t earn that. He’s always desired to talk to me, just like he’s desiring to talk to you.
Don’t believe the lie that you need to do something or fix something before you’ll be good enough for God to talk to you. Just slow down, and start listening.
If you need some help with that, this is the journal I’m stepping through: The Art of Listening Prayer. I’m not perfect with it, and I don’t always feel close to the Lord, but as I give him more of my time, he shows me more of who he is and how much he delights in talking with me. Try it out and let’s talk about how it goes 🙂
