So
while we’ve been here in Ukraine I’ve been painting a huge, blue fence.
Hour by hour, day by day the same thing happens: after breakfast,
start paining, break at 10am and stop at 12:45pm to clean your hands for
lunch at 1pm. After lunch break, start back on the fence until the end
of the day. Pole by pole the new brighter paint covers over every inch
of the old, sun faded, chipped paint.
Lately I’ve been pressing into God about things that I haven’t
thought about in a long time. I have started to ask God about dreams and
prophecies that he gave me years ago that still have not taken place
and just going back to him about them, saying; “Ok God, is it time yet,
have I missed something or do you still want me to wait?” Well, today I
was back at the fence after a weekend of speaking at church and found
myself painting by myself. The whisper started, “paint the fence.”
Surely I’ve just seen the “Karate Kid” way too many times and so the
movie clip started running through my head. I totally got distracted in
my thoughts and lunch time came. After lunch I’m back up at the fence,
painting away and Mr. Miyagi started rolling back in my head
“Daniel-san, paint the fence.” Ok God are you trying to say something?
Yup, sometimes it’s not exhaustion speaking it’s actually God. Most of
the time I was painting I’ve also been listening to a sermon series on
the life of David.
Today, funny
enough the preacher was talking about the reason David was the perfect
man for the job and called the man after God’s heart was because he
learned how to experience and enjoy God in the mundane and difficult
things of life. Things like watching sheep (one of the lowest positions
you could have in that day) became a worship service in the middle of
nowhere under the stars, things like being disowned by your family
became another chance to run into God’s arms, and running for your life
in the desert became a chance to write some of the most beautiful and
truthful thoughts about God even to this day.
Anyway, I was really enjoying the message and once again, “paint
the fence.” What God? What does that mean? As I continued to paint,
stoke after stroke, God spoke to me. A life of intimacy with him is what
cultivates a character that can worship in the boring, insignificant
things in life. That kind of character can be denied and totally
rejected by the outside world – friends, family and nations and yet you
can still be ok on the inside because you have a grip on the creator.
Once you have that kinda grip on the Lord you can’t let go even when
you’re running for your life. Instead, you clutch onto him a little
tighter, cry out to him and hold on for the ride. That kind of intimacy
with God and that ability to press into worship no matter what the
circumstances was what made David the man who fulfilled everything he
was called to do in his generation. And as I stood there painting the
fence, God spoke to me, saying learn how to do that – “paint the fence.”
He also reminded me that when you “paint the fence” things around you
change. Like in this case, the fence looks WAY better now, then when we
started. But it’s true for our personal lives too. What areas in your
life need to be painted? God is saying to you: “paint the fence”.
