How does God speak to you?
To me, what he uses more often than not is the nature that he surrounds me with. Over the course of the race this has looked like anything from a rain storm in Serbia to mountain tops in Romania or the jungles of Malaysia. He just opens my eyes to the creation around me and shows me something new every time. Even if it is through something that I have seen a thousand times.
Just the other day he did just that….
I was sitting on the edge of the dirt soccer field in the mountains on Myanmar at our school, and what did I see?
Nothing but his glorious creation!
And yet out of this seemingly inanimate landscape I get a life lesson for myself and maybe for others as well. I know my dad will appreciate this one. As I was sitting there I couldn’t help but notice the amazing mountain backdrop. It reminds me of something out of the movie “The Man from Snowy River.” Its breathtaking.
As I sit here staring off in the distance something is blocking my view…a mostly dead tree. It was dead, it just didn’t know it yet. If it was my tree, I’d cut it down, but I can see why some wouldn’t because technically “it’s not dead yet.”
It was at that point that God just kind of sat back and let me realize what he wanted me to see. Ten minutes and a few rabbit holes later I realized that the tree that was blocking my view was in my life…its somewhere. Something in my life is sticking up blocking my view of the bigger picture that is God’s purpose for me. I don’t know what that tree is but I know God will reveal that to me in his time.
As I have thought about what it is and the fact that I need to “cut it down,” I have been thinking that it is probably something that I don’t want to get rid of. Its something that I am simply keeping alive because I don’t want to give up on it. And yet it is because of this tree that I can’t see the big picture that God has.
If you look through a camera into this shot, the photo would be focused on this dying tree, and make the landscape blurry. I don’t want that. I want clarity and I want to know what God has for me. As I have been processing what this could look like my teammate Molly, bless her heart, completely wrecked how my brain was working…in a good way…maybe. She said “Maybe you don’t need to cut it down, maybe it is something that you need to nurse back to life, and once it is back to full health then it will blend in with the bigger picture that the Lord has for you.”
Thanks a lot Molly, now I don’t know which one it is….I guess I have to hold off on going crazy with my chainsaw and have to check for things that I haven’t given enough attention to lately. Only God knows and I intend to ask Him until he gives me an answer. Ask and you shall receive.
Has the Lord revealed something like this to you over the past days, weeks, or months? If so tell me about it in the comments.
God Bless from Myanmar!
Love y’all!
