There’s a place called PenHOP here in Penang, Malaysia. PenHOP is like IHOP in the states (not the pancake house, but the International House of Prayer).
I love this place…the worship is in English (which I had missed), and it’s intermixed with prayer, and is the closest thing to what I love in my church at home. It’s been a breath of fresh air coming into month 11.
There is a corner in the room where they have art supplies for people to use. This particular day, I grabbed a box of crayons and a piece of paper, and went to a corner to pray. I folded the paper into sections, and as I would feel prompted, I would write a word or verse or draw something.
A little bit into this I decided I would close my eyes and choose a color. Weirdly enough, I got excited for what that color would be.
I chose one, opened my eyes, and my heart sank…orange.
The color I had in my hand was orange.
I don’t know why, but I just don’t like orange. I can handle some versions of it, like that burnt autumn orange, but overall, I’m just not a fan. I remember it taking me a really long time to want to read that book, “Radical” by David Platt, all because it had an orange cover.
Silly, right?
But I don’t think there is a single orange item for me to wear in my closet.
I don’t have any favorite anything that bears the color orange.
Halloween is my least favorite holiday.
Orange flavoring in anything, other than Children’s Triaminic medicine, is my least favorite.
I’ve never liked an orange sports team.
The only thing I can think of that I’ve liked that was orange was the Nascar Ricky Rudd Tide Car. And I would just chalk that up to a fluke.
* * *
So, in a rather dismal mood, I sloppily colored the entire section orange. And then I just stared at it. I didn’t even want to do what I was doing any longer.
I wrote on the section next to it: Not this color. Any color but this one. Any color at all. I would never choose this color. Even brown is better. At least then I would think of chocolate.
I opened up the paper…and in the other sections, I had written the following…
The pure in heart will see God.
What comes between me seeing you?
The high and lofty things…anything that exalts itself against You…
Those were the words I had penned before the color orange came into my life.
I was gung-ho about everything the Lord was speaking to me, excited about what He was going to reveal…and then…I got the color I didn’t want.
I didn’t get what I wanted, and my whole mood shifted.
I wasn’t even excited anymore for what He was speaking to me or where He had me.
Because of a COLOR.
Every other section, I had chosen the color.
This was the only section that I didn’t.
And because it wasn’t what I would have chosen, I didn’t even want to do the exercise anymore.
* * *
I get gung-ho about a lot of things.
About things of the Lord.
About what He’s going to do, what He is doing, and where He’ll take me in life…
And then there are times when I look down, and the color of that season or that day is a shade that I wouldn’t choose for myself.
It goes against all that I would naturally be drawn to.
It is nothing like anything I would wear.
But it’s as if He looks at me and says, “Put this on…I know you don’t think this color is what you need to use…I know it’s like nothing you ever wear…but that’s why it’s exactly what you need.”
* * *
The high and lofty things...
My opinion…my preference…my choice…
Those things exalt themselves against Him.
If they didn’t, my insides wouldn’t turn inside out when I have to forfeit them…when I have to surrender them.
When I have to color in a shade that’s not my choice.
Perhaps it’s time I put on a new color.
The color He chooses for me.
