[insert perfectly written introduction that grabs your attention and makes you want to read the rest of this post].
Forgive me, but you’ll have to use your imagination on this one because I am terrible at introductions.
So lets just jump in…
I’ve known the Lord of a very long time. But “knowing” him intimately, deeply – that is something that is just now coming.
Recently, I have been working through the book The Art of Listening Prayer by Seth Barnes, the founder of Adventures in Missions. It has been quite the challenge.
Let me back up one second and explain to you something that happened at training camp:
So at training camp (which was already a month ago, wild!, I know) I went to a break out session titled “Disciplines for Intimacy with the Lord”
During the session my lovely squad mentor Beka, shared part of her story and how she regularly meets with the Lord and how it has changed the way she lives her daily life. She lead us through an exercise where we all closed our eyes, pictured a place, pictured us in that place and then pictured Jesus coming to met us there. The questions she posed were:
“What does he have to say to you? What do you need to hear?
(I understand this might sound crazy to some of you, but just bear with me)
As I closed my eyes, I pictured a clearing in a forest, with wildflowers and sunflowers and super soft grass to sit on. But something was off. I was trying to sit down and trying to listen to what the Lord was saying to me except I couldn’t, at all. In this visualization, there was this root of a tree that was right where I was trying to sit. I couldn’t sit down, I tried to sit on it, tried to push it away, tried to move away from it and sit else where, all to no avail. It was sticking into my back and I could pay attention to anything the Lord wanted to say to me.
I was so frustrated. I couldn’t figure out what the root was or how to get rid of it.
Fast forward to the present as I am now working through this 30 day devotional/listening prayer book. I’m three days in, and every time I try and sit down to listen and speak with the Lord I feeling angry, for no apparent reason.
The same frustration I felt when that tree root wouldn’t let me sit down and listen is the same frustration I have been feeling these past few days. It’s disheartening when all my heart wants is to heard the Lord speak to me.
The reason I am tell you all of this is because of what happened tonight as I wrestled with this root of whatever the heck it is, during the time I had set aside to meet with the Lord.
I haven’t figured out the root, there is still messy, grossness in my heart that the Lord and I will work through. But what he gave the tonight was not the revelation of what this root is but instead, a promise. He gave me a promise that we will walk through this next season together and it will all make sense at the end. He has challenged me to look beyond the grossness in my heart, beyond this root and look to him.
To be willing to live in the grace.
“Oh sing to the Lord a new song;
sing to the Lord , all the earth!
Sing to the Lord, bless his name;
tell of his salvation from day to day.
Declare his glory among the nations,
his marvelous works among all the peoples.”
(Psalm 96:1-3)
I’ve been singing the same song for a while now; a song of condemnation and disappointment. A song that involves a check list of things to do and a bunch of lies that I have come to accept as truth, a song of punishment instead of grace. All burdened upon me, by me. Because I know the Lord better to know that it is not from him.
But what is from him is a promise, woven into those verses that jumped at me tonight – the promise of a new song; of a beautiful one, if I will only let go and let him lead me instead of trying to control everything on my own.
I’m still learning, I have a feeling that this might be a long journey. But I am trusting, moving forward knowing that He knows what he is doing and I all need to worry about is learning to listen and getting to know him and continuing to declare his name and his salvation to the ends of the earth because he doesn’t need me to be put together to use me to further his Kingdom.
“He calls his own sheep by name and leads them out. When he has brought out all his own, he goes on ahead of them, and his sheep follow him because they know his voice. (John 10:3-4)
