As I sat on my patio this evening, I asked God what this gnawing feeling inside was all about. It felt like a splinter under the skin, but you can’t see it…there is something irritating in your soul
.
I admit that I wasn’t really expecting an answer. I just wanted relief.
I felt that the Lord said,
“When you were younger, you were so busy doing things and took little time to listen. He continued,
“Now, you have few things to do…but have all the time in the world to listen…and it bothers you.”
That kind of made me feel upset. Here I was trying to get some relief from my inward discomfort, but instead, I got the impression I was resisting something that God wanted me to do. it made me feel worse.
I wrinkled my brow, scowling at the ground.
“Oh…you don’t like that…?” he asked.
I didn’t speak. I just was quiet. There is nothing you can say to God that wouldn’t be prideful at that moment…He likes to test…He likes it a lot.
“You like to talk…but wisdom WANTS to listen so that when you speak, the words will have weight.”
These days I am eyeing retirement, working a little, and writing a lot. But with all of the issues swirling around the world these days, it feels like everything is thrown into a blender and placed in “puree” mode; it is difficult to understand what my activity should be.
But, I think the Lord is taking all of us back to basics. He has taught us (those who came into a relationship with Him a while back… in the Jesus Movement) to swim in placid waters.
Personally, for those my age and older, I feel that I am supposed to enter into the deep water of the personal turmoil of others and give swimming lessons in the midst of a hurricane.
There are many who will not make it to shore if they don’t have veteran swimmers to help them along.
I’m talking about coming alongside others to help them learn to trust Jesus instead of simply getting them saved and leaving them to either swim or drown.
It used to be called discipleship, but that word has a bad connotation these days.
The Christian life needs explaining.
It needs men and women who are humble and authentic lovers of Jesus that wish to serve others by sharing their experiences and helping others become like Him.
I was in the ocean on the outer edge of a hurricane in a dream not long ago.
The wind would sweep me almost out of the water in a circle. Every time it swept me out to sea, I would see a person’s hand sticking up out of the water, and I would grab their wrist, and then the wind would sweep me back toward the shore.
I would drop them off, and before I could stand up, the wind would sweep me back out to the deep where another person’s wrist was above the water.
I would grab them…but just then, a bolt of lightning lit the sky on maybe my fourth or fifth trip around in this hurricane. When the sky was lit up with the flash of lightning. I couldn’t believe my eyes…
I saw thousands of wrists and hands, maybe millions, of wrists and hands, sticking up out of the water. I could grab only one at a time…and every time I made the trip, there were fewer and fewer hands sticking up out of the water asking for help.
I began to swallow water and cough, but I wasn’t fearful I would drown. The Lord kept saying,
“You learned to swim during a time of peace…but it wasn’t so you could show your strokes…it was for this….”
I began to cry out… ”Oh Lord…they’re all going to drown if you don’t sweep others into the storm to help me!” That’s when He opened my eyes.
Another bolt of lightning crackled and lit up the ocean, and there…in the water… were thousands of us…. maybe millions…and everyone had hold of a wrist or a hand, pulling people up from under the water.
When the wind blew me toward the shore, I saw hordes of people on the beach…and people were trying to get them to safety inside. I woke up gasping for air.
As I sat quietly on my patio this evening, the Lord said,
“You can never tell which end is up in a storm at sea…that is why I walk on water…and as long as you look at me and believe, you won’t sink, and there will still be work to do no matter how old you are.”
The lesson the Lord was teaching me was that I learned that following Jesus in the deep end of the pool was not just for me when I was younger…
We learned to swim for others…for the hurricane yet to come.
“Don’t you have a saying, ‘It’s still four months until harvest?
I tell you, open your eyes and look at the fields! They are ripe for harvest. Even now, the one who reaps draws a wage and harvests a crop for eternal life so that the sower and the reaper may be glad together. Thus, the saying ‘One sows and another reaps’ is true. I sent you to reap what you have not worked for. Others have done the hard work, and you have reaped the benefits of their labor.”” John 4:35-38