Shh...On Two Wheels, more or less

Shh…On Two Wheels, More or Less

    This past Sunday I was sitting in the balcony for the service because that’s where my family was and my personal preference is to be with my family and worship and, whenever possible, hear God speak to me. Early Sunday mornings it is my custom that when I awake to take that Sunday morning’s bulletin and pray through the services, the participants and their particular part of the service, for the church staff and their ministry area, for the congregation that morning, our missionary partners, and the various items found in the bulletin which is a wealth of information and prayer opportunities. Thank you Nancy for being so faithful to email this goldmine to me, I appreciate all you do in His service. Because of my early morning prayer session I was there in anticipation and ready to be blessed hearing from Ashley Adamson, our wonderfully blessed Director of Children’s Ministry. Ashley is the real deal, filled with the Holy Spirit, and actively pursuing God’s will. She makes me wish I were a little kid again even knowing I’d have to face those teen years and all that angst again. I believed that God was going to speak through Ashley to me and they did not disappoint me. As is so often the case, it turned out to be very timely for me.

    Ashley spoke to us about the blessings of silence, how we should seek out solitude to go with it, and to go so far as to create special places and times for ourselves to be silent before our God. We should never be lonely because He is always with us and should take advantage of such times when we find ourselves alone to embrace the solitude of the moment and listen for the voice of God. These are “great opportunities for Godly discovery”. She talked about the discipline to practice silence in His presence and how difficult an activity such a passive sounding thing can be. Imagine, not speaking, putting your mind in a receive-only mode, shutting down the thousands of random thoughts about your life, and directing your inner thoughts to the task at hand, hearing God speak to you. OMG (yes, I spent time with a bunch of teen babysitters last night at church), this is the hardest thing I undertake in my spiritual life! The silence part is not all that difficult for me as I am by nature, a quiet and introverted person, much to the contrary as to how God has determined to use me over the years. I am generally slow to speak and when I do it is usually with conviction. A very good friend has referred to me as an Ent; go ahead and Google the word for a laugh. It’s those times that I’m not following my own general rule that tend to cause me trouble. My biggest problem for this discipline is the quieting of my mind and harnessing my thoughts and bending them to be completely surrendered to listing for Him. Ashley referred to Richard J. Foster’s “Celebration of Discipline” as a great resource of this practice and I have to concur; read it, you’ll like it. I use the word “practice” here because that is what this should be, practice and discipline. Starting out, go as long and completely into it as you can. Then the next time go longer and deeper. Sounds like a workout doesn’t it? If we want our spiritual abilities to improve then we have to exercise them. A principle that I have shared with young and old audiences is “SAID”, Specific Adaptation to Imposed Demand. If we practice being passive in front of the TV then we’ll get better at being passive. Trust me on this one, I’m pretty strong in the passivity department and it’s my biggest hurdle to writing. If we practice the spiritual disciplines then we’ll get better at being spiritual beings, in touch with Our Father and, as with any healthy practice, we will live longer and be filled with Joy. This is such a tough discipline for me that I often times go a long while without it and it then requires a difficult season ahead to send me to solitude. One such season starts about a month before Mission Arizona, peaks during the trip, and levels off a week or so afterwards. I seek short respites from the turmoil to charge up and find His direction and usually at some point during the trip when I’m feeling lost and ineffective and pleading for a meeting He tells me that He’ll meet me in the way and then He does. Is it any wonder that when I believe it to be His will that I embrace MAZ?

  Well, all this and I haven’t even touched on the “very timely for me” part or put this on two wheels. Perhaps there will be space for a paragraph on that toward the end. This has gone in a different direction than I thought it would but I’m having too much fun and feeling too blessed to stop now. Ashley used the forced silence of Zechariah (Luke, Chapter 1 is the reference) during his son John the Baptist’s incubation as her biblical anchor for the message. How great was that! It was the first Sunday of Advent, Zechariah starting on the journey to bring John the Baptist, the herald of Christ our King into the world. Sweet. Ashley shared how Zechariah’s silence was forced, a punishment for his unbelief, but that it was in truth, a real blessing to him. He came from the temple and the people knew he had seen a vision but was unable to speak. After his term of service in the temple was over he returned to Elizabeth, his wife and continued following the vision and she became pregnant with John the Baptist. The confirmation of Ashley’s contention that this was a blessing comes when Zechariah completed the command from the vision, naming his son John (vs. 62 – 66) and then bursting into prophesy (vs. 67 – 79).  I can’t help it, I have to quote part of the prophesy here, Luke 1, 76 - 79:

“And you, my child, will be called a prophet of the Most High; for you will go on before the Lord to prepare the way for him, to give his people the knowledge of salvation through the forgiveness of their sins, because of the tender mercy of our God, by which the rising sun will come to us from heaven to shine on those living in darkness and in the shadow of death, to guide our feet into the path of peace.”

My friends, this is how I pray for my own children, their children, their spouses and significant others, and my beloved wife; that they go before the Lord, prepare a way for Him and give the people knowledge of their salvation. I thank Him for the tender mercy of their blessings in my life. Neighbors, this is how I pray for the children God brings into my life, the people who cross my path, and especially those that are yoked with me in shared service for MAZ and the children. I have a confession to make here. Typing this I broke down completely and wept with conviction because I don’t actually do this enough and fear that I’ve failed Him and in some way let somebody go by that needed a blessing right then. While I feel strongly that the Lord wants me to be writing, I believe that this is God’s highest calling to me; to pray for the children and bless those around me.

I was going to continue on with my timely practical application of Ashley’s message that I used on two wheels but I just can’t, maybe later this week. I have to leave this post here and encourage you, my friends, to seek out the quiet place, the silence, the solitude, and hear God speaking to you. You’ll probably be broken by it but a broken and contrite spirit, God does not despise.

In His grip, jerry