I Found an Old Journal

I found a journal this morning. One that I was keeping in 1990 when I was in cross-cultural evangelism training in Hawaii. As I read through the stories of what the Lord did, I cried because I had forgotten.

I want to share one of them with you--so you can see the sweetness of the Lord.

In a small group prayer meeting, Karen (not her real name) shared her testimony and then asked for prayer because she had a block in her life that was keeping her from growing in God. We listened to her testimony, and began to pray for her. I kept 'hearing' the word "adultery". Hmmm... wasn't mentioned in the testimony.

("Adultery.")

Really? Am I supposed to SAY that??

Keep praying.

("Adultery.")

"Lord please let someone else say that."

("Adultery.")

Me: Sweet Karen, I think I am hearing the word adultery but I'm not sure how it would apply to you.

K: Well, I haven't committed adultery, but I did date a married man one time.

Me: Oh---well let's confess that and disentangle you from the effects of that sin and the involvement of his broken marriage covenant.

Done.

Still praying.

("Murder.")

"Lord, please. Wait a minute. I can't say that."

("Murder.")

Me: (trying to say this as harmless as possible) "Karen, have you intensely hated someone in your heart? You know that is the same as murder."

K: "Yes. And not only that, I tried to kill him. But when I went to shoot him, the gun came apart in my hand. I know it was angels."

We all praised God for how He intervened for her (and the dude) that day! But since the Lord brought it up, we figured there was unfinished business. (He isn't like a man who will continue to bring up something that is healed and forgiven!) So, she went on to forgive further and lay down any lingering thoughts of revenge, regret, etc. And she was finally free.

Now I remember this very well. Sometimes the nudging of the Lord is so gentle and natural, you can think it is your own thought. The only way to know is to take a step of faith. I've made some mistakes with this but I've also seen God's hand, too. I know that, for me, I feel like I die a little bit more each time I step out. Must be part of what He means when He says, "He who loses his life, for My sake, will find it."

(Matt 10: 39)

Life.

Life is worth a try! :)

Sometimes God will Shove You

The first time I felt God pushing me to talk to a total stranger about Him was when I was 19 years old. Some of you would be more comfortable if I had said “The first time I felt God leading me…” But I’m telling you….He pushed!  This is when I began seeing--souls are important to God.

I had been a Christian since I was a little girl and was comfortable talking to my friends about God and had several experiences with Him in my young life.

This time was different because I was to approach someone I didn't know. Stranger danger!!

It was 1978. I was living in Shreveport, Louisiana and was at a laundromat doing a few loads of laundry.  I saw a dude and felt I was to ask him about his relationship with Jesus. I sized him up and found him to be intimidating. He had long black hair, black fingernail polish, weird make-up, ultra skinny and just looked totally maniacal. Ozzy Osborne kinda scary.

I poked my husband (yes, I was married when I was 19) and said, “You need to go talk to that dude about God.”

His reaction was, basically—heck no! Like I was crazy.

That pushed it back to me.

You know it can be really easy to think you know what other people need to be doing ‘for God’. “He needs to ….” She needs to…” “My parents ought to…”  It can cause us to fool ourselves into thinking we are cleaning up the world with our little judgments while we ourselves get very little done.

I love the scripture in John 21:

So Peter seeing him (John) said to Jesus, "Lord, and what about this man?" Jesus said to him, "If I want him to remain until I come, what is that to you? You follow Me!"

Therefore this saying went out among the brethren that that disciple would not die; yet Jesus did not say to him that he would not die, but only, "If I want him to remain until I come, what is that to you?"

Mind your own business, do your own work and encourage others along the way.

So, I get it. I am the one who is supposed to talk to who is now officially named in my head as “Dude”. (Clever, I know).

Then I start head tripping. Maybe just because of his appearance, I’ve profiled him as not knowing God and I’ve sinned by judging by someone’s outward appearance! That’s it! As horrible as that sounds, it is something I can take care of in the privacy of my own heart and I do NOT have to walk over and initiate conversation with “Dude”.

Beautiful. I have now justified my plan to quench and grieve the Holy Spirit by using some hyper-spiritual self-judgment thing that sounds so righteous.

Well, after a quick “Forgive me, Lord, for judging this soul”---I had no relief.

Then the unexpected happened.

Dude started to gather his little pile of things to leave.

I thought my heart would jump OUT of my chest and leave me dead on the floor. I was suddenly more afraid of missing the opportunity to talk to him than I was of actually talking to him! The fear of the Lord gripped my heart and I knew I was in this Holy grip that Paul referred to as “being apprehended”.

Philippians 3:12 “I have not yet reached my goal, and I am not perfect. But Christ has apprehended  me.”

The word ‘apprehended’ is such a word of authority. Like someone with more authority than you has seized you for a purpose---and part of that purpose is to comply.

Proverbs 19:23 - Showing respect (reverential fear) to the LORD brings true life-- if you do it, you can relax without fear of danger.

How much time passed with all of this---I have no idea. I felt like it was eternity---because it was. Eternity was upon me and eternal things were being pushed and pulled around me and I had no idea of time…only aware of the struggle.

Armed with only a weak opening sentence, I approach Dude and said, “We don’t know each other, but could I ask you if you are a Christian?”

Well, now it was out in the air. The proposition that had grown in my heart, mind, spirit and actually sprouted violently through my flesh. Like it would die if it didn’t find air. His face changed and he looked up at me—I figured he was in his 20s—and from his downcast face, I also figured I could outrun him.

Sure enough, his fingernails were nasty, he had markings of Satanism in the way he was dressed and it made no natural sense for me to approach this person.

He said, “I was raised in church. A Baptist church. My mother tells me she prays for me all the time. I’m so far away from all that now. She would say God sent you.”

I said something like, “Will you let me pray with you? You’re not as far away as you think.”

And Dude and I prayed in that nasty laundromat (actually, I think it was named the “Laund-a-ra-lux”). He promised he would either call his mother or, if that seemed too hard to do right away, call another familiar person to help him with his next steps.

I left clean—and a bit ashamed of myself for not responding without all that hesitation.

But then I understood----this is war.

Blooming

A few years ago, I visited my home town. We drove by the house of my childhood and while I was anxious to take it all in, my eyes were mostly hungry for one thing. Is my mimosa tree still there?

Sadly, it is not. Nor is the fence that separated our yard space from the garden area. The barbed wire fence scraped my leg when our Shetland pony tried to get me off of him by running along the fence. The only thing I liked about that mean horse was it threw, bit and kicked my brother in a short 5-second rodeo. It was like a little bit of justice was done for the big-brother stuff he could dish out!

The garden was gone. All that work of cultivating, harvesting, weeding... gone. Now a grassy area is there and no one could look at it now and know that it once produced food for our family.

I met God in that garden. I could pray and pull weeds and sing as loudly as I wanted. I made up songs to God that no one else heard. God produced soul food for me there. And like any land or soul left unattended, random wild growth is there where order and fruitfulness once lived.

The shed that was behind our house; also gone. As a child, I was afraid to go into that shed. It was dark, old and rickety. It is where we stored the feed for the pigs, sheep, chickens and dogs. I had to go in there to get the feed for animals.

But I don't miss the garden so much--and certainly not the shed!

I miss the mimosa tree.

It was pretty. Delicate. Blooming.

The branches were easy to climb and bent slightly when I rested in them.

I pretended the blooms were powder puffs.

I felt feminine there. It was luxurious.

I read so many books in that tree. I read the entire biographical section of our school library.

People say a mimosa tree is like the weed of trees.

I thought I was like a weed, too. 

A little weed girl in a little weed tree.

Blooming.