Profound, Prophetic

There is simply no way for me to sum up or describe everything I have learned in the past 9 months.  It blows me away when I think of all that I have seen, learned, walked through, come to understand, and learned to recognize.  In some ways, I have learned more in recent history than I have from 19 years of formal education.  Certainly things of far greater importance.

The amazing thing to me is that once your eyes are open to the spiritual world, to the ways of the Holy Spirit, to seeing the Hand of God moving and working all around you, you begin to wonder how it is you ever missed all this in the first place!  The down side of having your eyes opened is that you increasingly become aware not only of the Light but also of the Darkness around you as well.  I have certainly experienced both.

Though I have grown by leaps and bounds lately, I can clearly see that we are never done on this journey.  It's not like we get to rest on our laurels and say "Great!  I've arrived!  Nothing left to learn now."  At least not until we arrive at our final Home one day.  Having said that, I had a profound, prophetic moment this week. The lesson I learned is one that took me by surprise.  I don't know why, but it was one of those moments when you feel like you have just experienced a profound truth.  A true "Aha!" moment.  I love those!

As so often happens, this moment occurred during a conversation with one of my amazing Christian friends.  I am blessed with several of these, but one in particular has been a true teacher to me in every sense of the word.  We were discussing a group that we both belong to.  I remembered a conversation we had a long time ago about what his hopes were for this group.  I remember that at the time I thought he was crazy.  His thoughts of what it could and should become seemed completely unrealistic to me.  Furthermore, I couldn't conceive of a way that such changes in attitude and behavior could occur in individuals really, let alone in an entire group.  Of course I was being short sighted.  I was thinking of things from an earthy perspective, not a heavenly one. I was underestimating the power of a Holy God.( I have an unfortunate tendency to do this. Sorry, Father! )The surprising thing about this transformation is the way it happened.  Not by force.  Not by manipulation.  Not by replacing these people with more desirable ones of a similar mind set. Nope.  Not at all.  An entire group of people has been transformed in amazing ways by love, relationship, prayer, common goals, and the power of a God who acts when we trust and rely on Him to do the work, rather than doing it ourselves.  This is the take away.  This is the lesson. This is the big "Aha!" moment.  My friend has been trying to teach me the wisdom of letting God lead for a long time now.  I was hearing it.  I was buying into it.  But I have never seen such profound, concrete evidence that it, in fact, WORKS!  There is a difference between believing something to be true in your head and seeing it and experiencing it at work in the real world.  Seeing the undeniable results of letting go and letting God has had such a positive impact on me.  This is not a lesson I am likely to forget anytime soon.  I am grateful for the opportunity to see how God works when we ask Him, then trust Him to provide what we need.  Shalom!