The Shadow of Your Wings

How precious is Your lovingkindness, O God! Therefore ... [I] put [my] trust under the shadow of Your wings ... For with You is the fountain of life; in Your light we see light. Ps 36:7, 9

and a dream

flutterby | July 20, 2008 09:12

I am standing on a roadway, a wide dirt path heading up a hillside. People are coming up the hill, passing around me (as I am almost in the middle of the road) and trudging up the way. No one speaks to me or even acknowledges my being there other than to skirt around me. I know many of the folks passing by, including my own family. Some of the people are talking quietly together, some laughing softly. Others struggle with the burdens they are trying to haul up the hill. Some very intent, focused on the climb. As I look up the road and down, a straggly line of people as far as I can see. Almost all have a dull grey appearance and demeanor - as if there is no real joy or light in their ascent up the well trodden, dusty road.

Of my self I notice only that I have no baggage, I stand alone, in a circle that has been drawn in the dirt around my feet.

As I watch the passersby I feel no desire to join them. But neither do I want to stay where I am. I know that it is time for me, too, to move on with life. I notice a forested mountain rising behind me, the sun blinking through the canopy. (It must be fall there, because the leaves are beginning to change, orange and yellow - a mat of fallen leaf carpets the woodland floor. I can smell it - bright, rich, inviting. There is no path through the wood, but it is clear enough to trek through easily.) I instinctively know that were I to climb that mount I would eventually meet up with the road on the other side ...

I long to step out and onto the mountain side, weave my way through the trees, enjoy the splendor of the forest, the freedom, the climb.

This was a dream I had several weeks ago, while we were vacationing in the mountains of Arkansas. There are some parts of it that I understood clearly, whether within the scope of the dream itself or as I began to wake I can't say, but I knew that everyone else was “moving on with life.” I had just stopped at some point.

I know the point. Four years ago today. I didn’t realize when I began this little series that this last entry would fall on this particular day.* I am in wonder at the timing of it. I truly believe the Lord, in His great and gracious way, intended this and I am thankful …

 - Thankful that He has kept me tucked quietly and securely beneath His wing during this long season.

 - Thankful that He has wakened me with this dream.

 - Thankful that He has given me hope for a future and the knowledge that He has a plan for my life. (Jeremiah 29:11)

 - Thankful that He is beckoning me to “Come, follow …”

For the first time in many years I have a dream … a glimpse of something beyond this little circle in the dust, something other than that long dreary road. “And that has made all the difference.”

I am ready to “move on,” to climb that mountain, take the road less traveled, listening for the Voice of Truth, trusting that He will lead me - always, believing that, though I will falter, my desire to please Him does in fact please Him. (I love this thought!)

I know that He is ready too; waiting, watching for me, reaching for me - “into the realm of the unknown where Jesus is and He’s holding out His hand” - and in that sure knowledge I am unafraid.

“ … I have set before you life and death, blessing and cursing; therefore choose life, that both you and your descendants may live; that you may love the LORD your God, that you may obey His voice, and that you may cling to Him, for He is your life and the length of your days; and that you may dwell in the land which the LORD swore to your fathers ...” Deu 30:19,20

I will choose to listen and believe the Voice of Truth.

I choose Life.

 

 

* Andrea Brooke ~ August 14, 1990 - July 20, 2004 ... our sweet girl.

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a prayer,

flutterby | July 19, 2008 08:52

“My Lord God, I have no idea where I am going. I do not see the road ahead of me. I cannot know for certain where it will end. Nor do I really know myself, and the fact that I think I am following Your will does not mean that I am actually doing so. But I believe that the desire to please You does in fact please You. And I hope I have that desire in all that I am doing. I hope that I will never do anything apart from that desire. And I know that if I do this You will lead me by the right road, though I may know nothing about it. Therefore I will trust You always though I may seem to be lost and in the shadow of death. I will not fear, for You are ever with me and You will never leave me to face my perils alone.”

Thomas Merton

3 of 4 a song, a poem, a prayer, and a dream

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a poem,

flutterby | July 18, 2008 09:34

ROAD LESS TRAVELED

Two roads diverged in a yellow wood
And sorry I could not travel both
And be one traveler, long I stood
And looked down one as far as I could
To where it bent in the undergrowth

Then took the other as just as fair
And having perhaps the better claim
Because it was grassy and wanted wear
Though as for that, the passing there
Had worn them really about the same

And both that morning equally lay
In leaves no step had trodden black
Oh, I kept the first for another day!
Yet, knowing how way leads onto way
I doubted if I should ever come back

I shall be telling this with a sigh
Somewhere ages and ages hence
Two roads diverged in a wood
And I took the one less traveled by
And that has made all the difference


Robert Frost

2 of 4  a song, a poem, a prayer, and a dream

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a song,

flutterby | July 17, 2008 11:11

Oh what I would do to have

the kind of faith it takes

to climb out of this boat I’m in

onto the crashing waves

To step out of my comfort zone

into the realm of the unknown where Jesus is

and He’s holding out His hand

But the waves are calling out my name

and they laugh at me

reminding me of all the times

I’ve tried before and failed

The waves they keep on telling me

time and time again, “Boy, you’ll never win!”

“You’ll never win.”

But the voice of truth tells me a different story

The voice of truth says, “Do not be afraid!”

The voice of truth says, “This is for My glory.”

Out of all the voices calling out to me

I will choose to listen and believe the voice of truth.

(from “Voice of Truth” by Casting Crowns)

1 of 4 a song, a poem, a prayer, and a dream

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Dynamite!

flutterby | July 13, 2008 22:17

An article in the most recent issue of a favorite magazine has impressed such a picture on my mind that I want to share it. The author is writing about intercessory prayer and the idea of such prayers “moving mountains.” *

We often see, especially during our recent trip through the Ozarks, mountainsides that have been blasted away to accommodate new roadways. The process is one that fascinates me in its simplicity and brilliance. According to precise calculations deep holes are drilled into the hilltops into which sticks of dynamite are placed. When detonated the portion of mountain that has been properly drilled and prepared literally slides off in a (hopefully) neat sheet of rock. Mountain moved - at least in part. The process continues until finally a passage is cleared and the traveller is free to move on down the road.

Cathy Eskew, the writer of this article, explains that our prayers for others when properly placed , serve as the shafts drilled by the engineers. When the explosive, in this application, dunamis - the power of God (and coincidentally the root word for dynamite) is dropped into the hole - BOOM! Mountain moved!

“Over time, we cover the problem with prayer and wait for the moment when God detonates His will and the hardness of the situation crumbles.” “… when God detonates His will …”  What a powerful image.

The work of intercession is difficult, drilling through hardened hearts, the rocky ground of the situations for which we intercede; it is often painfully slow, rarely does a mountain side slip off with one drilling, and the holes need to be perfectly positioned to accomplish the task. Every intercessor knows that he/she will often spend as much time asking how to pray as praying for that which has been laid upon the heart. God knows precisely where and how deep the auger must go, and the exact moment He intends to cause the explosion.

Have we done the work given to us? The clearing away of debris, warning bystanders, holding steadfastly to the drill, patiently moving to each new site as the Spirit leads … In the words of the writer, “This kind of praying isn’t for wimps. … But what an adventure to pray and then watch that slab of rock shatter!”

KA BOOM!

* Moving Mountains by Cathy Eskew can be read in its entirety in the July/August 2008 issue of Discipleship Journal

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