I woke this morning feeling empty. I need a refill. A sermon or a verse filled with His love, His peace, and His rest at the end of a week of being needed, led to share His love, peace, and rest with others. Added to that my self imposed drive to proceed on this mission He directed me to do. Yes, this is a He AND I project. But I am the one trying to push it. And then there was Thursday.
Grandson sick at school, doctor appointment because you can’t miss school without it. Parents are teachers and don’t need to desert their students, grandmother is also ill. Another grandson needs a ride to and from an event, a granddaughter’s soccer practice, another one needing her grandparents as her parents were in need of alone time to work on some kind of resolution to a difficult season in their lives. A trip to our local Sam’s Club was like a vacation by the end of the day! Coffee! I needed coffee. Both in the traditional sense of a few minutes to relax, clear the head from all the noise, rest the body from the activity and just relax. But even more I needed spiritual filling. Love in motion still empties the tank. I needed Him.
I know we all go through this. We leave church on Sunday, full of His love and grace. Raring to go and defeat whatever demons dare to attack us. But Monday comes and that level of encouragement we felt is already waning. And so it goes through the rest of the week. We need to find Him and get refilled. My morning routine is a cup of decaf, a time of prayer, and a few minutes of just listening. Eagerly, but from a place of quiet, solemn humility, and a few simple requests like, which direction should I go today, who would you have me serve today, or who should I reach out to today. Other days I ask for His words as I already know His plan for me for that day. He put someone on my heart and He is going to use me to speak to them. If there is anyone reading this that doesn’t believe that this happens, I assure you it does. I am asked by others when sharing these stories later what exactly the message was and many times I confess I have no idea. I have returned to some of these and asked the other person if they recalled exactly what we talked about or what part of it actually made some difference in their lives, and their response is usually, “I don’t remember but it was obviously what I needed to hear”. Some even tell me they were in a bad place and our conversation was just enough for them to realize that they were not in control. Others have been able to summarize even after a lengthy amount of time and having gone through extreme life events.
One example that happened several years ago was a man I barely knew stopped by my desk after closing time and began a conversation. While I wasn’t the transformed man I am today, I could feel God moving me to speak. At the time, I had never experienced a situation where He was leading me to share something like my faith with someone else. The conversation lasted for a while, and when it was over, I knew what it meant to give testimony. I had no idea what words I spoke but I assure you they weren’t mine. I immediately called my wife to tell her about the experience and she of course asked for specifics that I couldn’t provide. This individual later experienced something most of us never will. A near death experience. He was struck by lightning. It wasn’t the kind of experience you read about, no following the light, no looking down as people tried to save him, nothing of the kind. He just knew he survived. Having spent many months in ICU, it had been a very long time between our initial conversation and the one we had after he returned to work. When I approached him, I said “Hey man! You’re not supposed to be here!” He chuckled and said “I know, right!” He continued, thanking me for our conversation, and told me that when alone in ICU for months, a man has a lot of time for reflection. That he examined his life, his beliefs and his decisions. He told me the one thing he kept returning to during those months, was our conversation. He said he had vivid memory of stories, events in my life I had shared with him, and how they influenced my beliefs. He said he compared my stories to events in his life and how, in similar situations, he made different decisions, chose different paths. He told me that he now looked at life through a different lens.
I asked if he now believed in Jesus or had given his life to Him, and unfortunately, he said no. He did however say that he knew that there must be a higher power, because this world, his life and experiences, couldn’t all simply be by chance. I have prayed for him, and my hope is that someday I will learn of his salvation.
Now back to work. But this time I have been waiting on HIS direction. The early results are amazing. I am never shocked at how great our God is. I won’t bore you with details as this project is a journey requiring much more effort, more detail and more patience than I would have expected. However He is beside me. It is after all, a He AND I project. So in HIS time.
Let’s grab a coffee. The Shepherd is speaking.