Monday, July 06, 2009

Visions and Waiting

When we were in Africa Christi was given a vision of our children dancing around, playing in the dirt with the Swazi children at the care points. After our return home I had amazing miraculous confirmation from God that we were returning to Africa. Finally, as the ball was rolling Christi was also worried that we might be misinterpreting God, and placed a fleece of her own out to God, which was returned wet only moments later. All of this occured between January and May of last year.

Here we are a year later, my house has been on the market for 11 months, I have had only a handful of showings, and so my house sits unsold. If I told you I get discouraged, I am sure you can understand why. At the end of our last retreat in 2008 I said goodbye to the campers and staff, yet on Friday I return for the 2009 camping season. If I told you I wondered about the order and meaning of God's timing, I am sure you can understand why.

Although this wilderness is confusing at best, I was encouraged by the words of Oswald Chambers today:

"And the parched ground shall become a pool." Isaiah 35:7

We always have visions, before a thing is made real. When we realize that although the vision is real, it is not real in us, then is the time that Satan comes in with his temptations, and we are apt to say it is no use to go on. Instead of the vision becoming real, there has come the valley of humiliation.

"Life is not as idle ore,
But iron dug from central gloom,
And batter'd by the shocks of doom
To shape and use."

God gives us the vision, then He takes us down to the valley to batter us into the shape of the vision, and it is in the valley that so many of us faint and give way. Every vision will be made real if we will have patience. Think of the enormous leisure of God! He is never in a hurry. We are always in such a frantic hurry. In the light of the glory of the vision we go forth to do things, but the vision is not real in us yet; and God has to take us into the valley, and put us through fires and floods to batter us into shape, until we get to the place where He can trust us with the veritable reality. Ever since we had the vision God has been at work, getting us into the shape of the ideal, and over and over again we escape from His hand and try to batter ourselves into our own shape.

The vision is not a castle in the air, but a vision of what God wants you to be. Let Him put you on His wheel and whirl you as He likes, and as sure as God is God and you are you, you will turn out exactly in accordance with the vision. Don't lose heart in the process. If you have ever had the vision of God, you may try as you like to be satisfied on a lower level, but God will never let you.

I pray that I will soon be in the shape he desires me to be in, so that I can continue on in the vision he has given.

No comments: