This week I’ve been dwelling a lot on the assignment. There are a number of things I could choose to write about ‘vision’ in relationship to God from past experiences. Since that might be a bit too wordy (which tends to be true of me anyway) I will pick one thing that has impacted my spiritual growth.
Years ago, I was in the struggle of trying to ‘fix’ a bad marriage. I just didn’t know how. I was a Christian, but I was not a mature one, and hadn’t yet learned to leave things to God and follow His leading. I HAD to fix things….no matter what it was. It didn’t work. It never does. I’ve learned that the hard way.
But during that time, I decided to take a long walk beside the ocean in my hometown, to work out some of the stress. As I walked along the edge of the sea, breathing in the heavy salt air, I began to talk to God. I stopped and looked at the ocean, rolling in, wave after wave, with perfect rhythm. I said, “Lord… the sea is so large. It has no boundaries.”
Almost immediately I heard that still, small Voice within me answer, ” Yes, it IS large, but I Am greater still. And, although you cannot see them, the sea does have boundaries. I have no beginning and no end.”
I spoke again. “The water flows and ebbs, it continues without thought.” and the Voice replied, “I created the sea, and all that is within it. I set the waves in motion and I caused them to roll as they do. “
I continued. “There is so much life in the sea. The fish, the whales, the plant life, the tiny little things I can’t even see or recognize.” Again, the Voice answered within me. “That is true, the sea holds much life, but I am the Giver of all Life.”
It hit me that I was having a conversation with God, a real ‘give and take’ conversation. It amazed me. Though I heard no voice in my ear, I heard it in my heart. It was comforting.
Turning, I walked along the shoreline, taunting the waves to catch my footsteps, I noticed the sand. “Lord, there are so many grains of sand, no one could ever count them all.” The Voice answered again. ” I have numbered them. There are many, more than the stars in the skies, and if every grain of sand was one of your problems, I would know each one of them and every detail of each one.”
I stopped. I needed to sit and think about what had just happened. I had just had a conversation with the Almighty God, the Creator of all things. I’ve not, to this day, forgotten that. Over the years as I’ve walked with Jesus, the conversation has come back to me and replayed. New insights for me have come from it when I realize that I was there to ‘work out my stresses.’ I didn’t invite God into that, other than to be amazed at His handiwork. I didn’t invite Him to join me that day…but He was there anyway.
Looking at the experience from time to time has shown me that it is God that I should appreciate, more so than His gift of creation. It has reminded me that God knows all things, and He sees every act, deed, thought, emotion that is in my life. It has caused me to realize that I can turn over the ‘fixing of everything’ to Him, for He holds it all in His hands. It has taught me to see GOD in a very different way as I’ve grown, and to keep looking at Him.
I’ll sum it all up with a line that I heard in a ‘random’ movie we watched last night. “You will never be able to see what IS or what WAS or what WILL BE unless you are willing to really look.”
Lord, please keep my eyes on YOU…and my vision clear. Amen
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