I take you now to the wilds of Africa in the middle of the night in the bush of the Massai Mara. Hey Monie, I have to pee. "Me too" she says as she reminds me of the warning from the tribesmen who guard the tent compound. "Dont come out of your tent, lions and hyenna's come to the compound, it is not safe to be outside in the night. But like good Americans, we ignored the warning of the experts for the great cause of pain relief. As we crawled out of our tent, I was taken back by what I saw. It was so amazing that I could never describe what I saw with any sense of accuracy. I saw the stars for the first time in my life. Oh, I had been out west in Montana and northern Idaho and had seen the great vista in the night sky. But this was far beyond any demonstration of stars I had ever seen. In this case, the tent was like a womb- as we emerged we were born into the middle of a celestial light show.
Mark Batterson, in chapter 4 on breaking out of the cage of our assumptions, reminds us of God using the stars to shatter assumptions. In Genesis 15:5, Father God took Abraham outside of his tent to see the stars and present a greater reality to him. My paraphrase is : "Count them if you can, but I know you cant. You wont be able to count the number of your decendants either". This promise to a childless old man of his future family had to transcend his own reality. Inside the tent, he could only see his own little world, by looking up at the innumerable stars in the desert. He got a look at God's perspective and decided to believe God's view more the his own- that is called faith.
We are confronted often with contradictions between what God has said in His word and what we have assumed to be the right way to see it. Just like Abraham, we have a choice to make.
And by the way, the next night when we had to pee again, we stayed in the tent because I heard a large animal outside of our tent. That noise, so close, changed our perspective and our priorities.
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2 comments:
I'm amazed that more of our senior saints don't look at Abraham more often and say to themselves "I guess God isn't through with me afterall!" Not necessarily to have children, but to just get off the sidelines of ministry and back into the game. They have so much to offer. Wisdom for sure, but even more is the way they can speak to teenagers. They do so in a way parents can't. They remove the emotion out of discussions. We all miss out when they remove themselves from ministry. We are never too old and never too young to be used by God.
I agree, Jim that seniors have so much to share. Unfortunately, even if they wanted to I don't think the church culture has provided a place for that to happen. They are rarely valued let alone invited to share or minister. Our youth obsessed culture unfortunately has penetrated the church. "Old ways" and "trends" of the past is often the way they are viewed. God help us when its our turn to be seniors. We reap what we sow. John, love the illustration! God give us the vision of the stars...whatever that is in our own lives.
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