OK, sometimes I just have to laugh at the hoops that God is willing to jump through just to speak to me.  Last Tuesday was one of those times.

I was sitting out by our pond and asking him what he had for me.  A week earlier I had clearly heard, with admittedly some frustration, that God wanted me to slow down in my pursuit of publishing a study guide to go with The Unseen War.  I was honestly hoping that this week he may lift the moratorium on my publishing efforts.   Instead, what I saw was a crane (the bird variety) sitting on a boat dock.  My mind immediately went to a friend of mine who had told me that he had gone out to hunt some of these off of his pond as they were eating all of his fish.  I then reflected on how I wish I were a better hunter, but I’m just not patient … THAT’S IT!  God literally just stopped me mid-thought and said, ‘Patience, that’s what I want for you.’

He then told me to turn to the book of Zechariah (I won’t even begin to go into all the complexities that it took to get me here).  Anyway, as I started reading, he took me to chapter four. '"Not by might or by power, but by my Spirit", says the Lord.' (v6).  'What are you, O mighty mountain … you will become level ground.’(v 7).  And ‘Who despises the day of small things?’ (v10).  In a matter of just a few minutes, my King had clearly reminded me that my part was to trust his plan for my life rather than manipulate in an effort to bypass my fears (mountains).

Now I’m sure there would be those who might say that I just heard what I wanted to hear, that I manipulated the circumstances to ‘speak’ something to me.  But here’s the thing. That isn’t what I wanted to hear, and yet it is so consistent with the heart of God as he trains us to wait on him, to trust him.  One of the best pieces of advise I have ever heard on hearing God came from John Eldredge who says that until we are willing to hear a ‘no’, we can never here a ‘yes’.

You see, I believe that God is dying to speak to us, if we would just slow down enough to listen … or maybe just notice a crane sitting on a dock.

To the King,

David