I am already a day behind schedule writing this, getting it to my editor, and to the church that publishes it in their Sunday bulletin. Normally, what the Holy Spirit has put in my heart for the week is ready to overflow onto the key board—not this week! The brain is just not cooperating. My thoughts are like a clean dry erase board, nothing there. When writers face this impasse, we do what we call ‘free write’. It is simple, just sit at the key board, and write anything that comes to mind. It does not have to make sense, be grammatically correct, or follow a theme. It is like what I did as a kid, priming the hand pump at the farm until the water flowed freely. Problem is, I jammed my index finger into a nail in my wood shop last week, and it is difficult to type with a bandaged finger.
So I decided this morning that maybe this is the message for Sustaining Word. Our spiritual journey can be like this at times. Here in the south we call that ‘dry as a corn shuck’. I have often heard people say, “Heaven is like brass”, meaning my prayers aren’t getting any higher than the ceiling and nothing is coming through from God. These are the times when church seems like same ole, same ole; we have our morning devotion only because we feel obligated; we do good to others out of routine without any feelings of joy or fulfillment. In fact, all of life is same ole, same ole.
We have probably all seen on cable or satellite TV a scene prior to an event as a news conference. Maybe a podium on a stage, a few early arrivers sitting, an occasional tech walking across the platform, but it seems nothing else is taking place. Before I went to Bible College, I was an engineer in a television station. We often had visitors come for a tour. All they had ever seen at home was the background set and a few pieces of furniture. They were always amazed at amount of equipment and the number of people rushing around before a live show. Behind the scenes brought a totally new perspective of what it required to make a show happen. Think about what you see at the moment. Life may seem like an idle scene, but what you do not see is behind the scenes, and what God is doing.
The four hundred years between the Old and New Testament seemed as if the LORD was not doing anything. There were no angelic visitations or any manifestations of God. This is all the struggling nation of Israel saw. Yet, as we look back now, it is obvious the LORD was busy preparing the world for the arrival of the Christ. God used Alexander the Great to bring a common language and common culture to the world. He used the Roman Empire to bring world peace and build a road system for easy travel to those who would go into all the world preaching the Gospel.
Elijah sat in a cave depressed because all he saw was that he was the only prophet remaining. Yet, God was keeping 7000 prophets that Elijah could not see. The book of Esther does not even mention the name of God, but the LORD was behind the scenes preparing for Esther, an orphan Jewish girl, to become Queen in order for Him to use her in saving Israel from annihilation. Confined to prison, Paul probably was thinking how much more he could accomplish if he were free. Yet, it was during this period that God inspired him to write what we call ‘the prison epistles’. I doubt Paul could have imagined that 2000 years later the Church would still be gaining an understanding of Jesus from these letters to the Ephesians, the Philippians, the Colossians and Philemon. Paul could not see behind the scenes and what God was doing to make them part of His Eternal Word.
As I finish this, I can see that behind the scenes God was allowing my mind to be ‘dry as a corn shuck’ so He could get me to write these thoughts. I am sure some of you reading this are feeling this way in your spiritual walk. I had a lot of thoughts in the past few days as I struggled to write—”I’ll just skip this week; does anybody even read these; I’ll put out an old one from a couple of years ago.” You know how this thinking process goes. But God called me to do this, so I kept trying. This is what we all must do when the scene is idle because God is not idle. He is preparing us and setting up the stage for the next part of our life.
Sustaining Word for the Week:
You may not see it. Your spiritual journey may be as a blank erase board. But God is busy getting you ready and everything in place for the next phase of life.