The Glass Window

When I woke up that morning, I felt the Lord calling me to spend some time with Him. But I told Him, “Well, Lord, I’ve got this really great book on parasites, and I’d really rather read that right now.”

This was our second morning after arriving on Eleuthera, an island in the Bahamas, for a much-anticipated family vacation. My reticence to respond to God’s nudging was another way of saying, “Lord, I’m on holidays. I just feel like doing what I want right now.” It would have been good if I’d reminded myself of how Oswald Chambers said, “You no more need a holiday from spiritual concentration than your heart needs a holiday from beating” (My Utmost for His Highest, April 15).

Greg has had a saying lately: “Set your feet a little wider.” The “amplified” version, which comes out as you talk more to him about it, is this: Strengthen your stance. You don’t know what’s coming, and you need to be braced against something unexpected that may otherwise knock you off your feet. You may also be called upon to steady someone next to you who failed to get his feet planted firmly enough under him. (He adds that it’s also easier to dance when the opportunity presents itself.)

I see now that this is what we are doing in the Spirit when we spend time with God: We are setting our feet a little wider, strengthening our stance. And I chose not to do it that morning. It just didn't seem like a big deal.

When I came down to the main house to join the rest of the party for breakfast, I found that the plan shaping up for the day was to drive up to see the Glass Window. We had heard that this was a must-see on the island. In due course, our party of eight piled into the two little rental cars and headed north.

Internet Photo

The island of Eleuthera is long and narrow, 110 miles long and an average of 1 mile wide. The Glass Window is where the island narrows to almost nothing and the deep blue Atlantic sends its mighty waves crashing through an opening into the placid, aqua Caribbean. There used to be a natural rock bridge over the opening, as depicted by artist Winslow Homer in 1895.

Internet Picture: The Glass Window, Winslow Homer, 1895.

But that arch was destroyed by several hurricanes in the 1940s. A concrete bridge was built in its place—and has had to be replaced a number of times since.

When we arrived at the site, we drove across the bridge and pulled off and parked on the side of the narrow pavement. Everyone piled out and headed across the bridge. I was bringing up the rear. Lindsay immediately jumped up on the concrete rail and proceeded to walk across on it, long arms extended for balance. Anxiety took an easy foothold in me.

Internet: Although the concrete rail is under repairs here, it shows where Lindsay did his balancing act.

Halfway across, he appeared to lose his equilibrium, arms waving wildly, torso going first one way and then the other, about 80 feet above the treacherous lava rock. Scott (Rachel’s boyfriend), walking beside him on the bridge proper, made several wild grabs for an arm but could not seem to connect. I had to face the other way and just hope for the best. I was already wishing that I’d spent that time with God. I was overtaken by fear now and could not get a grip on it, any more that Scott could get a grip on Lindsay.

It turned out, as Lindsay told us later, he was “just fooling around.” And then I realized that he had intentionally evaded Scott’s helping hand.

Across the bridge, the kids headed away from the road, off across the jagged rocks toward the cliffs. Lindsay plunked himself down high above the water, right on the edge.

Lindsay "living on the edge"; Scott & Rachel nearby.

I was following them, but suddenly could not walk. I sat down for a few minutes. I was nauseated and dizzy, fearful of Lindsay’s seeming carelessness. More than that, there was an awful sense of foreboding that was so thick over me, I could have cut it with a knife. I needed God’s help so badly, and I began to pray in the Spirit. I caught up with Rachel and asked if she felt strange.

“I’m just really angry at Lindsay for pushing the limits,” she said.

I wanted to scream at him, to make him hear above the roar of the incessant wind, wanted to tell him to get away from the edge. But nobody likes a screaming mother. “I can hardly stand up,” I said to Rachel, and I bent double at the waist to try to clear my head, still praying under my breath.

Now I saw that my dear husband Greg was climbing down under the bridge, and now I wanted to scream at him. You don’t know this place; you don’t know what’s safe and what’s not. But nobody likes a screaming wife. I kept my mouth shut except for the movement of my lips as I prayed continuously in the Spirit. When you know not how to pray as you ought, the Spirit intercedes for you with groanings that cannot be uttered (Romans 8:26).

Lindsay & Christina. Greg is just out of sight at the left of the photo, 
seated at the base of the concrete bridge support.

Between waves, Greg made his way across to the other side of the rocky pass and settled himself at the base of the bridge support. The kids were all watching him, and they laughed when a slightly larger wave came through and soaked him with spray. I was not amused.

I wish now that I’d known then what I know now about the Glass Window, having read, after the fact, various things online, like the following:

“One should take great care when visiting the Glass Window Bridge and the surrounding cliff areas. Rogue waves have been known to arrive unexpectedly and wash over the bridge and nearby cliffs. Since there are no immediate reefs along the ocean side to break up these rogue waves as they arrive, the waves can hit with great force and have been known to not only wash people out into the ocean, but vehicles as well.”

And this is referring to the risk of hanging around on the bridge, not under the bridge. And this is not necessarily in rough weather. These rogue waves can happen literally out of the clear blue.

Now some of the kids—first Melissa, then Ben, then Scott and Rachel, emboldened by Greg’s foray, made their way down. Lindsay and his girlfriend, Christina, climbed down too, but fortunately, as I found out later, they didn't stay long.

Kids coming and going. This shows the rugged rocky channel between waves.

I was very uneasy with the whole rest of the family being in what seemed such a vulnerable place. I couldn't watch anymore. I climbed back to the road and walked along it, over the bridge and away from it with my back to the whole scene, thinking over and over, I’ll just hope for the best. I’ll just hope for the best. And all the while, I prayed “without ceasing.” And I kept thinking, I just can’t wait until we’re finally driving away from this place.

Panoramic shot by Ben. Greg right at the edge of the 12 or 15 ft. cliff into the Caribbean.

At length I walked back to the centre of the bridge and looked down. Greg had moved back to the opposite side from where he’d been sitting, and the other four were standing pretty much right smack in the middle of that channel of rock. I was there just in time to see it all unfold, and I watched silently with a strange detachment.

I heard Greg shout, “Get back!” as a large wave came through. It hit immediately and threw all four of them off balance. Rachel was hit hardest; the wave took her right over backward and she tumbled in the vicious rocky froth about twenty feet and just over the edge of the 12- or 15-foot drop that plunges down into the Caribbean. As she went over, in all that water she managed to quickly flip to her front and grab the rough rock in front of her with both hands, also jamming her bare feet into crevices, her pretty flip-flops now irretrievably lost. There she was able to hold fast until the water subsided and then to brace herself as another large wave loomed.

In the interim the other three had scrambled across the rough wet terrain to get to her, and Ben and Melissa, getting there first, reached over the edge and did their best to get a good grip on her. Scott was just behind them, and as the next wave hit, he braced himself and leaned down hard on Ben’s and Melissa’s shoulders as their feet went out from under them again.

Internet Photo, from the Caribbean side, shows a 100-ft. wave coming through.
This explains why seaweed sometimes drapes the power lines above the bridge.

When I think now of the role Scott played there, I think again of Greg’s saying: “Set your feet a little wider. Strengthen your stance. You don’t know what’s coming, and you need to be braced against the unexpected, which may otherwise knock you off your feet. You may also be called upon to steady someone next to you who failed to get his feet planted firmly enough under him.” I also now picture a couple of angels, standing on either side of Scott, planting their own feet a little wider too, hands on his shoulders, and leaning down hard on him as he was leaning down on Rachel’s brother and sister.

Things were a blur then as the others helped Rachel up and quickly got her and themselves out of harm’s way. Then Rachel became hysterical. She was bleeding profusely. The rough lava rock had shredded the bottoms of her feet as well as her shins and knees and wrists. The pools of water that were left behind, waiting for the next wave, were red with her blood. She wouldn't let anybody touch her. “Just pray for me!” she cried.

It was a slow and painful climb back up to the vehicles. Ben and Melissa, too, had scraped their feet and were bleeding.

Our two vehicles took a hasty trip looking for a medi-centre. A doctor treated Rachel’s wounds and gave her a tetanus shot. When she heard where we’d been, she looked at us with first shock and then sternness. “The locals don’t even go down there,” she said. “We know better. The last few times we've been called for an accident up there, they haven't even found the bodies.”

Rachel’s legs, glamorously waxed and tanned in anticipation of our trip, were now half-covered with bandages. Her feet and wrists were likewise swathed. (Remarkably though, not a single one of her lovely gel nails was even chipped!) Ben’s and Melissa’s cameras, both expensive, were both destroyed by the sea water, as were several cell phones. But we all felt we’d got off very cheaply.

(Some weeks later, as I shared this story with my friend Chris and told her how badly Rachel had got cut up, she said, “Yes, but the rock saved her life.” Then after a pause she added, “Sometimes when we cling to the Rock, our flesh gets shredded.” She, of course, was speaking now in a metaphor, because Christ is referred to—and referred to Himself—as the Rock. And the second half of my friend’s metaphor speaks of our “old nature,” or as the Bible calls it, the flesh, which God is slowly stripping out of us. I picked up on her theme and quoted something Jesus said—and He, too, was using here the same metaphor: “Everyone who falls on that stone will be broken to pieces” (Luke 20:18). Yet at the same time, He saves our lives.)

That evening as the family cozied up around a movie, I texted my friend Debbie, because I needed someone to share the weight of both the fear and the gratitude. I kept thanking God over and over, but it seemed so paltry. So I texted Deb the briefest of details, swore her to secrecy (because the experience was just too awful to be spoken of lightly), and asked her to please thank God with me. That helped.

The next morning, as Greg and I lay there and talked, he said he felt even more shaken up now than the day before. We prayed and brought God into the middle of our fear and relief and gratitude. We touched base with Him the way I wished I’d done the day before. The fear was only then finally put in its place, and faith rose up. I quoted God’s word back to Him, reminding Him that He promises that He is working everything together for good to those that love Him and are called according to His purposes.

On the basis of that scripture, I then declared aloud, “I command now that these circumstances yield forth glory to God and blessing to His people.” Within the hour we were seeing the manifestations of that prayer. But that’s another story altogether.

At one of our meals later that day, I shared about how God told Job that it was He who had set the doors and bars of the sea in place; that it was He who said to the ocean, “This far you may come and no farther; here is where your proud waves halt.” I told the whole family that I believed that God had spoken that command to the waves the day before: “This far you may come and no farther.” And I read aloud a psalm that had been on my mind. There are a couple of verses in it about the ocean, and even their structure has a rhythm and repetition that reminds me of breakers on the shore.

The Lord reigns, he is robed in majesty;
the Lord is robed in majesty and armed with strength;
indeed, the world is established, firm and secure.
Your throne was established long ago;
you are from all eternity.

The seas have lifted up, Lord,
the seas have lifted up their voice;
the seas have lifted up their pounding waves.

Mightier than the thunder of the great waters,
mightier than the breakers of the sea—
the Lord on high is mighty.
                                                                 Psalm 93:1-4, NIV

There is a worship song that says, “The waves and wind still know His Name.” This speaks back to when Jesus walked the earth, the night He calmed the storm on the lake with just a simple command. In His Name is all power and authority in heaven and on earth. The fearsome power of nature still recognizes that higher authority and bends its knee in submission when He says, “This far and no farther.”

I finally shared this story publicly, six weeks later, in our Saturday evening church service. When I was done, Ben and his worship team led us in the powerful and oh so fitting song “Oceans,” by Hillsong.

You call me out upon the waters
The great unknown where feet may fail
And there I find You in the mystery
In oceans deep
My faith will stand

I will call upon Your name
And keep my eyes above the waves
When oceans rise my soul will rest in your embrace
For I am Yours and You are mine

Your grace abounds in deepest waters
Your sovereign hand
Will be my guide
Where feet may fail and fear surrounds me
You've never failed and you won't start now

So I will call upon Your name
And keep my eyes above the waves
When oceans rise
My soul will rest in your embrace
For I am Yours and You are mine

Spirit lead me where my trust is without borders
Let me walk upon the waters
Wherever You would call me
Take me deeper than my feet could ever wander
And my faith will be made stronger
In the presence of my Savior

I will call upon Your Name
Keep my eyes above the waves
My soul will rest in Your embrace
I am Yours and You are mine

Like a Rose

Surely he hath borne our griefs, and carried our sorrows (Isaiah 53:4, KJV).

It was a year ago this week that our daughter Rachel had an accident. Greg had had a strange uneasiness all day, as he told me over a late lunch, so we’d prayed. We prayed God’s blessing over the house and property, over the upcoming jobs and the one just completed. We prayed for each of our workers in turn, asking God to pour His blessing into their lives; then we prayed the same for each of our four children. We did not happen to pray for their protection, the way we so often do, but we blessed them with intense intentionality.

I mention this because we wonder, in retrospect, if our prayer had any bearing on the outcome of the events that would unfold only minutes later.

After we finished praying, I excused myself and went to the phone. I needed to call Rachel about some plans for the evening. But I couldn’t get an answer. Fifteen minutes later I tried again. This time she picked up. She was gasping and crying. She said she was okay, but that she had been hit by a semi.

The details were filled in for us later: Rachel had left Edmonton after work, heading for a commitment in Wetaskiwin. There was a semi in the fast lane on her left, south of Edmonton on QE2, afternoon rush hour, 4:30 p.m. She was doing about 115 km; the semi was going a little faster. The semi driver couldn’t see the little car she was driving and decided to change lanes. She was hemmed in on the right by traffic, so she accelerated hard, trying to get ahead of him. He caught the left rear of her car as he turned into her lane, knocking her sideways in front of him.

She could see his grill coming straight at her door, driver’s side, and then he hit her, shattering all her windows and plowing her down into the ditch of the grassy median between the northbound and southbound lanes. Her car went airborne then and flipped end over end. She must have landed on the trunk first, because it was annihilated, the air spoiler pushed into the back seat. Then the car bounced right-side-up onto its wheels.

The people who came running didn’t expect her to get out of the vehicle under her own power, but she did. No blood, no broken bones—just some severe bruising from the seat belt, as well as a red mark and bruise on her upper left arm where, as Rachel later said, she had to “hold off the semi.”

I was reminded of how scripture says, “He is a shield unto them that put their trust in him” (Proverbs 30:5). I was so inexpressibly grateful to God for His protection. And yet my emotions stayed strangely detached. I was numb; I couldn’t truly take in what she had been saved from.

The next morning I headed off to my Wednesday commitment at the local farmers’ market. I set my purse down on my chair and began to unload my books and CDs onto my table. Suddenly I was aware of music coming from somewhere. Listening carefully, I finally located the source: it was coming from my purse. My iPhone was playing a song all by itself! I put it to my ear and heard a line from a song I recognized: “Like a rose trampled on the ground . . .”

It brought tears to my eyes. This was a picture of Rachel, a newly blossoming rose, in the freshness and beauty of youth. And so easily she could have been trampled on the ground. The car certainly had been. The reality of what she had so narrowly escaped came rushing home to me, finally connecting with my numb emotions. Tears rolled down my cheeks as the song continued playing. I didn’t even know how it had turned on, and now it played twice, back to back. I stood with my back to the busyness of the mall, stopped trying to unpack my wares, and just let gratitude sweep through me, letting the tears have their way.

Someone touched my shoulder. I turned. It was a young tough who had been doing yard work for me, showing up to claim his cheque, as arranged. He did a double take when he saw my tears. Asked me what was wrong. So I described what my daughter had gone through and how she had come through unscathed.

“That’s God!” he declared firmly. (Not that he claims to be a believer, but he knows that I am.)

After he went on his way, I finished setting up my table and sat down to listen to the song again, Michael W. Smith’s “Above All,” a picture of the sacrifice of Christ. This is the chorus:
.
Crucified, laid behind a stone
He lived to die, rejected and alone
Like a rose, trampled on the ground
He took the fall
And thought of me
Above all

“Like a rose trampled on the ground . . .” It caused me to picture a big, muddy boot heedlessly grinding a tender blossom into the dirt. It caused me to picture what life in its fallen state had very nearly done to our daughter. But Jesus “took the fall” for her.

Perhaps you wonder: How could Jesus take the fall for Rachel in this near-fatality?

Some of my understanding of what was accomplished on the Cross comes from a word study I did several years ago on Isaiah 53. Isaiah prophesied 700 years before Christ’s birth, “Surely he hath borne our griefs and carried our sorrows” (verse 4). My study of the meaning of the Hebrew words revealed that “griefs” include every malady, anxiety, calamity, disease, and sickness. “Sorrows” include anguish, affliction, and pain.

Since that time I have had a sure confidence that Christ, in His death, broke the power of all these things in our lives. In this case, Rachel’s accident, it was the word calamity that stood front and centre in my mind. Jesus is Lord over every disaster that comes our way, especially when we are yielded to Him. Obviously, this is not to say that calamities don’t sometimes end in severe injury or death: they certainly do. But Jesus’ lordship prevails over every situation, and whether it ends in miraculous deliverance or death, for those who believe God, He commands the circumstances to yield up glory to Him and good to His people. (See Romans 8:28.)

The day of the accident, as we drove to meet Rachel at the hospital, we kept thanking God over and over, so grateful that she was alive and seemingly unhurt. At one point I said, “God, You are so faithful.” But then I decided I didn’t like the sound of that. Even if she had been badly hurt—or worse, God is still faithful. Greg said it best: “Thank You, God, that You saw fit to let Rachel live this time.”

But in spite of all my gratitude, my emotions did not really connect with the reality of it all—until that next morning at the farmers’ market, when that song randomly played—twice—on my phone. And here’s the strange thing: I had never before played a song on that phone. Greg had passed it on to me several months earlier, and although he had several hundred songs on there, in my possession they had lain dormant. 

I discovered later, as I experimented to try to figure out how the music had come on by itself, that two quick taps of the “on” button—even with an inanimate object—will bring up the music program. But it takes the warmth of a human finger on the “pause” button to activate the music. My phone had been in my purse. It’s reasonable that in carrying my purse in from the car with all my other stuff that something jostled twice against exactly the right spot to bring up the program. But only God could have started the music through the exterior of my purse. It reassures me of His involvement in our everyday lives, in the little “coincidences”—and in the living-saving miracles.

Call unto me, and I will answer thee, and show thee great and mighty things . . . (Jeremiah 33:3, KJV).

The Accident That Didn't Happen

Today, if you hear his voice, do not harden your hearts (Psalm 95:7-8; Hebrews 3:7, 3:15, 4:7; NIV).

It was a week ago today that Greg and I had such a narrow miss, I still can hardly get my head around it. We had been in the city at a theatre production with most of the family and several others and were returning home. Greg had got sleepy and turned the wheel over to me. By the time the situation unfolded, he was sound asleep in the passenger seat.

I was on Hwy 2A approaching Clover Lawn Hwy (616). There was a cold, light snow blowing. The highway seemed pretty good, but there had been some dicey spots, so I’d been keeping it a little under the speed limit. As I approached 616, I saw that there was a vehicle pulled over on the right, signal light flashing. I knew there was at least one vehicle right behind me, as his lights had been in my mirror; whether there were more than that, I didn’t know and it didn’t matter. I put on my own signal in plenty of time to warn those behind me that I had to turn left, and I began to pump my brake.

The left turn there is not a right angle; you have to turn back somewhat, which means slowing a little more to make the turn, especially when you’re not sure of the traction. I slowed to the point that I was ready to go into the turn. I was aware that no one was going around me, even though there is an extra lane on the right for just this purpose. In retrospect I realized that probably that car being pulled over on the right was crowding that lane a little. So I was very cognisant that I was making traffic come almost to a stop in the middle of the highway, and that is a situation where you know you need to get on with it and out of the way as quickly as possible.

Having slowed sufficiently, I was just at the point of moving my foot from the brake pedal to the gas to accelerate into my turn when ... all I can say is that something deep inside me went “STOP!” Although this was completely unexpected and totally counterintuitive, I stepped firmly on my brake. And a split second later, a big pick-up shot by on my left with a roar of acceleration, probably doing 120 k. Evidently he had approached these several cars with their brake lights on (perhaps my signal light was hidden from him) and decided to pull out and zoom past it all.

I came to a complete stop (or was I stopped already?—I don’t know) in the middle of the highway and sat for some long seconds there, immobilized by a great wave of anger, fear, and gratitude. “Stupid, stupid!” I muttered vehemently. “Stupid! Oh, thank you, God!” (This, of course, roused Greg somewhat.) I took my turn then, realizing that it wasn’t a good place to stay for long, and I drove the last ten minutes homeward with a sick feeling in my stomach. If I had followed common sense, we would have taken that truck broadside. We would have been annihilated.

I lay awake for a long while that night while Greg slept contentedly beside me. He doesn’t waste much time or energy on what might have been, whether good or bad. I lay there with that knot of fear still in my stomach, thinking what our four dear kids might have been dealing with at that very moment.

And I thought about something else: How marvellous it was that I had heard that cry deep in my spirit and yielded to it.

I thought about how in recent years I have worked at cultivating sensitivity to God’s voice—and obedience to it. Jesus said that He only does the things He sees His Father doing; only says what His Father is saying. (Look at all the ways and the many times He expressed this idea in the Book of John: it makes a great study, as well as something to shoot for personally in our relationship with God: John 4:34; 5:17,19,30,36; 7:16; 8:26,28,38,40; 10:31; 12:49,50; 14:10,24,31; 17:8.) With His help, I’ve been listening carefully, yielding to what I hear, and seeing the amazing fruit of that. When this incident shaped up, there wasn’t time to consciously notice the impression and choose to go with it or not: it was a split-second stimulus and response. I’ve often considered that obedience is its own reward. But this takes it to a whole new level. What can I say? I’m grateful. I’m glad to be alive.

Whether you turn to the right or to the left, your ears will hear a voice behind you, saying, “This is the way; walk in it” (Isaiah 30:21, NIV).

A Tale of Two Kitties

Can a woman forget her sucking child, that she should not have compassion on the son of her womb? yea, they may forget, yet will I not forget thee (Isaiah 49:15, KJV).

In the summer of 2003, we went away for a week’s holiday. When we left, our cat Frizzle was very pregnant; when we returned it was apparent by her figure that she had given birth. Yet we could find no evidence of the kittens, nor did she appear to be nursing. We concluded that they had all died or been eaten by a coyote.

Whatever had happened, Frizzle was not accepting it easily. She kept meowing at me, trying to communicate her distress. That was Friday. Saturday I suggested to 12-year-old Rachel, who had searched high and low to no avail and who was almost as distraught as Frizzle at the absence of kittens, that we should consider getting another kitten to help the unhappy momma deal with her engorged milk supply—and her bereavement.

Sunday morning I was awakened early by Frizzle yowling below our window, two floors down. (She knew which room was mine.) I got Rachel up and suggested that we drive to the farm where we get our eggs. They always have more kittens around than they want. I sent her out to fire up the Suburban. She was back in a moment, keys still in hand and very excited.

“Mom, I can hear kittens mewing somewhere, really faintly!”

Our house was in the process of being stuccoed. The men had left an old pick-up truck, the box piled with some supplies and a lot of refuse, parked in our yard over the weekend. It was in the back of that truck that we located the source of the mewing. I removed armfuls of empty mortar bags and stucco wire, and there I found two tiny kittens.

And here was the extraordinary thing: They were bound, face to face, to one another. They’d each had a long, trailing umbilical cord, which had become entangled with the other’s, along with a piece of stucco wire and some long bits of grass and string. The wire, a strand about ten inches long with cross members every few inches, was between them, and it ran right through the centre of the tangle between their bellies. They had tumbled around and around in their efforts to get free, in the process cranking that knot tighter and tighter, pulling themselves into a dying embrace. They could not have reached any nourishment from their mother the way they were caught, and it is a wonder that they were still alive.

I lifted them gently out and sent Rachel running for wire cutters and my sharp sewing scissors. She also came back with Frizzle, who, upon seeing that I was rescuing her kittens, nearly came unglued with gratitude and joy. She crawled all over me, my busy hands, and her babies until I couldn’t do the careful operation and had to ask Rachel to hold her tight while I worked at the tangled mess.

The kittens both survived and thrived, and fittingly, one of them found a home with the granddaughter and great-granddaughter of the head of stuccoing company. And Frizzle and I had another bit of history that made me special to her and her to me. (Sadly, she died three months later.)

Although Frizzle was just a simple little beast, her maternal instinct was strong. She was pathetically concerned for the survival of her off-spring, devoted to their well-being. If so a little, half-sized cat, how much more a human mother? And, as the scripture above asks us, if so a human mother, how much more God?

When God’s people feel forgotten and forsaken, in need of comfort and mercy (Isaiah 49:13-14), God reassures them: Even if a mother should forget her own child, “Yet will I not forget thee” (v.15).

When we are lost and bound in captivity, unable to turn to God ourselves to find the sustenance we need, He will raise up intercessors to cry out faithfully on our behalf. He will send someone to seek us out where we lie, rendered helpless by our difficulties. Just like the scene outside Lazarus’ tomb, He will command that one: “Loose him.” The trappings of death will be disentangled and removed.

After all, that is God’s desire—and Jesus’ mandate:

To proclaim liberty to the captives (Isaiah 61:1).

A Dollop of Butter

O my people, listen to my instructions. Open your ears to what I am saying, for I will speak to you in a parable. I will teach you hidden lessons ... (Psalm 78:1-2, NLT).

In the month of January, we took a hiatus from regular services in our little church, Lifegate, spending each Saturday night in a time of prayer interlaced with worship. There had been a consensus among the leadership that we needed to set this time aside to inquire of God what He wants to do in and through this body. We came looking to Him for direction.

We didn’t hear much, perhaps not as we expected and hoped, although the meetings were full of a precious kind of peace and a sense of God’s pleasure in this consecrated effort.

The congregation was encouraged to contact the elders about any dreams, visions, or impressions that we received as individuals during that time, and by the end of the month there was a collection of various “words.” A mid-week meeting was called to collaborate and pray over these thoughts. Some interesting things came to light, but there was one thing that left me blank, as I believe it did everyone else, including the fellow who had received the impression. After feeling burdened for some of the disenfranchised youth we’ve had wander in off the streets, Nick, an elder, had had a mental image of a large dollop of butter on a spreading knife.

I thought about this for several days, thinking how random and unfathomable it was. Then God quoted a scripture to me in my mind, “Ye have not because ye ask not” (James 4:2). In this context: “You don’t have understanding because you haven’t asked for it.”

So I asked God what Nick’s weird vision meant, and it was amazing how the thoughts immediately began to pour into my brain. I thought of how bread, no matter how healthy and hearty the loaf, is dry and unpalatable without butter.

Then I thought of a particular fellow, who, when I bring homemade bread to a potluck, slathers on butter a full quarter inch thick. If questioned, he’ll say that it’s important in the digestion of the bread. Now I suddenly wondered whether this were true: Does butter really help with digestion? Later when I went online, this is what I found at http://www.tendergrassfedmeat.com/:

Traditionally, bread was always eaten with plenty of butter. The two foods complemented each other. The butter facilitated metabolism, digestion, and the ability of the body to absorb nutrients. This butter was always made from the whole, unprocessed milk of grass-fed cows, and was loaded with all kinds of vitamins, and minerals. The bread, made from sprouted grains, and often fermented by traditional sourdough methods, contained important nutrients, and provided a perfect vehicle for the butter. Just about every traditional European cuisine began each meal with this kind of bread and butter, which was considered absolutely essential for good health and digestion.

Of course, in our present day, this metaphor falls short. With the prevalence of the fat phobia and gluten intolerance, bread and butter are bad words to a lot of people. Just like the promised “land of milk and honey” is difficult to appreciate when we live in a land of hypoglycemia and lactose intolerance! “But from the beginning it was not so.”

So what is the spiritual application for bread and butter? It came quickly to mind that Jesus called Himself the bread of life. Actually, I had just been reading that very passage in John 6, verses 32 to 58, and Jesus uses the word bread, in reference to Who He is, no less than eleven times here. Evidently He really wants to put this across!

Here are some of the things He says. Try to read carefully, through the familiarity, and really hear what He’s saying:

“The true bread of God is the one who comes down from heaven and gives life to the world.

“I am the bread of life. Whoever comes to me will never be hungry again.

“Anyone who eats the bread from heaven, however, will never die. I am the living bread that came down from heaven. Anyone who eats this bread will live forever.”

The Old Testament (Deuteronomy 8:3) says, and Jesus echoes, “Man shall not live on bread alone, but on every word that comes from the mouth of God.” Another thought: the first chapter of John tells us clearly that the pre-incarnate Jesus was the word (of God). In Mary’s womb, “the word became flesh,” and then He lived among us, “full of grace and truth” (John 1:14). So Jesus was (is) both the bread that comes down from heaven and the word that comes out of God’s mouth. We definitely want to be feeding on Him!

How do we “feed” on Him? By coming to Him, listening, believing His Word, and learning to walk by His Spirit. There is Life to be had here, for ourselves, and then to be shared with others.

So where does the butter come in, and what does it have to do with God’s mandate for us believers, not only in our little church, but all over the world?

The thought of eating bread by itself is not particularly appetizing. On the other hand, if the bread is wholesome, fresh, and nutritious, and spread generously with butter, there’s hardly a snack more satisfying.

For many people outside of God’s fold, and even those who are inside but jaded, the truths of God are dry and unpalatable. Difficult to chew. Can’t break them down; can’t digest them; can’t assimilate them. The thought of reading the Bible is about as unappetizing as a mouthful of dry bread.

Even mature believers need help from one another—at different times, in different areas of our lives—to receive and digest God’s truth.

In God’s giving us a picture of Lifegate (and the Church at large) as a dollop of butter ready to be spread, I believe He is saying that our function is to wisely and creatively present the wisdom of God in any and every situation in a way that makes it appetizing and digestible. A hearty meal, full of spiritual nurture.

What then shall we say, brothers and sisters? When you come together, each of you has a hymn, or a word of instruction, a revelation, a tongue or an interpretation. Everything must be done so that the church may be built up (1 Corinthians 14:26).

Doing What the Father Is Doing

The Son can do nothing by himself. He does only what he sees the Father doing. Whatever the Father does, the Son also does (John 5:19, NLT, Jesus speaking).

As children of God and imitators of Him (Ephesians 5:1, RSV); as younger siblings of Jesus (Hebrews 2:11; Romans 8:29), we, too, set our sights on doing only what we see the Father doing. Out and about in the everyday things of life, if we keep our spiritual eyes open, we will see what God is “doing” and therefore know what He wants us to do. Sometimes I think of it this way: I say to myself, Can I see God doing this? No, I can’t see Him responding that way. Or—Can I see God wanting me to do this right now? Yes. Okay, then I’d better do it.

In another way, it’s like looking ahead toward something I think God may be asking of me at the moment, say like offering to pray for this person right now that has come across my path. It’s almost like I can see faint footsteps ahead of me, God’s footprints into that situation, and I see that He wants me to go that way, fitting my feet into the impressions He has already made. “For we are God’s [own] handiwork (His workmanship), recreated in Christ Jesus, [born anew] that we may do those good works which God predestined (planned beforehand) for us, (taking paths which He prepared ahead of time) that we should walk in them . . .” (Ephesians 2:10, AMP).

Here is an example:

One day I was shopping in a large department store. It suddenly came to mind that about a year ago at this time, in this same aisle, I had run into a Native girl who had been in the class on purity that I’d taught the previous spring down on the reserve. Her name is not pronounced quite the way it’s spelled, and as I scrambled mentally to greet her by name, I hadn’t got it quite right. Still, she’d seemed pleased that I remembered her, and that was an encouragement, because she had been one tough case in class. So rebellious, absolutely impossible to deal with—impossible, that is, until I’d got a team of intercessors praying specifically against rebellion. So here I was in the same store, a year after last seeing her, thinking of her. Now, how do you pronounce her name? the Lord seemed to ask. So I thought it through, reminding myself.

The next day I was in a clothing store. By the time I came to the till with my purchase, I was aware that the salesgirl was all alone in the store. I also had a hunch that she had a bad case of menstrual cramps. I turned away from the till for a moment and found myself looking into the face of the aforementioned Native girl. “Hi, Dianna,” I said, being careful to pronounce it “Deanna.” She looked as pleased as punch to be remembered, and we chatted for a few minutes, albeit a little awkwardly. Then she excused herself. I was warmed and amazed by the realization that God had set me up for this a day earlier so that I would get her name right. And this experience rekindled a desire to be sensitive to my heavenly Father's voice.

I turned back to the clerk. No, she definitely was not feeling well.

You could offer to pray for her.

Oh, Lord! That would be weird.

“It looks like you’re run off your feet here,” I said.

“Yeah, I’m the only one here today. I got some food—” she waved at a McDonald’s bag, “but it’s completely cold now.”

“And you don’t look like you’re feeling too well either.”

She shook her head mournfully.

You could offer to pray for her.

Oh, Lord!

“Got a belly-ache?”

She nodded.

“Would you like me to say a little prayer for you? Or if you’re not comfortable with that, I could just pray for you after I leave.”

“No, that would be really nice.”

She bowed her head and folded her hands.

After asking her first name, I lifted her troubles up to the Lord, boldly asking Him to touch her with His healing virtue. “And, Lord,” I added, “please reveal Your love to her.”

Then I gathered my things and fled toward the door.

“Thank you so much!” she called after me.

Her gratitude and God’s pleasure warmed me like sunshine and completely overshadowed the awkwardness I’d felt. Now I felt strengthened, nourished, sustained.

“My food,” said Jesus, “is to do the will of him who sent me . . .” (John 4:34, NIV).

The Glory of the Lord

Since writing the previous article, I have continued to muse on this subject, the fearsome power of God. In particular I have relived over and over that moment when I unwittingly took firm hold of the electric fence. In the presence of such power, one cannot remain unmoved. I moved all right: I flew through the air propelled by a tremendous muscular spasm and then fell unceremoniously in a semi-conscious heap. I didn’t even know it was happening until it was over: it happened that fast.

In likening the power of that electric fence to the awesome holiness of God, I found myself thinking about an occasion more than thirty years ago, where I experienced, along with three other friends, for a couple of split seconds, a blast of glory that fell as though God had pulled back the veil between the temporal and the eternal, just a little, for just a moment.

The remembrance brings to mind an occasion in scripture, when Judas the betrayer arrived in the garden of Gethsemane with a contingent of Roman soldiers and temple guards.

“Jesus fully realized all that was going to happen to him, so he stepped forward to meet them. ‘Who are you looking for?’ he asked.

“‘Jesus the Nazarene,’ they replied.” (John 18:4-5, NLT)

Here most versions say that Jesus responded with, “I am he.” But the “he” does not appear in the original transcripts: you can ascertain that by simply looking in the King James Version and noting that “he” is in italics, as are all words and phrases that were added in order to make better sense in the English language.

What Jesus actually said was, “I AM.”

Going back another fifteen hundred years, when God told Moses to go set His people free from the Egyptian Pharaoh, Moses said, “‘If I go to the people of Israel and tell them, “The God of your ancestors has sent me to you,” they will ask me, “What is his name?” Then what should I tell them?’ God replied to Moses, ‘Say this to the people of Israel: ... I AM has sent me to you.’” (Exodus 3:13-15, NLT).

And then God added, “This is my eternal name, my name to remember for all generations.”

So when Jesus said, “I AM,” he was giving the eternal name of God. And as He did, I believe He let slip a little blast of glory, because look what happened to the bunch that had come out to capture Him: “As Jesus said “I AM he,” they all drew back and fell to the ground!” (v.6)

There are a number of other times where scripture relates an occasion when the glory fell, for instance, 2 Chronicles 5:14 and Exodus 40:35; and in most cases it says either that the people involved could not stand up because of the glory or they could not enter into the area where the glory was manifesting. Our temporal bodies just are not built to withstand the unshielded glory of God.

This brings me to my own experience. It was back when I was living in Victoria. A Christian for about three years at that point, I was part of a vibrant church and an enthusiastic young adults group. Once night after Sunday evening service, four of us went for coffee and fellowship: a young man of about 22, a woman of 30 along with her 13-year-old daughter, and I, 27. We spent a couple of hours in a restaurant having an intense conversation about the things of God. Eventually we piled back into the vehicle in which we’d travelled together and returned to the church parking lot to get the other two cars. Before getting out, though, one of the group suggested we have a bit of prayer before parting. We bowed our heads and closed our eyes. Before anyone of us could say a word, wham! we all found ourselves on the ground outside the car. What had happened was that the Lord had sovereignly chosen to let loose a little blast of glory in the car, and it had the effect of an explosion. Sort of like the electric fence. We four, simultaneously, without conscious forethought, had grabbed for our respective door handles and rolled out on the ground.

I can’t explain it any better than that, and I can’t remember much of what followed. I guess we stood up and brushed ourselves off and talked about what had happened. I do remember looking around at the city lights and talking about how unfamiliar and two-dimensional everything looked. It was as though we’d glimpsed into another realm and now the one we were used to seemed somehow less-than. I do vividly recall that we once again tried to close the evening in prayer, standing in the parking lot, joining hands. I led off, referring to something Jesus said about us believers in John 17:14: “Lord, we are truly not of this world.” And wham! the glory fell again, and so did we.