Today is a grey day.
The skies are overcast, glazed with malaise, spitting half-heartedly here and there without any real commitment.
My soul is tired, tempted to make this apathetic bed and sleep in it.
Can you relate? It’s far too easy to give in to faith fatigue, to become one of the walking dead.
Praying my way to work this morning, a fluttering thing caught my attention out my driver’s side window. A flash of white, flapping madly.
A dove—?
Yes! A pure white dove, defiant and glorious, a soaring contrast to the nothingness around it. The creature careened right suddenly, crossing the road in front of me as if to say, “Follow me off this road, off the well-beaten path, out of the sickening cadence of gloom. Allow me to lead you, to turn on the lights in your life.”
My mind was filled with thoughts, then—I remembered the Matrix, where Neo leaves his grey life behind to follow the white rabbit.
Yes, Lord. I’m ready. My car kept going, there, safely on the road—but my heart went with Jesus on a journey for my heart. Into today’s frontier.
Next, I recalled Jesus’ baptism—where a dove just like the one I saw—but the Holy Spirit incarnate—alighted on our Messiah’s drenched shoulders as a show of God’s presence and favour.
Father, thank you for your presence and favour. For this reminder. I receive it.
Next, the words of Jesus filled my heart: “The wind blows wherever it pleases. You do not know where it comes from or where it is going. So it is with everyone who is born of the Spirit” (John 3:6).
Lead me, Spirit of God. I am born of you, born to transcend, born for freedom, born to cross the beaten path and forge new ones, born to break with routine, borne by the wind of the Spirit into a new and epic future.
And now, the words of George MacDonald call to me, shaking me loose:
“But he who would be born again indeed, must wake his soul unnumbered times a day, and urge himself to life with holy greed; Now ope his bosom to the Wind’s free play; and now, with patience forceful, hard, lie still, submiss and ready to the making will, athirst and empty, for God’s breath to fill.” ~ George MacDonald, Diary of an Old Soul
Yes.
Jesus, thank you for making me a faith geek—one who sees you everywhere. I see you in a dove, join you in a movie, hear you in a scripture, feel you in a sonnet, celebrate you on the greyest of days.
And I respond. I choose to live well, to live full, to live with purpose and perspective and power.
Amen.
God often leads like this—not through a bullhorn, but through a collage of thoughts, sounds, images, and sensations.
What about you: God is trying to get your attention today as well. Through a movie, a dove, the weather, a song… maybe this blog post?
How has God been speaking to you lately?
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Jesus spoke to me in a stunning way this fathers day weekend. It’s been seventeen years since my dad went to heaven, and I’ve fully embraced God as my Father, and haven’t felt sad on a fathers day in years. But this year at church our worship leader played a song that just wrecked me. “Father, Father me”. I lost it, the ugly cry manifested it’s, well, ugly head. I was totally blindsided. Apparently I missed the physical presence of a dad in my life more than I realized. After being wrapped up and loved on I shrank out of church bleary eyed.
That afternoon as I was laying everything that I was feeling out in prayer, my Father reminded me that he had already given me everything I needed in that moment the evening before. This is where it gets cool…the evening before I was driving home at dusk and as I crested a large hill the valley below me was transformed into something I had never seen before. And I’ve driven that road countless times.
The hills were soft and purple, royalty purple. The setting sun was bathing the city buildings and trees in the warmest, purest golden light. What was once ordinary was now radiating an intense gold. The light itself was like a tangible presence, caressing, bringing brilliance and life. It truly felt like a glimpse of heaven. Exquisite doesnt touch what I saw.
So in my tears, God reminded me that He is that light. He is all around me…present. He gave me that sunset as a King lavishes priceless gifts on his beloved daughter. No earthly dad could match that.
Somedays it feels like I am a bottomless pit of need, unable to be sated. But my Father majestically reminded me that one day I will stand in His presence and be full. Full. Satisfied. This was a moment with my Daddy that will carry me through the rest of my life here, but I know he has more moments like this planned for me. Because that’s the kind of Dad he is.
Thanks for sharing this, Anita. You have such a beautiful heart and it comes out both in your relationship with God, and how you talk about it. And him. I hope people read this!
We just got back from a four day canoe trip and believe me the majesty of God is so real when one is on the water looking at the world from the rivers perspective. It was awesome to move quietly next to canadian geese on the water, or a mother duck and her babies, to see the deer standing on the rivers edge watching us ‘humans’ move downstream. Awesome… and wonderful and oh so powerful. WE are very small in the big picture of life.
Sharon, that must have been amazing. Thank you for sharing.
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