SLEEP WON’T FIND ME!
February 2,2015
Dark of Night oh how I hate you when sleep won’t come! I hear the sound of the owls calling here at Owl Hollow Farm and wonder if sleep is just avoiding me or if God is calling me to my lap top to write.
So many thoughts of times gone past and times to come and yet nothing drags my mind into sleep, what is it Lord? What should I say? What are you trying to teach me in this quiet time, alone? Should I say that I am finding peace in the presence of your spirit in places unexpected? Should I tell those who will hear that you are calling us to an understanding that we have never known before?
I wish for the years I lost in misunderstanding all that I would not comprehend because I did not want to vary the path of my predecessors. My mind wonders back to a place when I stood on what I was taught and did not take time to learn for myself. As I have learned new understandings I have prayed for more light. I must step out of the box I put myself in because the new and unexpected might not always be the comfortable. And yet I have experienced such freedom in your presence Lord.
As we recently had opportunity to host a retreat at our farm, this wonderful place that God has entrusted to us, I listened and watched and tried to soak in all that I was experiencing. God blessed our endeavors so greatly. So many people shared from their hearts, how children’s equine therapy was transforming ordinary lives in to God given ministry. I am not speaking of the children we touch, but the adults who are teaching and mentoring them. The marvelous ways that their lives are changed by serving others.
At this retreat, our Board of Directors had asked me to present a class on the topic of a servant’s heart; a topic near and dear to my own heart. Our other corporate officer and I have taught it to our mentors many times but I had never taught it alone, what were they asking of me? I was truly being asked to step outside of my comfort zone.
The last week before the retreat came and I still had not had time to prepare for teaching the class. I began to feel panic and fear. However, as quickly as it came it left me and I knew God had laid all of the retreat before us and he was blessing us beyond measure. So, I knew trusting was all that He was asking of me to teach as well. In this experience God granted me a freedom I had never experienced before and I knew He was there guiding my words. I basked in the moment as the words spilled from my mouth and the audience interacted with me in great understanding. Was I really that gifted speaker my professor had described me as years before? Perhaps, but the gift came as God filled me with His understanding and opened my mouth to speak. What a great and marvelous God we serve. What an experience!
Like the parable of the talents, I believe God has given us much to share. We are not to hide it under a rock. We are to go and share what God has given us. Christians must unite! Will we all agree about doctrine, no but it is not about what we disagree on it is about what we share, the gospel of Jesus Christ! We must stand in that place God puts us in and share what God has given us to share. If he is calling you to go to Africa, go! If he is calling you to run a children’s equine therapy program, do it! You may be the only mentor for a while and you may one serve two children. It doesn’t matter, go where he sends you do what he has called you to do! Be what he has called you to be!
In Matthew 25:14-30 we read, “So take the bag of gold from him and give it to the one who has ten bags. For whoever has will be given more, and they will have an abundance”. Be that servant that God has found faithful so that on the Day of Judgment God will say, “Well done my Good and faithful servant!
Blessings, CSW
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