“You have not walked this way before’
7,8 June 2013
I have a history of taking meticulous notes and have notebooks in my closet back to the 70s. The sermons or teachings were always painstakingly worked out according to the best seminary teachings and after all these years one of my filters is expecting to receive meticulously prepared messages, sounds stupid but it is true. Well my sister shared from her heart and from her own experiences but it was done with a zeal and honesty that defied the norms of my expectations. She shared through the filters of her own life experiences and the religious climates she grew up in and they were not white or conservative and demure. She spoke with passion and with the zeal of someone with a raging fire within her spirit. I should have found myself embracing her spirit but there was something resisting me and there in was the dilemma.
I am in a strange season of time traveling in the spirit as Daddy is exposing hidden and unwanted baggage that is holding me back on my journey. The Father chose this incident to expose some of that baggage. I clearly heard the phrase “religious sensibilities” and it took a moment or two to comprehend what He was getting at. Because of my history I had an unwritten standard of expectations that was actually a box that I had created to assuage my personal comfort levels. What I also realized that within all the mentoring, counseling and parenting I had done within the same circles I had bought into the delusion that I was far enough along in my own walk that I, without Daddy’s input, could instruct them and direct them on the TRUE way. That is arrogance and pride on my part and we all know what they lead to…OUCH. Those words “you have not been this way before” have dissected and examined my motives and they have caused me to once more examine what I thought were unshakeable truth. Jesus told them to let the children come, the Father exhorts us by calling us his children and then we grow up and start thinking we have all the answers when in fact we don’t have a clue most of the time. The bottom line to me is that I am 42 year old “child of God” and I need to have those childlike qualities like unwavering trust and faith when my Daddy speaks, when he set boundaries forme I shouldexplore all the way to the edges being confident that He will protect me and keep me from harm and when I do get hurt, any kind, of hurt, He needs to be the first one I run to for comfort and healing. I keep getting the mentalpicture in my mind of a group of young children frolicking down a path through a forest and everywhere there are side paths that could be explored but won’t take you to the destination. Their Father is walking along the path and He alone knows which paths to take. The children are so sure they know the way or can discern it on their own but their wisdom only leads to folly and sometimes destruction. We need to learn to walk behind our Father and let Him direct us , it is much safer and He will lead you to where you need to be. The Father was very serious when He said His ways and our ways were different and guess who’s are the right ones. I am tired of running ahead under my own supposed wisdom only to have to retrace back to where I left His path and then play catch up.
Having said all this I feel a need to share what I am sensing. I believe that this is a new season for fresh beginnings and redirected paths. I keep being taken back to the beginning of Christianity when the lifestyle was simple and genuine. There was a newness filled with hope and expectation for the future and the sons and daughters of God had their priorities in order. It was a life filled with vibrant relationships, real communing over meals daily and they were all filled with zeal and a passion for their Heavenly Father and His desires. Bottom line is their lifestyle was probably a whole like closer to the one my 2 sisters have than the squeaky clean religious lifestyle most of us have been introduced and indoctrinated into. It is time to build a bonfire of all the weighty and useless boxes we have been carrying around for years and start a spiritual second childhood filled with all the wonder, trust, enthusiasm and clear vision that a baby and then a child have within them. If I have to see life through filters I earnestly desire that they are the filters of a child and none other.
One last observation that I can’t shake is a whole group of slaves being set free and led, by a Loving God, into the desert on their way to the Promised Land. He gave them 2 road maps of sorts IN the Fire by night and the Cloud by day. The Cloud besides being a guide provided shelter from the desert heat and blistering sun. The Fire guided as well and provided warmth in the cool desert nights. He even provided the manna and doves to sustain them on their journey. The sad thing is that an entire generation resisted and rebelled against His Guidance and Care and in doing fell by the way and perished without ever seeing the journey’s end or the Promised Land. I firmly believe we are in a time and place in world history where once again He is going to reach out and set captives free and lead them into their own promised provision and we that are already on that journey need to be quick to reach out to these brothers and sisters in support but even more importantly to help them stay on the path without getting discouraged and without running ahead in un-tempered zeal. Our part is to help them build that relationship between themselves and their Loving Father for only He knows the Way that leads home. Remember “You have not walked this way before.[FONT='Times New Roman','serif']
Charlena Marie Andrews-Hayes
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